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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/3389/PCuttsE1514.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/3389/ACuttsE151001.1.mp3
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Title
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Cutts, Ernest
Ernest Cutts
Ernie Cutts
E Cutts
Description
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14 Items. One oral history interview with Ernest Cutts. Ernest Cutts enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, and trained as an air gunner in Australia. He flew on 34 operations as a rear gunner with 466 Squadron from RAF Driffield, flying Halifaxes.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ernest Cutts and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
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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
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Cutts, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AP: This interview for the Bomber Command the International Bomber Command Centre is with Mr. Ern Cutts who is a 466 and 467 Squadron rear gunner, the interview is taking place at Mr. Cutts’s home in Doncaster, Eastern Victoria on 1st October 2015. Ern we might start at the beginning tell me something about your early life growing up, farm, family that sort of thing?
EC: I was born in the Mallee in Victoria I was born in Birchip um very proud of that I’m a Mallee boy and um still very fond of the country up there. Then I went to school in Birchip and at the age of um be about fifteen there was an advertisement in the local paper for the, from the Postmaster General’s Department advertising for staff and for young people to sit for the Commonwealth Public Service Exam which I did. I passed the exam and was then posted um straight from the the Mallee in Birchip which is quite a cultural shock and the next thing I knew I was living in a boarding house in or just off Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda so I don’t know how I actually handled it but I suppose the resilience of youth, um and I had various postings then err military post office as a civilian. I was a junior postal officer, in other words a glorified telegram boy really, um my first posting was the telephone exchange in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne from there I went to the St. Kilda Post Office, from there I went to the Military Post Office in Rowville outside Dandenong and the Military Post Office in Mount Martha outside um Frankston. By this time of course I was starting to become of the age where I could sign up and like all young blokes I couldn’t wait to join one of the services, right from the start I had um I am the youngest or was and am the youngest of seven children um of my mother and father’s and of the seven children five of us all enlisted um and we enlisted across various services. Um two of us enlisted in the Air Force I was aircrew my brother Ron was ground crew or ground staff as they were known then, er one of my sisters was um an RAAF nursing sister, two of my brothers joined the AIF and the remaining two girls of the family were wireless service people so I had a fairly interesting service life. By this time of course I’d have been eighteen as I just mentioned before and I had already decided that I want to be in aircrew and aircrew after a lot of hassle with my father he didn’t want me to go aircrew because he felt that five out of the seven of his children were already occupied in the forces and he thought that I perhaps could go into something less less strenuous or whatever I wanted to join aircrew and I did it.
AP: Did you have any family history in the First World War perhaps, did you know of anyone who was in the First World War and had they?
EC: Well I know one of my uncles er my father’s brothers on my father’s side Aubrey, Aubrey Cutts I know he was in the war and another brother who lived in Sydney I can’t I’m not hundred per cent where Aubrey lived but I think he was um after the First World War I think he was a blockie in other words a farmer a soldier settler allocated a fruit growing block, um the other brother the only other one that I know of that was in the services was employed by the Sydney municipal council and he was um his name was Ray but I I really didn’t know either of them.
AP: So there wasn’t any sort of influencing you all joining up it was more, there’s another war let’s go?
EC: No no.
AP: Okay.
EC: My father was one of eleven or twelve children I think like they all were in those days and um by the time I came on the scene they were all well scattered all over the Commonwealth so I didn’t even know them except that one uncle, Uncle Ray in Sydney and the only reason I knew him was that um we embarked from Sydney on the troop ship New Amsterdam um to go overseas and of course he had me at his house and all that you know all that company and looking after me and all that business.
AP: You specifically chose the Air Force or were you open to any service?
EC: No I think now I can’t remember but looking back I think I wanted to be aircrew.
AP: Specifically aircrew well you got there.
EC: Specifically aircrew and I wanted to be aircrew and, and I was.
AP: Can you remember much of the actual enlistment process you know you go and you put your name down somewhere can you remember that that process where and how did that happen?
EC: I can’t remember, I can’t remember the actual, I can remember going to a big building on the corner of I think it was the Main Road and St. Kilda Road and that was commandeered I think would be the word it was taken over by the Air Force as their recruitment centre and it was called Kellow-Falkiner, any people of my age would know Kellow-Falkiner for it was a very big motor company selling motor cars, servicing motor cars and very big I think it was either on the corner of St. Kilda Road and the Main Road or St. Kilda Road and Commercial Road but I feel pretty sure it was the Main Road in fact I think the building is still there today.
AP: What happened when you went there?
EC: Well the rest is a bit of a blank it was I can’t really remember, I remember we had to go in and I suppose we were interviewed and I think we were given a quick medical and signed this piece of paper and then that was it and I think we went on our various ways home and all that sort of thing and waited to be called up.
AP: How long did it take from that until you were called up?
EC: I can’t remember.
AP: Oh right.
EC: I can’t remember I really can’t remember er um and during that time while I was waiting for my call up I just went back as a junior post office as a junior postal officer at St. Kilda Post Office.
AP: Did you already know Morse code out of interest doing that job?
EC: Yeah well sort but I was never as good at it as I would have liked er and I, I regretted that very very much because I should have been a wireless air gunner which was I wanted to be a wireless air gunner but I wasn’t good enough at Morse code.
AP: Despite the prior experience?
EC: Beg your pardon?
AP: Despite the prior experience?
EC: Yeah but I never, I didn’t really have enough experience.
AP: Fair enough.
EC: Some of those, those in the days of telegraphy some of those telegraphers were absolutely brilliant, brilliant you had to be you had to be brilliant to be a telegraphist.
AP: Fair enough. Your ITS training your initial training where was that and what did you do?
EC: One in that logbook here somewhere.
AP: There it is.
EC: Yeah over there well when I first ITC initial training see that would be initial training centre that won’t be in here.
AP: I don’t think you would have done any flying there.
EC: No, no you don’t that was the [looking through book] initial training ITC [pause] I just saw the photo a minute a go here but which side I was, there it is there. First posting was to Number 1 Recruit Training School at Summers, Victoria for six weeks. From Summers I proceeded to West Sale, Victoria with the 3 BAGS, which is bombing and gunnery school for three weeks, this is a part of the course thirty nine gunners at Sale and yours truly, yours truly is um somewhere there.
AP: Hopefully we will scan this photo later.
EC: Er just trying to see which is me . . . there!
AP: Back there, excellent. So at, at West Sale you were flying in Fairey Battles according to your logbook, what memories of that if any do you have?
EC: I don’t want memories of that.
AP: You don’t want memories of that [laughs].
EC: I don’t memories of that [background noise] that was the most, that was bloody hideous things they were, they were glycol-cooled engines, inline engines, Fairey Battles and I’ve never smelt glycol like that. They, they sort of make you sick before you took off, the smell of the hot glycol which was a cooling agent and um beside that they were old they were rickety there was only you and the pilot in them and to step out on the first day for your first time in your life of ever being airborne to step out of one of those Fairey Battles really was asking really asking too much. But that’s how they did the gunnery schools because they were very reliable aircraft, very reliable aircraft. They had to tow drogues which were really targets like a like an air sock on an airfield the drogue. One Fairey Battle would drag the drogue and then you would be in the other one and you’d practice all that you put into practice all that you’d learned in theory that day, but they were awful, it was awful I hated every minute of it, hated. Beside being violently airsick all the time which you were because the pilot had to do manoeuvring and they were er well we just weren’t prepared for it just not prepared for it. We were young blokes who’d who’d never even seen an aircraft before and um plonked in this awful aircraft the Fairey Battle then and er you just had to cope the best you could.
AP: And so after something like ten hours in your logbook your next step is embarkation depot and a boat presumably to er?
EC: No then.
AP: After BAGS.
EC: 3 BAGS, which is bomber and gunnery school oh and I see it will be initial training was learning to be a discipline, discipline you know that was here initial training and then 3 BAGS bomber, bombers and air gunners school, then I went to now in that one we flew Oxford aircraft which were comparatively luxurious I mean they had two engines for a start off that were pretty hard and clamped down but at least they had two engines and um you weren’t out in the elements like you were in the Fairey Battles I think I might have a photo of one.
AP: So in the Oxford you were bombing training or was that in gunnery?
EC: Gunnery.
AP: Gunnery training as well.
EC: Yes.
AP: How did they do that in an Oxford? Was there a turret or just a hole with a gun? Where did you do your– ?
EC: You had to know how to stand in the turret there it is there 3 BAGS, West Sale gunnery there it is there as I said yeah Oxford that one’s Fairey Battle, Fairey Battle, Fairey Battle [examining photographs].
AP: Ah so you flew both of them?
EC: Yeah Battle, Battle, Battle, but mostly it was um.
AP: Now we’re at Lichfield? So how did you get from West Sale to Lichfield?
EC: From West Sale to Lichfield, I can’t remember a great amount about it except that when we finished 3 BAGS we would have been sent on pre-embarkation leave and I think we perhaps had ten days perhaps three weeks of pre-embarkation leave and we were er towards the end of that we were in Brad I think it was the suburb of Bradfield or Bradfield Park in Sydney and it was there that I contacted the brother of my father’s Ray that’s how I came to know him and um I suppose we did whatever young blokes did while we were sitting in the embarkation you know perhaps went down for a few beers went out perhaps saw all the pretty girls and did all those things and um then that was time say for the embarkation actual embarkation and we were then bussed along with hundreds and hundreds of others down to the troop ship which was um commandeered by the British navy and was a liner, pre-war liner and it was the flagship of the Dutch merchant navy, the Royal Dutch Merchant Navy and it was the New Amsterdam and in those days it was not quite to the standard of the Queen Mary but going that way which to be the flagship of the Dutch merchant navy pre-war well it had to be it had to be a beautiful liner and then from there we went overseas.
AP: Can you remember which direction you went?
EC: Yes we went from um Sydney and one of the most one of the most beautiful sights I ever saw in my life was um we didn’t, we didn’t come down to Melbourne we left Sydney and but we came down in the Bass Strait and then across to Perth. One of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in my life was a late afternoon we passed um Wilsons Promontory and the sun was setting and this it was and I’ve never never, never ever forgot it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life, I was a young eighteen year old bloke very impressionable and um I’ve never forgotten that, then um we went direct then to Cape Town in South Africa. Now we were in Cape Town for a while I distinctly remember going ashore and with all the boys and we used to go down to the canteen and have a few beers and um I remember I remember distinctly Cape Town, and from there we went round to Freetown, which is the capital of Sierra Leone and is still the capital today er I’ve got an idea we went to another place not too sure and all this time of course if there were in the big shipping lanes all over the world and they didn’t like calling in and embarking and disembarking too much because the German submarines were really, really, on the ball and um it was better that you were at sea and under convoy protection and big liners like the New Amsterdam we didn’t we had protection but that was only to keep us with the rest of the convoy didn’t really need the protection because the New Amsterdam could outrun German submarines and so we went from Cape Town round to Freetown the capital of Sierra Leone oh yeah that’s right then we went up to the Gold the Gold Coast could it be called the Gold Coast?
AP: The Ivory Coast?
EC: The Ivory Coast yes that’s the next one up I think from Sierra Leone [pause] and from there we went we must have picked up I remember distinctly remember picking up hundreds of Italian prisoners of war and we learnt later that they were from the Italian cruiser the Bartolliomi Colomanie, Bartolomeo Colleoni, which had just been sunk over Sydney and they had all the prisoners, all the Italian naval prisoners of war and we loaded them they were loaded on pretty quickly and then we set sail and went straight up to um Firth of Forth, which is in Scotland, Grannick is it Grannick [?Greenock], all the Scotch [sic] people that’s all they ever talk about the Firth of Forth so that’s where they’ll know it, beautiful part of the world, from there like all Australians we were um we disembarked and joined the troop train which took us directly to Brighton, um in Sussex?
AP: England, over in England, South of England.
EC: Yes and so that’s my tale of how I got to England.
AP: Can you remember much of Brighton, were you there for long was there much to do did you see any enemy activity or anything like that?
EC: No there was not a lot to do and um it was and still is er where most English people spend some holiday sometime because you haven’t been anywhere as an English person if you hadn’t been to Brighton. Even today it’s, it’s um a mecca for those that come, it’s a beautiful place. We expected to see being on the sea like that we expected the sea and perhaps swim on nice beaches but there is no beaches there, it’s on the sea alright, but no beaches so we were quite disappointed [laughs] they just had all pebbles and they don’t sort of have beaches.
AP: Did you see much um sign of the war when you had just arrived in England?
EC: Yeah, yeah well we um Brighton itself wasn’t bombed much, least I don’t think it was and if it was it wasn’t when I was there it was never bombed while I was there, but London was still being bombed while I was there and um yeah and things were pretty crook, pretty crook um but we were treated like kings you know because the English people were so pleased any, anyone in Bomber Command were treated with the utmost respect, treated like kings because the only people in the war in those days, until D-Day was Bomber Command there was no other um and in the Middle East of course but in Europe there was no war on Europe it was only air war because it was only Bomber Command and going over every night and doing what we had to do it every night [phone ringing], but I remember something stuck in my mind I remember when I was a young a bloke at this time and I was pretty keen on a young English girl and I noticed I’d been invited to her home quite a few times and I noticed that she and I always got fed, Cassandra she was the only daughter so there was no one other than her mother and her and myself and mother said she and I always got fed but the mother never ate anything and I said to her one day and I questioned her about it one day she said ‘no, no, no, no, no’ she got very embarrassed and I said ‘why you know are, are you so embarrassed? Is it illegal food or something?’ she said ‘no it’s actually my mother’s ration she’s giving it to you’.
AP: Wow.
EC: Well that’s, that’s, that’s the English people you know they were really tops.
AP: Wow . . . all right we’ll move on a bit tell me how you met your crew, how did you meet the people that you flew with?
EC: Well that was at 27 OTU and we were all um we’d have been taken there by by rail or road motor, would have been transported there from Brighton to Lichfield anyhow, somehow maybe by train um and then taken out to the station, out to Driffield and I think they gave us a couple of days to acclimatise and [coughs] wander round and see what was what and just sort of filled in to I don’t remember, all I remember is I met a guy his name was Gordon Dalton and he was born and bred in Nilma which is outside of Warragul and I think Gordon’s now dead but I remember he and I got along particularly well and he always looked for a mate so you had someone to talk to and I remember him saying to me one day ‘they’re looking for crews they want a gunner’ I said ‘yeah but we gotta get a pilot’ I said ‘it takes a week to find this’ he said ‘no we’ve got a half-filled now’ I think we only wanted a navigator and two gunners something like that and he said ‘now are you interested?’ I said ‘course I’m interested that’s what we are here for [phone ringing] let’s get into a crew and get this thing [unclear]’ that’s how it happened he said ‘OK I’ve got the pilot‘ Alan McKellem and the rest of the blokes from there on I don’t know, I don’t remember how we all gelled then [unclear].
AP: So it wasn’t like everyone in one big room and pick your room it sort of happened naturally?
EC: Naturally, yeah yeah.
AP: Suddenly you were flying?
EC: I was yes I mentioned that Gordon Dalton actually I made a mistake there, that’s how I was paired up on the second crew the first crew um I think it was the bomb aimer, Brian Seaton from Sydney, I think it was him that mentioned one day he said this ‘Cuttsy we are looking for a gunner if we get two gunners and a navigator’ or it might have been a flight engineer he was looking for but he said ‘we’ve got the crew mate will you be in ours?’ I said ‘yeah gotta be in [unclear] that’s what we are here for’ and that’s how that happened.
AP: What um what sort of things happened at OTU at Lichfield what were you actually doing in the aeroplanes and what were you doing on the ground?
EC: Operational Training Unit 27 OTU now at Lichfield. 27 OTU was at Lichfield Operational Training Unit that was switching over to what you called today medium bombers, in those days they were heavy bombers but they were Wellingtons, two engine radial cooled and we went across and we learnt cross country navigation, we practiced bombing, we practiced gunnery um that was all down there, cine camera gun exercise, a lot of that was gunners doing their training we had cine cameras attached to the um machine guns and when you fired they would sort of um show where you were going so they could check up on you the instructors could check up on you so there I’ve done about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine flights [looking at his logbook] there all of them averaging um an hour and a half er and that was on cine camera gun exercise, now down here still in 27 OTU solo cross country that would have been the first time that our skipper would have flown with his crew at night, solo bombing runs, solo cross country, solo cross country, dual circuits and landing, dual circuits and landing.
AP: You even had gunners for circuits?
EC: So that the aircraft was fully loaded.
AP: Ah of course.
EC: And so that you got used to you know circuits and bumps we you used to call it circuits and landing.
AP: It would have been quite bumpy in rear turret I imagine?
EC: [Laughs] No actually the rear turret was quite okay um um but this was really for the skipper circuits and landing it’s all for the skipper here’s it well here [unclear] air test self-towed drogue in other words the aircraft that I was in had a towed drogue and we towed that, a number of rounds fired fifty two, cross country, all those things, so still still on Operational Training Unit, solo bombing, um simulated fighter attacks using your own fighter aircraft using Mosquitoes no it wouldn’t have been Mosquitoes um Spitfires or Hurricanes and they would come in and attack us no, no firing or anything but they would come in and attack us we would fire at them with the cine cameras and then they’d be taken away by the instructors if you weren’t hitting them they’d put you back to school [laughs].
AP: What sort of ground training was involved at OTU for you guys if any?
EC: Um aircraft recognition er there was never any, except for initial training, there was never any um training like the army those you know army drill and backpacks we didn’t have to be we all were particularly fit young blokes but we didn’t have to be super fit like the young infantry blokes because we never walked anywhere we were driven everywhere.
AP: Having someone say you sat down to go to war?
EC: Yeah well that’s right yeah I mean we were, well the aircraft were always parked out on the aprons of the airfields and they’d always be in those times say three quarters of a mile away well we’d all be bussed out there because you couldn’t go out there with your flying gear on and your and your parachute harness you just couldn’t do it and your Mae West you could hardly walk let alone go out there so we were always picked up and driven driven to the aircraft, we got out and the ground crew had the aircraft all ready for us the ladders would be in the position we’d climb up the ladders and get inside, the ground crews were absolutely fantastic blokes typical Australian servicemen you know really top blokes looked after us like spoiled us they did.
AP: What did you think of the Wellington as an aircraft?
EC: Well it was yeah it was all right but um it fitted the bill it was all right when it was being flown it really wasn’t a heavy bomber you know compared to the Halifax and the Lancaster they were good yeah the blokes that flew them did equally as good or better jobs as we did as we did with four engines the four engine Halifax and the Lancaster were superb aircraft you know so all the good things they learnt about Wellingtons they learned to drop them aside and all the good parts went into the Halifax, Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster.
AP: Beautiful.
EC: It was like it was like using um it was like using a Holden or a Falcon against a Merc or a BMW both all of them beautiful cars but [telephone ringing in and slight disturbance in the background].
AP: What did you do to relax when you were in England when you weren’t on duty?
EC: Er um get on the grog [laughs].
AP: [Laughs]
EC: I hate to say.
AP: You have entered pubs a few times?
EC: I think we I think we drank more than the average young bloke um and I think we smoked more than the average young bloke none of us I’m quite sure none of us have ever touched them since because we realised that there was yeah I know what you mean [laughs].
AP: From my experience of aircrew mmm [laughs].
EC: But the smoking part anyhow we all realised that that that was no good and er I think that’s why when we go before the Appeals Board for the Department of Veterans Affairs and you mention like I did I did thirty four operations and went back as an instructor and what not, I think I knew straight away that that they’d you know that there was no that I was gonna have my appeal carried out and I was subsequently um my appeal was subsequently allowed, I appealed against my pension and then I was because they realised that aircrew was spent most of your life behind the enemy lines and um it was pretty tough going you know pretty tough I think aircrew has the highest per capita of death and injuries I think aircrew has I stand to be corrected but I’m sure that aircrew does have the highest so.
AP: So so dealing with that sort of stress you end up in the pub frequently [laughs]?
EC: More frequently than we should have.
AP: Can you -
EC: Being behind the enemy lines all the time nearly all the time you are behind except flying there and flying home but even then the German night fighters would follow you home all the time in fact at one stage of the game they had this marvellous idea and they were very very successful at it. That they didn’t attack us over the target they waited till we crossed the English Channel coming home as this is, they waited they’d be stationed in France and then take off when we passed overhead they just they wouldn’t take us they’d just wait till we got into England and then we started fanning out our squadrons to wherever you came from I you know we had to go up to Yorkshire, your grand uncle would be going down to Lincoln and that, and they’d attack then because half the aircraft were shot up and limping home I mention and half of them not flying too well and they that’s when they wait and they’d attack when we got home they fixed that up later on the R the RAF fixed that up later on they patrolled the aircraft near the aerodromes and they fixed that up but they took a lot of a hell of a beating before they really did fix it up.
AP: So when you were on squadron at um Driffield where and how did you live like what were your living arrangements?
EC: In those um I forget what they call them they still have them today those.
AP: Nissen huts.
EC: Nissen that’s the word, Nissen huts Nissen huts except on the old former RAF regular squadrons where they had proper administrative buildings you know brick buildings and all that sort of thing um but all the squadrons were Nissen huts.
AP: What was that like in the winter of 1944-45?
EC: [Laughs] Yeah it was pretty cold, bitterly cold I think I honestly can’t remember but a lot of the times we spent a lot of times in the mess or in the sergeants’ mess or the officers’ mess whichever you were in and they were all heated, I guess in those days it would have been heated but um kerosene I suppose or diesel or something I just can’t remember.
AP: Gas?
EC: Lot of that well some or most likely we kept pretty warm but we were very much looked after very much spoilt.
AP: [Laughs]. So do any of your operations stand out in your memory?
EC: The first one I ever did in my life was to Sterkrade I think which a day might have been oh there’s when I got to Driffield there’s 46 Squadron [examining logbook] see we even tried it when we got the squadron there’s mine but after Lichfield they all became 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit which was only converting us from two engine Wellingtons to four engine whatever in my case Halifaxes so that was HCU which is Heavy Conversion Unit and even then we practiced, um practiced and trained and trained but not a great amount because all we were doing all we did was change from twin engine to four engine everything else was pretty much the same you know the only person who really got the benefit out of it um Heavy Conversion Unit was the navigator and the pilot the rest of us watching one aircraft and the next except the pilots had four engines and an additional member of the crew because when it went from um two dual engine to four engine you gained an extra crew member you’d have the um flight engineer.
AP: So he had to get used to you guys as well I suppose, was the flight engineer sort of, did you choose him or was he here’s your flight engineer off you go just like that?
EC: Yeah ‘cos he was RAF all flight engineers are RAF I don’t know why that is but it is something I suppose Australia said look we you’ve asked us for say ten thousand men or something will try and train ten thousand gunners, navigators, bomb aimers and pilots and wireless operators but we we’re too small a country we just haven’t got the men to train as flight engineers so all your flight engineers were Poms.
AP: I’ve only ever met one he’s a Scotsman.
EC: Flight engineer?
AP: Yep yep flight engineer he was a Stirling flight engineer of all things he flew Stirlings on ops.
EC: Was he was he what nationality?
AP: Scottish.
EC: RAF?
AP: Yep yeah he came out to Australia in the 1950s.
EC: Stirlings.
AP: Did you ever fly in Stirlings?
EC: No I didn’t . . . thanks [laughs].
AP: Those who did, loved them.
EC: Yes.
AP: Tommy Toy loved them but um but those who didn’t probably way down there [unclear].
EC: I was bloody glad I never ‘cos I never liked the look of them I used to think I did, awful looking things. Here I am [unclear].
AP: Yes I think we were talking about your first operation we were going to get into that.
EC: Yes as soon as you get to the squadron you’re fighter affiliation that’s that would have been settling in, that’s the first thing you ever did.
AP: Number nine that’s further back.
EC: Yes that’s number nine op so we gotta go back oh here we are Sterkrade there you are prior to that we’d done bombing exercise, three bombing exercise, a fighter affiliation exercise, that was at night when they used to attack your own aircraft your own aircraft attack us at night so so that they test your eyes testing how you operate in the darkness you know there you are Sterkrade number one Sterkrade it was in the Ruhr valley synthetic oil and it was a day trip and took flying time was five hours so be two and a half to Sterkrade and two and a half home and I’ve never lived this down [laughs] I saw these black puffs in the air black things you know [background unassociated conversation] and I said to someone I said the crew ‘cos everyone was excited you know our first op and it was a daylight op which was good because they did try and give you a daylight give you a bit of an idea what you were going to do I said ‘what’s all those black things out there skipper what are all the black things?’ and everyone started laughing it was bloody anti-aircraft exploding that’s how raw and I by the time I got to the thirty fourth op I didn’t need to ask [laughs]. So there you are that was my first op Sterkrade and then another daylight Cologne then a night now see still look we’d done eight operations there, I went to Cologne again in the Ruhr valley six hours ten at night then the next day on the 31st we were out practising beam approach that’s the forerunner of um er you know the pilots flew on the beam.
AP: Instrument landing system is what it’s called now.
EC: It’s what?
AP: Instrument landing system ILS.
EC: That’s it yes, yes but–
AP: I see here –
EC: But you are out there doing your operations but it’s still training.
AP: Yes, yes. There’s an early return here can you remember much of that?
EC: Um early recall.
AP: Early return Essen on recall ok?
EC: Recall from Hannover that now because there’d be a few of them through here early recall from Hannover it would either be a fault in the aircraft, a fault with um pathfinders going in and couldn’t operate because it was ten tenths cloud so they’d say recall there’s no good carrying on, or um perhaps it was a wrong meteorological reading and they’ve given us two tenths cloud when we got there was ten tenths so they recalled ‘em you know, no good dropping ten thousand or two thousand tons of bombs on a city.
AP: It might not be there?
EC: Yes you can’t see it you know ‘cos all you do is spray bombs all over the countryside no one gets . . . [unclear]
AP: Um okay cool.
EC: Practice bombing detail there’s another one see in amongst all one minute I’m over Hannover and Essen both prize German things.
AP: Wondering what those black clouds are yeah.
EC: The next thing you’re gonna see one I’ve never really noticed that, number nine.
AP: With another early return as well?
EC: There’s another one there Bochum early return that was three hours forty five minutes which means we’d have been pretty close to Bochum then because Bochum’s in about um you know central Germany so it’s not it had been you know so I don’t know why we’d have been recalled then but a lot of it’s crook aircraft so not a lot of it but some of it is crook aircraft you know they’d say ’well return return’ the boys saying at the second time we’re already trying to turn round [laughs] and go back. I’m thinking [unclear]. See now started to do a lot of night ones here Duisburg, Cologne, and then after you’d done your month’s flying you had to put that in [a logbook monthly summary] and that was Noel Helpmann [?] who was a flight lieutenant um who was commanding the flight in other words that that means that that’s true we had a lot of blokes putting in things that they shouldn’t have put in.
AP: Extra ops? So I saw earlier there there’s a citation for your pilot looks like an immediate DFC?
EC: Yeah.
AP: Tell me about that trip from your perspective what do you remember of that trip?
EC: Oh no it’s not Flying Officer Alan Bircham recall the McKellam, South Lismore, New South Wales this officer [unclear] courage and determination. In November 1944 he was detailed to attack Gelsenkirchen when was that in November ‘44 there it is there the Ruhr valley, ten minutes before reaching the target the aircraft was attacked by heavy anti-aircraft fire target which wait a minute, which caused extensive damage Flying Officer McKellam flew on to the target which was attacked successfully his coolness, devotion to duty were worthy of the highest praise well um.
AP: What can you remember of that they are pretty terse words.
EC: No no a lot of these blokes, a lot of it you know I’m not saying that they the thing with the Distinguished Flying Cross what it says you know Distinguished Flying but it just happened to be on that Gelsenkirchen every pilot by the time he had done thirty four ops got a DFC I shouldn’t say it, a DFM is a different medal altogether you get ten DFCs and one DFM and that was what the DFM is I always thought if I ever get a medal I hope it’s a DFM because I wouldn’t get a DFM anyhow because I was only a sergeant when I say I was only a sergeant, I was a sergeant.
AP: So what you’re saying is there was nothing particularly different about that trip compared to other ones it just happened that they’ve got to put something?
EC: Otherwise I would have had it in.
AP: Yeah that’s a fair point it’s not in the logbook, yeah that’s a fair point it’s not in the logbook.
EC: Not in mine not for Gelsenkirchen, Ruhr valley I wasn’t recalled and I haven’t got up there return to base early um because we were shot up I sound as though I am detracting I’m not I’m just saying if you did thirty four ops doesn’t matter if you were recalled fifty not thirty times um you’d get the DFC.
AP: Fair enough [laughs].
EC: DFM though you’d be lucky if you got one [pause] where shall we go [pause]. Now the last of my flying things for days [looking through logbook] I’ll show you something in a minute still I can’t Cologne, Chemnitz, now there was one perhaps where he should have got a DFC Chemnitz we landed at Benson which was not our, it was an RAF um squadron station and we landed there because we couldn’t get home because the aircraft has because we had had an um been attacked heavily and um we were ordered to go, not ordered but we had to go there because we wouldn’t have made it back to Driffield so if he should have got the DFC that’s where he should have got it.
AP: How how were you attacked there what sort of damage to you remember that?
EC: Anti-aircraft fire.
AP: Was it over the target or on the way in or on the way out?
EC: Over the target, over the target I don’t remember I remember landing at Benson and I remember Chemnitz was a very [unclear] I’ll tell you another reason why we landed at Benson I reckon. Benson to base was only one hour so if we couldn’t have made one hour extra flying must have landed it must have been fuel perhaps we might have got hit in one of the tanks and lost all the fuel and the skipper said ‘claimed from control you’ve got to let me down you’ve got to put me down because I won’t make Driffield’ so they put us down um Benson.
AP: And then the next day you fly home?
EC: Then we flew home the next day on 6th March ‘44 on 7th March ‘44 we flew home.
AP: And your last trip?
EC: Number thirty four was Bottrop the last one thirty four was daylight that was five hours thirty minutes I’ll show you something now that I haven’t mentioned before now when I got to thirty four that was it you know they pulled us off then and we all went our different ways as instructors I think the wireless operator came home but that’s another story I think one of them came home and I went to 27 OTU as a um instructor, now we went, [examines logbook] here we are Berlin now when I told you about the CO at Lichfield at the time happened to be looking for a crew to go to group five [No. 5 Group] to learn to crew Lancasters which were going to be replaced by the super Lancaster which was the Lincoln and we were all picked crews and we were to come to Australia and instruct everyone here in Australia all the all [unclear] Australia on Lincoln aircraft and luckily [laughs] they dropped the atomic bomb so that we didn’t have to come, but whilst there at at um Metheringham which I am now um it’s a place er rear gunner Operation Spasm there’s Berlin there’s Berlin there’s er I don’t know what must have landed somewhere because it’s got returned by air safely.
AP: Operation Dodge?
EC: You’re going to say what were you doing flying over Berlin when the war’s finished.
AP: What was Operation Spasm? That’s what I’m interested in.
EC: Yeah I’m just going to show you where we all I don’t know why this hasn’t got Bari in there the first one we did was um Bari in Italy, [unclear] Spasm, Gatow, Gatow in Germany is equivalent to er er what’s the big one in London the big airport?
AP: Heathrow.
EC: Heathrow, Gatow is to Germany what Heathrow is to London, here we are Operation Dodge and Operation Spasm, Operation Spasm was Germany Gatau [spells it out] and Operation Dodge was Bari [spells it out] in Italy and you’ll notice um three hours it took us to fly to Berlin where in the bombers the actual bombers during the war that was a round trip of eight nine hours because they were loaded to absolutely loaded to the hilts.
AP: And you went the long way to, to try and– ?
EC: And went there and Bari took seven hours um there again both were non-stop I’m not sure what this one um the aircraft was stripped we stripped all the aircraft and we flew the English prisoners of war when they were released from the Middle East they went to Bari in Italy we flew them home and those that were captured in Europe they went to Berlin and we flew them home.
AP: That was Dodge and Spasm?
EC: Pretty marvellous really to fly those poor prisoners of war home and er but people said ‘well how did you do it so quick?’ but we never had we had no guns no ammunition no nothing because the war was over we just flew in in beautiful super aircraft like that how and how the others felt Lancaster picked them up and brought them home and they thought it was the most marvellous thing in the world, I think I’ve got a piece of newspaper, have we got that newspaper cutting there? Just the one about . . . that looks like it.
Other: Coming back in bombers?
EC: That’s right yeah give that to um thank you.
AP: Oh gold, I might scan that later too. Only fully trained crews many with one or two tours of thirty operations were picked for the job.
EC: You had to be experienced crews.
AP: So if they’ve got no guns in the aeroplane why did they have gunners?
EC: No this this now you are talking about going to.
AP: This one coming back when you are doing this operation when you are doing this Operation Dodge there are no guns.
EC: Dodge and Bari well I haven’t told you this [laughs] why did they didn’t have guns everything was stripped out of the aircraft it was filled all up with no seating because it was wartime just hundreds of pillows and blankets and anything sick POWs could use to collapse on you know and [laughs] believe it or not we were just air hostesses [laughs] someone had to, the ground crews would have all the ladders in position the ground crews helped them up when they got up the top there we’d take the poor bloke and say to them ‘well you sit there, you move up mate put someone else there’ and they used to almost fight over who got to sit in the mid upper turret and the rear turret and then there were those who kind of had never been in an aircraft before [laughs] flew like that all the way home to England you know had white knuckles so that’s why yeah.
AP: That’s why gunners were [laughs].
EC: So we came from, from glory to um nursemaid in a way [laughs].
AP: Someone had to do it.
EC: Well someone had do it yeah they were all crook you know and they’d just been taken out of prisoner of war and they’re thrust in one of these things they’d never ever been in an aircraft before they had no idea what was ahead of them.
AP: So after this is that the last flight in your logbook?
EC: Yeah Bari oh no here you are there’s one back to Waddington there.
AP: Waddington base and that’s the end of that so that’s where your logbook finishes on.
EC: Yeah.
AP: 21st September 1945. What happened next?
EC: Oh what?
AP: What happened after that?
EC: Like all RAAF aircrew went back to Brighton, everyone went back to Brighton every Australian whether ground crew, aircrew, whatever, they sail away if only all went through Brighton into England and out of England so Brighton was really an Australian town it was Brighton was just like we walking down the street in Melbourne and there would be a RAAF navy blue uniform of the war and to see any other uniform in Brighton was quite strange so we went back there and I don’t know how long I was in Brighton I can’t remember that clearly and I returned home on the um it was Athlone Castle and I can’t think what–
Other: Castle
EC: Yeah I know Athone Castle I’m just thinking it would be a commandeered liner again the Athlone Castle there was a big a big um oh line during the war and after the war and is still today such as Windsor Castle, the Athlone Castle, the Edinburgh Castle, they were all troop carriers but very top grade troop carriers not old cattle troop carriers like a lot of the poor people had to endure but none of them to the standard of the Athlone Castle very close to the standard of the Athlone Castle very close to the standard not the Athlone the New Amsterdam I mean the New Amsterdam was a beautiful ship as I said getting towards the Queen Mary stage, these Castle Lines were overseas liners but not quite as good so then we came home on the Athlone Castle and um stopped at um pulled in to Melbourne at Port Port Albert I think I might have a bill in there somewhere, so that’s about me talked out.
AP: Excellent. I still have one more question for you.
EC: Right.
AP: How do you think Bomber Command is remembered you know what sort of legacy has it left?
EC: Um I I think the British people um Churchill expressed it perfectly when he said first of all remember he said during the fighters that saved London ‘never have so many done so much for so few’ or whatever it was but then he also said of Bomber Command ‘that was the greatest force ever ever concentrated ever found’ because during all of our days right up till D-Day which was nearly all the war before D-Day um the only people active the only people affected by the enemy and affecting the enemy was Bomber Command there was no one else because all the armies were locked away I’m talking air force when I say all this not talking about the soldiers in the Middle East and all that they were still fighting their wars but when it came to Europe no one ranked with Bomber Command and I think they were respected and treated by the English people with the same admiration that they had for the um freedom fighters that’s not their name but the resistance the French resistance those French resistance behind the lines risking their lives all the time because when they were shot and found that was that was the worst thing that French and Belgian and all those other countries their resistance fighters could do was to rescue aircrew and bring them back through the underground ‘cause when they caught them if the Germans caught them they shot them straight away that was frightful so the freedom fighters so the resistance fighters not freedom fighters and the RAF the RAF call it the RAF because most of it was RAF I don’t think the English have got ever you mention we mention anyone today you know oh I go to RSL and blokes say ‘what did what were you in were you in the navy or army?’ I say ‘No I was in Bomber Command’ and if he was an English person ‘oh were you? Oh were you? Oh you blokes yeah‘, so makes you kind of feel very humble very proud and very humble.
AP: That’s a very nice note to finish on I think thank you very much.
EC: Okay, thanks Adam.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ACuttsE151001
Title
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Interview with Ernest Cutts
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:16:59 audio recording
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-10-01
Description
An account of the resource
Ernest Cutts was born in Mallee in Victoria and at the age of fifteen he passed the Commonwealth Public Service Exam, joining the Military Post Office as a civilian junior postal officer. At eighteen he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and went to 1 Recruit Training School at Summers and then to 3 Bombing and Gunnery School at West Sale, training as a rear gunner. He then sailed from Sydney to Great Britain, landing in Scotland and travelling to Brighton. He was posted to 27 Operational Training Unit and then to RAF Driffield, flying Halifax's. He took part in 34 operations over Germany. On one operation, his aircraft was so badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire that it was unable to return to its own station. In September 1945 he took part in Operation Spasm and Operation Dodge, repatriating prisoners of war from Europe and the Middle East. Subsequently he returned to Brighton en route for Australia. He remembers that the British people treated the personnel of Bomber Command very well and he felt proud to have been part of it.
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Brian May
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Germany
Great Britain
Scotland
England--Brighton
England--Yorkshire
New South Wales--Sydney
Victoria
Victoria--Mallee
Victoria
Victoria--Mount Martha
Victoria
New South Wales
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03-06
1944-03-07
1944
1945
1652 HCU
27 OTU
466 Squadron
467 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
Battle
coping mechanism
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Driffield
RAF Lichfield
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/142/1358/AYoungF160720.2.mp3
f72baecf6c3b846bc283a66409b06707
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Young, Fred
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview and a photograph of Fred Young DFM (1583354 Royal Air Force).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Fred Young and catalogued by by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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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
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Young, F
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: Okay, we’ll start. This is Andrew Sadler interviewing Fred Young in his home in Offenham in Worcestershire on Wednesday, July 20th, 2016. Fred thank you very much for allowing me to interview on behalf of the Lincolnshire Bomber Command Archive this morning.
FY: Right.
AS: Can I start by asking you about your early life where you were born and when?
FY: Yes, I was born in Birmingham, I spent most of my life down in London, and I’ve been all round the place, continent, everywhere.
AS: Did you have, did you have any of your family involved in World War One, was your father for example?
FY: No my father wasn’t but his brothers were.
AS: And did have any bearing on you becoming going into the RAF in the Second World War.
FY: No, when the, when the war started in ’39 my Uncle Ern who I’ve got a photograph of in there was on The Somme. Anyway he lived in London he rushed over to my father and said, ‘Don’t ever let Freddie get in the army’. [laughs] So I went in the Air Force.
AS: So you volunteered for the Air Force?
FY: Oh yes, yeah VER yeah.
AS: And can you tell me about how you enlisted in the Air Force?
FY: Well I, I [sneezes] I was in a protected job at the time so the only thing I could get into to get into the services was air aircrew.
AS: What job were you in?
FY: I was an accountant in, in the railway up in Somers it’s in Birmingham anyway.
AS: And how old were you then?
FY: I was seventeen, I went in at seventeen put my age on a year and called up in ’41, up to Warrington. I, I was a frail person I couldn’t carry a kit bag to save my life and we had to march from Padigate Recruiting Centre in, in Warrington to the railway station I had a job carrying it so did many others because we weren’t used to manual work like that. And then, then after that was pure training I was posted to Blackpool to do foot slogging and that was I think it was eight weeks there and I stayed in Blackpool ‘cos I went down to Padgate the engineering side of the business and that’s where I learnt my trade in engineering. You can’t better the RAF for training you up, wonderful. We were there quite a long time and then suddenly they cleared Blackpool, because um they sealed Blackpool off because the army were going, had a free town, and they were going out to the Middle East to Al Conlek [?] So we had to get out and we went down to Melksham. We went to a camp in Melksham where the everyone had turned it down the Americans, the Army, the Navy ‘cos it was a Navy area, but the RAF accepted it. We were up to our ankles in water most of the time in the huts. And then we came back again to Blackpool and I remember it well because we were all on parade in the Blackpool football pitch in their stadium, and they were calling out the names of those who were going to go on, ‘cos we were all mixed up, and those who were going to the Far East, and there was quite a lot going to the Far East, but all those in aircrew training carried on down on to the engineering side and they moved down to South Wales to, to finish off aircraft. I, I was down there tuning in the engineering side ‘cos it was not only engines it was air frames, electrics and everything else, it was very good training area. And then we came, we had exams every week and I failed the electrics, I could never get my head round electrics, everything else I was perfect on so I had to drop out and have another week, and all my friends then all went on. I passed the next week now all my friends went on to Halifaxes and instinctually they were all shot down. I went on the Lancasters, so I carried on, on my training on the Lancasters there. That was quite a thing we were pretty well exhausted mentally after all that period of training, ‘cos we never had leave you were constant all the while and eventually they sent us to a training centre keep fit area and they put us through keep fit to get us back to normal if you like, yes. And that was good ‘cos it did got rid of all the fuzziness and then I was a flight engineer. So then we went to stations in 5 Group, am, am trying to remember where it was now, but we went to the, oh Winthorpe, we went to Winthorpe that’s right and there we picked up a crew now the crew had been together on Wellingtons most of the time and I joined them there. So it was getting to know each other and I was the youngest and obviously called “Youngster” it was my nickname right the way through service. So from there we, we did training on Stirlings, and then we did training on Lancasters. I found out that was the worst period of the time really, well I don’t know if you know Newark there’s a church there got a red light on the top because it’s quite near the main runway and we are doing a night final exam flying and we are going up to Hel, Heligoland, and we took off but we didn’t take off, we were going down the runway we had a flight lieutenant who’d just come from America he was an instructor in America, Pilot, and we were two thirds of the way down the runway and we were just going to lift off and he cut all the, all the switches so we crashed to the other end of the runway. We went in the nose, the nose went in the whole distance up to the cockpit. I don’t know what happened to him he was reported obviously, we got away with that one, which was a good sign. Now we had our problems with the navigator, on the next trip we found ourselves over Hull in an air raid at night when we should have been down in Devon, he’d taken reciprocal courses so he was dumped straight away and we got a new one, Hugh. Now Hugh was a British BOAC, Overseas Airways yeah on the Pacific Airline, and he was a navigator there, so he was a good navigator, because they didn’t have radar or anything and he navigated across the Pacific, and he was brilliant, anyway that was Hugh and he joined us. Off we went to 57 Squadron and East Kirkby, they just moved from Scampton where 617 were and they moved there. We then went to, we were there about a week, and then we were called up with as battle stations is on battle and they just put a notice up and there was all the names of the people who were going. And went to the briefing and it was Berlin, which is quite shaky for the first op but we did eleven of them so we got away with it. [laughs] But we were a good crew, we were all rehearsed we did practice an awful lot, we never used Christian names in the air we were always referred to navigator or bomb aimer or so on. And after, we did quite a few initially of the Berlin raids and then we went to Magdeburg. From Magdeburg we went to Hanover and we were working our way round Northern Europe I suppose. ‘Cos you know, I mean they probably told you, we did, you never went straight to a target you went all round the Baltic or down over Switzerland and up, and then we went down to Leipzig and we were held at Leipzig because the pathfinders hadn’t arrived they were shot down and the back-up hadn’t arrived so we were there twenty minutes going round and round Leipzig, and of course people were getting shot down by their fighters. [interference on recording] And then anyway we went through that okay and carried on, we were it was quite a flat tour really. And then we went to oh, trying to think, it was on the Baltic coast, and that was where we had a near mid-air collision. Normally you come out of the target area and you turn to port this chap turned to starboard and came straight at us, because of the angles he obviously climbed out of the way, we went the other way but we got his slipstream and he blew us down into a spin. We spun round going down from twenty three thousand feet and we finally pulled out at three thousand feet we were fighting it. The bomb aimer was complaining ‘cos he was, he was wedged onto the roof of his cabin at the font [laughs] with gravity holding him in there. But we were spinning down we got it straight, ‘cos engineers sat in the Lancaster were always sat next to him, and I, he always let me fly over the seas you know so obviously I’d get a feel of the aircraft, so we were fighting it together, I was on one side of the control column and he was pulling it back and I was pushing it forward like, and so eventually it came up. I asked the navigator what speed we were doing, he said, ‘You went off the clock I couldn’t tell’ [laughs] so we don’t know what it was.’ Anyway Hugh was navigator leader and when we got back to East Kirkby he went to navigation centre, checked all the logs and he found that it was one of our aircraft squadron that nearly hit us, and he of course the language was quite out of this world apparently, I don’t know but they didn’t speak to each other again much. [laughs] Because he, I mean he came out and you know could have caused two fatals, our own and his, and he could have gone down as well. But that was um, there we got, then we had the of course Nuremburg, this is where our navigator was brilliant he, he navigated there and he, there were two targets they’d built a dummy town, did you know that?
AS: No.
FY: They built another town on the other side and people were bombing that because it was the first one they were coming to, and Hugh said, ‘No you’re wrong’, there was a bit of a thing going backwards and forwards and in the end we, we accepted Hugh ‘cos he was unbelievable. We bombed the other one which was the target that was why we lost so many people, they were being shot down on the way across the coast going in and on the way back they were shooting them down over the aerodromes they didn’t count those. The, the JU88’s were coming at the back following the crew that the teams in and shooting them down on the approach. That was something that was kept quiet. But anyway we had that, we had, going, going back again to the, to Berlins they introduced the new flying boot, it was a boot that you could, you could cut the top off it had a knife inside, you cut the top off so you could walk if you got shot down, and the rear gunner always wanted to keep up to date with things and he had them you see, but when you got in your, well I call them his huge outfit, looks like the Pirelli man you know, all balled up. He forced his feet into the boot forgetting he hadn’t got the electrics in his boots because they were ordinary boots for other, other members. He got on the way to Berlin, he got frostbite in his feet and he was, he was crying out, but we said to the nav you know, ‘Where are we?’ and he said ‘We were two thirds from the target there’s no point in turning round and going back there.’ So we continued to the target and all the way back [coughs] and when we landed the medical team were waiting for us and they took him and I think he lost both feet all because he wanted those boots on. Then we got another rear gunner who, who was, his crew was shot down, he was ill and he and somebody else went in his place and they got shot down, so he was spare as they say so we had him, a bit disjointed this but I say as I am remembering it. We went through I say after Nuremburg we got back and we thought you know ninety-six aircraft that’s quite a lot of men and we well thought it’ll be an easy one next then and Mr. Butcher we called him and he sent us to Essen of all places which is in the middle of the Ruhr which is highly defended, so we thought that’s a good one you know you’ve sent us into the slaughterhouse and then back again into another one. So we had that and we went through that all right obviously ‘cos I’m here. We went down to Munich and the route took us down south and Hugh said, ‘Shall we go across Switzerland on the way in?’ ‘cos we aim there and come up and yeah so we did that unfortunately we were so, what’s the word, taken aback by the snow and the twinkling lights of the, of the chalets in the mountains in there a J88 came up and took a piece out of us [laughs] ‘cos we weren’t concentrating and then we found out that it happens to be the J88 training pupils there it was just lucky we had a pupil and not a, not a professional [laughs] otherwise he would have taken us out completely no doubt about it, but they came right across the top and opened the canon [?] and that woke us up again so then we went straight up to Munich. The other one is the Frankfurt we, we, we did Frankfurt run that wasn’t too bad really it’s just a long haul. And then we had the Navy in one day they came and they wanted the RAF to drop mines in the Baltic, and when they told us where it was it was up in Konigsberg right up on the Russian side. Apparently there was a lot of German transport and things in the bay in Konigsberg Bay, Dancing Bay, and they wanted us to mine across the whole lot to stop them getting out until the Navy got there, that was a twelve hour flight so we had overload tanks on in the fuselage and that was quite a long haul that, we did it we dropped all the mines on the drop there was only two squadrons on that there was 57 and 630 the rest of 5 Group weren’t in on it. Then finished the first tour on Maligny Camp, I don’t know if you’ve read anything about Maligny Camp, it’s where it was a big French camp, tank and the Germans took it over obviously and this is where they serviced all the tanks coming back from Russia. And they were building up a division there hundreds of tanks, and repairing them, preparing them for the second front, repel the second front. And we were called in to bomb, we had to bomb at five thousand feet because it was moonlight, we had to, it was, it was quite complicated action really. We were the first to bomb we bombed two minutes past midnight and we got through, unfortunately because 57 squadron went first the Yorkshire squadrons who followed us got caught with all the fighters and the Ack Ack so they took quite a hammering, crashing, but after the war when I went to Maligny the people there had no resentment to us because not one bomb fell outside of the camp. There was a lot of French people killed but they were killed through falling aircraft, and if those tanks, Panzers, had been released on the second front there wouldn’t have been one because it was an absolute division, hundreds, and we did wipe them out completely so, that was the last one of my first tour. And then I went on to training command instructor [coughs] which I found very worrying [coughs] [laughs] you’ve got to have a lot of nerve, a lot of nerve.
AS: So you did one tour and then went into training?
FY: Yeah, I went in as an instructor. And then I got, I said look, I was on Stirlings and Lancasters instructing, which was the pilots used to you know like circuits and bumps, the pilot, the instructor pilot he’d leave the aircraft and leave me with the other pilot so I was in charge sort of thing we did all sorts of funny things. We got I had a Stirling and I was in the second pilot’s seat [coughs] and we were coming in to land at night and he was way off and I kept kicking the rudder to get him back on to get the lights, the green lights, but what I was getting amber and red [coughing] which meant we were all over the place. When we landed and we were told to report because they obviously saw it from the control tower just switching back like this, and, and I had to report and tell them what I saw, made and they sent this pilot for a medical and he was colour blind, can you believe it? Colour blind he was from America, he’d been instructing in America, well being all lit up in America they didn’t have any problems with lights with colours, but anyway I don’t know what happened to him he disappeared. And it was getting, it was getting a bit dicey and then we had at Winthorpe this was, the two main runways at Winthorpe and the other aerodrome were parallel, on to each other, there were two aircraft two Stirlings on night fighter exercise and about twenty odd air gunners in each one, and the one aircraft was taking off and the other one got into trouble and landed on top of the other one so it was absolute mess. It’s in my book all this, and he said I rushed up to the station and the WAFS there, I just don’t understand the WAFS, the medical WAFS, they were going to each one and they’re all charred you know getting their documents off them, but I don’t know how they did it, I still don’t understand it because the smell was terrible, I mean it was like pork, horrible smell all these poor lads they were all young gunners, air gunners. So anyway just after that I was posted back on to ops, ‘cos I asked for it, and they put me on to 8 Group Pathfinders down at Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Now they, that was good I enjoyed that, second tour. I can’t, I was, first op on pathfinders you’re, you’re, you’re supporters you go in first and drop flares and then the master bomber would follow you in and pick the spots. Now we don’t carry a bomb aimer on that op, and the engineer does it I had to go down and I did that dropping on the target area so that it lit up then we went round we came round again and went through again, always went through the target twice, and then we came back. And then the next one we were visual markers VM, now that new bomb by visual on a bomb site, and you did so many of those if you were any good then they moved you up to primary visual, primary er you, you bombed by radar anyway, the navigator did the bombing, he, he pressed the buttons and everything and he had the target on his screen and that’s when we marked that, used to go through right the way round and then go through again and keep doing that until the target finished. Then we had nothing really happened after that of any consequence, I was at, I finished I was a warrant officer, I turned a commission, all commissioned crew except me I was a warrant officer, and I refused a commission, but when I went back to squadron when the war ended, well just a couple of days before the war ended, a station commander asked me to, would I fly with him and we were going down to Africa, so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go down with you.’ So as an engineer to go down to Castel Benito like Tripoli so he was away two days I don’t know where he went and then we flew back. After that I was his engineer I always flew with the station commander, and he had put me in for a commission and I said, ‘No, I’m nearly demobbed, I shall, I shall be going out.’ I mean I’ve got to sign on you know, I mean I’d done five years I think it was like everything else you think oh I’ve got to get out of this now I’ve had enough, which I did. And I was demobbed, I went to Birmingham, back to Birmingham, incidentally I don’t like Birmingham [laughs] and I got an engineering job obviously ‘cos I’m an engineer, and they opened sales and I went into the sales side. The, one of the directors called me in, in Aston it was, called me in and he said, ‘We’re opening an office in London on sales, would you like to go back?’ I said, ‘Yes please.’ So I went back to London and while I was down there that’s when I got married to my wife and she was Birmingham so she had to make a change. She came down and I was mishmashing around, I hadn’t, mentally I didn’t know what I wanted really, I kept getting letters from the Air Ministry, I’ve still got them somewhere, asking me to go back in with the, with the rank I had left, and I, I, I said, I wrote back in the end saying no I don’t want to go back now I’m just getting used to being out. However, they sent me three letters from the Air Ministry wanting me back but on a short term you know, I wish I’d have taken it now obviously but I didn’t. The other one was I had applied to British Airways, British European Airways, yeah the European side [coughs] and they sent me forms which I filled in, they said, ‘Yes you’re what we want, you’ll have to come down and have an exam.’ Now you’ve got to bear in mind this is 1945 so I sent in the requisition and then they sent back and they said, ‘Well send us the cheque for seventy-six pound to pay for your exam’, I hadn’t got seven let along seventy-six pounds in those days so I had to turn it down because you know I mean there was no guarantee I was going to pass, ‘cos don’t know what the exams going to be like. So that was a game, ‘cos years later out with Hugh, the navigator, he was a British Airways navigator, a pilot, captain, and he said he always looked for me, he said ‘I was sure you were going to come in, sure’ he said, ‘But we never saw you.’ He emigrated to Nova Scotia, and I used to go over there ooh about two or three times a year and stay with him, my wife and I did, and we used to talk it out, we used to go into his den and go into all the various charts he’d got and yeah it was quite interesting. But anyway from there I was in engineering I didn’t know what I was any good at really apart from flying, and then I got a job with a sales company who got a contract to sell spring pressing, I hadn’t a clue on me, I went straight away to night school and checked it all out, it was a Yorkshire firm [coughs] and I found out that they were for some reason, they were halfway to bankruptcy. I used to go up there and it was a small factory and it clicked that was it I, I, I found my knew everything about spring pressing I could sell it and this, that, and the other and I stayed there, stayed there for forty odd years. Then I semi-retired, I did, I was in London based in London, I, I wouldn’t go to Yorkshire but I was based in London, and er, I used to go up there once a month for about a week or two days but then I was usually on the Continent flying out to the Continent, to the, to the French office, the German office and don’t forget there was East Germany then in those days, we had the Communists. I used to go down to Leipzig regularly a Communist area, Warsaw, I used to go all over the Eastern Bloc, it’s you get to know people, different types, I met a woman in a Keller in Berlin, East Berlin and on the, ‘cos you know they opened like a door, and we went in sitting down at the table and anyway she, she said in her English [unclear] and she said, ‘Oh I was from Berlin, I came from Berlin, West Berlin, I got stuck over here we should have never gone to war’, she said. [laughs] Which I thought was yeah, she said, ‘I said we’re all Saxons’, she said, ‘We’re Saxons.’ [laughs] So there wasn’t any animosity there at all. The same with Holland, we did food dropping in Holland, we had to mark the fields out where they were going to drop the food, so we were in first, we was on Pathfinders. The German Army Station there were all in the square all on parade, I can’t remember which one, which place it was now. Anyway we flew across there and our rear gunner said, ‘Can I have one burst?’ [laughs] ‘’Cos they were all lined up for me’, he said. [laughs] I said, ‘No we are on a peace, they’ve given us peace.’ So we followed on and then the light, the thing came on, [interference on recording] there was a chap on a bike and he was waving to us madly as we were coming towards him and of course the bomb doors opened with the marker which is like a bomb and he just fell off his bike you see he thought it was a bomb. Anyway we did all that properly and then we went down to the canals and there was a Dutch boat, you know sail boat and we went right down in front of him and slipstreamed and trailed all the way back [laughs] and they were shaking their fist at us, yeah that’s a bit of humour in it. That was, that was, that one it’s strange on the Second Front they left Holland they didn’t you know free Holland till later, because they flooded all the dykes had been opened, but they were starving [coughs], eating, they were eating rats and all sorts. So it was a mishmash really. So I say when I came out I went into engineering and from there when I semi-retired I moved to Ledbury. So I got a phone call from a competitor I, I used to deal with and he was a, he was the managing director of Solfis [?] and he’d retired and he said ‘I’ve got a company down in Sussex, now I’m gonna retire properly’ he said, ‘But my son’s going to take over, I want you to come down and look after him.’ I said, ‘No you know I’ve had enough.’ And he said, ‘I’ll give you “x” thousand pounds in cash’, and I did the main contract, he said, ‘Come down for six months.’ So I did I went down, I drove down from Ledbury every week and I, they made me a director there I finished up Solfis [?] as managing director and then I was there twenty years nearly. I was seventy when I retired from there, yeah. So you know, jolly good, I was I tell you I had a good life, you see I had my big arguments see with my wife it’s always money, the jobs you do but you don’t get paid for them, because I liked work I didn’t like money came secondary when a load of contracts came up I wasn’t bothered as long as we got the contracts and I signed it. And but that backfired on me when I was seventy you did sign a contract when you retire at seventy so I had to that was in April I remember that. So we, we’d already moved to Sussex from Ledbury so my wife wanted to go back to the Midlands and so we got up here. Now I’m not a gardener, I don’t like gardening, the only reason we had gardeners down in Sussex [background noise] and my wife loves sitting in the garden so I thought as long as we’ve got a green patch to sit in we’d be all right, so I got the stamp type of garden here, which is, even now I can’t look after it ‘cos I’m not interested in gardening doesn’t interest me one bit. [coughs] And from there I went in to Trevor, I met Trevor down the road, the British Legion, he was the chairman of the branch here and he got me involved in the British Legion. I did quite a lot in the British Legion here and then I went into County, I was County Treasurer, I was County Treasurer for about seven or eight years, and then my wife was very ill I just couldn’t spend the time going round to all the different branches and that. And so I retired from there but I kept up the branch here, but then again Trevor and I, he’s ninety on Thursday, we’re going to lunch on Thursday, he’s ninety, I’m ninety-two, he’s a youngster to me so we’re going to dinner. [laughs]
AS: So when you were offered a commission and you refused it that was because you’d have had to sign in to stay for a longer period?
FY: Yeah, yeah, oh yes. I mean you gotta sign in for a period, because then of course you got to remember people were being demobbed left, right and centre, you know particularly the officers side and they, they wanted a stopgap they wanted people in between for ten years just until they got the new people coming through.
AS: So when you did, you did one tour, am I right in thinking that if you did one tour you were then like exempt from doing any further combat?
FY: Oh yes, yes that was the end but I carried on.
AS: So why did you want to go back?
FY: Because I was nervous of being an instructor. [laughs]
AS: You thought that was more dangerous than being shot down by the Germans?
FY: Yes, yes definitely. [laughs] And, I, I thoroughly enjoyed it, I mean I wasn’t, I never, you know on Dresden people, I was talking about Dresden, they want to read the book on Dresden. It was the, it was the centre of the Nazi in Southern Germany, they had two concentration camps on the outskirts of Dresden, they had prisoner of war camps, they were manufacturing Messerschmitt parts for canopies in one instance. So there was quite a lot in Dresden, and though it was the near the end of the war but the Russians were knocking on the door and they wanted you know an easy way in which is what we had to do for them. But it’s, it’s I went to Chemnitz that night which is about oh a hundred miles north of Dresden and we bombed Chemnitz, no nobody said a word about that we were unopposed all the way [laughs] so not a word about that. There’s one or two like that we went to Beirut in Germany that was the only time I felt not sad. I had a South African captain pilot he was South African Army and he wanted to go do an op, so my, my pilot said, ‘Here take my place then you’ve got a team here you’re all right.’ So we were master bomber that night ‘cos the bomb aimer goes, er, there was six hundred aircraft, he called the first three hundred in, it was undefended we almost wiped it off the map, then he called the other three hundred, which he needn’t have done ‘cos we’d already done it, then you know I thought that was wrong, that was the only time I thought it was wrong, the rest of it I’d, I’d no pity. I mean on the first tour [coughs], I’m gonna use some bad language now, [laughs] on the first tour Smithy the pilot the moment I locked the wheels up he said, ‘Right you bastards here we come.’ And he always said that except for once and that was time we nearly crashed. [laughs] So he kept on saying it [laughs], the crew said, ‘You didn’t say it, you didn’t say it’ you see so we did, ‘cos we were only young [laughs], I mean I was twenty when I came out.
AS: So when you were flight engineer on the Lancaster what was your duties when the plane was up?
FY: Oh well I, responsible for everything really up front, the bomb sight, all the fuel make sure the fuel was being used correctly, the throttles right, you know rev counter, the whole bag of tricks really, the I mean the pilot was only a chauffeur [laughs] all he did was point it in the right direction and that’s it, that’s what the navigator used to say. [laughs] [coughs] And the bomb aimer usually was asleep I used to have to kick Alf and wake him up at the target he always used to nod off on the front nothing for him to see in the dark is there [laughs] till we got to the target. Yeah he was good the bomb aimer. But we, I thought I’d go in Transport Command and so I applied at the end of the war and I was sent up to York training but I wasn’t there long because the station commander sent for me to go back he wouldn’t, wouldn’t let me finish that course, laughs] ‘cos he wanted me to stay with him down down at Oakington but we’d moved upward by then. I think the only reason he liked me was because I used to run the football team and he always wanted to play football [laughs], yeah he was, I liked him he was nice.
AS: Did you say you trained on Halifaxes as well?
FY: No, I on Holtons [?], that was when I went to go on Transport Command, it was a Holton [?] they were a converted Halifax, but apart from that I was on Stirlings and Lancasters. I did a small tour on at the time rather on Manchesters which is a deathmell they was, twin engine Lancaster, that had terrible engines kept failing on people all sorts that’s when they dropped them and brought in the Lancaster with four engines yeah. Then it went on to Lincolns, never flew a Lincoln but I went on a course for Lincolns I never, I never flew one [coughs] it’s only a blown up Lancaster.
AS: And what was the chief advantage of the Lancaster?
FY: Oh its, its bomb bay, I mean the amount, we, we take to Berlin twenty thousand, twenty-three thousand pounds, a Mosquito would take four thousand pound bomber, the Americans would take three and a half thousand on a, on a Fortress, they didn’t carry much, they looked rather good on the films when you see all these but they were only five hundred pounders coming out. We had four thousand pound cookie, thousand pounders, we had banks of incendiaries, and sometimes we had two thousand pounders although one stuck it wouldn’t go we had to try and shake it off. It, it, to me it was, it was using the word it was a darling, it, it you were in love with it. It’s the only place if you go up to East Kirkby on their, their anniversary day when they have dinners, I’ve given those up now, but they, the Battle of Britain Lanc always came over and everybody there was taking photos and the men were crying, I was so moved it, it, it’s an aircraft you can’t explain. I mean it would fly on one engine you lose eight hundred feet a minute on one engine, it definitely fly on two I mean ‘cos we, we demonstrated that to America when the Americans came over the hierarchy wanted to go into a Lanc we took them up and he said this American whoever he was I don’t know who he was, and he said, ‘Will it fly on three?’, so we feathered one, ‘Fly on two’, so we feathered one, he said, ‘You can’t fly without an engine?’ I said, ‘No we’re losing eight hundred feet a minute so we better make up our minds about what you want to do next?’ [laughs] So we upped air and got them, got them all working again. But er yeah it was, there was always an amusing part was we used to have a lot of American aircraft land at East Kirkby and Oakington, mainly Oakington, and they were lost they wouldn’t know where the aerodrome was they got lost, there was Whirlwinds, Fortresses, all sorts really used to land there. We used to oh here we go again, but they used to always ask us to go to their aerodrome you see for a, for a drink yeah. So coming back from a daylight trip once and this Mustang pulled up alongside us and he flashed ‘Can I join you?’ And then we Morse Coded back to him ‘Yes’ and he followed us all the way to the UK, then he waggled his wings and he went away. And then we got a phone call to the mess asked us over to his place for a drink [laughs], he said he was completely lost [laughs] but it I mean they’d no navigation you know, it was a fighter with overload tanks. Are you all right?
Other: Yes I’m fine.
AS: So did you find it easy or difficult when you actually were demobbed, when you came back to civilian life?
FY: Yes.
AS: ‘Cos you said you were only twenty at that point.
FY: Yes difficult because you haven’t got a youth, my book is “Where Did My Youth Go?” it’s, it’s finished now it’s on sale. But it was the gap you came out, your suits were up here right, you’d grown so much, you couldn’t believe you’d grown so much. We were allowed after the second front we could have civilian clothes if we wanted so I sent for my suit I couldn’t get in to it, you don’t realise the difference between you know a seventeen year old and a twenty year old. But apart from that yes, it’s, it’s a muddled, muddled world, ‘cos the, quite an upheaval of course because of the you know Atlee was in power in those days, and then I’ve forgotten who followed him oh Churchill, and then somebody else followed him. But I know I’ve still got my passport when I used to go over to East Germany and all I could take was twenty-five pound, I always had to arrange with the German customer to pay for my hotel out there then I’d pay his hotel at this side when he came over. So like the Poles, just the same for the Poles from Warsaw, they used to come over every six months sign the contracts and I’d fly out to Warsaw and sign the contracts that side for the next six months, [coughs], we did an awful lot of business with them. The beauty of that was like East Germany and Poland in particular factories don’t order through people like us they go to a central purchasing bureau and they order the stuff from us, so the orders were absolutely huge without having to go round to the factories you see, we we, we spent two or three million pound each time we go over and we’d have to do that we’d have to go all round the different factories to get it but in Poland they did it themselves for you, it’s different now they’re all split up again now you see. The same in Berlin, East Berlin it was the same there, that was on the it was in a broken down old house on the second floor and the bottom part was derelict didn’t looked like it was going to stand, but on the next floor was the whole of purchasing for East, East Berlin, for East Germany. Amazing things that went on over the, you all thought we had a wonderful time travelling here, there and everywhere, but we didn’t. [laughs]
AS: What’s your feeling of the way the Bomber Command were treated and after the war?
FY: Terrible. Churchill put us on one side, I mean I was decorated, I got a DFM in that time, which was whitewashed you know, nobody, nobody bothered. That is why I think you see Bomber Command is so connected now and joined together because we were so badly abused, everybody else got, Churchill never mentioned Bomber Command once in his speeches, he mentioned the Army, the Navy, everybody except Bomber Command. ‘Cos he, he, he’s the one that sent us there, he got Harris, Air Marshall Harris to do these jobs, and then the moment we did the Dresden job [interference on recording] he pulled out, and yet he was the one who sent us to Dresden, Harris didn’t want to do it. If you read Harris’ book he said it was the worst decision he ever made.
AS: Yeah I have read it actually. Well thank you very much Fred, is there anything else that you want to add?
FY: Ah, memory now isn’t it [laughs] it’s thinking.
AS: Can you tell me about your book?
FY: Yeah, I mean it’s called “Where Did My Youth Go?” And it starts off before the war, not before the war when the war started, I think I was fourteen year old, I left school at fourteen. I was a messenger on ARP and I was a messenger all the way through during the Blitz in ’40 in 1940, we were bombed out there in London, we were told we had to find accommodation with relatives, of course all my father’s brothers and sisters they all lived in Birmingham so we got on to them and they found accommodation for my mother. We couldn’t go because we had to get, in those days you couldn’t change your job just like that you had to get permission from the Government, so we were waiting for that to come through so we couldn’t go up to Birmingham, and we were transferred to a company in the same situation as you. Well like I was on the railways at the time at St. Pancras in the accounts so naturally I was sent back to Moore Street Station [coughs] in Birmingham. So anyway we were, while we were waiting all this the air raids were still going off and my mother sent a telegram, ‘I’ve got a house, I’m trying to get furniture together’ ‘cos we lost all the furniture when we were bombed. Then we got, two days later we got another telegram saying, ‘Don’t come it’s been bombed.’ [laughs] So my mother was an absolute [unclear] she was, she made me go in the Air Force really, I mean I got my revenge there, but she, I, she was in a terrible state when we got there, her nerves, she was pale, oh terrible. Anyway then we got the Birmingham Blitz started when we got back, when we got there. And so I joined the the First Aid and Rescue Squad down in Walsall Heath. Went to the BSA and they were flooded you know all those people were killed in the floods with the bomb. We had the cinema where everybody was sitting there looking at the screen and they were all dead from the blast, all sorts of things that we dealt with on that. Birmingham took quite a hammering it did really, you know. I was, some of the lads there they rescue people, I mean they’d go into you know all sorts of situations and not think about the danger of it they’d do it. So that was, then obviously when the Blitz stopped, things didn’t get back to normal but you got back a bit more of your life you know. It’s you know that’s when it develops from there Moore Street, but I had carbuncles on my neck through no sleep because I was on rescue all night and in the day I was at work, never slept. That’s a lie I did sleep for you know about quarter of an hour or so but during the day I nod off but then you get called out yes, but that’s what kept you going. But it’s, it’s you know terrible and that was because I was run down, I mean the doctor obviously said that, he said, ‘You were absolutely wrung out there was nothing left, and that’s what your body’s doing it’s getting its own back on you’, I said, ‘Thanks very much.’ [laughs] But apart from that, as I say you can’t actually answer that, the question about the reaction after, now I can’t tell you that’s a difficult one really. I used to like dancing, I used to do a lot of dancing, ballroom dancing of course. I used to see all my relatives I’d never seen in Birmingham, meet them all. I had, oh yeah, I was at a wedding. Yeah my cousin down in London, Margaret, she married a Canadian airman, and I never got on with my aunt she always, always talked me down because her daughter was brilliant, and she was good, but I had it stuffed down my throat for about twenty years, I should think how good she was. Anyway it came to the situation where the wedding, and the chap who she married, the Canadian, brought his best man another Canadian and he kept calling me sir you see, and my aunt said, ‘No, no that’s Fred, Freddie, call him Freddie.’ So he said, ‘Oh can’t do that he’s an officer.’ So I got my own back on her, ’cos it took the wind out of her sails. [laughs].
AS: Right well we’ll switch the machine off then and then get you to sign the form if that’s all right.
FY: That’s okay yes. Was it two hours? Oh my.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Fred Young
Creator
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Andrew Sadler
Date
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2016-07-20
Format
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01:07:42 audio recording
Language
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eng
Identifier
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AYoungF160720
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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.
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Fred Young volunteered for the Royal Air Force at seventeen and flew operations as a flight engineer with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby. He recounts his experiences on several operations including Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Essen, Munich, Dresden, and Mailly le Camp. After his first tour he became an instructor before returning to operations, with 8 Group Pathfinders at RAF Oakington. After the war he returned to Birmingham and took up an engineering position before moving into sales and settling in London. He retired at 70 and returned to the Midlands taking up an active role in the British Legion, and writing a book “Where Did My Youth Go?” recounting his experiences during the war years.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Essen
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Munich
France
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jackie Simpson
5 Group
57 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
demobilisation
Distinguished Flying Medal
flight engineer
Lancaster
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Melksham
RAF Oakington
RAF Padgate
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
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e3a345bb092e974dc8b0907b99431d4c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/538/8774/AWinterH150708.1.mp3
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Title
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Winter, Harry
H Winter
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Winter, H
Description
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Three items. An oral history interview with Harry Winter and two photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 431 and 427 Squadrons before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war. He was one of ten members of the Ex-Prisoner of War Association invited to 10 Downing Street in 2014.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2015-07-08
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: Okay so, this is Andrew Sadler on Wednesday 8th July 2015 interviewing Harry Winter on behalf of the Bomber Command Archive at his home in Streatham South London. Can I start Harry by asking you where and when you were born?
HW: I was born in Cardiff in 1922.
AS: And can you tell me what your family background was?
HW: Yes my father was an er Engineer and Fitter Turner he was a tradesman er he spent the First World War at sea as an engineer on ships and when he got married he worked for the Cardiff Gas Light and Coal Company as a Maintenance Engineer. Er I went to school in Cardiff from about five years of age to Lansdowne Road Boys School and I left there at fourteen years of age, in those days er jobs were difficult to obtain and money was very very short although my father being a tradesman he was in in work all of his life er he had no problem with regard to employment, um and I left at fourteen and I went to the local paper making mill it was a very large mill I went there and I started in the office there as an assistant stock keeper then I went on to costing and finished up er on um on the order department for one particular machine making vegetable parchment, er I was on that until 1941 er when the war had started and I first went into the Home Guard and spent twelve months in the Home Guard and then on January 2nd 1941 Cardiff got blitzed and I decided to pay them back by endeavouring to bomb them, my age nineteen, I was coming up for nineteen when I would have had to be conscripted in any case and I didn’t want to go into the army so I volunteered for air crew, er I was sent to Weston Super Mare for my air crew selection board, passed and er waited er for a few months while er they they organised the er recruitment etcetera. I was called up in September 1941 sent to Padgate er in Lancashire where I was kitted out and then on to Blackpool where we did our initial training such as square bashing and learning Morse, although I had been learning Morse in the Home Guard I was very helpful that I knew most of it when I got there which helped a great deal, um I was in Blackpool from September until the second week of January 1942 er then I was sent on leave and went to Yatesbury Number 2 Wireless School at in Wiltshire er to learn the technical side of wireless etcetera etcetera, and learn about all the various instruments etcetera, and of course drill and er various other things. I left I passed out there as a wireless operator in March 1942 and er I was sent on er oh am not quite sure what you call it on I was sent to Angle a fighter station near Milford Haven to get experience on the radio communication, I spent the summer there until September 1942 er then I was posted to Cranwell Number 1 Radio School where we had more technical work on the more advanced radio instruments etcetera etcetera, and the new inventions. I spent from September until December at Cranwell then I was posted back to Yatesbury for a refresher course in January 43. I left Yatesbury as wireless operator fully fledged in March 1943 and I was sent to Manby Air Armaments School for a short course on air gunnery, then on to er advanced flying unit at Bobbington in Worcestershire where we were flying on Avro Ansoms with navigators, and trainee navigators. From there we were posted to 23 OTU at Pershore er where they were using and er what do you call them using what’s the aircraft er, oh dear –
Other: [?]
HW: Wellingtons [laughs] they were using Wellington bombers, er there we got crewed up I met the navigator of course at Bobbington and er by the time we got to Pershore we had agreed to join together and try and make a crew, er when we were all assembled at Pershore they put us in a hanger and the pilots and bomb aimers and rear gunners were all assembled there and we just mixed together and made up our own crews we weren’t forced to fly with any person we met each other and er we er crewed up together and er there we did our OTU, and from there I did my first operation. Um about June 43 we were sent on a sea search er in the North Sea there had been an American bombing raid the day before and some aircraft had come down in the sea so we went over over the North Sea to er search for a er dinghies etcetera, er we went over as far as Texel and er we got fired on by the anti-aircraft guns at Texel and one of the shells had hit the port engine and er put it out of action so we limped back to an aerodrome near Rugby where my the pilot had been trained as an advanced pilot, er my pilot was an American my navigator and bomb aimer and rear gunner were all Canadians, er we landed at this aerodrome just outside Rugby and the next day we were picked up by another aircraft and returned back to Pershore, that was the only exciting thing I had up to that present moment. From Pershore I was sent to Topcliffe Number 1659 HGU Heavy Conversion Unit where we were converted to Halifaxes and we were there for a month and then we were posted, I was posted, we were posted first of all to 431 Squadron at Tholthorpe in Yorkshire, we did a few trips there and um wee the apparently 427 had lost a few aircraft at that time so they transferred us to 427 Squadron, er 427 Squadron it was this was all 6 Group which was all Canadian Air Force, um er 427 Squadron was adopted by the Metro Goldwyn Mayer Film Company so we were called the Lion Squadron and we had a model lion presented to us by one of the Director’s of Metro Goldwyn Mayer in June 1943, there is a record of it er Pathe Newsreel recorded it I have a recording of it on my computer showing them presenting the lion to the Squadron Commander. We settled down at Leeming, various operations came up and we did various operations over Germany, oh France, Italy and Germany, and during the August and September and then in October er we were doing a few bombing raids in various places in Germany again and on 22nd October we were, oh, [I’ll just finish my coffee, whispers]
AS: Your going now.
HW: Yes we did various trips they varied um er sometimes they were quiet other times a lot of flak and night fighters attacking and er [?] sometimes very heavy cloud, intense cloud, icing etcetera, we experienced all this and um the er er sometimes we had a bomb on sky markers and sometimes if it was clear we bombed on ground markers, er these all went under special names, er they they these names had been invented by the air by er er, what was it, a New Zealand er Marshall who was in charge of um, let me think of it, oh dear my mind wait a minute, er he he introduced what did they call it, pathfinders yes pathfinders, pathfinders used to drop these various target indicators and we used to have to bomb target indicators. Er on 22nd October 1943 we were informed that we were on another operation er we went for our briefing and we were informed that we were 560 bombers were going to bomb Kassel er we were briefed and er went to our aircraft to test them er we were allocated “L for Love” which had the name “Lorraine Day” on one side and “London’s Revenge” on the other side, we went then for our pre-flight breakfast er and er we were due to take off at five thirty in the afternoon, we kitted out went to the aircraft got in the aircraft and um the pilot tried to start the engine and the port inner wouldn’t start we tried three or four times so it was getting near five thirty then so er I got the Aldis lamp out and signalled across to flying control that the engine was US unserviceable, er a few minutes later a seal [?] came over in a car and the pilot informed that the aircraft wouldn’t start the engine wouldn’t start and of course the er maintenance flight sergeant he confirmed it just wouldn’t go so er the the commanding officer said ‘G George is bombed up a spare aircraft go over to that’, er we the transport that had taken us out to dispersal had gone so we had to transfer all of our kit across to “G George”, “G George” had no window that’s the strips of foil for anti-aircraft er er radar blotting out and er so we had to carry all the bundles of window between us from one aircraft to the other, er we got into the aircraft and that started up and of course five o’clock five thirty just after five thirty we took off. We flew down to Cromer where all the aircraft er that were bombing that night congregated to assemble for the final trip across the North Sea, we flew across the North Sea and of course immediately we arrived over the Dutch border we started getting attacked by flak, um there was a diversion er flight going to Frankfurt so we were our course was towards Frankfurt for a while and then we turned off north of Frankfurt to er for Kassel, just before reaching Frankfurt the rear gunner er informed the pilot there was a night fighter coming up on the stern, er the mid upper gunner confirmed he could see it also so er he of course the rear gunner took over then and he requested he demanded the aircraft be put into a um corkscrew the er the pilot corkscrewed the aircraft and at the same time the two gunners started firing on the night fighter er we by the time we came out of the corkscrew the night fighter had gone so we carried on towards Kassel, er we were the second wave into Kassel er there were three waves altogether we were the second wave um five minutes before reaching Kassel we saw all the first TI’s going down and the first bombs going down etcetera etcetera and er we followed in and by the time we got to Kassel the night fighters had estimated our course and er they put a line of er fighter flares above us so we were flying just like going down a high street with all the lights on and er we were lit up just like daylight and the night fighters were above us observing us, and the navigator, the bomb aimer took over for the bombing run and we dropped our bombs and er we turned put to port towards Hanover, [have a drink of tea, whispers], the night fighters of course had been following us we couldn’t see them because they were behind the fighter flares, and er about five minutes after leaving Kassel there was a terrific bang, series of bangs and the pilot said ‘we’ve had just been hit’ apparently canon shells had hit us, er he endeavoured to contact the rear gunner there was no reply, he tried the mid upper gunner there was no reply, so he asked the engineer to go back to see what whether they were okay, the engineer said ‘he couldn’t go back because he was watching the petrol tanks’, so he asked me and I went back I went back to the mid upper turret and hit the mid upper gunner on the thighs and er shook him but there was no reaction at all he had his head down and there was no reaction, so I dashed back then to the rear turret and the rear turret I banged on the rear turret doors I could see the the rear gunner in there er shot down so there was no reply from him so I tried to open the doors but they wouldn’t open so er just as I turned to return er the fighter came in again and attacked us, er I was running at the fuselage and I felt a terrific pain in my right thigh and by the time I reached the pilot I put my thumbs down to indicate there was no life with the gunners and I noticed then that the port wing and engines were all on fire, the pilot shouted ‘bail out, bail out’ so I dashed down the stairs to my position underneath the pilot er which was just behind the navigator, the navigator lifted up his chair and table and lifted up the escape hatch I handed him his parachute and I put my parachute on and as I put my parachute on I noticed I had his name on mine so I tapped him and indicated so we changed parachutes and I went out and er I was out first er I landed in a tree er and er hit a branch with my left thigh and I had a terrific thigh when I hit one of the main branches, er it was quite dark but I could see the branches against the night light and I put my right foot on one of the branches er released myself from the parachute because I was hung about twenty I suppose about twenty feet up in a tree released myself and then put my left leg on the branch to climb down and my left leg gave way and I collapsed and fell from the trees and knocked myself out, er the next thing I knew it was getting dawn I suppose be about seven thirty in the morning this was about nine twenty five at night when we were shot down it was about seven thirty in the morning it was just getting light and er I noticed that I was in this small wood er and er I tried to stand up and I couldn’t so and I was feeling very very thirsty I didn’t realise then that I had lost a lot of blood and that’s why I was thirsty, so I looked around and I could see that it was lighter down below than it was up above so I crawled to the edge of the wood and there was a field there and I noticed there was a farmer and two boys spreading manure etcetera etcetera on the ground, so I shouted to them they came over and I asked them for water er they stood me up and I collapsed again and went unconscious the next thing I remember I was on a horse and cart going across a field I momentarily came conscious and realised what I was doing what’s happening then I lost consciousness again, the next thing I woke up I was on a bed in a hospital with a doctor and nurse looking over me and er when they realised I had regained consciousness they said ‘you have er er broken your left leg and you are wounded in your right leg’ I said ‘where am I?’ they said ‘in Germany’ I said ‘I can’t stay here I’ve got to get back to England’, er I tried to get off the ch the bed then I realised I had no use in my legs so I laid back on the bad, er I was there overnight [takes a drink] and the next day a German medical orderly came and informed me in broken English er that he was escorting to Dulag Luft, they put me on a stretcher I’d been my leg had been strapped up by this time of course and they put me on a stretcher and took me to the railway station which I noticed the name was Lugde [spells it out], um they was only the medical orderly so they had to get an outsider to help carry me on the stretcher and the outsider when we got to the station he left me just left the medical orderly with me the train came in so I had to get off the stretcher I had the use of my right leg by this time and er the the er medical orderly got me into the train er we travelled a short way and we had to change trains [takes a drink] er he took me out and er where we were changing trains there was no platform so we had to get down onto the side of the railway er he took me um the stretcher out then helped me down then helped me across to the platform and then brought the stretcher down for me to lay on the stretcher, er he went to get some refreshment and while he went to get refreshment a big a to me a great big German er huge German with a walking stick came and stood in front of my er stretcher looked down and said ‘my house in Kassel has been bombed’ er I looked at him and er I thought seeing the walking stick etcetera etcetera discretion being the better part of valour I kept my mouth shut, at that time the medical orderly came back with the drinks and er the this civilian went off, er we got back on another train travelled another distance and we had to change trains again, er the same thing he there was no platform so he had to help me down and he took me into the canteen in this station where there was a lot of soldiers, er he went to get some soup for me and er when he came back with the soup a German soldier with a Schmeisser came over he wanted to shoot me so the medical orderly looked around and found a er another soldier of higher rank he’d found a Feldwebel which was a sergeant, the sergeant came over and immediately this German with a Schmeisser went, I felt very grateful to the medical orderly for what he had done so I gave him my name and address which wasn’t against the law anyway because we were allowed to give name address and rank etcetera, we got on to another train and er there oh just before we got onto the next train a a a another escort came up with three other airmen and one of the airmen was my bomb aimer, so er he said to me ‘both the gunners and Bob the pilot were dead’ er he had been picked up er near where the aircraft crashed taken to the scene and er there in the turrets the turrets had come out with the shock of the crash the gunners were still in the turrets the pilot was still in the pilot’s place and of course the fire had burned him, so er he identified the rear gunner by his dentures er half his head had been blown off by a canon shell, er the mid upper gunner had one had been shot in the stomach and of course the pilot er he must couldn’t have got out don’t know why but he went down with the aircraft and was killed in the crash and then burned after. Anyway the bomb aimer and the other aircrew were taken to one compartment and I was taken to another, er we arrived in Frankfurt am Main the next morning er at about ten o’clock and they took us onto the station and er they informed us that as I was wounded they wanted an ambulance so they phoned for an ambulance [pauses to take a drink], so after a while an ambulance came and the three other aircrew and myself were put in the ambulance and we were taken a short distance to Dulag Luft at Ober, Oberursel, the bomb aimer and the other two aircrew were taken off there and I was taken about another kilometre or so to a hospital called Hohemark [spells it out] it was a clinic for mentally disturbed people before the war it had been taken over by the Luftwaffe and the first the ground floor was used for German wounded er the first floor er for British wounded and the third floor and the second floor for the staff to sleep, er I was taken in by on the um taken into Hohemark onto the ground floor into a room and locked in er about five minutes later a German officer came along and he offered me a cigarette and put a form in front of me with a red cross on the top and on there it had my details requesting my details of name, rank etcetera home address, squadron and all the details of the squadron, er I filled in my name, rank and home address and handed it back to him and said ‘that’s all I’m afraid I could inform him about’ he said ‘I will tell you your history’ so he informed me the date I had volunteered in Cardiff, he informed me of every station I had been sent to in Britain er and the dates etcetera etcetera he informed me of all my crew and er then he left and he came back and he said he came back about five minutes later and oh he said ‘I left out Bobbington you were at Bobbington as well weren’t you?’ I said ‘well if you say so’ ‘yes’ he said ‘you were’ so er after about half an hour oh then they had him told me to undress and get in the bed there took all my outer clothing away with him, incidentally the medical orderlies who took me in were all British, er one was a warrant officer mid air front gunner who’d been shot down a year earlier he was a Liverpudlian, there were two Welsh paratroop medical orderlies they had been captured in North Africa and the rest of the staff there was a German corporal, er two German gefreiters and a German doctor, er after the interrogation the two medical welsh medical orderlies came and took me up to the first floor and there were various rooms and ere r various beds had been taken over there were other aircrew with broken legs and broken arms and of course there was a lot of burns there was one ward there with a lot of burnt aircrew, I was put in a bed and handed back my uniform and on my uniform I had two buttons one an RCAF button and one an RAF button the RAF button had a compass in that had been taken off I also had a compass in my front collar stud that had been taken out taken away so they had realised what was in there they had tested and found these compasses and took them away otherwise I had my my er cigarette case and all my own er belongings returned to me, um they put me in a bed there and er oh they had they asked me to stand up so I stood up and er ‘oh they said your legs not broken get in bed’ so of course the next day one of the medical orderlies came to dress my right thigh where I had a lot of proud flesh where this canon shell had hit me part of it and it gave me a wound when I lost a lot of blood and of course he started dressing the wound and looking down he said ‘your leg is broken’ he noticed that it was at an angle so I doctor came along and confirmed it, this doctor who’s name was Doctor Ittershagan [spells it out] er he was a specialist in broken bones er apparently he had taken up a new invention where instead of putting the leg in plaster they opened the wound opened the leg er stretched the leg to put the bones back in place opened the leg and put a metal pin inside the femur pushed it up through the thigh put the bone together and knocked the er pin into the bottom part of the femur and sewed the leg up so and we were able to get around on crutches there and er apparently they were seven six other aircrew there some with arms that had been broken and some with legs that had been broken and they had all had the same operation we were treated as guinea pigs because this was a special new idea, um so Doctor Ittershagan was there to oversee us. Er we spent a few months there and just before Christmas time a fighter pilot came in he had crashed er he was a PRU Photograph Reconnaissance Pilot and apparently he’d been flying over France er taking details of the weather and he hadn’t noticed that his oxygen had given out he’d broken his oxygen pipe and er the next thing he knew he was on in the aircraft the aircraft had flown into the landed pancaked itself into the ground he was slightly wounded, apparently when he got out when they took him to Dulag Luft they found he had two dummy legs he was the second legless pilot er so of course he was sent up to Hohemark and er to have his slight wounds er seen to and er this was at just Christmas time so we spent we had Christmas dinner at Hohemark with Colin Hodgkinson which was his name er he was featured in “This is Your Life“ some years after in the BBC. I was there until right throughout Christmas and various as we were oh Christmas Day we were able to get along on crutches so we went out on Christmas Day and met some of the German wounded so we started playing football on the grounds [laughs] in Hohemark, anyway various aircrew were coming in with wounds, burns etcetera etcetera some of them died there of burns etcetera, one pilot he was a member of the Dunlop Family and he got seriously burnt and he died on the operating table there. There was another Welshman came in er at the end of er March he had been on the Nuremburg raid and shot down and when he was when he bailed out the propellers caught his left arm and left leg and took his left arm off at the elbow and left leg off at the knee and he was on crutches, er various other, oh another one came in he had his legs both legs blown off and he landed in icy water and he had the sense to get his parachute shroud lines to tie around his thighs two girls German girls picked him up and took him to hospital and er he’d been sent to Hohemark before being repatriated of course because he was seriously wounded. We were there through the spring and summer part of the summer and er met quite a lot of er German officials etcetera and some of the German fighter pilots used to come in and have a chat with us about er flying etcetera and of course the interrogators used to come in and every afternoon about three o’clock we used to have coffee so the er interrogator had the habit of coming at about three o’clock when we were having Nescafe and of course he would come and have a cup of Nescafe as against the Acorn coffee that they were issued, and we used to chat with them and er we said to one we said to one of them one day ‘how is it you’ve got all this information about us?’ so he opened his briefcase and get a folder out and showed us details of an American Squadron he said ‘this is Amercian B17 Squadron’ he said ‘they are still in America they are due to fly over to England’ he said ‘we’ve got the details of every aircraft and every member of the crews’ and we said ‘well how do you get a lot of this?’ well he said ‘there is a lot of Irishmen working in America and a lot of Irishmen working in England and the information gets through’, so anyway so that satisfied out curiosity. Anyway one of the er guinea pigs, what was his name?, er oh dear Mike Sczweck [?] he was an ex Polish emigre to America he was a ball turret gunner [?] he’d had his arm broken and he’d had a metal pin put inside it and he was getting rather restless, so we used to be allowed out every afternoon from about two to three o’clock before coffee to walk round the grounds etcetera for a bit of exercise, er this was about the 4th June and the er he informed us that he was going to try and escape so er we er when we got back in we got to our window and of course they had long u um venetian blinds there and the windows were open and the long chords if you put them out of the window they’d reach to about six feet above the ground below so er there were two Canadians and myself er we were in a room and we helped lower him down and this was about half past three in the afternoon, very hot afternoon about four o’clock we had a thunderstorm er we covered as Mike had a habit of laying on his bed they were double bunks he was on the top bunk he had a habit of laying on the bed we made up his bed to look like he was laying on it, there was seven of us “The Seven Pin Boys” guinea pigs in this room so that night er we all went to bed and the German medical orderly came in Adolf Dufour he was ex ex er World War One soldier he came in so and he noticed we were all in bed so he closed the door and we all went to sleep the next morning we got up and had our breakfast and of course they put out the all the meal so er a few of us surreptiously took part of the roll etcetera and marmalade ate it and drank the coffee etcetera then about eleven o’clock in the morning the English warrant officer, Liverpudlian came up and he said ‘where is Sczweck?’ so we said ‘well on his bed I suppose’ he said ‘he is not on his bed’ and he went straight away and reported him as being escaped.
AS: So he’s just been found missing?
HW: Yes and he this Liverpudlian as I say he reported straight away they got in touch with Dulag Luft which was a kilometre away and er they came up with dogs etcetera but of course this was the day before he got away and there had been a thunderstorm in any case so er they said ‘right’ they picked the three of us and said ‘pack your bags’ and they took us down to the cooler at Dulag Luft they walked us down came down to the cooler and we spent a couple of days there, and then two days later they came and told us they wanted our braces and boots er now there was one of the ambulance drivers German ambulance drivers a German American he again had been er er living in America went to Germany at the beginning of the war and they kept him there so he could speak perfect English with an American accent so we said to him ‘why have you taken our braces and boots?’ he said ‘there’s been a landing on the French coast’ he said ‘we don’t want you to try and escape again’ anyway two days later they handed us our braces and boots and sent us to a hospital just outside Homberg and all the other pin boys were there and we all had our pins extracted er and we sent back to Hohemark er on on walking sticks etcetera for a few days until the wounds had healed and they took the stitches out, and then oh by the way incidentally when we were there at Hohemark there used to be a warrant officer an English warrant officer he was down at Dulag Luft and I don’t know what he was doing but er he used to come up periodically he was dressed in full RAF warrant officer uniform, Slowey his name was warrant officer Slowey he had been shot down about two years earlier and no doubt he was collaborating with the Germans so of course whenever he was around we kept our mouths shut he of course he had came up for information, there was also a girl who used to come up from Dulag Luft, her mother was Scottish and her father was German and er at the beginning of the war she went back to Germany and stayed over there and she used to be sent up to talk to us at times to no doubt try and get some information from us but of course they had all these sort of things like going on and tricks to try and get some information from us, anyway I don’t know what happened to Slowey ‘cos as I say we were sent back to Hohemark for a few days then I was posted er er to sent to Obermarshfelt[?] a clearing hospital near Meiningen in the centre of Germany, er it was a mixture of various prisoners there was English soldiers there etcetera er so I was there until er we could walk properly and then in July middle of July we were informed we were being sent to prison camp, er they put us on a train and er they were seven of us eight of us altogether and two guards the two guards only had little hand pistols to guard us with so er on the journey in the morning there was an air raid went and er we heard the aircraft going over and when the all clear went the train started again and we got as far as Erfurt and actually Erfurt had been bombed so we had to change trains at Erfurt, so we got on the platform there was crowds on the platform of people who had been bombed out and there was one particular person with a Swastika ensign on his arm and he noticed us and straight away he started shouting ‘terror fliers’ in German ‘terror-flieger’ informing the crowd that we were terror fliers we should be hung er at that moment a German troop train came in and stopped momentarily on the platform and the guard said to the Germans ’asked where they were going if they were going via Leipzig’ they said ‘yes’ so he got us all on the troop train with the German soldiers and we went off otherwise we would have been hung [laughs]. We got as far as Leipzig where we changed trains again and er then we er the next train was overnight to Dresden, we reached Dresden the next morning and they put us in the basement of the station where we had a sleep etcetera and er of course they’d given us a few rations, a box of Red Cross box of rations so we had our rations and er then we were transferred in the afternoon on a train again and went on to Upper Silesia Bankau which was Luft 7 we reached there about six o’clock the next morning and we marched from Bankau er from the town of Bankau to the prison camp er we were admitted into the prison camp and it was a new one just been built and there was only about forty prisoners there but a lot of huts, the huts were only eight feet high, ten feet long and eight feet wide, and they put six of us in there, there was no beds we had to sleep on the floor no tables no chairs or anything we just had to oh and they gave us a bowl and a spoon and a cup, I’ve still got the cup I got at home with my I still got my German prisoner of war mug, so we were there and there was another compound next to it which was being built with substantially bigger huts the Russians were building that, so in the summer we had just had these huts to live in and the only water we had was a pump in the centre of the field centre of the parade ground er like a village pump where we got our water and where we could only get underneath there and have a bathe. We were there until mid September end of September and then we were transferred to the next compound where we had better accommodation we had double bunks double tier, two tier bunks etcetera etcetera and about sixteen of us to a room um we settled down there and of course they had water laid on there and once a week we were allowed a shower we were taken in batches rooms each room went into the shower, under the shower a German soldier would turn the water on to get us wet let us have a shower a wash turn the water on again to take the soap off and about ten minutes that was our shower that was our cleaning. We were there until January 19th er 1945 when the Russians started advancing so they decided we had to move er we were informed there was no transport we would have to walk, so early in the morning of 19th January they took us out we had no Red Cross parcels none had arrived, er so we went out with no food and we walked thirty kilometres that day to a place called Vintersfelt [?] where they put us up in various er er um cow sheds etcetera etcetera er and some sat out in the open, er we did that forced march then from the 22nd from 19th January to about mid February forced march each day er the camp commandant he informed the Germans and the doctor the English doctor prisoner of war we had informed the Germans we were exhausted we couldn’t go any further so the Germans after we’d marched forced marched through storms etcetera in the night minus forty degrees er with sleet and snow etcetera for about fourteen days um they they marched us to a station where they put us in cattle trucks forty to a truck locked us in and er we were there in this train for two days weren’t allowed out er two days later we arrived at a place called Luckenwalde er which is about twenty kilometres south of Berlin it was a very big camp all nationalities in there so er we were marched into Luckenwalde camp there again there were no beds we had to sleep on the floor er we were issued with the minimum amount of food er I lost about two stone actually in that time er and er we were there until about the 22nd 23rd April er when we woke up one morning to be informed the Russians were outside we looked out and there were Russian tanks out there and they they ploughed down the outer wire and came in they informed us that we could go east if we wished but we couldn’t go west we could go out and forage for food if we wished so various parties went out foraging for food into the town er in the meantime the Russians and the Americans had met at on the Elba. The Americans came over and the Russians stopped them at the edge of the camp and the Americans wanted to take us away and the Russians wouldn’t allow us they were keeping us hostage until they got all the Russian prisoners that had joined the German forces back into Russia to shoot them. So er the Americans informed us that down the road a few kilometres away they would station some trucks and if we could make our way down there we would get away, so after the next day I walked out with one or two others and walked down to this copse there was an American truck there we got in a soon as it was filled up the American truck took us across the Elba that was on 8th May which was er VE Day, so we crossed the Elba into er into a German town and we were put in er a barrack part of an aircraft factory that the Americans had taken over and of course there they fed us er we stayed there for about a day then they trucked us from Luckenwalde sorry from the camp er to um er where was it Mankenberg [?] no not Mankenberg and we finished up at Hanover, er we stayed overnight at Hanover and the next day they put us on Dakota aircraft and flew us to er Belgium Brussels and we arrived in Brussels in the early evening and there they deloused us kitted us out in army uniforms and told us gave us a few francs and told us we could go in town and have a beer [laughs] which we did we came back to be informed we were back on a train er which was a prisoner of war train with all barbed wire and bars on and we were shipped to er er from Brussels to Amien er there we stayed overnight and the next morning there were aircraft landed at Amien and they flew us they flew us to England where I landed just south of Guildford the next day, again we were deloused er kitted out in British uniform and er sent up to Cosford where we were medically examined and if we were fit given a pass and sent home. I arrived home about the 10th or 11th of May er and that was the story of my life up at that up until that time.
AS: Fascinating.
Other: [Laugh] [?] trying to transcribe all that.
HW: ‘Cos there again I as I’d been a prisoner of war I was due for discharge but they wouldn’t discharge me until I had my tonsils out so I had to wait a year before going into a hospital an RAF hospital immediately they came out they discharged me and I went back to my civilian job in paper making and I have been in paper making ever since.
AS: Why did they want to take your tonsils out?
HW: Actually I got tonsillitis in October and I’d been reported sick and of course the day we were to take off I didn’t bother I felt better so I didn’t report sick so I told Bob the pilot ‘I wasn’t reporting sick’ and he said ‘right we are on tonight’ and that was the fateful day [laughs].
AS: Can you tell me about what happened with the German medical officer who stopped you from being shot?
HW: Yes, I he was a medical orderly Gunter Aarff [?] his name was he was about nineteen years of age about two years younger than myself and he could speak fairly good English so of course having met him in Dusseldorf at the Control Commission and we went there and we gave I gave my report he gave his report.
AS: Can you tell me can you just tell me again because you mentioned it when this thing wasn’t on how you were contacted about?
HW: About er er he wrote me and said he introduced himself that I was the person he had escorted to Dulag Luft.
AS: Because you’d given him your home address?
HW: Yes his father had been killed etcetera and he wanted to become a dentist. So of course I arranged it I wrote to the Control Commission they gave me permission to go over I met him we went there together he gave his story I gave mine and er of course he went into university and he became a dentist and of course from then on we kept in contact each year those candlesticks there he sent they were Christmas boxes each year we used to exchange Christmas boxes etcetera etcetera.
Other: Have you got a photograph don’t know?
HW: Yes I’ve got one, as I say we kept in contact ever since we went over there he’s been over here we went one time and he took us down the Rhine boat trip all day trip back up to Cologne etcetera so we did a cruise on the Rhine etcetera.
AS: So he really saved your life and ?
HW: Oh yes he saved, yes that’s why I gave him my name and address because if he hadn’t got this sergeant er the German he was drunk of course he would have shot me, so of course we kept in contact as I say until two years ago er we sent him a Christmas card and we had no reply we did again last year we still had no reply er we had heard in the meantime that he had cancer but er no doubt this has overcome him and he has passed on.
AS: So you really went to the Control Commission to act as a character witness a character reference so he could get into university?
HW: Yes, they said they couldn’t er order the German authorities to give him a place but they could recommend it of course he was recommended and he went into university yes.
AS: Can you tell me after all this how you managed to settle back into civilian life?
HW: Yes, I went back into my er into the paper mill of course they had taken on other staff but they were forced to take us back er and of course they offered us such low salaries that a lot of them just couldn’t afford to go back and they found another job, I was lucky that I had twelve months leave paid leave with warrant officers pay so I was getting £6 a week as a warrant officer and £3 a week civilian pay so I was able to manage to but they gave me didn’t give me my same job back they gave me another job on costing and while I was there I took up paper making studying paper making at City and Guilds etcetera and passed the City and Guilds on papermaking and we had an associate mill at Treforrest where they coated the paper put on this coating for photographic paper, chocolate wrappings etcetera, er waxing, er they used to put the purple coating on the paper for Cadbury’s wrappers etcetera etcetera, er wax craft etcetera er waxed brown paper that is for various jobs in the metal industry um papers for the books for printing books etcetera coated paper and er that was 1946 I went back to the paper mill, 1949 I understood there was a job going in the order department in Trefforest so I applied and of course I got it so then I was in charge of the paper coating on the on all the coating machines, er I was there for about two years inside the office then they decided they’d like me to go out selling paper so I went out travelling they provided me with a car and I started travelling selling paper. In 1953 er there was an upheaval in the with the directors of the mill and the managing director resigned and they decided to take me back in to do the job until they could find another managing director er having experienced outside work I didn’t want to stay inside so I said well I would do it for a year they said right they would find somebody in a year, they found somebody but they still kept me in. At that time my wife’s parents who had been evacuated to Cardiff during the war had moved back to London er and my father in law had contracted er er cancer so we came up for a holiday and er I had a customer in London who had offered me a job if ever I wanted to come up to London so we came up for a holiday and er I went to see him they said yes they would like I could start straight away so I left my wife up here we looked round found a house left my wife here and er I went back put my notice in worked a month and came up to London to live and I started in the paper trade again selling paper to printers and that I did right until I retired in 1986.
AS: Was it difficult when you came out of the RAF fitting back into civilian life?
HW: Yes yes having had the freedom of the RAF I found it very very difficult being tied down to a desk yes.
AS: What do you mean by freedom you were a prisoner of war for several years?
HW: Sorry
AS: You were a prisoner of war for several years that wasn’t
HW: For eighteen months yes.
AS: Eighteen months?
HW: Yes yes and of course er there was the life fighting for food because the Germans gave us the minimum amount of food so we wouldn’t have the energy to try to escape, er we used to play football or cricket etcetera er in the centre of the camp and each day do a march around the perimeter we would all be exercising walking round for miles and miles round the perimeter between the escape wire and the huts to keep keep fairly fit which we were glad of because of the forced march. In September 43 of course there was Arnhem and of course the glider pilots although they were in the Army the Germans treated them as Luftwaffe so they came into our camp and we got really depressed we felt that with the Russian advance we would be home by Christmas and of course that made us our morale dropped a great deal of course we had the paratroopers not the glider pilots there with us joined they the camp. By the time we came out of the camp in January 45 there were fifteen hundred of us when I went there there was about twenty five so you see the number of prisoners of war that was NCO prisoners of war taken in those few months and er only about twenty about ten percent of people flying over Germany that were shot down were made prisoners the rest were killed so you can just imagine the number of people fifty five thousand five hundred and seventy three were killed during the war.
AS: Afterwards did you have you managed to keep in touch with any of your comrades?
HW: Yes I kept in contact with all my crew with the remainder of my crew and of course the parents of the er er members that were killed, there again the parents of my pilot died after a while and er the mid upper gunner then kept writing to me but when in 1949 I told them that I was going to Germany to speak on the part of the medical orderly I think I might have upset them ‘cos they stopped writing, anyway the rear gunners mother she came over here and she went to visit his grave etcetera etcetera we kept in contact with them we went all over we visited them I visited my navigator and my bomb aimer we’ve been over in Canada a few times there so we er kept in contact ever since. Now about five years ago er my bomb aimer died and about four years ago my navigator died we are still in contact with the daughter no the yes the son no grandson of the rear gunner and his family, the navigator’s wife we’ve been in contact with them until last Christmas we sent the usual letter we had no reply er so therefore I am the only survivor the last survivor of the crew.
AS: Well Harry thank you very much indeed.
HW: That’s all right.
AS: It’s been a fascinating tale.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harry Winter
Creator
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Andrew Sadler
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-08
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWinterH150708, PWinterH1508
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Pending review
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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.
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Winter grew up in Cardiff and worked in a paper mill from the age of 14. He served in the Home Guard before he volunteered for the Air Force. After training as a wireless operator at RAF Yatesbury he flew operations over Germany, France, and Italy with 431 and 427 Squadrons. His Halifax, LK633 (ZL-N) was shot down over Hameln returning from Kassel on the night 22/23 Oct 1943. Four of his crew were killed and he sustained injuries to both legs. He escaped summary execution through the intervention of a German Army medical orderly. After the War, Harry helped the medical orderly with his application to train as a dentist.
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Luckenwalde
Germany--Oberursel
Wales--Cardiff
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943-10-22
1944
1945-01-19
Format
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01:19:33 audio recording
1659 HCU
23 OTU
427 Squadron
431 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
civil defence
Dulag Luft
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Cranwell
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Leeming
RAF Pershore
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Yatesbury
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
target indicator
the long march
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/215/3355/ABrownE160314.1.mp3
4fd76aed8c310e6b2fefa29f02007102
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Brown, Eric and Phyllis
Eric and Phyllis Brown
Eric Brown
Phyllis Brown
E Brown
P Brown
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Eric Brown (1591325 Royal Air Force) and his wife Phyllis.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
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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
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Brown, E-P
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
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AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre the interviewer is Anna Hoyles the interviewee is Eric Brown the interview is taking place in Mr. Brown’s home in Holton-le-Clay on 14th March 2016.
EB: I originally started er learning before I er
AH: Can you speak up a bit more?
EB: Yes well I could I suppose yes, I used to work with this accountant and er war was coming obviously and so by this time I was about sixteen seventeen rather and decided that I would join up with the rest and so I went off volunteered to er go I wanted to go with aircraft and I was accepted to go and I suppose I was about two years or a little bit less than that at I had to choose what I wanted to do and er being that bit older of course I wanted to be into something and eventually I got into that and er you then had five choices with regard the aircraft and what you were going to do and er so I became the man who sat at the [laughs] [unclear] and er I was responsible for all the feed for drinking for no drinking feeling [unclear] and checking all when you had every so many hours you had so many checks on that and er you were responsible for the seven of us that’s er what you tell you what we were going to do now everything was all was different er and er we used to go what we were given to do er and that’s about about hundred in that altogether and er we got close to Germany as it was then and of course that is when the danger came out and er you sometimes I’ve known we’ve had gone off home leaving about seven or eight men all shot down and there were an awful lot shot down the Germans used to you know pick you up and that was it and er you got there but what we could do we could get a bit lower and be be hoping somebody would come along and hit it and er we’d be all right by night and so I did an awful lot of flights there for for [unclear] haven’t got any yes these it’s what the award was eventually we were afforded one of those but er it was an awful thing though our own men your own men friends those you lived with getting shot down, its funny now I don’t know whether you read in the paper in Lincoln they are building a big thing er for all the men who didn’t come home and funnily that one night er I was talking to him before it was his turn to go off and er that was it we didn’t see any more of him and er we had an awful lot though and er but you you had a job you did the job and er that’s why we had the chap with the guns [unclear] two guns we had two men who were older than us I mean I was about thirty thirty odd then and they decided they wanted to go on this particular way and er it was nice because you took different people with you at night but er so we we just had me it was my job to look after the [unclear] in front we had four we haven’t got four there have we?
AH: No
EB: See but er yes four knives off you went er petrol just right and we never got too much or little of anything [laughs] you always had something which was [unclear] but the worst part as I’m was concerned was as you came to the prison to the arrived there er and if your guns were fire guns were fired and Germans were sent to what we could send to us over there and you had to make your way back home and hope are we going to be lucky, I do remember one night they had the Germans used to have these special things that came out when it got dark and er we decided one night we got stuck down there and we had to get back up but we couldn’t for a while but er you had to look after yourself once you got to France France you were all right that was the best bit but we did lose an awful lot I mean it was nothing to lose nothing to miss rather other than to er perhaps ten or eleven one night and er so you were you used to have your food when you got back home if there was any left or if you didn’t felt like eating you ate it but er I mean it there was something about it all the time you was were as one you know you didn’t pick on anybody or get anybody all wanted friends all doing the same job on er we went from up North to Norway er down to er France and that’s how it was at night keep going and er fires fires from the Germans they sent hell of a lot and er you just hoping you hoping do what we can and er once you got on that situation then you had to look after it and hopefully get back again. How you doing?
AH: Good. What planes were you in?
EB: What?
AH: What planes?
EB: Er I’ll show you it, we got one?
PB: That’s the Lancaster
EB: The Lancaster it’s the one that everybody is talking about now.
AH: Yes
EB: That’s that’s the one you had that that’s it there
AH: Yes
EB: That was at Lincoln.
AH: Oh yes, and what were they like to fly in?
EB: What were they like?
PB: Noisy.
EB: Very good very good wonderful aircraft best of
PB: Noisy [?]
EB: Yes excellent, the most Stirling’s they were they were dangerous [laughs] we didn’t get on very well on them but [unclear] you managed just about some nights if we got hit but er you got there all right you had a meal when you got home and then you ready for the next day again start again that’s how it went six or seven nights you would be on things like that doing that.
AH: How did you feel when you were doing it?
EB: Well it was all number one you know it was look after number one, I being the the pilot was there I was the second my responsibility that we had four engines to go with and four to get home with and er.
PB: That’s him in his flying gear have you seen it?
AH: Very nice.
EB: So we had a chap sat at the end of the aircraft he was the gunner we had a man mate half way up this thing another friend another gunner and er you had two men who that’s the hold but they were from Australia and er their job was to sit in get covered up and when you got to Germany and stop all the things that we get coming at us so then we got to me I was responsible for four engines and er the pilot was very good er er but er I went going sidelines to that some years after the war I joined the Police force and I was walking home one night and er a young somebody an ex friend stopped me and he said ‘oh you know Chick Arnott don’t you?’ I said ‘yeah’ ‘oh’ he said ‘he’s got a factory in Germany’ not Germany oh where he lived.
PB: Australia, Australia.
EB: Mmm and er and I got a letter from him and two or three years after I got another letter and er I then thought of going over to to Australia but er I didn’t I kept in the air force and er got home one night he came with this girl a friend of his wife er had come back over to Australia and er she came to tell us that he had been killed he er he used to drive a car I know he was a bit mad when he was driving cars he did have one of his own er and er that was his end yes weird thing he did all that and er [unclear] and er he got killed.
AH: What was he called do you remember?
EB: Now then now Arnott yes have we got anything of him?
PB: Arnott yes what did they call him?
EB: Chick, Chick.
PB: Yes Chick Arnott.
EB: Chick Arnott his friend he was, but we were fourteen not fourteen we were lads really er five of us were lads and the balance were fifty they being the Australians they were desperate to get there mind you and er that’s what happened to him [takes a puff of something] certainly when you look back its.
PB: Have a little drink.
EB: Me throats not very good.
PB: Have a little drink.
EB: That was me a willing worker [laughs] with [unclear] I don’t know why they did that because
PB: Have a drink.
EB: You know I was doing that on aircraft all the time.
AH: So you were demobbed in 47?
EB: Would be about then yes.
PB: Was it 47 you were demobbed in yeah?
EB: Yes I joined the Police force.
PB: Cos’ we were married in 47.
EB: Yes.
AH: Were you part of Operation Manna?
EB: In what way?
AH: Did you fly to Holland?
EB: Er no I don’t think so.
AH: You flew to Norway?
EB: Yes there one night er didn’t do that much but I did definitely a trip there it wasI remember now because we didn’t hit what we wanted to hit ‘cos you couldn’t see where you were actually going to and er this clever dick he decided that he couldn’t see anything but he’d find something ‘cos he came down to the ships and when he got there he got shot down.
PB: Your voice clear your throat just take a bit.
EB: That er that was the end of that one. It was always nice to see a German[laughs] but er.
AH: Were you in the same squadron all the time?
EB: Yes yes once we got that squadron that was it that we stayed but of course then the Australians went home and er we that was me when I got home that was it, this thing says here assesses you how good you could be ‘I am a keen and willing willing circa[?] a keen and willing circa[?] with intelligent appre apprehension of technical matters’ [laughs].
AH: Is that true?
EB: Yes it was it had to be I had to be but er my [unclear] to keep four girls not four four types of tanks of water of petrol I did funnily come across one night and er I don’t know how it happened but we got ourselves caught out as when people were coming in but er for some reason we got out of it we had one or two sticks but er that’s life in’t it.
AH: Was it frightening?
EB: No in a way because you were too busy too busy you didn’t know who was who what was coming at you but er I never knew anyone didn’t know anybody who [unclear] that got about it as I say we had that much to do compared to the work we did we got home after that but the [unclear] over France we started losing petrol but we did manage to get home so and er when there’s a thousand aircraft a night all coming home to have something to eat and er it was there the skies were it was just there and er once you left where you were starting from that was it you didn’t see anybody until you got to where you when actually you got to the target then it was hell let loose it was all these red things all these things going out and er you just hoped they’d miss you as soon as you can get lower the better. Did I tell you that’s my Police medal you found this here, that’s a foreigner I don’t know who that is I put Norway for that but I don’t know why?
AH: No it’s the EU? Paris.
EB: Is it.
AH: Where were you based?
EB: ER Coningsby did you know Coningsby? Lovely aircraft lovely place to be at it very good there wasn’t far to carry the goods anyway er get over the water get yourself hidden away and er we thought Lincoln was a shocking place to be all aeroplanes [laughs] didn’t have many people up north doing things like that but er where we were based generally it was the place where it all happened really did I don’t know, you didn’t didn’t have old men none at all but I stopped from that after the war and er became a policeman and er that place we went there for.
PB: That which is Chick Arnott on here look?
EB: What he’s the boss.
PB: That’s Chick
EB: That’s Chick
PB: That was the one that got killed in the accident and that’s Eric again this end you see.
EB: He was very he used to stutter a lot I think his father was something to do with car money rather er.
AH: What was he called?
EB: I can’t I’ve got five damn things all written down here look that’s it that’s Ken,
PB: Ken navigator, that’s Dave
EB: That’s Dave they were all over thirty, er that was me, Chuck
PB: Chuck, Chick.
EB: And that was the other Australian he er I think he used to do [unclear] at night earn his money that way but er he used to like his money and he used to like his water water as well.
AH: Did you always fly with the same crew?
EB: Yes, yeah I think I only knew of one and that’s I did work with somebody work with somebody else because there was no reason for not using it we were there together, yes I written there the Pathfinder Badge.
AH: Were you a Pathfinder?
EB: Yeah, yes that’s when it all started again really but er that’s what we used to do keep it low get in deep problems and then er come back home.
AH: Were you always a Pathfinder?
EB: Yeah, yeah.
AH: What were you doing in 47?
EB: Er
AH: When you were in 57 Squadron?
EB: No we didn’t do a 57 I don’t think.
AH: Is there anything in?
PB: 47 look here you’ve got something down here for 47.
AH: Oh your log book.
EB: 447 in’t it [pause]. That’s after the war that.
PB: No that’s 43 Eric.
EB: Mmm training some people [coughs] you didn’t talk much when you were flying the two gunners were too occupied doing what they were doing and er the same thing went for us really, er four things the guns, the petrol so that was my job the pilot was looking where he was going and it just left the two men who when we got there they started and er did what we could.
AH: Did it take a long time to train?
EB: What direction?
AH: Before you before you took part.
EB: How that happened I remember that well I joined this thing as it was this thing at the time and I think I was sent off to a place north of er before you got to Scotland anyway and er I got what we had as kids to me I what we had as a kid so I got a week in this place er I had to stop there as I was sweating or something and er I nearly lost my place and er as a boring when you were training people you couldn’t there was an awful lot involved typical of what they did they used to pick people out at night er for you for going out there to watch to guard it really this was in Wales where we’d been trained and so you used to be given you gun and off you went and you sat on that thing for about three hours and all you could have after that was a break you were six weeks before six hours six hours before you could get back and shut your eyes [laughs] so those who didn’t do that we sat up peeling a potato every night same thing same potato and er we were training nearly a year and er.
AH: What did you do before the war?
EB: Accountant.
PB: You were in the office weren’t you.
EB: Yeah, because it was war then wasn’t it they were [unclear]
AH: Did you have family in Grimsby when it was bombed?
EB: You what love?
PB: Yeah.
EB: Yeah.
PB: Yes your mum and dad lived in Grimsby.
EB: Er yes ‘cos my father was a policeman er one sister works in the
PB: Joyce went in the army.
EB: She joined the army, the next one up
PB: Gladys
EB: She worked on er
PB: Ammunitions munitions
EB: And the eldest I don’t know what happened to her
PB: She still
EB: Oh she had a baby didn’t she?
PB: Yes that’s right yes she got married
EB: Marilyn yes that’s right that we had there [going through papers]
PB: It will be here somewhere look when you went on these here trips then where you bombed
EB: All these look you see.
PB: You dropped bombs
EB: [unclear]
AH: Hamburg?
EB: Yep
PB: Here you are look told you in 1945 45 it’s all the trips that you went on.
EB: Yeah Karlsburg, Dortmund.
PB: That’s a German isn’t it.
EB: Yes [unclear] quite a few quite a few trips.
AH: Do you remember any of them in particularly?
EB: No I don’t think I do really there’s all them look.
AH: Karlsruhe?
EB: Wartsburg [unclear] send things
AH: Was that a big raid Wartsburg?
EB: Yeah twenty storage tanks destroyed Tansburg [?] er
PB: What’s this one here look here where you drop flares
EB: Where you drop those flares so you can see what you are doing.
PB: Oh you dropped flares there you did yes.
EB: I think we’ve told you all
AH: Is this from a log book?
PB: Yes but he had but he’s given his grandson it cos it was all down there you see all of his trips want ityou gave Matthew it didn’t you.
EB: Yes well it’s no good to me er it’s worth a bit £2 a time it was a lot of money in those days.
AH: Was your father in the First World War?
PB: Yes he was in the army.
EB: Yes he was.
PB: In the army.
EB: Yeah I now but what about it there’s something about it er I’ve got a photograph of sometime.
PB: Was in the Police Army was in the Police when he was in the Army?
EB: No I don’t think he was.
PB: No
EB: No one time if a man was a coward or wouldn’t fly wasn’t going they had to shoot him.
PB: They did what?
EB: They had to shoot the chap who wouldn’t go they shoot them in France yes.
AH: What was your father called?
PB: William.
EB: William yes, what did they call my mother?
PB: Eh?
EB: What did they call my mother?
PB: Lillian Lily
EB: Lily that’s it yeah aye there were five of us ‘cos my father’s my er grandfather he had the bakehouse but he didn’t go into it because he had five of us to look after and that was what he used to do.
PB: Your mum.
AH: So the baker was your mother’s father?
EB: Yes and how they got together was the fact that my father used to look out for her when he was on the beat and he could see there was my mother cleaning up that’s how they got married grandfather [unclear] but yes he did.
AH: What was your grandfather called?
EB: That’s one thing
PB: Basil, called him Basil?
EB: Yes that’s right called him Basil, it was a lovely house he had and er once a year when we were kids and grandfather had a nice car and er we used to take probably my father did it take us down to my grandfather’s house and off we used to go for a week [laughs] and that was it.
AH: Where was his house?
PB: In the country where wasn it?
EB: Do you know Grimsby at all?
AH: A little bit.
EB: ‘Cos it’s it you were coming out as going to Louth
PB: Grasby, Grasby?
EB: No the other way
PB: Some pond.
EB: Oh no we went there last week last when that had that to do with something oh your eye the eye thing a place they used to do eyes.
PB: Oh yes
EB: And that was it Scartho.
PB: Yes in the bungalow but then your other one where they did the pond that old pond where you used to go visit them.
EB: Yes Kild at er [?], what was it now there we had something there but I never take it or tell it Kild [?]
PB: I can’t remember
EB: and er that was the place they lived in was very nice they lived ad er you could have one in my father my sister doing my mother doing all the work.
AH: And how did you meet?
PB: How did we meet? Well you see when he was at Coningsby at night the buses used to go into Boston and I lived in Boston at the time and we used to go to the dance hall called the Gliderdrome and these bus loads of airmen used to come to this and I met him there you see.
AH: When was that?
PB: That was in 1945 it would be wouldn’t it when you was in the air force?
EB: Yes It was before then.
PB: Was it before then?
EB: Yes yes.
PB: He used to come from Coningsby on the bus didn’t you?
EB: Yes.
PB: To the Gliderdrome
EB: Mmm
PB: Then we used to have a dance then you used to go off on the bus didn’t you?
EB: Yes.
PB: Then I used to go home walk home well with my sisters ‘cos it was dark then there wasn’t no lights in the streets.
EB: But by that time we’d stopped bombing we weren’t doing bombing.
PB: Oh no.
EB: So that’s how it was.
AH: What did you do?
PB: What did I do?
AH: Yes
PB: Well you see I left school when I was fourteen then and then I worked in a little shop where I used to be get the breakfast ready and the farmers used to come in and it was at the end of at Boston at the cattle market want it where the farmers used to come and they used to come for the breakfast and some people used to stop overnight and then er I wasn’t there very long though and this baker used to come in and he said ‘I could find you a job’ and it was where I lived near where I lived so of course I went there but it was from six o’clock in the morning till six at night I used to go in a morning first off to get the bread done in the tins then they used to bake it and whilst it was baking I used to go home for my breakfast then I went back and then the bread was more or less ready used to get it out fill the van go on a bread round and then er come back again to the shop then we used to go for our dinner I were always late and then in the afternoon we used to make cakes and pastries yes it was hard hard work but er you know I well I don’t think I even got paid much for it it was only five shillings a week I used to remember buying a bar of Cadburys chocolate for a treat out of my five shillings [laughs] so it could only have been sixpence perhaps or two and half pence then wouldn’t it then [laughs] oh dear then I did that then I left and went to the cleaners didn’t I.
EB: Mmm.
PB: And then I got married while I was there didn’t I?
EB: Yes.
PB: And you what did you do then?
EB: Still flying.
PB: When you came out of the air force.
EB: Still flying.
PB: Yes you were still flying yes but then when we got married you wasn’t.
EB: I got married.
PB: You got a job at Leicester didn’t you?
EB: That’s right but it wasn’t very long.
PB: No it wasn’t very long no.
EB: Yes that’s right it was with the er thinking of [unclear].
PB: ‘Cos Gladys lived there at the time at Leicester didn’t she?
EB: Yes that’s right she did yes, I had a job there anyway that was.
PB: It was an office job want it duck?
EB: Yes it was yes well they were all I mean there was me eighteen nineteen twenty the rest of them were fifty they’d all not gone you see yes.
PB: And then you came out that job at Leicester and you applied for the to get on the Borough Police at Boston ‘cos I lived with me mum we lived with me mum then didn’t we after we got married you got on the Police Force at Boston and you wasn’t we wasn’t there long and you put in to go to Grimsby didn’t you?
EB: Yeah.
PB: And then it was the chief constable there and he said ‘come on Eric come that afternoon I’ve got you a football shirt ready you playing football that night’ weren’t you.
EB: The good old days.
AH: What was it like to leave the RAF?
EB: I was sorry to leave it but at the same time it was different you know I had a job to get involved in that whereas you could do some something totally different but you had those sort of people who did that but to me I wanted to be off er you were [?] within two days you would be off you quoted this number and off you went and that was it.
PB: What while you was in the forces?
EB: Mmm.
PB: Yeah well it was a routine want it you was in.
EB: Oh yeah yeah they gradually took everybody out that was it.
PB: Pardon
EB: They gradually took everybody out.
PB: Mmm.
AH: And you had children?
PB: Pardon.
AH: And you had children?
PB: We do have yes two daughters yes one’s sixty six now and the other one is sixty. [Laughs]. Mmm
EB: Yes.
PB: Well we shared a house didn’t we while you were in the police force.
EB: Well it was a police house wasn’t it.
PB: No at first we lived with Joyce we shared a house didn’t we we shared a house we had half of it we had the back half of the house we shared a council house they did in those days you see because I was having my our first daughter and Joyce she’d got one little boy she was having her second child so of course she went in the home and the day she came out I went in in January and then of course I didn’t have the baby until March did I, mmm but then we ‘cos you used to come yes you used to come and see me.
EB: Yes
PB: ‘Cos you see it was past the home want it where you lived Nunsthorpe and from there we got the police house in Winchcombe Avenue didn’t we?
EB: Yes.
PB: It was a new one it was a lovely house wasn’t it?
EB: Oh yeah yeah.
PB: But you used to go to work on your bike from there didn’t you?
EB: Yeah yeah [unclear] that’s one end of the thing used to have to go there ready for playing ready for when they were doing it all you started something there and you had to work your way right across there [laughs] and then when it was home that’s when you got out again they had these little places iron boxes and er you used to take your packed lunch with you and er do that.
PB: What those the police boxes you used to go to?
EB: Yes yes mmm.
AH: And was this where was this?
PB: This in this was was in Grimsby wasn’t it?
EB: Yep as it was then whether it’s
PB: It was Grimsby yeah
EB: I don’t know.
PB: Well was it Bradley Cross Roads?
EB: Yeah no it was whether it’s there still it might have something going for it I don’t know.
AH: What was it like being a policeman in Grimsby?
EB: It was funny because with it being a fishing town it was all fishermen there was an awful lot at night to get them on the docks get home or not be all drunk up and er and it was no good at all but er it carried on for quite a while and er we er one or two of us for some reason managed to get ourselves one step up and er from there on of course I went through finished up being a chief inspector I was quite but the boss there in where was Grimsby he was he used to go out he had this car this posh car and he’d go out everynight looking for police looking for policemen [laughs] er he was very unpopular his wife was working in a pub and he finished up later and er I never knew what happened to him but he didn’t do any work that was a fact.
AH: And how did you feel about the way Bomber Command were treated after the war?
EB: Well it er I mean it was terrible in some places I mean we’d got nearly nine hundred policemen to be shot down ‘cos they were and it was terrible but er again you had to look after yourself and er you had a job to do you had to go and you had to get back and the funny thing was though you didn’t see any aeroplanes they were about but you didn’t see them and er that was how it was mmm do you want to be a policewoman then?
PB: A bit different now to what it was when you was on the force in’t it now don’t think you would have coped with it as it is now well you would.
EB: I was an inspector want I.
PB: Well an inspector that’s right yes well you used to do the courts didn’t you.
EB: I was
PB: You still still
EB: Still
PB: You were at Grimsby though
EB: Oh yes I used to go to court every two weeks seven days a week and then.
PB: You used to do the courts at Brigg.
EB: Yes that was every Friday.
PB: On a Friday Friday was it ah.
EB: That was like for country people er and then I finished there of course then it all collapsed didn’t it stopped doing it.
PB: Yes that’s right.
AH: What was it like being in Boston during the war?
PB: Ooh well it was queer really I can’t imagine now what it was like I mean everybody knew everybody else didn’t they?
EB: Oh yes.
PB: I mean you could always go out and meet somebody you knew I mean even your next door neighbour they were all sort of friends together wand it you never got stuck going out on your own because they was always somebody to go with want there?
EB: Yes.
PB: It was a busy little place nice though want it?
EB: Oh yes.
PB: It was a nice place though really.
EB: Not now.
PB: To what it is now it’s all these Polish people can we say that?
EB: Well it’s the truth in’t it.
PB: Well I mean my sister she died a year ago but I mean she used to say she lived just outside Boston and I am pleased she did ‘cos she said going into town it was just horrendous mmm.
AH: Was it bombed badly?
PB: No not really was it?
EB: No.
PB: There want much bombing was there I don’t think.
EB: No.
PB: Want.
EB: No no you didn’t get any.
PB: We didn’t get much at all I mean used to know when they went out on a raid because they used to go over our house and then I used to ring the next day to see if he’d got back [laughs] but we want on the phone at home we used to have to go round onto the main road and find a phone box [laughs].
AH: What was it like hearing them go over was it frightening or was it?
PB: Oh yes ‘cos we used to think well they’ve gone are they going to come back that’s it I can always remember we used to go out of the house and stand in the back yard and see all these planes go over and they seemed to be so low you know they didn’t seem to be high up you know you could sort of see them so plain it was queer really want it.
EB: They used to land a lot of stuff in didn’t they they used to land a lot of.
PB: Oh yes.
EB: They used to land a lot the
PB: Oh yes.
EB: The smaller things not the big fish the little fish didn’t they.
PB: Are you talking about the fisherman.
EB: Yes altogether though weren’t there.
PB: Oh yes Boston yes the fisherman used to be there the same then oh yes you used to go on a Friday and get a big bag of prawns for sixpence [laughs].
AH: What was it like when it when the war started and suddenly all these planes came and?
PB: Well you see when I when the war started I was at school and we used to well when where we lived was in Frampton Place and I used to go to school at Sandland School and it was er we used to have a gas mask you see a little boxes with a gas mask on and we used to walk to the school with the box on and we often used to have air raid practices about every other raid used to go out and one thing and another and er it was funny really want it?
EB: Oh yeah.
PB: I mean you always used to be together you know you’d never sort of be on your own I mean there was a big family of us though there was six seven of us six girls and one boy and then there’s mum and dad you see and er all the neighbours knew everybody else didn’t they?
EB: Oh yeah yeah.
PB: But er yeah yeah there were a lot of nice people in Boston in our time want there?
EB: Mmm, different now in’t it.
PB: Different now yes it is.
AH: I’m just going to put it on pause while I look at the paper.
PB: Pardon, the air force ‘cos you brought me that bag and those oranges straight off the trees.
EB: No Italy.
PB: Italy that yes.
EB: Nice there.
PB: ‘Cos you did some trips would you fetch them home?
EB: Yes the idea was that everybody would get the lads home but it didn’t work it didn’t work like that but er a lot of them we couldn’t find anybody there it was all afternoons in Italy we didn’t go far er but er we didn’t get home we did about four of those trips they were handy for us ‘cos you could buy bits and bobs.
PB: Well it was a rest it was a change want it for you to do that.
EB: Oh yeah yeah.
AH: When was that do you know?
EB: Oh soon after the war finished the idea was to get them back and
PB: Was it soon after the war?
EB: Mmm.
PB: Just at the beginning?
EB: Yeah no there didn’t have that many we were talking about the war of course.
PB: Yes,
EB: I mean and that was war and we weren’t we were getting to there to get and bring it home so we so they must have been poor [unclear].
PB: [Unclear]
EB: They were not very keen of doing anything they were idle ‘cos I don’t remember seeing us [unclear] from there but we did bring them home and that was it nice.
PB: ‘Cos you brought me that basket back didn’t you?
EB: Yeah.
PB: And that leather handbag and you always used to bring some nice oranges want there and that was a treat then to get nice oranges from Italy want it?
EB: Yeah.
AH: So did you fly did you stay out there?
EB: No no only well you you [unclear] lots of people for people going back home so we had to wait for them to go and then it was out turn sort of thing so we didn’t go in a hurry but it was nice you could look at all the stuff that was there it was very nice er there was no war by the look of it we never I don’t think we had a war and I did that.
PB: Do you want a drink or anything?
AH: Could I have a small water please, thank you. Did you speak to the Italians when you were out there?
PB: Did you speak what?
AH: Did he speak to the Italians?
PB: Did you speak to the Italians I don’t think you did did you?
EB: I don’t think so now but er we were so wrapped up in taking [unclear background noise] ‘cos I mean it was nice but it was a shame to do any damage really.
PB: I’ll have to make myself a drink. [Pause while making a drink]. Do you want me to make you a drink?
EB: Aye [kettle boiling in background] I think the eldest was about well in the forties er the third one he was quite well liked [unclear] beyond us all yet he married a girl in [unclear] and went to Australia and the other one there was one there he had a wonder job again it was in the heat and the only one was he was used to doing things like flying to Australia he did and er and then there was the pilot of course he killed himself eventually in his car, he er [unclear] he went home back to help his father in the business which he did and er two or three years later phone rang [unclear] and a girl not a girl anyway we stopped and he said ‘oh I’ve got something to tell you’ I said ‘what’s that?’ he said ‘[unclear] oh I said ‘that’s all right then’ you know he didn’t like it but he would do it and er after two years later one of the colleagues I was working with er came to me and he I was on my way home and he knew me and he said ‘do you know a man who went to Australia with you’ I said ‘oh yes I write to him but I haven’t seen him lately’ he said ‘oh you won’t he’s dead’ that was the father that was the son of the father and er he’s gone too fast and that was the end of the car.
AH: And then you went to Givenea[?] ?
EB: Mmm Givenea [?]yes
AH: I don’t know how to pronounce it? Do you remember that?
EB: I remember part of it yes but er I don’t remember going there, when that fourth down
AH: Yes
EB: Two or three times open the door and that was [unclear] another one mmm tells you the hours spent there we weren’t very long there oh we got recalled look.
AH: Oh yes.
EB: We had to go back one here for nine hours that was mine laying.
AH: Was there a big difference between being a pathfinder and mine laying?
EB: Er yes because we did everything for their benefit you know wasn’t case of going together it was our job to go out do this do that and bring it back again so they so that was the that was the er that what it was all about before we started that you used to have odd cars [unclear] and what we are going to do and then they brought out this and er they also brought out what was the [unclear] it was hell of a way different.
AH: You flew to Kattegat?
EB: Yes
AH: German cruises?
EB: Yes Urst Dam, Leipburgen [?], Dusseldorf that was a reasonable place.
AH: That was a big raid?
EB: Mmm it mean’t going a long way ten hours look you see that’s what it took us.
AH: Oh Trantaine[?] submarine pens.
EB: Mmm.
AH: Do you remember that?
EB: No I don’t any of those nine hours Germany, German Navy there having a good game there.
AH: Oh you got hit by a shell?
EB: Yeah yeah now this could be the I remember we were hit with something er it was a shell want it.
AH: And your wing caught fire?
EB: Mmm.
PB: Yes that’s right.
EB: Yes that was when we were coming out of target and er the fire was on the it was on then er [unclear] that way I suppose.
AH: At Germany Giessen.
PB: Germany.
EB: Course some of these days it was all Germany [laughs].
AH: Was that frightening when you got hit?
EB: Yeah I was with one night one had hit me and er why we went out we’ll never know [laughs] it shouldn’t have gone out it was luck.
AH: But the fire went out?
EB: Yep.
AH: And you went home to your normal base?
EB: Yeah yeah well the odd times you would go to some er to south of London actually only if there was a fire or anything we generally we got home as and when we wanted to but we did have we did have means of doing it if you couldn’t get the other way and we used to have these places just one lot of aerodromes and things and you used to go down onto these we managed to get down there.
AH: Did you that?
EB: Odd times just odd times and I remember one night we er we were far from landing er we stuck out in Scotland out in fog so we came out in this hotel posh hotel and er these seven people fed us all and that was very nice of them and then fog went dash home start again next week used to set about twelve or fourteen aeroplanes at a time in one lot mmm.
AH: Is there anything else you can think of?
EB: I was just thinking I can’t let’s right we did I remember we had one er there was six men going to Italy er and when I say six one there was another one but he was [laughs] funny crew and while he ever got on it I’ll never know and he got out to Italy and he got shot down coming home and they were all they were all er [unclear] did business apart from this fool who we had he had hair down here somewhere.
AH: How come he got shot down wasn’t the war over?
EB: Well they used to follow you but er they the Germans used to hide away and of course they’d been in and out to get the right place and er that was it and there was hell of a lot shot down normally but er it wasn’t too bad in Italy they didn’t try too much there but er Germans were just terrible. That’s the medal but they wanted a special thing so I could put all the er things there Canwick Hill at Lincoln.
AH: At the memorial?
EB: Yeah there’s another one now.
PB: That’s the same one in’t it.
EB: Similar no it’s not I er I haven’t got that one but er they built them there was no end [unclear] South of Lincoln wasn’t it?
PB: Yeah but then but wasn’t it London as well Sandra took those photographs for you, London?
EB: Yes.
PB: What was that there?
EB: You catch the odd one.
PB: Well they’ve built that now haven’t they?
AH: I think so I haven’t seen it.
EB: Want the money expensive.
AH: How do you feel about the Memorial?
EB: That’d be the one wouldn’t it.
PB: This is the one that they are building now Eric they want some more money for it.
EB: Yes.
AH: Are you pleased they built it?
EB: To me it seems an awful lot you know [telephone ringing] seems a lot of money.
Dublin Core
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ABrownE160314
Title
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Interview with Eric Brown
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
Format
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01:09:40 audio recording
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Date
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2016-03-14
Description
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Eric left school at 14 and worked in a bakery and then in accountancy. Aged 17 he volunteered for aircrew and trained as a flight engineer. He became a pathfinder and carried out operations to Hamburg, Karlsruhe, and Dortmund, flying from RAF Coningsby. We was with 106, 97 and 57 Squadrons. After the war he joined the police force, rising to the rank of inspector.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Dortmund
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Terry Holmes
106 Squadron
57 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Lancaster
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/469/8352/ABaronC160321.1.mp3
385c27519d9e75f7bcf44a0808ce8da5
Dublin Core
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Baron, Charles
C Baron
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Baron, C
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Charles Baron.
Date
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2016-03-21
Rights
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Anna Hoyles, the interviewee is Charles Baron. The interview is taking place at Mr. Baron’s home in Louth Lincolnshire on 23rd March 2016.
CB: Here we are I volunteered for aircrew 1940, you can have a copy of this [laughs], I think the calling up system was somewhat chaotic at that time because it took the authorities another eight months to send me my calling up papers, the instructions were that I report RAF Uxbridge where I was issued with a uniform for an AC2/UT/AIROBS i.e. that means an Aircraft Hand Second Class under training for Air Observer close brackets, I volunteered for pilot but my eyesight test discovered that I was partly colour blind and that made it no good so err, when ‘cos I oh yes yes well then I’ll read this and then you’ll see what’s what’s useful and what isn’t, umm err, I volunteered for pilot but my eyesight was partly colour blind I remember that I had whilst I was at Uxbridge I was posted to Uxbridge and that’s where I got this funny title, which consisted of roast beef stroke yorkshire pudding followed by plum duff I remember being impressed and pleased that I had volunteered for aircrew as a meal that size and nature had not been at our table for years. I was then given a train ticket to Blackpool and billeted with several others in a seaside boarding house there were about ten of us recruits billeted there and most of them were friendly except well yes that’s nothing, I spent six weeks marching up and down the promenade after six weeks parading at Blackpool we were posted to a receiving wing based at Stratford on Avon I was here for two or three weeks and wasted my time as it was merely a holding post pending a vacancy for proper training at an Initial Training Wing ITW, this was well worth the wait as early in 1941 I was posted to Number Two ITW Initial Training Wing and billeted in Emmanuel College Cambridge I shared students quarters with two other navigation trainees, tell you I had it soft, the courses were for me actual luxury as I realised quite soon that I had what I had missed by not going to university for further education [laughs]. There was some forty of us billeted in different colleges we livened the local populace by marching everywhere at one hundred and forty paces per minute I remember our first drill lesson [laughs] ? standing for attention and being lectured by an instructor who was an obvious Londoner, I remember very ‘stinctly his first instruction relating to smart appearance which was, [how do I read this] ‘now tomorra I want all your buttorns cleaned’ [imitating a London accent] that was exactly what he said [laughs]. At Cambridge we were initiated in the mysteries of air navigation, air recognition, meteorology, morse and similar too many to remember in detail, the course lasted eight weeks I passed the course and was promoted to LAC Leading Aircraft Hand with my daily pay increased from two and six a day to five and six a day [emphasis]. We were then posted to Sealand near Chester for onward transmission by sea to Florida where where we due to spend six months being thoroughly trained in air navigation by Pan Am pretty good hey, on arrival at our embarkation port Avonmouth four of us found that our papers had not been received and the ship left without us [laughs], we were returned to Cambridge and you can imagine our feelings, this time we were billeted at Downing College where we cooled our heels for some weeks before I was called before the CO and asked if I would be prepared to volunteer for a highly secretive and dangerous training [whispers], as I would have been prepared to go anywhere to serve and play some useful part in the war I said ‘yes please sir’, after a day or so I was sent to Air Ministry where I was given some very odd looking diagrams to study and provide answers to various questions passed out and satisfactorily shortly after my return to Downing College I was posted to Prestwick. At Prestwick I was introduced to air born radar instead of six months full training by Pan Am I received six hours air training in a Blenheim 3 which was a twin engined bomber which had been furnished with a radar set for me to study during which time my training consisted of using the radar to instruct my pilot to follow and close with a target aircraft at night until he could actually see the target I was using a radar set to do this you see and I had to understand how to operate it the object would have then been to be able to shoot down the target I was passed [coughs] above average and then promoted to Sergeant Navigator Radar with a daily pay increase from five and six to, you’ll never guess, thirteen shillings a day [whispers] this equated to four pound eleven a week and was more than I had ever earned as a civilian [laughs], had I been passed average I would have been posted to an operational training unit for further training before being posted to an operational squadron I was bypassed because I passed above average, I think I told you, I was sent to Canadian Operational Squadron at Accrington Northampton er Northumberland where I spent several interesting months, our operation area was the North East included such targets as Newcastle and Durham so I expected a good deal of activity however compared to Southern England it was [?] and disappointing, I teamed with a Canadian pilot Sergeant Hughie Gorr we became very close friends and after the war we exchanged home visits, he and I stayed together as a crew for about three years. He proved his worth as a talented pilot on many occasions but one in particular sticks in my memory that happened quite soon after I was posted to Accrington the squadron oh yes this was Number 406 Canadian Squadron also maintained, you can have a copy of this photocopy of this no problem at all, also maintained a detachment at Scorton near Catterick in Yorkshire where all crews spent about one week in four, on one occasion we were on patrol at night there when one of our two engines failed and Hughie said ‘I think I can make it on one engine if you give me a course for base’ I duly did so but very shortly afterward the other engine failed [laughs] and Hughie said ‘bail out’ I opened the rear hatch and was halfway out of the aircraft with my parachute on and Hughie said ‘ooh I can see base and I am going to make a glide landing’ bearing in mind that this was dead of night his confidence was a tribute to his piloting skill when we less than a thousand feet and too late to bail out he said ‘oh lord it’s a dummy’ in other words a dummy was a false runway close to the proper runway and built to mislead enemy activity, I reluctantly climbed back in the aircraft er closed the rear hatch and settled down to await my fate it was then considered to control the engineless aircraft but kept the wheels up and made a crash landing in a field roughly fifty yards from a small wood I then climbed out [whispers] with a bruised knee, and that was that was quite an experience, er as enemy air activity was very low the squadron was posted for a year to Scotland not far from Prestwick where I had received my radar baptism this posting was also not terribly exciting and when volunteers were called to venture overseas to join the Middle East battle Hughie and I were happy to do so we were then posted to Wilmslow in Cheshire to be fully kitted out for overseas duties and then to Avonmouth where we boarded a steamer bound for Freetown in Sierra Leone our ship was part of a convoy on arrival at Freetown after surviving a few submarine scares we then boarded another steamer bound for Takoradi in the Gold Coast what was called the Gold Coast er that’s now Ghana of course, which went without convoy protection but fortunately we had no attacks from enemy submarines, we learnt while on board to Takoradi that all the passengers were aircrew and that the RAF had built an airport there for the purpose of ferrying fighter aircraft to the war zone in the Middle East, the aircraft had been shipped separately, this is very interesting, in knock down form for assembly in Takoradi the reason for this was that the Germans controlled the Mediterranean and it was considered to wasteful to fly direct aircrew had to wait a few days while the aircraft arrived and were assembled and then flown in convoy to the war zone across Africa, the route from Takoradi to the base in Egypt called Abu Suweir was a long one and we had to stop several times for refuelling and this meant overnight stops at Maiduguri Nigeria, El Fasher in Darfur, Wadi Halfa on the Southern Nile and finally up the Nile to Abu Suweir that’s how we got to Egypt. Unfortunately when we landed at Takoradi I was bitten [laughs] I was bitten by an annapolis mosquito and spent the next three weeks in a military hospital recovering from malaria this meant that Hughie and I missed our convoy and so our Beaufighter was three weeks late we were further delayed because our plane suffered a magneto drop and we had to leave our convoy for an emergency landing in another strip at El Geneina this meant we had to wait another week or so while a replacement engine was flown out to us finally we flew on our own the rest of the way by the time we arrived in Egypt, Montgomery had won the battle of El Alamein, it’s the story of my life [turning pages over] experience. We stayed in Egypt with 89 Squadron for about six months 89 was commanded by a well known commander called Wing Commander Stainforth he was a magnificent pilot and 89th Squadron he was given what was about three times the size of a normal RAF Squadron having a detachment as far away as Malta, Abu Seweir was comparatively quiet and our duties were largely uneventful patrols though I do remember coming out of cloud over Alexandria being mistaken by a JU88 by our own Mediterranean fleet and hastily removing ourselves from a concentrated anti-aircraft barrage. Now around the time this time Hughie was seconded temporarily for ferry duties and I was a spare navigator a squadron leader pilot who had completed his tour of Whitley bombers was posted to 89 Squadron to learn to fly Beaufighters the aircraft Beaufighter and I acted as navigator while Hughie was away Squadron Leader Clements had great difficulty in mastering the Beaufighter which tended to swing to starboard on take off and landing one day we took off as usual but squadron leader temporarily lost control and we were at right angles from the runway before we had got to the end we then wondered around the sky while I showed him our various points of interest Port Said, Alexandria and so on and eventually we approached our own airfield and he began his descent on landing he failed to control the swing tendency but this time on the landing the aircraft was once again at right angles to the runway [laughs] and heading straight for to a Hurricane which was occupied the Hurricane was, its’s engine, where are we, was running because the chocks had not been removed because the people who pulled the chocks away the aircraft er yeah the airmen who pulled them away couldn’t quite rightly saw that if they stayed where they are they would get killed by us you see, so anyway, I still remember I had not yet been [?] so he so that he was stationery I still remember the look of absolute panic on the face of the hurricane pilot as we removed his starboard wing [laughs] can you imagine that as we went by [laughs] the nearest the furthest away he could get so yes so fortunately he didn’t get hurt at all the squadron leader added to our problems by turning around in ever decreasing circles and the undercarriage finally collapsed on the ground we stopped I had a slightly bruised knee for the second time I also remember Squadron Leader Clements saying ‘I’m terribly sorry flight sergeant’ I was a flight sergeant by then my own reply had better not be printed. Fortunately Hughie returned the following day there was very little action around this time and when early in 1943 we were asked to volunteer for a three month detachment in India where the Japanese were reputed to be bombing Calcutta heavily and frightening the local population many of whom ran panic stricken into the jungle we gladly responded positively the volunteer flight of eight Beaufighters was commanded by Flight Lieutenant George Nottage a first class chap he and I became great friends after the war, after an interesting albeit uneventful side trip Dum Dum Airport Calcutta with various stops in the Gulf and in Bombay we arrived and moved to RAF airfield at Bicarchi [?] we then found that the enormous Japanese bombing turned out to be three Mitsubishi bombers flying at night with their lights on, I’m not joking, and carrying antipersonnel bombs, the night after we arrived the first of our eight crews on night readiness was piloted by a chap called Flight Sergeant Pring sure enough three Japanese bombers in formation with their lights on approached Calcutta and Pring duly shot them all down in four minutes his radar navigator W Warrant Officer Phillips didn’t have a much to do, two nights later three more Japanese bombers approached Calcutta this time shot down by an Australian flight lieutenant, the name escapes me, and his radar navigator Warrant Officer Moss unfortunately Moss could not have been looking at his radar set at the time because he overlooked the Jap fighter that was shadowing his three bomber friends and he shot the Beaufighter down happily happily, there is no tragedy in this so unhurt when they crash landed they were picked up by Burmese Irregulars [?] called Force 136 who looked after them and they were taken to the nearest allied post and in due course returned to us, thereafter Japanese night bombing ceased because they didn’t know about radar you see radar was so important to us enough in the war it was one of the keys that got us the win, I forgot to mention on arrival at Dum Dum we were told that as were now under RAF India Command our service was to last three years and not three months [laughs] you can imagine our reply [laughs] but I wouldn’t tell you. Consequently we spent most of our time in Burma what is now Bangladesh we were based in Chittagong resorted to intruder flights over Burma where our targets were mainly trains and convoys of lorries these were fairly long flights and I remember in particular Rangoon and Mandalay we also dropped the occasional senior officers to Infall [?] where the 14th Army were besieged the airport there used to be attacked during the day but we managed without incident, er one hot summer day what’s all this about, oh yes this is interesting, one hot summer day in 1943 I was laying on my Charpoy [?], do you know what Charpoy it’s a straw bed, er where am I oh yes, er perspiring freely, wh en an officer came to my billet and told me to quote his own words ‘George wants you’ and I asked ‘why?’ and the officer didn’t know ‘I don’t know go and ask him’ I duly presented myself at the officers mess and in due to course to George Flight Lieutenant Knowledge Flight Lieutenant Nottage came to the door and said ‘oh hello Charlie move your move your stuff in here you’re an officer now’ that’s how I got promoted this was the sum total of my officer training it’s silly isn’t it [laughs] but it’s true [laughs]. As an officer in addition to my navigation duties I was given various jobs i.e. savings officer, officers mess, bar officer and entertainments officer, every Friday I sat at the end of the airmen’s weekly pay parade and collected such amounts as such as each airman gave paid from his weekly wage to be handed a savings certificate in return for his donation which I then banked. My bar officer duties consisted of replenishing stocks from weekly visits to Calcutta and setting prices for all the different types of alcohol initially I made myself very unpopular by raising the prices but this changed completely when I opened the bar for free for the five days around Christmas, I am considered to be responsible for the squadron leader admin acquiring DT’s. My most memorable experience as an entertainments officer was when I learnt that Vera Lynn was visiting the area this was just after the end of the war in Europe actually and Egypt and so on, I made an emergency flight to Calcutta and at short notice given an appointment and I successfully persuaded her to come to Bicarchi and giver a concert there which was of course highly successful despite the fact the only date we could offer was the Sunday at which she said ‘well it’s me day off really but I’ll do it for the boys’ what a wonderful person she is. Shortly after my pilot and various other officers having completed their flying duties were flown home, my flying duties were also completed but instead of being flown home I was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and posted to Basci [?] Air Quarters in Delhi there I was initially responsible for organising the various training headquarters throughout India for Indian Air Force Ground Crew, excuse me, nearly finished. After a few months I was transferred to the organisational department with the grand title of ORG1A here I was once again promoted to squadron leader and was involved with planning the invasion of Singapore unfortunately somebody dropped an atom bomb and ruined all my work subsequently I handled various aspects of construction on airfields under our control and exceptionally after the war ended this included the Indian Officer Building of British Overseas Aircraft. At long last I was posted home with my wife, not this one [laughs], Winnie was a WAF corporal whom I had met in Accrington years ago we’d been in correspondence since then and she followed me to India via Ceylon at the first opportunity but the disparity in our ranking met with some disapproval but we still married in Delhi and gave a popular ceremonial drinking party on arrival in England in 46 after due leave with my new family [?] er oh yes well after that I mean you don’t want to know you won’t
AH: I wouldn’t mind knowing what you did after the war?
CB: Oh right, my work at Air Ministry was a member of the British bombing survey I was posted to Air Ministry to assist in the analysis of the different bombing targets as instructed by Air Marshall Bomber Harris you’ve heard of him, his policy of bombing towns to break the morale of the German people was considered [coughs] correctly in my view as wrong both strategically and morally because the carriage that resulted the carnage that resulted failed completely to break the German civilian aircraft German civilian morale and cost our Bomber Command fifty per cent casualties the highest casualty rate of any arm of any service in allied command that’s true Bomber Command, well I had an elder brother he didn’t last there you go. On my release later in 1946 the RAF paid for a short course in business admin and a posting for two years, do you still want to hear that, at six pounds per week [laughs] er in a repetition woodworking company specialising in turnery where I was supposed to continue my business training in fact I was in effect an underpaid office manager my boss was so pleased with me that he doubled my pay to twelve pounds per week ‘cos he only paid six of it and the government paid the other however when the two years were completed and the government subsidy of six pounds per week ceased his attitude changed during this time I qualified as a Chartered Secretary my workload kept on increasing and after blazing row I left, still go on. It took me a few months to find a decent job during this time I kept the family in funds by selling insurance door to door you know life insurance door to door for the United Friendly Insurance Company, the branch I worked for used to give a ballpoint every week to the salesman who sold the most insurance during the week after five weeks I had acquired five ballpoint pens and the inducement for all salesmen ceased, during this time I kept on answering advertisements for office managers as a result of which I recognised I acquired a recognised office managers job in Thetford ooh six hundred and fifty a year getting all right, Winnie and Rosalind remained in the rented flat in London for a few months as it took me some time to find suitable rented accommodation in Thetford, er well nothing there really nothing. We stayed in Thetford until 1969 1949 sorry the company I served manufacturing company raw material moulded pulp the raw material was discarded cardboard boxes which by immersion into water produced articles such as baby baths, trays and flower bowls we were in fact the largest producer of babies baths in England, it had another division in a branch factory in Newmarket using vulcanised fibre to make two thirds of Britain’s coal miners helmets at that time the miners workforce in the UK numbered seven hundred thousand, one of the papier mache formed the basis for motorcycle crash helmets which we sold to a firm called Helmets Limited for the vast sum of two shillings and ten pence, when the Duke of Edinburgh initiated the idea that all cyclists should wear crash helmets I persuaded my company to market a new product as we had the equipment and the technique to make completed cyclists and motorcyclists helmets, I was given carte blanche by my boss to devise a new production line and advertise and market the product which I named the Centurion this product rapidly became the most successful of all work and profit doubled during that time I qualified by correspondents course as an AC as a cost and works accountant now enjoys a more prestigious title a cost and management accountant ACMA the company was owned by an absentee board of directors I was congratulated by the chairman who said that as a result of what I had done about the crash helmet I would be given a bonus of one hundred pounds this resulted in my leaving the company and taking a job in Calcutta as chief cost accountant for the largest group of paper mills in India at three times my previous salary, oh you don’t know anymore it goes on you know, well basically after that oh yes of course I was in India, gr oooh, oh yes that could be interesting actually. I left my family with Winnie daughter Rosalind aged eight then she’s now sixty nine now she’s seventy no rising seventy still going strong.
Other: No, no you mean Winnie you mean no no no you don’t mean Ros.
CB: I mean Rosalind her daughter is nearly seventy yes that’s right, er how could she be nearly seventy then? Oh yes of course she can but I’m ninety five. In Aiden I bought a blue Rolex Oyster Royal for fourteen pounds which I still have, [laughs] must be worth a hundred or two, we landed in Bombay proceeded by rail to Calcutta here we were met taken by road to Chandannagar [?] which is on the Hooghly River about thirty miles away where we billeted in a very large flat in a compound with other paper mill executives, errr well nothing very well yes [laughs] well I’ll show you how it changed my life I was soon advised that as cost accountant I was responsible for all the accounts and I controlled the stores at that time two large paper mills the largest being in Chittiga and the other where I was based in Chandannagar [?] I was provided with a chauffeur driven limousine which enabled me to visit both mills every day Monday to Friday at each of which there was a storekeeper controlling very valuable stores for equipping the papermill machines at each mill a large area was allocated for storing of thousand tonnes of bamboo sticks for bamboo we made the paper out of the bamboo, ah and having been cut down by contractors from miles around the bamboo was weighed on arrival before being unloaded and the moisture content which varied from freshly cut forty percent moisture down to seasoned around ten percent was weighed at the main at the mill weighbridge and the contractors were paid only for the seasoned weight this was obviously capable of corruption between the contractor and the weighbridge keeper I very soon found that corruption was endemic in the end this was an example I appointed a [?] the weighbridge keepers who were Indian but understood and spoke English as at the time I spoke no Urdu one of the weighbridge keepers said to me ‘don’t worry Barron saab while I am in your backside no harm shall come to you’ it was impossible to sack anybody at the as the union was very strong so I merely had him sidestepped the other stores housed in large buildings which were locked up out of working hours by the storekeeper this was also subject to corruption and as the chief engineer British was also corrupt I found in due course that control was virtually impossible, the Head Office was in Calcutta and my own boss whose title was simply the boss my own boss he was number one and I was number four answered my query on the subject of corruption by saying tongue in cheek ‘you can take anything which you can eat or drink but nothing which crackles or rings’ there you go, social life was good especially for me, after a few months Winnie took Rosalind home to England we’d already booked Rosalind for a place in boarding school I’d taken the oh yes I’d taken the opportunity to play my violin and in fact I joined the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra as deputy lead violinist the orchestra was composed largely of amateurs like myself and it was conducted by a Welsh Englishman David Jacobs whose family owned several jute mills as Calcutta was on the world circuit of prestigious soloists and I was the only fairly knowledgeable musician we occasionally entertained famous names such as [?] and I was placed next to him keep him entertained at dinner in the luxurious head office dining room [?] and I took to each other and we had a most stimulating discussion about the life of a professional musical soloist he invited me to call on him at the Savage Club in London whenever I managed to get back to England unfortunately he died before my first home leave, I did call on David Jacob’s family in London to go and see, err [flicks through pages], oh yes [laughs] the work conditions were not without interest and occasional excitement as for example when my office was invaded by some hundreds of bamboo coolies demanding a rise in wages this was understandable because they were quote “outcasts” unquote and were at the lowest possible rate of pay thirty rupees per month about ten shillings per week of fifty pence as we now call it my hands were tied but I did manage to have their pay increased as a result of my representation on their behalf at head office this put them on equal pay with the next cast rank above whose member well the members were not at all pleased. I was rather more for more fortunate than the chief engineer of a large engineering company in Calcutta when his workforce through him in the boiler [laughs], as the executive responsible for labour relations throughout both paper mills I was chairman of the grading committee, er oh yes mmm, you don’t want to know about all that, oh yes well during this time yes I got a Dear John letter from Winnifred telling me she was leaving me and wanted to marry my best friend I was naturally devastated there had been no hint of this before I left England, my six months furlough was not due for about another year but my company were good enough to bring my furlough forward for a few months during this time I managed to divorce Winnifred and put Rosalind into a good private school and then er when I came back I had time to spare and I it was six months you see and after a couple of months I got a temporary job in National Farmers by the National Farmers Union as a representative of Joe Nickerson and Company have you heard of them well it’s very big locally er it’s a seed growing company which offered to pay me adequately for introducing a new lawn seed called “Agrosstistolernepherous” [?] to retail seed sundries man and they gave me free rein to go where I wished and call on retail seed sundries man and after, I’m cutting this short, after a few weeks I decided to report and after initial annoyance that I had not sent them weekly reports Nickerson were delighted with the number of seed sundries men I had appointed added to their customers, the annual summer dinner dance I was invited to attend as their guest the organiser was the managing director’s PA and who introduced herself to me during the course of the evening her name was Janet Franklin and we were married about one month afterwards, unfortunately I received an urgent call from my Indian employers to return to India immediately a flight [coughs] a flight had been booked for me to return on Christmas Day which meant I had to leave Janet behind for about two months while she had while she put her local affairs in order and she joined me a eighteen months later ahhh [long sigh]. I soon realised that the salary I received in India could be equalled with the greatest of difficulty and required considerable initiative and therefore initially having qualified for management accountant I decided to use it in the field of management consultancy so the first company I joined was a firm of charlatans and I left them to try my luck as a self employed consultant at this I was reasonably successful but my plants were rarely close to our home in Sussex being largely in Scotland and Northern England and this necessitated almost continued absence so when Jan Janice, not this lady, was hospitalised following a miscarriage we decided on her release to look for a home much closer to her family living in Grimsby and near Louth where she had been educated so then sixty one sold the house er in Sussex where we lived um for seven thousand five hundred pounds er and then we bought The Elms no we bought The Elms for seven thousand five hundred I think we sold the Sussex one for about the same The Elms was a large six bedroom house here in Louth er and then I was introduced to a gentleman called Ken Addison who was a general manager of a polythene film extrusion company owned by Pickford Paper Mills Ken was very anxious to run his own company but had no capital neither did I however in my travels I had made friends with a well to do business man named Anthony Jowell who was prepared to invest three thousand pounds and we needed about ten thousand although I had no money of my own my financial reputation was such that I was offered three thousand by the bank which was then the National Provincial Bank and Addison had a friend in the scrap metal motoring business and I persuaded his friend to buy three thousand to buy one thousand shares and make a shareholder for three thousand pounds and he did so the odd two thousand shares I presented to Ken Addison and he was the MD and I was the financial director that’s when we made some money real money, er do you want to know how [laughs], got pages yet, is that enough?
AH: Yeah [laughs] thank you its very interesting
CB: Cos I made another I started another company double glazing after this we sold our company that was where made some real money the first time but do you know what taxation was then? Maximum taxation of anything over one hundred thousand earnings was eighty five percent and capital gains that was the cheapest way out that was forty percent so when we sold our company we had to give the government forty percent of it doesn’t happen now its about fifteen not fair is it.
Other: If you remember tax on unearned tax on unearned income as opposed to earned income was ninety eight percent.
CB: Yeah the maximum
Other: Can you believe it?
CB: Ninety eight percent for unearned income if you were a rich person that’s the sort of money that they ought to be charging the very rich now but they don’t do they? Well that’s about roughly it oh yes the other company was double glazing
Other: Yes
CB: Yes Primo Windows
Other: Primo Windows
CB: Of course you don’t come from this area and I sold that after ten years having got this three thousand pounds and I sold that for another three hundred thousand ten years later so there we are okay.
AH: And where were you from originally?
CB: Pardon
AH: And where were you from originally?
CB: Islington.
AH: Really.
CB: Yes, 17 Chapel Market second floor above a shop of a er shop anyway where I shared two rooms with my mother, father, two brothers and a sister that was where I started.
AH: And why did you want to join the RAF?
CB: Where did?
AH: Why did you join the RAF?
CB: Well I I thought what a marvellous thing what a wonderful thing to be able to do fly like that
Other: And there was a war on too.
CB: Yes and there was a war on it was either RAF [burps] or army or navy and not being a very good swimmer navy was out for me and the army I didn’t fancy being in those blasted trenches all the time and the RAF sounded much more interesting and they accepted me so there we are [takes a drink], so I can let you have a copy of the relevant stuff if you want it [sifts through papers] er
Other: I can print some off
CB: Yes can you print pages four, five,
Other: Yes I’ll just go get it turned on
CB: Six and seven and eight I think that will do. And er at that time er I was given a job with the British Bombing Survey Unit er what the start of it actually the chap in charge was an air marshall I mean he was this was to have to investigate an air chief marshall’s duties so I I was I was a senior assistant to the bod [?] I forgot who it was now it was a very very well quite a well known name.
Other: Well that was Harris wasn’t it?
CB: No no that was the chap we were investigating.
Other: Oh right yes okay. So which is two cups I think they were actually these are clean.
CB: No these are new ones.
Other: Yes they are, there you go.
AH: Thank you.
Other: Did you have sugar? Lots of musical terms on there [laughs]
CB: Yes, er I can’t the trouble is my memory is not good it really isn’t and I.
Other: Very good you’ve just got ninety five years of memories to to drag out that’s the thing it’s the hard drive that’s full.
CB: What?
Other: The hard drive is full.
CB: Yes [laughs] I reckon.
AH: So what did you do exactly when you were there?
CB: When, when? I was well I had an office and a secretary I think yeah I did and I er I visited a I forget where a lot of information about how many aircraft which type of aircraft had had a percentage more er knocked down by the Germans and so on all sorts of things like that a lot of statistics and the statistic showed um cos I said the best things to do is to look at all the places that we were told to bomb by Harris and what the results were and he kept on um er he kept on giving the giving air command giving er fighter command the instructions to go bomb towns more than military targets and that’s why I said we killed a lot of German civilians and as a result of that that was part of my report when I said that we we er um unnecessarily went for these and put as my real reason which wasn’t quite my real reason the fact that we lost so many aircraft of our own fruitlessly that was really the sum total of what I found and he was disgraced and sent sent er but I wasn’t the only one there we were we were there was about a good half dozen of us going different areas and so on and so forth it was an important thing British Bombing Survey Unit there I had it all written down there so if you want to know [laughs] that’s what I was mainly in charge of or partly in charge anyway all right.
AH: And what reaction did you get to your report?
CB: Report well the report was then read by the top brass in Air Ministry and in due course he got the sack [laughs] well he was er he was dismissed to some very minor post in South Africa and er had no real power or duties after that and it’s only recently that some some idiots have started to resurrect him er as what a wonderful good chap he was but he really wasn’t there you are history can be distorted sometimes.
AH: And was the general view of like your family what did they think of Harris at the time?
CB: He was well they knew nothing any apart from the fact that I had lost a brother who was a navigator on Lancaster’s er I was lucky I was stuck where well I started before he did er and er didn’t get involved in bombing I was night fighting and intruding [?] and you were fine in there
AH: Where was your brother stationed?
CB: Pardon.
AH: Where was your brother stationed?
CB: Oh stationed in England and er his grave which we have visited is at er
Other: Hanover
CB: Hanover in Germany.
Other: That was very emotional wasn’t it?
CB: It was yes yes, he was he was a brainy fellow too and er he was a much brighter bloke more intelligent fellow than his elder brother who was a bit of a well nothing important shall we say yes.
AH: What was your brother called?
CB: Well he was originally christened Emmanuel but then people called him Manny and he didn’t like that so he rechristened himself Ernest and he was then called Ernie [laughs] in the same way as well I might as well admit I was born and christened my parents christened me Cyril and I didn’t like Cyril particularly in the air force where they made fun of it so I said my name was Charles and I have been Charles ever since now well it began with C so that was enough [laughs].
Other: You couldn’t do that nowadays could you [laughs] in fact it is much easier to change your surname than your given name.
CB: Well there you go.
AH: And what was it like working with when you started training on radar did you know anything about it before?
CB: Nothing whatso, well nobody did it was a high ever so secretive and as I say it was a very very important arm of the of the armed forces because we got to it before the Germans did and in consequence our our bomber um our defence night fighter defence er and day fighter for that matter ‘cos you could see them from oh even miles away so then [?] you could trace them it starts off with a ground office you’ve seen those photographs of WAFS with the stick in their hand [laughs] you can see their underclothes and there all round the table pointing at things and these are the directions that they are pointing at because you got the table was the map and they pointed to all and were told as they were told they pointed towards them and it was all done by the people controlling the radar because the radar it was a way of controlling um it would start off with a name radio direction finding that was what it was you see and they are all around us you can’t feel them or anything but there they all are and it was fantastic I wish I could remember the chap who discovered how to use them because he got highly decorated for it I think we met himah what was his name no good if it comes to be I’ll let you know but you can find that out anyway.
AH: Was it difficult to learn?
CB: We didn’t have much time did you, er I um my sole instruction of reading I had to read two tubes were two air tubes and various funny pictures upon them er one the left hand one had a line there straight along and that was the line started with the ground and ended and ended much in line with the heavens and if you were at ten thousand feet for example a little blip occurred at ten thousand it was all measured so that you would know if he was above you or below you and also how much above or how much and the distance and then you had another one like that another line like that and and there it was to the right of the left of the line either they were east or west as you were flying and however near you were or near they were to you or however further away and the idea was for us to move to use the radar which we could direct which we could find where if there was an aircraft in front of us within our our distance and our distance at that time was above er the distance we were above the ground so the higher we went the longer the tine the longer the line and this little blip was you could have a half dozen blips er above or below and there was there was also you could tell friend from foe by because they had a little er piece of equipment that once the little thing you looked at looked for and once you got the line you tried to follow it and catch it catch up with it then your pilot who had who had in a Beaufighter ohhh um four canon and six machine guns you could then shoot it down and he wouldn’t even know what hit him you see and a lot of people did that when the time came I was quite good at it as it so happens er it was as a sergeant a flight sergeant although we were on duty a lot when the commanding officer or senior officer came and there was a raid on he took over and he then went up when there was an aircraft there to get shotdown before we got a chance at it we used to get very cross about that but we weren’t officers [laughs] but there we are there all sorts of things I could teach you it would take years.
AH: Did you have to stare at it all the time?
CB: No no if the er we had loudspeakers attached to our ears and if the command if we heard there was ‘action is required’ or whatever we then we then stared we then stared at but we used it for all sorts of other reasons we used it for I had a map in front of me and if I wanted to get to a particular place a particular place say we were fifty miles away I could er I could use the radar to check where the objective was roughly and then get closer to it and closer to it until the pilot could see it so it was quite interesting – ahh I can’t remember it all that well it was a long time ago.
AH: What were the Beaufighters like?
CB: Oh great stuff um I’ll show you one.
Other: Oh right where is it its not a very big one
CB: There’s your Beaufighter [shows a picture] the pilot was there and I was there okay and we communicated by radar by telephone that’s it very manoeuvrable it was oh yeah and he was thank heaven for me he was a first class pilot and he seemed to think I was a decent navigator so we got on well in fact we got to know each other and he visited us after the war and we visited him in Canada, yes but he’s dead now died of natural causes.
AH: How come you went to a Canadian Squadron?
CB: That was when at the time it was the nearest definite one that was available that’s all I cannot tell you why I was picked in the Canadian Squadron or not I was very pleased about it eventually it didn’t make any difference to me whether it was Canadian or English but the Canadians were a good lot they really were, yeah I imagine that they were ones that had been they had been fully equipped and were and had so they were granted an airfield and off we went.
AH: And when you were flying to Rangoon and Mandalay were they Beaufighters as well?
CB: Oh yeah yes they were Beaufighters as well very very serviceable aircraft then they were outgrown in speed er and er by the Mosquitoes you heard of the Mosquitoes and I but the last couple of months they finally because we were the forgotten air force really out in India um we had to put up with Mos with Beaufighters for two and a half years really and then for a few a couple of months that was all I was I converted to Mosquitoes and then they said ‘no you are an officer now we’ve got an office for you now in Delhi go there so we went there do as you are told’.
Other: It was in Delhi where everybody ran screaming into the when the Japanese came over everybody ran screaming into the woods in Delhi.
CB: No from Calcutta which is east east they came and they took over Burma
Other: Oh yes
CB: And eventually they couldn’t they didn’t take over what is it now part of India called Bangladesh no it’s separate now which was Bengal which was at this end of Burma and so they never took that over completely although the British Army had a had an army which was defended they defended itself for who what was the number of that [?] well it’s in there somewhere I think anyway and er they defended themselves but they didn’t couldn’t defend them from the Japanese taking over Burma and that was when we had to fight from in the air to get it back and at that time the east part er the north east that way we managed to hang on to that bit and I was stationed at Chittagong you’ve heard of Chittagong look at the map and you’ll get a rough idea I suppose it would interest everybody it would interest at that time all we wanted to do was get home of course but three years [laughs] – and as I always did what I was told I got promoted [laughs].
Other: Don’t believe a word of it [laughs]
AH: Could you describe a flight for example to Rangoon?
CB: Could I describe a flight most of the time it was boring it just went boom boom boom for a thousand miles or so from where we were was it no it wasn’t quite as far as that it was about six or seven hundred miles oh yeah easy um that’s right then we had to find where we told to shoot at which we did through radar [laughs] and fly back unhurt we were lucky.
AH: What did you do in your spare time?
CB: How dare you [laughs] I don’t know what I did in my spare time probably got drunk half the time we had quite a lot to drink but that was in our spare time we were not supposed to well we had those of us who survived anyway had the common sense not to get drunk so that we couldn’t operate decently after all we had a family at home.
AH: Were there other people that didn’t though?
CB: Well people did get killed yes, Pring the man who shot those first three he didn’t survive so it was one of those things, ah.
Other: Still there can’t be many more survivors around really.
CB: Oh there are.
Other: No there can’t be you’ve got to be
CB: No not now who are still alive
Other: You’ve got to be seventy five upwards haven’t you at least may be more
AH: Yeah more may be
CB: Oh yes you won’t have any youngsters, I was always twenty years younger than the century very easy to remember.
AH: And was your father in the First World War?
CB: He was but er he wasn’t English he was Rumanian and my mother was Lithuanian and I am a Jew as you’ve gathered.
AH: So when did they come to Britain?
CB: Oh they came they came to Britain from their relative countries before the First World War before the First World War to escape the er Pogroms, Russian Russian and Rumanian Pogroms and er they had relatives that I lost touch with I’m afraid a long time ago they had relatives in Manchester and er and er in London so er we ended up in London and er I cannot understand this but we ended up in London but the people who to be honest I can’t explain it but the people who they got in touch with who they were related both my mother’s relatives related to people in Manchester why my parents and co ended up in London and settled there I just cannot tell you but they did and of course there was quite a large Jewish population in the east end of London and er.
Other: Anyway London was nearer to Europe.
CB: London was nearer to Europe so it was easier to get to I suppose yes, there is so much of my early years I just cannot understand the domestic situation all I know is that we were not very well off you see there we are.
AH: Were you aware of the build up were you like Cable Street and?
CB: Cable Street
AH: Yes
CB: Cable Street that was Jewish yes that was Jewish but we didn’t live there that was the east end for some reason or other we settled in I no there was in Chapel Street London it was a Rumanian Jewish settlement and it was a market and they used to have stalls stalls stalls rather outside shops some of them quite a few of them had er either owned or rented the shop and were quite well to do but my parents did have a shop and had to rent a stall so there we are no we weren’t very well off shall we say [laughs] there you go it happens.
Other: So the remote chance of you being in North Lincolnshire at this point in time amazing isn’t it.
CB: Well as I say that that you’ll find in there as to where why we came to Lincolnshire why I came to Lincolnshire we didn’t come together my first wife had gone off with my best friend and my second wife I hadn’t met until I er was asked by these Nickersons who were very very wealthy farmers in where we are very wealthy now and er by Nickersons to er and I volunteered I put an advert in the Times ‘cos I’d done the divorcing bit and I had four months to spare before I went back from my six months furlough back to my accounting firm in India you see and er it was then I put this advert in the Times saying I had this four months did anybody want to employ me and they did having interviewed me here some in Grimsby yes and given me this job er particularly it was rather nice for them no no no this was a long time after after [?] I’m getting myself confused I’m sorry but er
Other: You know there used to be in the time when lots of people worked in India and other places and they would normally do two and a half years overseas and then come back for six months.
CB: This is what I did.
Other: This is what he did and I’ll tell you they were a bit of a menace sometimes because they were coming back with nothing to do for six months can you imagine it.
CB: Well as I say.
Other: Particularly if they didn’t have families you know.
CB: Well I had lost my first wife I’d divorced my first wife and her daughter had been born then Rosalind who’s alive now but er I’d got her into what’s the name of the top class school?
Other: Roedean
CB: I got her into Roedean so she had a Roedean education and on holiday she used to be with my sister my sister had a home in London and it was quite a nice home her husband was the you see that carpet there in the next room have you had a look at it it’s a very good one he used to be the branch manager of Derry and Toms Carpeting department [laughs] and I got that comparatively cheaply but I suppose probably wouldn’t make much difference now I’ve had it some considerable time but it’s a very nice carpet do you want to have a look at it? [laughs]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Charles Baron
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-21
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01:09:51 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABaronC160321
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Charles Baron grew up in London and volunteered for aircrew in 1940. He trained as a navigator and on radar. He later volunteered for overseas duties and was posted to India where he flew intruder operations over Burma. After the war he worked training Indian Air Force ground personnel and with the British Bombing Survey. When he left the Air Force he qualified as a Chartered Secretary and worked in India and the UK.
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
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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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Burma
Egypt
Great Britain
India
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
aircrew
Asian heritage
Beaufighter
Blenheim
entertainment
faith
final resting place
forced landing
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
navigator
perception of bombing war
radar
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/599/8868/PLoganF1501.1.jpg
9358dca00f3455544c85050d9b894ecf
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/599/8868/ALoganF150827.2.mp3
81510fb4bd7499614d4a2dfef17ff0e7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Logan, Fred
F Logan
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Logan, F
Description
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Two items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Fred Logan (1920, 125692 Royal Air Force) and one photograph. He joined the Royal Air Force in December 1940 and trained as an engine fitter. He served at RAF Waterbeach on 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit with Stirlings. Subsequently he served at RAF Stradishall and RAF North Luffenham before qualifying as an aeronautical inspector and being posted to Egypt.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Fred Logan and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: Okay so this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is me, Annie Moodie, and the interviewee is Fred Logan. The interview is taking place at Fred’s home in Wath-on-Dearne, and it’s 27th August 2015. So what I’m going to ask you first Fred if that’s all right is just to tell me a little bit about where you were born, and, and your family, what your parents did, brothers and sisters things like that, where you went to school. So where were you born first of all?
FL: Where I was born, I was born in Firth Road, at, is it in Brampton or Worsbrough?
Other: Brampton
FL: Brampton, yes, Firth Road, yeah, and when I was six months old we moved into a brand new council house at the top of Oak Road in Wath-on-Dearne, it was the second house from the top and beyond that was the racecourse, Swinton Racecourse, yes.
AM: What did your parents do, what did your mum and dad do?
FL: Ah, well me mum was a housewife obviously, but me father he, he worked down the Wath Main Colliery, he was a collier down Wath Main yeah. He served during, he served during the First World War as a captain in the 6th Battalion York Lancaster Regiment, yes.
AM: Crickey. Did you have any brothers and sisters?
FL: Yes, yes I had, er –
Other: Two brothers.
FL: Three brothers and one sister, one of me brothers died when he was nine months old, that was Eric. One died brothers died when he was sixteen years of age, he had appendicitis and peritonitis, he was just sixteen. Me brother died a few years ago he was the eldest in the family, and I had one sister that was all and she died a year ago.
AM: Right.
FL: Yes.
AM: Where did you go to school Fred?
FL: Wath Victoria School, and I am very, very proud to tell you that when I left the school at the age of fourteen, I was the top boy in the top class, so well I would say I was top of the school,.
AM: You were.
FL: Yeah I left school at fourteen and I went to work down at Manvers Main Colliery then, I got a job down there and during the, up to being twenty, almost twenty I was studying engineering at Rotherham Technical College, got, got quite a few certificates of course. And when the war broke out in December 4th, which was mum’s birthday, I joined the Royal Air Force.
AM: Why did you join the Air Force as opposed to the Navy or the Army?
FL: Well I was twenty years of age, and I thought well if I don’t join the Air Force, well at my age I shall be called up and they’ll put me where I don’t want to be it’s either in the Army or the Navy, so I’m going where I wanted to go. And I saw my manager, Mr. Carr, he was a lovely person and I explained it, I said, ‘I’d like to go Mr. Carr with your permission.’ Because I would have been in a reserved occupation. He said, ‘You can go with my blessings.’ He said, ‘Rest assured if you go through the war your jobs open for you when you get back.’ And on the strength of that I joined the Royal Air Force.
AM: Where did you go to join up?
FL: Sheffield, and they asked me what I wanted to be and I told them and I said I’ve got me engineering certificates. They said, ‘Well we’ll give you a little, a few questions about engines.’ You know, ‘What’s this and what’s that?’ It was just like water off a duck’s back to me I knew everything. They said, ‘Well if you want to go in, instead of doing a flight mechanics course and then going back, we’ll accept you as a direct entry fitter.’ Which they did, and I went to, I went to a place called Hednesford, that was a training school there, there was two wings for airman, one wing for WAAFs, and the other wing was for the Fleet Air Arm, and I went there, and then from there I was posted to 7 Squadron.
AM: Tell me a bit more about Hednesford, what did you do there?
FL: It was a training school, and they taught you all, well you taught you all about engines every bit, they took an engine to pieces and they explained every part of every one, and funnily enough I’ve still got me books in there yeah.
AM: Yeah. Was it different, well it must have been different then the engines you’d been working on at the colliery?
FL: Oh yes, yes, well the ones at the colliery were all in line engines, the one’s I was introduced to were radio engines, and they weren’t only what they call poppet valve engines they were sleeve valve engines, Bristol Hercules Sleeve Valve Engines.
AM: You’ll have to tell me a bit more about that, what’s that mean?
FL: It’s very, very technical.
AM: Ooh.
FL: To explain the difference between a poppet valve engine and a sleeve valve.
AM: But they’re different?
FL: Yeah, they are different in a poppet valve engine you have valves like a car with springs and everything the valves open, but in the sleeve valve engine you have a sleeve that, that you works like that.
AM: Yeah.
FL: And there’s, I don’t know how to explain this, pieces cut out you get so far that lines up with the inlet side of it and lets special air come in then as it goes further up it closes and then when it’s fired and it comes back down it lines up with the other one and the exhaust goes like that there, so there’s no valves there’s just what you call a junk head.
AM: Did you find it easy to change from the one to learning about the other?
FL: No problems at all, no problems. And later on I went down to, they sent me down to Bristol and they had a training school there and they taught you about the different radio engines that they manufactured, they taught you all about those, and at the end of a fortnight you had to sit an exam which I did and of course it was no problem.
AM: Easy peasy.
FL: No problem, I got ninety-three per cent. [laughs]
AM: Oh what about the other seven?
FL: Oh I don’t know.
Other: But you don’t you remember —
FL: I missed a few dots and commas there I think.
AM: Ah.
FL: Yeah, but it was, it was at Filton and this place wherever we went, this school it had been a blind school all blind people went there, and when the war broke out it was right next to Filton where they were manufacturing the aircraft, so that if they’d have tried to bomb that place they would have bombed the blind school so they moved all the blind people out and then they made it a training school for, for Air Force engineers.
AM: Right. So how long were you there for’ish?
FL: I think the course itself was I don’t whether it was two or three weeks something like that, yeah.
AM: What sort of people were on the course with you, what had?
FL: They were nearly all fitters from, from different squadrons.
AM: Right.
FL: I enjoyed it there, enjoyed it there yeah, I did.
AM: And then where next after that?
FL: I, what from Wokington, 7 Squadron, that was at just outside Cambridge, and at the other side of Cambridge there’s a place called Waterbeach, it’s on the main road between Cambridge and Ely.
AM: Yes.
FL: And they were flying Stirlings from there with 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit and I was posted there on Stirlings.
AM: Right, so that was 7 Squadron?
FL: Yeah.
AM: Right okay.
FL: They were Stirlings at the time.
AM: Yeah.
FL: Then I went on to Stirlings at Waterbeach.
AM: How long were you at 7 Squadron for?
FL: I can’t remember that love its —
AM: Oh don’t worry.
FL: No times and days.
AM: [laughs].
FL: I almost forgot what they called it. [laughs]
AM: Give over.
FL: And from Waterbeach of course I was on Stirlings for a long, long time.
AM: What was it like at the Heavy Conversion Unit?
FL: What it was, I mean they were massive aircraft these you know, and they were training pilots there, they were bringing them off, bringing them off twin engine aircraft and training them on four engines, which was Stirlings.
AM: Did they come as a crew at that point?
FL: No they came as individuals.
AM: So they were still individuals at that point.
FL: The pilots yeah. It was basically training pilots and us engineers as well, but the main thing was training pilots.
AM: And what was your role in, in all this?
FL: What was what?
AM: What was your role in all this, what were you doing?
FL: I was engines, all just engines alone, yeah.
AM: That’s me phone. Keeping ‘em all going?
FL: Yeah. Used to er, yeah of course the engines were, even in, even in when they were on duty they’ve got to be inspected, have a daily inspection and signed for to say that you’d inspected every part of that engine before it goes, they have a daily inspection, then they had then I think it was forty hours they took it into the hangar and did the inspection, at eighty hours it went in and we did a forty and a few more, and then until one-sixty we did a major operation then you know, took out everything to pieces nearly.
AM: How many of you were there? I mean —
FL: I can’t tell you that.
AM: No, no.
FL: I can’t tell you that really.
AM: I’m just trying to get a picture in my mind of what it was like, ‘cos you’re all there on the Heavy Conversion Unit, you’re doing your job, you’ve got all these pilots coming in —
FL: They were coming in off Welling, Wimpeys we called them, off Wellingtons.
AM: Off the single —
FL: Things like that and being trained, because they were massive aircraft these. They were the only aircraft with electrically operated undercarriage, all the rest were hydraulics every other aircraft hydraulics, but not them and they had sleeve valve engines in [laughs] Bristol, Bristol Engines, sleeve valves.
AM: What was it like on the Heavy Conversion Unit then in terms of, were the ground crew separate from the pilots?
FL: Oh yes, yes, yes. There was, they had their flight mechanics, they had dispersals, special dispersal for each aircraft, and they had a ground crew to look after them. You know like an electrician, an air frame fitter, an engine fitter, they had, they had a full crew there for every one of them the different ones, yeah.
AM: And how long would the pilots spend on them before they converted?
FL: Well the pilots were, the pilots were brought, well I don’t know that I truly don’t know. But they were coming off Wellingtons and aircraft like that out of here, they’re big clumsy aircraft these you know.
AM: That’s a Stirling.
FL: Yeah. If they, if they had a full bomb load they’d twenty-eight bombs on, three, three between the inboard motor and the fuselage on each side, and twenty-two in the bomb bay.
AM: And they had to learn to manoeuvre all that lot?
FL: They had seven fuel tanks in each wing, terrific in’t it.
AM: It’s well, yeah I can’t, I can’t even begin —
FL: You can’t visualise it can you?
AM: No, no, not now.
FL: Oh they were massive.
AM: Did you like ‘em you sound as if —
FL: I’ve always, I’ve always loved working on engines though, right from being a little lad, used to mess about with motorbike engines.
Other: You see them standing underneath.
AM: Oh yeah I’ve seen all the pictures. What was it actually like, what was life like there? There’s a question for you [laughs].
FL: First of all it depended on whether you were suited to the Air Force or not, I was I wanted to be in and I enjoyed the job I were doing. But there were lots of people doing jobs that they didn’t enjoy doing, and of course for them it was a matter of wait till the end and let’s get out quick. But I loved every moment of my service in there, because I was doing what I wanted to do, I wanted to work on engines, I’ve always loved engines.
AM: Did you ever get to go up in one of the Stirlings?
FL: Oh yes, if we fitted a new engine you just said, ‘Any chance.’ ‘Yes, yes.’ And what they used to do test it, if we fitted a new engine in they used to stop it in mid-air and then start it up again [laughs]. I want, I want enamoured with that part of it though I can assure you.
AM: No, I can imagine.
FL: But, oh I loved, I loved every moment of my service career, only thing of course was people getting killed, if they hadn’t of been I would have been highly delighted yeah.
AM: Did you, because you were at the Heavy Conversion Unit, so that there were people that were converting and then going off doing what they did.
FL: Yes, yes. Well they were coming and training on four engine aircraft which was the only ones, we didn’t have Lancasters then or Halifaxes they came in a bit later, and then they carried on, on four engine aircraft, yeah.
AM: How long were you there for? ‘Cos you got there in what 1940-41.
FL: I joined the Air Force on 4th December 1940.
AM: ‘40
FL: And I came out was it five and a half years later, I think I did, I think I came out in the middle of ’46, I’ve got me, I’ve got me book there.
AM: Oh I’ll have a look in a minute. So, so you were on the Heavy Conversion Unit what did you do after that?
FL: ER, from Waterbeach we went down to Stradishall with Stirlings, and then up to North Luffenham, and when I got up to North Luffenham I applied to go in as an aeronautical inspector, that was a very responsible job, and I was granted and I went down to Bristol, and I sat all my exams there for an aeronautical inspector and, and I passed them easily, and the next thing I knew, it was very late, very, very late on in the war then because I do all this service with Stirlings, but I was posted to Egypt. I, I was posted to a place called Tora El-Asmant, that was the name of the place and we were working in caves. Yes, apparently, it was the dry, it was an old, the River Nile changes its course periodically and this was the waddy [?] where it was originally. So obviously if the water level was twenty thirty foot, the caves would have been there, but when there was no water in they were thirty foot up there.
AM: So how did you get up to them?
FL: They built a road from the domestic site up to it and then levelled it off, we worked in there overhauling engines and I went in there obviously as an inspector.
AM: What was, I’m just trying to think what was happening in Egypt at the time, because Rommel had been turfed out of —
FL: Most of it was after the war, but we were doing all sorts of engines even American engines.
AM: How big were these caves?
FL: Massive, massive, you know, we filled them with workshops. There was a photography, the whole of the photography section for the Middle East was worked from through those caves.
AM: Crickey.
FL: Yeah, oh I, you see the beauty of it was the heat of the day you could work all day in the caves and you were quite cool and comfortable, and as I served the rest of my time as an inspector.
AM: So what did that involve?
FL: Every time they do a job you’ve got to inspect it and sign for it you know, if they putting a piston into an engine you’ve got to examine the piston, examine the rings, take the proper measurements and everything, and then stamp it, you had sheets and it said examine one piston, examine number two piston, and my letter was ZUW, and I had a stamp and I just used to put ZUW, now if that broke down in service who was ZUW? Right, shoot him. [laughs].
AM: No not quite, on a charge.
FL: Yes.
AM: So what were they actually working on in the caves, actual on engines?
FL: All engines, my department was all engines. They used to bring them in and strip them down and thoroughly clean every piece, and then they went on the benches and the inspectors inspected every piece separately, and then when it had all been inspected they started the assembly again and everything that we assembled was inspected as it was assembled and signed for until the complete engine was built up. And we used to send them, I don’t know where they went to, but we used to send them where they used to put them on test beds and test them, and if they passed their test they went back into service.
AM: Right.
FL: I loved it.
AM: I’m trying to think what else? What did you do after that? Were you demobbed, at what point were you demobbed?
FL: I was demobbed, ooh I was left out in Egypt a month after the war finished.
AM: How long were you in Egypt altogether?
FL: I don’t know, I can’t recollect, it was very, very late on in the war, when I went there, but I wasn’t enamoured with Egypt.
AM: I don’t know if I dare ask why? [laughs] Hot? Dirty?
FL: Yeah it was hot, but we used to go on parade at seven o’clock in the morning and it were cold and of course we’d got long stockings on and shorts and shirts like this and whilst we were on parade —
AM: He’s shivering by the way.
FL: Whilst we were on the parade the sun used to come up, and before you went up the, up to the caves for working you were sweating.
AM: What were the digs like?
FL: We were under canvas, yeah just that’s all there were, the big tents, the bigger ones you could get about six in.
AM: What about meals and things like that was all that under canvas as well?
FL: We had a canteen, we had a cookhouse, and the canteen and the NAAFI, and we even had The Red Shield Club, Salvation Army, yeah.
AM: Right.
FL: Was an out of the way place for the Salvation Army.
Other: They were working there weren’t there.
AM: Yeah.
FL: Yeah.
AM: So what did you do after the war then?
FL: I came back and I went, I went back to work down there, and they had a fleet of small diesel driven locos, and they had some big dump trucks and things like that, and I was put in charge for all the repairs for the dump trucks and the little locos and the big locos and everything that had got either diesel or petrol in was mine. And I eventually got to be about the mobile plant engineer, I was the top man and I took over locos, I had ten locos, five of them were diesel, Rolls Royce driven diesels and the rest were odd jobs, bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, er, anything with diesel or petrol in was mine and I loved it. [laughs]
AM: You sound like you’ve had a great life?
FL: I’ve had a lovely life, nobody could ever have had a more satisfying life. And what’s been the most satisfying life about it I married the right lady.
AM: I was going to say where did you meet your wife?
FL: Sixty-three years we’ve been married.
Other: Yeah.
FL: And we are as happy today as we were then, I still do as I’m told. [laughs]
AM: That’s the key to it.
FL: The doctor asked me that you know, because she’s spent her whole life doing charity work. She’s got a gold, a diamond pin for presented, well it’s on there down there on that photograph, presented a diamond pin for all her charity work sixty odd years.
AM: I’ll have a look in a minute.
FL: And the doctor was here one day and she was talking to the doctor and he said to me, ‘Now then Fred whilst she’s been doing all this charity work?’ He said, ‘How have you coped, you know, how have you got on?’ I said, ‘Well the truth is doctor, we had an understanding when we got married.’ I said, ‘There’s absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do for my wife.’ And I said, ‘There’s nothing that she wouldn’t do for me, and that’s how we’ve got through our married life doing nothing for each other.’ [laughs]
AM: On that note I’m going to switch the tape off.
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Interview with Fred Logan
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Annie Moody
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-08-27
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Sound
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ALoganF150827
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Pending review
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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.
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00:22:42 audio recording
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Jackie Simpson
Sally Coulter
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
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1940
Description
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Fred joined the Royal Air Force in Sheffield on 4th December 1940 and was accepted as a direct entry fitter. He went to the training school in Hednesford, where he was taught about engines, and was then posted on Stirlings to 7 Squadron. From RAF Oakington, he went to RAF Waterbeach where they flew Stirlings with the 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit. Fred’s role was on the engines which were subject to a series of inspections. He loved his work on engines. Fred then went to RAF Stradishall, followed by RAF North Luffenham. He applied to be an aeronautical inspector and passed his examinations at RAF Filton. Fred was posted to Tura-el-Asmant in Egypt where he inspected many engines. He describes the inspection work, which took place in the caves, and the camp.
After the war, Fred returned to the colliery, eventually becoming mobile plant engineer.
1651 HCU
7 Squadron
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Filton
RAF Hednesford
RAF Waterbeach
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/225/3370/AChaplinSR170407.2.mp3
a95468a013bf06283db41402714c4f41
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Title
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Chaplin, Susan Rose
Susan Chaplin
Susan R Chaplin
S R Chaplin
Sue Chaplin
S Chaplin
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Susan Chaplin (b. 1954) about her research into the crash of Wellington HE740 on 4 January 1945.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-07
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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.
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Chaplin, SR
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Thursday, 7th April, 2017, and I am here in Thornton with Sue Chaplin who arranged for details to be made much more public and memorable about an air crash at North Marston nearby. So Sue what are your earliest recollections of life?
SC: I was born in North Marston where my mother and her brothers and sisters, and grandparents, great grandparents were all born, and my mother was always very very interested herself in local history and the stories of everyone so I was brought up surrounded by stories of village people and family and one of her stories was always about how she had witnessed this Wellington plane crashing in the war when she was twenty seven years old and she used to show me on our country walks the field where it came down and she always used said to me ‘there’s an engine deep down in that field you know may be one day it will be dug up’, so that’s how I grew up really with an interest in local history and the family and I’ve always had a very strong connection with North Marston where all of my family seem to take up most of the churchyard and so although I don’t live in the village anymore I have very strong connections there and my mother herself died nine years ago and my cousin still lives there so I’m going back there all the time and it’s really what led me to write back in 2014 to write the history of North Marston “The North Marston Story” which really I was prompted to do because I wanted to put down in writing all of those things that my mother had told me when I was a child, and then of course the book expanded in to far more than that in the end. I went to school in I went to Aylesbury High School er and after that I went to Teachers Training College at Wall Hall Aldenham for three years where I trained to be a teacher and then I went to the University of East Anglia after that and did a degree in history and education, so history has always been a great interest anyway and when I qualified I got a job at a school called Akeley Wood School which was a private school near Buckingham, er I got the job in 1976 and I thought it would be a stop gap for a few years until I got a different job. I had never been to a private school so it was nothing that I knew about so I thought well it would be a nice job just for a year or two but I actually stayed for my whole career and I was there for over thirty years ,and er I became head of the junior school there, and I retired in 2006 I took an early retirement in 2006.
CB: Okay we’ll stop there for a minute.
SC: In er about 2008 a gentleman came to live in North Marston who was a local historian, John Spargo, and in conversation with him one day he mentioned to me that he was surprised there was no written history of the village of North Marston as it was so rich in history, and I said to him ‘well I would absolutely love to help you put that down’ because as I mentioned just now it was something I’d always thought would be a good idea. So we decided to see if there would be um an interest in the village for a written history and we sent round a questionnaire and yes people would love it, so we started off by recording I offered to do all recordings of all the elderly people in the village and actually the not so elderly as well some of them were my old friends from school, and I did twenty three recordings including my mother, one of the recordings was also a chap called Chris Holden and Chris had been a little boy when the Wellington came and crashed and during his recording he was recollecting that night and he said ‘you know’ he said ‘I think it’s tragic there’s never been a memorial to those boys’ so I thought about this and coupled with my mother’s story of that night and finally by the fact the nearby village to me Thornborough erected a memorial in 2014 to the Wellington Bomber that crashed there all of those three things combined, so I went to the North Marston History Club which we had founded by then and said ‘how about it why not do a project the anniversary of the North Marston Wellington crash is coming up on 4th January 2015, that will be the seventieth anniversary, Thornborough had just put up one, Chris Holden had said in his interview what a shame so why don’t we go for it?’, it was agreed that we would then start to investigate the possibility of doing it this would have been the summer of 2014 when we started to think about it so we had about six months before the seventieth anniversary in January 2015 came up, obviously we had we wanted to put a memorial in the church so the first thing we had to do was approach the Vicar and the Faculty at Oxford to see if they would give permission, so the er church Parochial Church Council applied to Oxford for the Faculty that took quite a long time to come through, but we decided that we would go ahead with the memorial even if it couldn’t be put in the church because we would find somewhere for it in the village and obviously the next thing to do was to get going on finding out more and more and more about these boys. In our North Marston Story that we had written the big book about the village we had actually mentioned this crash, we knew the names of the six boys who’d died, we knew where they had come from, three were from New Zealand, one from Sussex, and two from Kent, so our next project was to try and trace any relatives that we could and my colleague in the history club Jane Springer started off by emailing the Otago Daily Times in New Zealand because we knew that two of the boys came from there, she had an instant response that day from the journalist from the Otago Daily Times and within a few days he had published our story, I sent him all the details we knew he published our story and that same day we had a response from Michael Reece who was the nephew of our pilot Michael Reece he had seen this in the paper, and we had a response from Chas Forsyth who had been a friend of the Reece’s he had seen this article in the paper, we had a response from dear Neville Selwood who was a Lancaster navigator who had been stationed at Westcott who knew Alex Bulger our bomb aimer, and we had a response from Alex Bulger’s family and that all took place within a few days. The biggest surprise at the time to us was that the Reece family and the Bulger family who had both lived all their lives in Otago knew each other but until we got in touch they hadn’t realised that their uncles had died in the same plane so that was just the most amazing thing and that was the first of many coincidences that were to happen, er so then they started to inundate us with photographs, letters that they’d had from their boys, photographs, photographs of the funerals in Oxford because five of the boys who died in the Wellington were buried at Botley in Oxford, the other one went home to Maidstone, but the Reece family in New Zealand had photographs of the burial and so they sent us photographs of the family of the boys, I mean to suddenly seeing photographs of these boys who my mother knew died that night, she by then had passed away, and it was of great sadness to me that my mother couldn’t see these photographs that suddenly came to us because she would have just loved to have seen the pictures of the boys who died. So we were suddenly starting to get information and we, Jane my colleague, went on to Ancestory.com and she was contacted by somebody who said I am a relative of Don McClellan the wireless operator, Don McClellan came from New Zealand but much further north, so she put us in touch with Don McClellan’s family so then we suddenly had photographs and information from the McClellan’s so we thought wow we’ve got enough stuff here to put out a little publication throughout the village let us put all these pictures into a little pamphlet and let’s send this round the village and tell everybody that this is our project and ask if we could have any contributions towards it. Well whilst we were doing this we then er decided that we would write to the Kent Messenger newspaper and the Brighton Argos and we had an immediate response from the Brighton Argos, somebody knew of our Reginald Price his name was in the memorial book in the St. Peters Church Brighton, we had a response from two people who read the Brighton Argos called Jackie and Nick Carter who were interested in tracing people they offered to help trace the other three British boys, they came up first of all with a relative that they had found from a free electoral um site of Mormon a family search Mormon site and free birth, marriage and death site, they came up with an address of a Christopher Colbeck who they believed was a nephew of John Wenham, I wrote to him actually wrote to him and yes he was John Wenham’s nephew and his mother John Wenham’s sister was still alive down the road in Luton, so suddenly we got John Wenham’s photographs, letters, documentation, that left us with Reginald Price and it left us with Ian Smith, then Reginald Price um suddenly started to appear because again from the Brighton Argos somebody who had read the Brighton Argos who again loved investigating went on to Ancestry.com and located a Catherine Cook who was a marine biologist in Scotland who was distantly related step step family distantly related to Reginald Price she put us in touch with her mother who had um you know was a step daughter of of a relative and we then had pictures from them that was Reginald Price ticked off. The only by now our doc out leaflet had gone round North Marston village and we had put in it that we didn’t actually have any pictures of er Ian Smith we couldn’t trace Ian Smith’s family, so the doc the leaflet went round North Marston we immediately started getting money in but the leaflet went in North Marston to a gentleman called Mike Fillamore, who again is a local historian, he saw the name Ian Smith he telephoned me and said ‘Sue a few years ago I was in North Marston Church and a gentleman was in the church looking to see if there was a memorial to a relative of his called Ian Smith and I happened to take down his name and address’ and so I telephoned I found on the internet his telephone number and I phoned him that night and he said ‘yes this is amazing’ um and so we then were put in touch with Ian Smith’s more immediate family and again the photographs started rolling in. So we had by well by November we had got pictures of all of the boys, documents, letters and we were in touch with their families and the money had started to roll in and in the end we er I had approached Brett and Sons the stonemasons in Norfolk who did a lot of the village churchyard gravestones, they um gave us a quote for um the actual plaque would have been um was going to be about fifteen hundred pounds in the church but in total our donations from the village people and from the families of the crew came to three thousand pounds so that enabled us to put up the plaque, Oxford Diocese said absolutely fine no problem, and so then we had money left over for a lovely reception and things like that. But um if I can just go back for a moment the er anniversary of the crash was 4th January, and the seventieth anniversary would have been 4th January 2015, but we didn’t have time to get together the Faculty permission to get the plaque done and to get a big service organised for 4th January, we also asked all the New Zealand relatives what they felt about it and all of them said they would absolutely love to come to the service but really January is too soon for us and we would rather come to England when the weather was a bit warmer, so we decided to have a remembrance service on 4th January 2015, which happened to be a Sunday, we put together a lovely service, we as history club wrote some of our own poems, the niece of Michael Reece the pilot, great niece of Michael Reece the pilot happened to live in Wales she said ‘I will come to this January service to represent the families’ and she read a poem at the service, we had the Last Post and it was a wonderful anniversary service followed by a lunch in the church so village people and a few RAF people who we knew and Tina Reece as the relative, and of course she wasn’t the only relative to come to our January service because all the Luton people, John Wenham the young air gunner his sister Joy in her nineties and her family all attended the January service so we had a lovely representation from families there, but we decided then that we needed to find a date to have the big plaque unveiling and the bigger service the New Zealand families suggested if it were possible what about having it on Anzac Day 25th April, it was a very special Anzac Day in 2015 and so we all you know went to the powers that be the church and everybody and it was decided to hold the big memorial on 25th April 2015, by which time the plaque in church would have been completed and we would have time to organise a big big celebration so that is where we’ve got to at the moment. We then decided that er obviously we would like some more representation at this service than we had at the other so I contacted the New Zealand Embassy in London and asked if we could possibly have any New Zealand er RAF people they said being Anzac Day they were a bit short on the ground, but as it happened a week before our service they phoned me and said we are sending six RA New Zealand Air Force, we also had very very honoured to have Air Marshall Sir Colin Terry who agreed to I wrote to him and he agreed to unveil the plaque, we had um members of the er cadets, we had from Maidstone in Kent where young John Wenham had been a boy and had attended the Scouts the Tovil Scouts came up and represented the Scouts they came, we had some local RAF reserve people, and we had our Church Warden um an ex RAF wing commander so he took a big part in the service, um the Royal British Legion of course were desperately keen to be involved and so we ended up with a procession involving um a lot of people all in uniform we had the Last Post we had um eight relatives from New Zealand that day at the service, and a huge coincidence again was that one of the New Zealand relatives was talking to one of the RAF New Zealand RAF and er she said ‘well my er son is a photographer in the RAF’ he said ‘what’s his name, ooh I know him’ so that’s amazing this lady had come from New Zealand and one of our New Zealand RAF boys knew knew her son so that was another little coincidence. So er we had well I say the most wonderful service the church was packed we had wonderful hymns we started off with “God is our Strength and Refuge” sung to the Dambusters tune and it was um a really really lovely service members of the history club all read poems and did readings, I introduced the whole service I set the scene and gave the whole background to it and er then afterwards we went down to the village hall where some local groups had set up memorabilia war time memorabilia, and er a local lady had set up a huge huge refreshments we had a cake with “Lest We Forget” and Joy Colbeck the ninety ninety two year old sister of the young air gunner er she cut the cake and all her family were there so I mean it was really absolutely marvellous, but we had decided before the er big celebration that really with all the photographs that we’d got and the documents er we really need to needed to write a proper book so John Spargo the chairman of the history club and I and two other people from the village, John Newby who was very interested in aircraft he had been er flying with the RAF in the RAF Volunteer Reserves and had had twenty five years in management per to the aviation industry he helped write all of the technical stuff about the plane, and Martin Bromelly who was a current airline pilot and again very very interested in airline history he investigated an awful lot for us, he found out the weather conditions that night, he wrote his own version of what he thought happened that night, so all of these us four basically put together this book with photographs all the photographs that we’d got plus um our interpretation of what actually happened that night and we sold over a hundred copies of the book and we put all the photographs from the day onto a DVD and sold I think about seventy or eighty of those.
CB: Having a break having a breather. So continuing from there.
SC: Um so following the service it it certainly wasn’t the end to everything because although it was coming up now for two years ago we are still in very close contact with the New Zealand families and the families of the British people we are getting emails from them every now and then with best wishes we have Christmas cards we have letters, Jane Springer my colleague who did a lot of the initial investigation with Ancestry.com, she and I have visited dear Joy Colbeck er the sister of the young air gunner John Wenham we visited her several times we visit her on her birthday she has been back to North Marston on several occasions so she has become very much a family friend, er we have been given gifts er um we’ve been given lovely pictures of Wellington aircraft and things like that, and not only have we learned about the six boys themselves but of course we’ve learned very much about their families and these New Zealand boys who had also had brothers in the air force, and Don McClellan whose brother was killed very tragically just before he died his he had also lost a brother on a POW ship that had been sunk by er um mistakenly by a British torpedo, so we learnt about all the tragedies in the families and how sad they’d been and we learnt how much it had meant to them all to lose these boys some of their descendants are named after their uncles and great uncles who died in the crash and the wireless operator Don McClellan his sister is still alive in New Zealand and she has had a picture of him on her wall ever since he died, Michael Reece the pilot his brother Jim is still alive in New Zealand, and of course Joy Colbeck is still alive and Ian Smith’s sister only died a couple of months before we started to do our investigation, so in fact it’s amazing that there are still siblings of these boys still around, it has brought the Colbeck family um John Wenham’s family who are called the Colbeck’s they had had a bit of a rift in the family and because of our investigation about John and they all came together for the service they have all been reunited. Also um dear Ed Andrews from Westcott showed me a photograph one day of a Wellington crew and he said ‘we don’t know who these people are in this picture’ but he gave me the photograph, well Neville Selwood the Lancaster pilot from the Lancaster navigator from New Zealand who was a friend of Alex Bulger who had been to Westcott also sent me a photograph of himself at Westcott and it was exactly the same photograph that Ed had given me so I could then contact Ed and say ‘I now know who this crew is’ and dear Neville Selwood he’s still going strong he writes to me frequently he sends me copies of all his log books, he is the honorary chaplain of the Royal New the New Zealand Bomber Command Association he’s the honorary chaplain and I get their magazines every quarter or every six months they send me their magazine and I believe Ed Andrews from Westcott writes in this magazine because um I’ve seen his articles, so having having um this contact with these people has been wonderful and I myself have found it really heart-warming, I spoke to Captain Jack Charley again who was a Lancaster navigator I believe had a long conversation with him so to to talk to these people is absolutely wonderful, and er as I say you know we’ve brought closure to the families and we have explained a lot to them that they didn’t actually know before they now know that it was North Marston not Long Marston, they’ve seen the site, they’ve seen the field and the actual spot where the plane came down, um one thing that Joy Colbeck er John Wenham’s sister was very very concerned about which is interesting is that she had the official report sent to her of the crash and many many years ago and in it it mentioned that the pilot it was the pilot’s fault because he was inexperienced she was desperately worried when she met the Reece family that this shouldn’t come out, she didn’t want it put in our book she didn’t want them to know because she felt that if they thought that that they wouldn’t be able to live with that, er and so of course we never mentioned it anywhere but I think you know we have discussed this and um basically if he didn’t have enough experience to go up that night then he shouldn’t have been allowed to go up so one can hardly blame the pilot we feel, but we did keep it quiet from the Reece family ah but it has been the most amazingly heart-warming experience since the service in April 2015, we have had three more sets of relatives from New Zealand who have visited they couldn’t make the service themselves but they have been over to England and I have taken them to the memorial, to the crash site, shown them round Westcott airfield which I am now getting very familiar with, and have taken them to Botley to the cemetery, and I expect there’ll soon be some more coming [laughs].
CB: Is there a crucial question here or matter I think which helped closure for families and that is um what was the um what was the operation that they were on because some people don’t recognise how many crashes were in training and there they attributed the loss to a wartime operation, so how did that come out with the different families?
SC: Um the fact that they were just on a on a training mission um I believe John Wenham’s sister knew that anyway um the New Zealand families were happy to know the facts.
CB: Which were?
SC: Which were that they had taken off from Westcott at about seven o’clock on a snowy evening to go on a training mission we’re not quite sure we haven’t been able to find out exactly where they were heading but they took off from Westcott at about seven seven ten and fifteen minutes fifteen minutes later the plane came down in North Marston, so it said on the official report that it came down in from five thousand feet, my mother who was in the back garden at the time heard the plane coming very low over and she knew that it sounded wrong there were Wellington planes all around the airfields around North Marston and she knew it sounded wrong, and Chris Holden with his friend up the road heard the explosion heard the bang, er Clifford Cheshire who was a young boy was out delivering bread with his father he came upon this crash scene within minutes, and er so that is why these people have such vivid memories but they we do not know we haven’t been able to find out what they were doing but it was a training flight the pilot was alone there wasn’t any other train there wasn’t um anybody training them they were on their own, um the New Zealand families were surprised to hear that it wasn’t a mission but they accepted it and er I don’t think they were anything other than pleased to know the facts.
CB: So just to clarify that so some of the families that were there were under some misapprehension that this was actually a bomber sortie.
SC: Yes they hadn’t ever been told that it was a training flight so they assumed that it was a bomber sortie in the in the New Zealand the New Zealand yes yes we have the letters in our book we have the letters that were written to them after the death to announce you know the deaths um from Captain Stevens who was the Group Captain at Westcott um and it basically says ‘your son lost his life as a result of a flying accident the aircraft in which he was flying took off from the station on a normal exercise at nineteen thirty five hours the aircraft crashed’ it doesn’t say what time it took off it just says it crashed at nineteen thirty five hours and it says it was a normal exercise and I think that they just assumed in New Zealand that it was actually a bombing mission, their boys had trained in Canada before they’d come over here and so they had these boys had arrived at Westcott in October around about October and this was January they were due to go off to another base very shortly where they would be going on to Lancasters and things um but I don’t think that er the families probably comprehended that they were just still training I think they probably thought having trained in Canada and come over to England that they had finished their training and no more training was involved er and the letter from Captain Stevens goes on to say ‘no details as to how the accident occurred are available’.
CB: So just to clarify that they’d done their initial training in Canada?
SC: They have.
CB: They’ve come to an operational conversion unit on a twin engine Wellington?
SC: Yes.
CB: There next move probably would have been to heavy bombers because of where the Westcott stream went.
SC: Yes.
CB: So they would have gone to a heavy conversion unit.
SC: Yes.
CB: After that they would have gone to an operational squadron.
SC: Yes yes and I believe that the New Zealand er contingent often went to the same place it was um you might know which one they went to.
CB: Seventy Five Squadron.
SC: Seventy Five Squadron yes yes, one of the letters that we have from one of the boys when he wrote home said that er you know he was sort of suggesting that very soon they would be on their way to somewhere else yes er you know um and they never got there and of course it was only a few months before the war finished
CB: Yes.
SC: Which is very very tragic.
CB: Yes because this was January 45 and the war finished on 8th May in Europe
SC: That’s right yes.
CB: 1945.
SC: Yes.
CB: What would you say was the reaction of the families to the event you put on in memory of the crew?
SC: Huge gratitude and overwhelming surprise that we had decided to honour their family members seventy years after the event that’s that those six lads were still being remembered and were in somebodies memory and I think they were honoured they felt honoured to um think that we had done this, that their boys names are now in the church on a plaque forever and er yes great surprise, but as I have said already several of them said what wonderful closure the actual siblings of the crew who died it brought real closure to these elderly people all in their nineties of course that now they felt it was it had come a full circle and this had been remembered, and of course they were so grateful that they now knew more details about everything and that they had managed to find out about the other crew members that were in the plane with their relatives that night and they have become firm friends the New Zealanders now are all in contact with each other and they write to the old lady in Luton so they’re emailing her she is in her nineties but she still emails she’s very lucid so its brought great friendship and a sense of togetherness and very heart-warming to us at the history club that we managed to do this for these people.
CB: Yes, and in the village what was the reaction to the publication of the book but actually the event itself also?
SC: Well we had the most amazing response to the book because the money just starting pouring in I think the fact that we showed the photograph the photographs we got by then that the photographs the story of this plane crash in this little booklet made it very personal and very poignant um and the village people showed great interest in fact I think we could have filled the church twice over er that day of the big service but obviously with all the RAF personnel and relatives you know and people close to it we er we couldn’t fit we wouldn’t have fitted everybody in um [laughs] but er yes um great interest great interest.
CB: I remember it was a very good event.
SC: You see a lot of people in the village er had no idea that a plane had crashed you know in the village and they didn’t know that and so I think yes it was an event very well worth doing all round for everybody concerned.
CB: Two supplementary questions associated with this what was the reaction of the Church of England to this?
SC: Er there was no opposition whatsoever to putting a memorial in the church the Faculty although they took a long time to give us permission but I think faculties always take a long time to come through and the er Vicar the village Vicar was very very happy to do that.
CB: And afterwards did you get anything from them?
SC: From the church?
CB: Yes.
SC: Yes um in fact er we we because we had some money er left over from our collection we actually gave the church a substan quite a nice amount of money as er the collection at the church that day was about five hundred pounds that day and so er I think we actually handed that over to the church so they were very grateful for that as well.
CB: Right brilliant, the second question is to do with your speciality education so how did the Local Education Authority but particularly the school in the village react?
SC: The school in the village? Er they had very little to do with it the village school yes yes.
CB: It’s not surprising in a way that so many people don’t even know when the war was.
SC: Mmm mmm.
CB: Let alone anything that came out of it.
SC: Absolutely, I think to be honest with you we were so busy, and I was particularly busy because I I organised it all, so I wrote all the letters, I wrote all the invitations, I did all of the organising absolutely everything, I wrote the service and everything, I think I was so probably taken up with the organisation of it all that I didn’t actually involve to be fair the village school children at that time because um we we just had so much else to do, we have the North Marston History Club we do go into the school I have gone into the school and given talks on various things like the history of the school but we haven’t actually talked to them about this particular event but we we might because I think it it’s something that we can we can do but at the time the village school children weren’t really involved, the children who were at the service were not the village school children they were air cadets local air cadets and the young scouts from Maidstone, er quite another nice coincidence was that John Wenham the young air gunner was a scout in Maidstone in the Tovil Scouts and there is a memorial to him on their Scout memorial but also his name is just alongside Guy Gibson’s because Guy Gibson was an honorary Tovil Scout, so John Wenham and Guy Gibson are on the same memorial down in Maidstone which is rather rather lovely, and those scouts our Tovil Scouts from Maidstone have forged a relationship with old dear Joy Colbeck now and they um have looked after they have now gone round to look after her brother’s grave in Maidstone and in fact the war grave the War Grave Commission have renovated er his stone and so that’s another nice outcome, I think the she wrote to it and I think it all brought it to the fore that the stone was getting in very poor condition and so that’s another result of this is that his stone has now been renovated at and the Tovil Scouts tend it and have shown an interest in him so it’s been educational for those young boys as well, and I think also what has been again so amazing is the response from the newspapers the Kent Messenger they have run big they wrote ran a big article for and to find to try and help us trace relatives they reported our service afterwards, The Best of British Magazine had it in , in er you know the Bucks Herald, er and the Brigton Argos if they hadn’t have published our story that time, and then since then the Kent Messenger the journalist there who was so interested in our story that he has contacted Joy Colbeck and has got a lot of stories about her family and her her family grew up in Maidstone, her family ran I’ll say a well known shop in Maidstone and I think he’s just suddenly she’s become a local celebrity in Maidstone although she lives in Luton she’s become a local celebrity in Maidstone and he’s been writing stories about her so that’s another offshoot really from it yes yes.
CB: You mentioned the Military Cemetery at Botley on the west side of Oxford.
SC: Yes yes.
CB: How well is that maintained and by who?
SC: It’s maintained beautifully um I’m not sure whether it’s the Oxford Council who do it or whether it’s the War Graves Commission but I’ve visited it on many occasions occasions and there’s always somebody mowing it’s beautifully kept and the three New Zealand boys are buried side by side and then the two British are just a few yards away in a different place, and all of the relatives who have visited this country have all obviously been over to Botley, and on the morning of our service on 25th April, we organised a little minibus and er a little minibus load of people went over there before they came back for our afternoon service and they took poppies and flowers over there to lay on the graves that day, yes very very beautifully maintained.
CB: Finally you’ve done a huge amount of work on this which worked extremely well and gave great closure for the families what would you say was the most memorable aspect of your task in arranging and er closing this operation?
SC: I think the most memorable aspect was our initial contact with the families we had no idea we would actually contact anybody and I think to receive photographs but receiving the photographs um I think every time I had a photograph I burst into tears when I saw it, there was only one of the crew who we couldn’t get a photograph of as an adult we only had one of the child, but to see photographs of those boys who died that night that’s my most I think one of the most poignant things, and I think to looking back to think how we have brought the families together and have given them so much information and honoured them, I think they felt honoured that we had remembered their boys and I think it’s the overwhelming sense of thanks and gratitude that we have had from the families I think that has been the the the personal aspect of it has been the most the thing that will live with me forever, I think it really well and er its been er yes a very very very worthy thing and I shall never regret doing it, my only regret is that my dear mother who saw the plane come down that night and who gave me the first early stories of this plane er had died before we managed to do this she would have just loved to have met everybody so that was my regret but yes that’s it I think really to say the everlasting legacy of it I think.
CB: In view of what you said I think it’s worth recording that er to do with the New Zealanders that of all the Commonwealth Countries New Zealand contributed the highest proportion of it’s population towards the war effort in Britain.
SC: Really, that’s amazing.
CB: So Sue we’ve spoken about people who are effectively are not in this locality in terms of the crew and their families and their descendants but in the locality first of all what was the reactions of schools and secondly the press because that links together really in an awareness but first the school so what was their reaction?
SC: Er the local village school er didn’t actually show any interest in it really, that said we didn’t approach the school at the time because we were so very very busy involved in the organisation and all of you can imagine how busy we were, er but some of the people who had given us money er and were helping us in the project had children had links with the village school but somehow it didn’t filter through to the village school or the headmistress there er that this might be a worthy project for her children to do, I don’t think that the headmistress of North Marston Village School had a great interest in history herself, in fact the only thing that the village school has done in North Marston in any way to do with history is that they have called their four houses after some important names linked with the village history, like Shaw and Camden and things like that because of its their names that go back in North Marston history back to twelve hundreds they have called their children’s houses by those names, misspelt I might say they haven’t spelt them properly, but that’s the only real thing that they’ve done towards village history, and they did er I asked them if I could go in and give them a history talk and I talked about the history of the village school er so that is really the only link that they have they have had with history, oh and I believe our Chairman of the History Club did take them on a guided walk around the village but certainly with where we go back to the bomber they didn’t show any interest at the time but that said we were so busy and exhausted with it all actually that we probably didn’t approach the school ourselves so we might have engendered so interest if we had gone in, um but the local newspapers were very disinterested the Buckingham Advertiser didn’t even publish a story about it and the Bucks Herald did publish something many weeks after after we had cajoled and that was a complete contrast to the reactions that we had from the Kent Messenger newspaper and the Brigton Argos newspaper who were thrilled to publish pictures of our big service and the stories behind them so it’s interesting that the editorial in the Bucks papers is disinterested in that sort of thing, er I will probably give a talk to the school at some stage actually I’m sure that they will um yes they they will let me go in and talk to them but I think um it didn’t engender their interest at the time.
CB: And your secondary school is in Waddesdon so what was the reaction there?
SC: No well we haven’t heard anything from them but again they might not have known anything about it because the local papers didn’t publicise it.
CB: Okay right I’ll stop there.
SC: Keep thinking of things but
CB: There are occasionally other things that come to mind afterwards and one is that there are stories about things that happened like what your mother’s perception was so shall we just cover that and also the other one so what did your mother say about it?
SC: Well my mother who happened to be in the outside privy in the garden at the time age twenty seven heard the Wellington bomber coming over and knew that it was in trouble because it didn’t sound like the other Wellington bombers that were always going over, she always said to me that it was on fire and she heard those poor boys screaming, but thinking about it with the noise of a Wellington bomber just a hundred feet above your head she probably didn’t hear screams and although it exploded in a field about quarter of a mile away er and obviously there was fire all around them, er we’ve all discussed since that possibly it wasn’t on fire when my mother saw it but it’s something that she thought it probably would have been but she didn’t actually see it but she’s dead now so we won’t ever know but that was her perception of it at the time.
CB: Well it could have been an engine fire of course as the crash was undetermined, what was the other story?
SC: Well this isn’t in our book at all and we haven’t mentioned it to some of the relatives but a local person in North Marston, Mike Fillamore, who is still alive, said that he was told by another local villager that the morning after the crash when they were down there a body was found hanging in a tree an ash tree just on the edge of the road, this was news to me I’ve never heard this story certainly my mother had never mentioned it, but the person who told this story was somebody called Jeff Ayres who has now passed away, but Mike Fillamore who heard this story from him said that was what he told him but Mike Fillamore could still tell you that, but we didn’t mention this to er the Joy Colbeck, the sister of John Wenham who was an air gunner, because we thought that it would upset her if she thought that it was her young brother who might have been in that tree and possibly in the dark might not have been noticed that night and could possibly have been saved, so we thought it was best not to tell her this because it’s not substantiated but I think I don’t know where the story comes from but this was what was said.
CB: So it is quite possible of course that somebody tried to get out like the rear gunner rotating his turret.
SC: Yes, so it could have been John Wenham or the young Reg Price the two nineteen year olds.
CB: Yes. Thank you.
Dublin Core
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AChaplinSR170407
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Interview with Sue Chaplin
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:52:23 audio recording
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Pending review
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2017-04-07
Description
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Susan Chaplin was born in North Marston and was a local teacher. She recounts the story her mother told her as a young girl, about Wellington HE740 which crashed near the village. With her local history group she researched and wrote a book “The North Marston Story”, about the crash and erected a memorial in the village church. Flight Sergeant Michael Reece, Flight Sergeant Donald McLennan, Flight Sergeant Alexander Bolger, Sergeant Ian Smith, Sergeant John Wenham and Sergeant Reginald Price were killed in the crash.
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Civilian
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1945-01-04
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
crash
final resting place
memorial
Operational Training Unit
RAF Westcott
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/360/5766/AFreethR160531.2.mp3
cf06e920ffcf1f6cdf9d9f0b1e811d60
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Title
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Freeth, Reg
Reg Freeth
R Freeth
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Reginald Freeth (b. 1921, 1319543 Royal Air Force) his logbook and a squadron photograph. Reg Freeth trained in South Africa and served as a bomb aimer with 61 Squadron first at RAF Syerston then at RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reginald Freeth and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-31
Rights
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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
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Freeth, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 31st May 2016 I’m in Goring on Thames with Reg Freeth and his wife Blodwyn and we are going to talk about his time in the RAF and the days before and after. So what are your earliest recollections Reg? What do you remember first in life? Where you were born and what did your parents do?
RF: I was born in Port Talbot I was one of a family of seven children I had two brothers and four sisters, my father was working as a shipper in the Port Talbot docks and he was born in Cardiff where my grandfather was employed on the Great Western Railway it was being built from England ino South Wales at the time this is back in the nineteenth century, my grandfather was born in Malmsbury in Wiltshire but he moved to Cardiff because of the work on the Great Western Railway of course my father was born in Cardiff then my father moved to Port Talbot and worked in the docks, I had two brothers one was working on the railway and the other one was in the Merchant Navy as a chief engineer and my four sisters they were doing domestic work, my eldest brother unfortunately he er he was shipwrecked in Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia on his first voyage but he survived I I er forget the name of the er cable car or something and er he survived the war but unfortunately he died at a quite young age because he had er.
BF: Its called emphysema, emphysema
RF: It was due to the er he had cancer of the lungs
CB: Right.
RF: Due due to the work in the ships in the er ships engineer he was only fifty seven, my younger brother he died when he was about seventy three, all my sisters have died, I’m then only survivor now I am ninety four years of age.
CB: So where did you go to school?
RF: I went to the Central Boys School and er I passed my er examination and at the age of eleven and went to the Duffryn Grammar School which is the same school as Richard Burton went to but I was older than Richard Burton and I was leaving the school when he was starting so I never got to know him that well I knew the family because they were from Pontrhydyfen [laughter] which is where my wife was born and my wife my wife’s family were living in the same street as Richard Burton’s family [laughs] in Pontrhydyfen, but um I passed my matriculation I think they called it at the time and er my headmaster suggested I should apply to go to the Civil Service in fact he gave me the money for the postage to stamp to er to send the application form away I couldn’t afford that at the time, and um I started work in the Civil Service in Swansea on 2nd January 1939 er whilst I was working there I was employed in the Labour Exchange as it was then and er of course the war broke out in September 39 and er when I was er eighteen nineteen twenty I tried to get into the Fleet Air Arm I wanted to er join the aircrew Fleet Air Arm I went down to I think it was Portsmouth I think it was Portsmouth for a medical examination and an interview and I failed the medical examination because I had a defective er bone in my nose and I couldn’t I couldn’t pass the test so I came back and I thought well I’m not going to wait anymore I’ll go I had an operation and I applied to go to the Royal Air Force, I joined the Royal Air Force on 4th August 4th August 41.
BF: Do you want a pen?
CB: Yes
RF: Yes want a pen want a pen top top top top all the other ones are bust.
CB: Thank you. 4th August 41?
RF: 4th August 41 um I went to St. John’s Wood in London um I was there for about three weeks I think and we were just getting um our inoculations and things and er doing a little bit of training we used to go into the park there Regents Park was it we used to have our meals there we used to march into the park have our meals and then come back to St. John’s Wood living in a posh house then and um I think we went on to Torquay er I don’t know what it was called like an instruction training.
CB: ITW was it initial training?
RF: ITW initial training wing.
CB: That’s it okay.
RF: Initial training wing went down to Torquay um I can’t remember how long must have been there for about three months and then we went up to Greenock in Scotland to er catch a boat er out to South Africa er we joined the convoy there and unfortunately our ship had problems and it couldn’t keep up with the convoy it had to drop out and we were left on our own in the North Atlantic we got to Freetown Sierra Leone on Christmas Day 1941 we were there for a few days and then we joined another convoy and went on to Durban in South Africa, we were billeted in tents at Claremont Racecourse on the outskirts of Durban for about a fortnight and then we went up to Littleton Camp near Pretoria er where we were sort of we were joined by all other recruits air crew recruits and we were sorted into groups and assigned to different air schools in South Africa for training as air observers, I was er sent to 47 Air School in Queenstown Cape Province and er when I completed my training I did navigation, bombing and gunnery and I passed all three and I was awarded the Air Observers Badge I went down to Cape Town to await transport back to the UK and er we got back er er um let me think.
CB: How long was the training?
RF: Sorry?
CB: How many months were the training?
RF: Um it was about eight months.
CB: So late 42?
RF: 1942 yes and then we were sent to Millom, RAF Millom um because during that period the aircraft used in the Royal Air Force for bombing missions changed from a small plane like a Wellington to the big plane Lancaster, Halifax, and Stirling, and they split the jobs the air observer’s job and we were sorted out in Millom to join the crew to carry on then er our training but the air observers that were trained in South Africa some were made observers, some were made navigators, and some were made bomb aimers, I was made a bomb aimer and very very fortunately my friend that I was with when I joined the Royal Air Force in St. John’s Wood, but he was trained at a different school in South Africa, he became the navigator and became the bomb aimer in the same crew so we were very fortunate and er we finished up after our initial training OTU and joined 61 Squadron at Syerston [?] in May 1943.
CB: Where was your OTU?
RF: Um Bruntingthorpe is it um I was stationed at Wing for a while near Aylesbury but I think most of my training was at um Bruntingthorpe.
CB: What about the HCU where did you go for that? The HCU where was the Heavy Conversion Unit?
RF: Er it was on the outskirts of Newark can’t think of the name there was an aerodrome there on the outskirts of Newark I can’t think of the name.
CB: Okay. So you joined 61 Squadron?
RF: We joined 61 Squadron in.
CB: At Syerston?
RF: May 1943 at Syerston.
CB: Right. Okay.
RF: Okay.
CB: And what were you flying?
RF: Er Lancasters, I trained on Manchesters and Wellingtons.
CB: So you came back from South Africa and then you went to your OTU how did you do the crewing up because you met your friend again there?
RF: Well we were sorted out in Millom on our return from South Africa.
CB: Into crews?
RF: And er we weren’t given any option we were just put into crews and fortunately I found I was with my best friend and he was the navigator.
CB: What was his name?
RF: Jamie Barr, Jamie Barr.
CB: Good, okay. So what about the rest of the crew what were they like?
RF: They were very good we were very very friendly got on very well um the flight engineer was George Turnbull he was er I think he used to live in near Northampton, the pilot that we had at the time on our first er commission on Syerston was Jamie James James Graham he was a Scots I think he was from Girvan in Ayrshire he was Scots, Jamie Barr was a Scot so we got on very well the Welsh and the Scots and the English we all mixed up well, Eric Walker was the um tail gunner er that’s about it isn’t it.
CB: Mid upper, mid upper who was mid upper, who was the mid upper?
RF: I can’t think of his name now but he didn’t stay long with us he was taken off ops.
CB: Okay so why was that?
RF: Finished up with Reg Bunnion then, Reg Bunnion was our mid upper oh now he was the wireless operator he was the wireless operator, er Jim Chapman was the er Jim Chapman was the er mid upper, Reg Bunnion was the er wireless operator because his name was Reg and mine was Reg they called him Bunny not to get mixed up you know on the intercom.
CB: Very important.
RF: Called him Reg.
CB: So what was the name of the original mid upper then?
RF: I can’t think of his name now but er he was taken out for LMF.
CB: He was right. So how did that manifest itself was that at the Heavy Conversion Unit at in the Squadron or when?
RF: It was on the squadron.
CB: What exactly happened?
RF: No idea.
CB: I mean in the aeroplane were you conscious of this, how conscious of you were you of it in the plane on opertions did you know about it?
RF: Yes.
CB: What did he do?
RF: Well he just didn’t want to fly anymore on ops and he refused to go on operations, I think they called it LMF wasn’t it lack of moral fibre.
CB: What did they do to him?
RF: Well he was taken off stripped of his sergeants er rank and er he was given just menial jobs then I don’t know what he was doing we lost touch with him.
CB: They took him away from the airfield?
RF: Yes took him away yes we lost touch with him.
CB: So when he was removed from the crew and had his brevets removed how did they do that did they do that in a parade or what did they do?
RF: It just happened we didn’t know what had gone on you know we weren’t told much.
CB: Okay. So how did the crew get on?
RF: We got on quite well and er I think it was Reg Bunnion I said wasn’t it took his place.
CB: Yes.
RF: I can’t think now [laughs] getting all mixed up.
BF: Yes it’s a wonder you can remember what did happen.
CB: So the crew was put together there was no choice?
RF: Yeah we were still in the same crew and we had a replacement he was the mid upper gunner.
CB: Right.
RF: He was the mid upper gunner he was the replacement I think it was Reg Bunnion that replaced him.
CB: Yeah right, and um how did the training go initially ‘cos you were in the OTU to begin with what did you do in the OTU?
RF: Well we were doing um practice bombing and er night flights covering the whole country really we were going up to Scotland, North England.
CB: So some of it was cross country navigation was it, some of it was navigation cross country?
RF: Yes yes yes it was very good you know it was good training and er we had a bit of a problem when we were doing one of our practice bombing missions at er Whittlesea bombing range near March Isle of Ely and we had to bale out.
CB: Really, what happened?
RF: Er one of the flares that’s attached to the inside of the fuselage of the can’t remember whether it was a Wellington or a Manchester now um it was come off its hook and slipped down behind the aileron controls which run along the fuselage and er the pilot asked us to check he was having difficulty um flying the plane to see what happened we found the flare had stuck behind the aileron controls and he said to try and remove it we we tried as much as we could and we couldn’t get it out so he told us we’d have to bale out he was a trainee he was a trainer pilot and he wasn’t carrying a a parachute the tail gunner didn’t get the message from the pilot clearly enough and he came back on the intercom to the pilot and said ‘what’s happening?’ he could see all the parachutes passing the end the tail of the plane and the pilot told him to bale out but the tail gunner didn’t realise you know what was going on at the time and er he was the last one to get out of the plane he landed in the WAAF’s quarters somewhere [laughter] he was lucky.
CB: What happened to the pilot?
RF: He made an emergency landing at RAF Wittering and er we were told that he died a few months later on an operational trip, but um all of us survived our er baling out we landed in er ploughed fields around that area and we were collected by the police from March Isle of Ely and they took us back to base it was er 6.20 p.m. on Sunday 20th December 1942 that’s when the er baling out took place [laughs].
CB: So on that flight had you released your practice bombs beforehand or not?
RF: No we hadn’t and I landed in a ploughed field it was pitch dark of course at that time 6.20 p.m. and I er lost one of my flying boots on the way down, I unfastened my parachute and it blew away before I had a chance to grab it, I walked across the field there was an irrigation ditch on the side of the field I waded through that no sign of any houses there so I walked up a lane and eventually I came to a farmhouse I knocked at the door and a lady came to answer it I told her what had happened she didn’t believe me she shut the door she thought I was a German because I’d blue eyes and blond hair you see [laughter] and er eventually I persuaded her to phone the police and that’s how the police came to pick us up.
CB: Then what so you’ve got a crew without a pilot or the pilot came back for a while did he?
RF: No he was he was the er the officer training.
CB: Oh he was training.
RF: He was training the pilot.
CB: Right.
RF: Our pilot survived.
CB: Oh he did.
RF: I was lucky because um my parachute opened inside the plane.
CB: That was dangerous how did that happen?
RF: Well I’d er when the pilot told me to bale out I lifted the the escape hatch and I couldn’t remember where the er rip cord was so I put my hand on the rip cord, we weren’t given much training you know on using the parachute, I found the rip cord and a slipstream came in to the plane under the escape hatch caught my hand and pulled the rip cord and the parachute began to open I could see the silk and I put my arms around it and I jumped out.
CB: Lucky.
RF: And er.
CB: You’d just clipped it on had you, you had just clipped it onto your webbing?
RF: Yeah it was clipped on it was clipped on ready but the rip cord had opened the parachute slightly there was just a trace of the er silk I could see it and I thought well I’m going to die I might as well jump out and die, so I put my arms round the parachute and er jumped out of the plane and I got on all right, but we were told then that er the ground crew said ‘who was the silly b that b who er pulled the rip cord inside the plane?’ they found the rip cord there inside the plane they didn’t complain [laughs].
CB: Did you count to three before you er let go with your arms?
RF: I just leapt out I leapt out.
CB: And how long before you moved your arms?
RF: Oh well it must have opened out you know as soon as I jumped out then the wind the wind from the Jetstream was there.
CB: Right. So everybody was uninjured?
RF: Yeah everybody survived yes we all survived.
CB: And er the instructing pilot er did they give him any special award?
RF: No no he thought because he was an instruct an instructor that he didn’t need a parachute but he was lucky he made an emergency landing and survived it was the fault of this er what do they call it?
CB: The flare.
RF: The flare.
CB: How did that become dislodged?
RF: It just must have broken the hook or something they were normally hooked up or something.
CB: But it didn’t ignite it didn’t go off?
RF: No no it didn’t go off it just got stuck behind the aileron controls.
CB: So what was the purpose of that flare in the bomb bay where would you normally drop the flare?
RF: I don’t I don’t think I ever dropped one.
CB: So how then you went straight back to training did you?
RF: Yes just carried we had a week’s leave then as it was Christmas time and er we just carried on training after that and eventually you know in the May we were assigned to 61 Squadron.
CB: Right so that was at Syerston?
RF: Syerston.
CB: And er what was your first raid?
RF: Er it was a nickel raid dropping leaflets I’ve made a list out here.
CB: Okay I’ll stop just for a mo.
BF: Shall I make a cup of coffee or tea.
CB: That would be lovely thank you.
BF: What would you like?
CB: Right so we’ve now looked at the list and your first trip was to Clermont Ferrand?
RF: Ferrand.
CB: Ferrand and er that was a nickel so you were dropping leaflets?
RF: Yes.
CB: What about the next one Dortmund what was that?
RF: Well before you go onto the second one.
CB: Oh yeah okay.
RF: Our navigator got lost and er we had to er call an emergency we were told to go to we were directed then got lost with his navigation and er we were told to go to Colerne is it? Colerne near Bath
CB: Colerne yes.
RF: And we were shown the way there to get there we landed in Colerne when I got out of the plane I asked where we were and I was told Colerne I thought they said Cologne [laughter] and I started running across the airfield [laughs] I thought we’d landed somewhere else you see in Cologne anyhow that was just our first experience [laughter] it was a funny one.
CB: Absolutely yeah okay. Then Dortmund?
RF: Dortmund yes mostly in the Ruhr in the Ruhr where we were bombing.
CB: Yes right, and was there any difference in targets and were some targets more difficult than others?
RF: Not really we’d er we didn’t have any trouble flying out we weren’t attacked at all we were very fortunate um our problem well my problem was finding where to drop the bombs because we were told that the er oh what.
CB: The markers?
RF: Yeah the flares.
CB: Yes.
RF: ER who who used to fly in what do they call them?
CB: The pathfinders?
RF: Pathfinders.
CB: Yes.
RF: They were dropping flares they were dropping flares and we were told to bomb a certain colour and if there wasn’t that colour to bomb the other colour but we were given priorities which colour to er drop these bombs and er if there was more than one we had to try and bomb in the centre, we didn’t see the target at all we just er saw the lights down on the ground and the flares it was the flares we were attacking.
CB: Right, and the flares were bright enough?
RF: Oh yes they were very clear.
CB: To be able to constantly see them?
RF: You could see them before you got to the target.
CB: Right.
RF: And then er I’d see different colour flares and I’d identify the ones we were told to bomb priority and I dropped the bombs there in the centre of those.
CB: So in your run in how far from the target was the run in to start, how many miles out?
BF: You want sugar and milk.
RF: Milk.
CB: I’ll stop for a moment hang on. So we are just back on the bombing runs then Reg.
RF: I’d tell the pilot you know to bear left or bear right port or starboard and then straight ahead.
CB: So you are lying down?
RF: I was lying down flat.
CB: Right and you’d got the bomb sight in front of you?
RF: Yeah keeping an eye on the er the flares in front of me and once I saw the flares I told the pilot and we were told which flares to have priority to bomb and I’d head for those and I’d bomb either the one flare that was the colour I was I was to bomb or the centre of more than one flare and just er drop the bombs I never saw the target really.
CB: So who pressed the button for dropping the bombs?
RF: I did.
CB: Right, and then what then you had to keep going straight and level how long for?
RF: Not for long.
CB: Because you had drop a flare then?
RF: As we came into the target I’d have to er identify the flares and I’d tell the pilot ‘bomb doors open’ and I’d open the bomb doors and then ‘bombs away’ and then everything turned off then the pilot just diverted to the left.
CB: But didn’t you have to drop a flare and then take a picture?
RF: I never took pictures.
CB: Who did who took the picture the pilot was it?
RF: Could have been it could have been the navigator I don’t know I never did it.
CB: Okay, so as you said then he would turn?
RF: He’d turn then and.
CB: Which way would he go was there a standard escape turn?
RF: He’d turn left port.
CB: Changing height or same level?
RF: Go higher after dropping the bombs, I think we were lucky with the Lancaster because it got to a higher level to drop the bombs than the other four engine bombers, you know the Halifax and Stirling they couldn’t get to our height they were below us so we were very lucky in the Lancaster.
CB: Right, and on your raids how often did you encounter enemy fighters?
RF: We never met any we were never attacked we were very very fortunate we had searchlights occasionally and we could see flak coming but it never hit the aircraft.
CB: So you are flying along and the flak is coming up what is that like?
RF: Well you could see it you know exploding and you could see the flares but er we were very fortunate as we were flying high you see in the Lancaster.
CB: What sort of height were you flying?
RF: About twenty five thousand.
CB: So are you’re saying could the flak not reach your height?
RF: Could be yeah.
CB: Some people experienced flak boxes did you come across that so there’s intensive flak in a box shape?
RF: No we didn’t no no.
CB: Because you were above it?
RF: No never saw it.
CB: Okay and what about other aircraft dropping bombs near you?
RF: Didn’t see any.
CB: And what about other aircraft exploding was that something you saw?
RF: Never saw them all I was concentrating on was the target and the flares and I could see all the flames on the ground you know scattered around it covered quite a big area you know all the flames.
CB: Yes.
RF: It wasn’t concentrated in one particular place it was scattered all over.
CB: Why was it so scattered?
RF: Because of the flares I expect dropped er in the wrong in the wrong place it’s difficult you know when you’ve got er different colour flares which one to target.
CB: Because there is radio silence anyway isn’t there?
RF: Yes.
CB: So before coming to the target and after the target what was your job before you reached the target what were you doing?
RF: What was?
CB: Before you reached the target what were you doing as the bomb aimer?
RF: Just keeping an eye open for enemy aircraft and er and the flares and the er um what do they call it? [laughs].
CB: The lights?
RF: The lights.
CB: The searchlights.
BF: The searchlights.
RF: The searchlights.
CB: Yes so you how did you deal with the searchlights?
RF: Searchlights.
CB: How did bombers deal with those?
RF: We were lucky we were never caught in those searchlights.
CB: Right.
RF: But I used to see them in the distance you know we were never caught in them.
CB: The bomb aiming position is immediately underneath the front turret so how often did you go into the front turret?
RF: I never went in there I was spending all my time on my tummy looking forward identifying the target.
CB: Right.
RF: I thought that was my main job and if we were attacked I would have gone into the front turret.
CB: Right.
RF: But we weren’t attacked so it was a waste of time going in there.
CB: Right. On the way home what was your job on the way home?
RF: I had nothing to do really I was just lying down keeping an eye open for enemy aircraft, searchlights.
CB: Did the pilot ever had to do a corkscrew?
RF: No.
CB: You’ve covered a number of places you went to Cologne three times in a row what was the reason for that?
RF: No idea we weren’t given a choice of target we were just told to go there I remember on the third occasion telling the pilot that I could see the flames in the distance I I don’t know how far it is from the French coast to Cologne but it was quite a distance and as soon as we crossed the French coast I told the pilot I could see the flames dead ahead.
CB: What was the most difficult raid of the ones you did?
RF: I think the ones in the Ruhr were the er most difficult Dortmund was it or Essen Essen did we go there twice?
CB: Your second sortie was Dortmund.
RF: Did we go twice to Essen?
CB: ER you only went once to Essen.
RF: Once.
CB: Your third one was to Essen yes that was the most difficult was it?
RF: Well they were all the ones to Ruhr were difficult because there was more er searchlights and everything you know and er there must have been more fighters below us they didn’t come up as high as us we were lucky I don’t know how many aircraft were lost on those raids in the Ruhr it must have been quite a lot.
CB: Now your last raid was on Stuttgart what happened on the way back from that?
RF: We were diverted by our um message on the er on the er what do they call it intercom not intercom.
CB: No on the RT?
RF: Yes we were told that our base at Syerston was er was closed because of bad weather and we were told to divert to Herne airport in near Bournemouth and our pilot had to come down after crossing the French coast to get under the low cloud cover over the English Channel it was about three thousand feet and coming down from twenty five thousand to under three thousand over a short distance you know from the French coast caused me to perforated my ear drum and we landed at er Herne safely and then er stayed the night there flew back to Syerston the following day.
CB: So when you had the perforated eardrum and you landed at Herne what happened did you go to sick quarters or what?
RF: No I just went to the er sergeants mess I think it was I don’t know how we managed to sleep [laughs].
CB: Did anybody else have a perforated eardrum?
RF: No No.
CB: Just you?
RF: Just me.
CB: What caused that do you think?
RF: Well it’s the rapid descent you know coming over the English Channel to get under the cloud cover the original pilot that we had when we first joined 61 Squadron he had to come off operations because of loss of hearing and he was put onto non-operational flying his name was er James Graham wasn’t it.
CB: Yes.
RF: And then we had a replacement pilot Norman Turner who took us as a complete crew and it was his third tour of operations it was a cycle of ten.
CB: Was everybody else in your crew a sergeant or flight sergeant were they before he came was everybody an NCO?
RF: We were all NCO’s.
CB: Yes until he came?
RF: They were made flight lieutenants after they completed their tour of operations but Norman Turner er he came back for a third tour he didn’t have to do it but er he wanted to do it and er took us on as a complete crew and we were very fortunate he was an excellent pilot.
CB: But he’d been in a different squadron before had he?
RF: He must have been yes yes and I think he had the DFC when he came to us, um after a short time we had a new aircraft delivered to 61 Squadron it was a QRJ QRJ QR was the squadron letters and J was the aircraft letter the um aircraft number was JB138 and er it was delivered direct from the factory to the squadron and Norman Turner took it on he liked the name J and called it “Just Jane” and er.
CB: Which is at East Kirkby now that’s the name of the Lancaster at East Kirkby now.
RF: East Kirkby it’s not the same one.
CB: No no.
RF: But the original “Just Jane” went on to do a hundred and twenty three operations with different aircrew during the war ended the war and was scrapped but it had a wonderful life “Just Jane” hundred and twenty three operations and er Norman Turner designed er a picture on the outer fuselage by the pilot’s er cockpit a picture of Jane who was a character in the Daily Mirror at the time sitting on a bomb that was our picture on the side of the fuselage Jane she was er a favourite model with all people in the forces at the time er I think she lived in Horsham didn’t she yeah.
CB: So you had a perforated eardrum you landed and then the next day you flew to Syerston what happened next for you?
RF: I was going up to London I don’t know where exactly for tests every so often and I was restricted to non-operational flying I couldn’t fly above three thousand feet and then after another test later on they increased it to six thousand feet and I finished up non-operational again up to ten thousand feet so my hearing must have been improving a bit.
CB: So what were you doing during that period it was non-operational so you weren’t with your crew anymore?
RF: No I was on OTU’S then.
CB: Where?
RF: Um oh dear Wing was one of them I know.
CB: So in the OTU’S what were you flying in at OTU?
RF: Wellingtons.
CB: And what was your job when you were flying at the OTU?
RF: I was a bombing instructor I did a course in Doncaster I think it was training course as a bombing instructor and er I went to quite a number of OTU’s I can’t remember the names can you remember the names of some of the?
CB: There were so many weren’t there.
RF: Yes.
CB: Were they nearby?
RF: They were all in this area you know central England.
CB: So Little Horwood?
RF: Where?
CB: Little Horwood, um Cheddington, um Westcott there were so many.
RF: Westcott yes Westcott.
CB: That was 11 OTU.
RF: Yes yes.
CB: Right, Turweston.
RF: No.
CB: Bicester.
RF: No.
CB: Hinton in the Hedges, Croughton there were lots round there.
RF: No.
CB: Okay.
RF: They were all around Lincolnshire.
CB: Oh you went up to Lincolnshire as well?
RF: Yes.
CB: So what did you do after being a bombing instructor?
RF: I went er what do they call it would be er the administrative officer you know of the squadron.
CB: Yeah the secretarial officer.
RF: Yeah I was helping him.
CB: Yes.
RF: Yes it was a funny job because er if we lost aircrew you know we had to dispose of all the er possessions and everything send them back to the next of kin.
CB: What was that like? What was that like how did you feel about that?
RF: Um felt a bit sad you know doing it but it had to be done and I used to go on I remember now I used to go on the bomb sites on the er you know where they do practice bombing.
CB: Yeah on the bombing range yes.
RF: I used to go on the bombing range I used to go out in er er like a jeep or something with a couple of er crew and we used to er check the the targets had been hit on the bomb on the site there on the bombing target practice bombing.
CB: What was the size of the bombs used for practice? What size were the bombs used for practice how heavy?
RF: When I was doing ops?
CB: When the bombs were used for practice.
RF: Oh I can’t remember.
CB: I think they were twenty five pounds.
RF: Yes.
CB: So you you left your crew did you keep in touch with the crew? They completed their tour did they?
RF: Yes they completed their tour but er I’d already lost them after I er left Skellingthorpe they remained in Skellingthorpe but I had to go to different OTU’s so I lost touch with them.
CB: Right, and when did you first make contact with your crew after the war?
RF: Nineteen Eighty Two wasn’t it?
BF: Yes.
RF: Nineteen Eighty Two something like that this member from Neath came to my house and asked me if I’d been in the RAF because he had seen the message put in by Jamie Barr that’s how we er got together.
CB: Right. So you went from working with the bombing range you then left the RAF at that time did you?
RF: Yes back to the Civil Service.
CB: So where did you go when you rejoined the Civil Service where was that?
RF: I went to Neath and that was with the National Insurance Office as it was then, and then I moved to Port Talbot with the National Insurance, and then I volunteered to go to er Reading to join a computer centre that they set up at Reading, I was interested in that type of work you know but it was in the early days of computers I wanted to be a systems analyst but they they said I was too old [laughs] to train but um I enjoyed it you know I was er working there for quite a number of years about six years wasn’t it?
BF: Yes six years.
RF: In Didcot six years?
BF: And then we went back to Port Talbot.
RF: Yes, and at the time there were people working in the new computer centre in Reading living in Didcot in different areas and we used to share transport we were very fortunate I only had to drive once once a week because we were picking each other up you see driving to Reading working in the same computer centre I’ve lost touch with all those now.
CB: When did you buy your first house?
RF: Er.
BF: Clifton Terrace.
RF: Clifton Terrace Port Talbot what year was that Nineteen Sixty Two?
BF: [unclear]
RF: Nineteen Sixty Two Steven was two.
BF: Yes.
RF: And we moved from there to Didcot lived in Didcot for six years they were building the power station there at the time and of course that’s the one that’s had this problem recently you know.
CB: It collapsed.
RF: Because it collapsed the power station causing the death of three people there er moved back then to Port Talbot again, and then moved from Port Talbot to Woking, then Woking back to Port Talbot, and then Port Talbot back here.
CB: Sounds like an elastic band doesn’t it.
BF: I would like to be near my family one of six children you know but I was the youngest but they all died so my family were up here then you see.
CB: Yes.
RF: So when we lived in Didcot back in Nineteen Sixty Six to Seventy Two we used to come to Goring quite often on the weekends because it er was quite a popular place here for visitors and we liked it here didn’t we?
BF: Yes yes we liked it very much.
RF: And when our daughter came back from abroad she’d been living out in the Middle East Dubai um we told her to buy a house here and she’s lived here ever since.
CB: Really. What was the most memorable thing about your RAF service?
RF: I think the most I enjoyed was the friendship especially with the crew we didn’t get to know the ground crew that well but they were very good but the crew was like a family you know we kept together we went out together and we flew together.
CB: What was the worst part of your time in the RAF?
RF: I can’t really say it was bad at all I enjoyed it it was nice especially out in South Africa used to er go swimming there they had a swimming pool in Queenstown used to spend quite a lot of time there I had quite a lot of friends on the training courses.
CB: But Jamie Barr was your best friend then but you lost touch with him completely after leaving the squadron?
RF: Yes for a number of years until Nineteen Eighty Two and then we’ve met up every year since I don’t think he’s well enough to go up to the reunion this year.
CB: Right.
RF: But we’ve always met up together.
CB: Where does he live now?
RF: Yeah get to know his family and everything.
BF: Where does Jamie live Reg?
RF: Ludlow.
BF: Ludlow isn’t it.
RF: Ludlow
BF: Yes we do phone him occasionally keep in touch.
RF: And um the other crew that we managed to trace they joined us every year at the reunion before going up to Lincoln for the squadron reunion we used to meet together in different hotels you know in Hilton hotels and places in this area but we always stuck together, um Bunny and his wife we got to know them all, Eric Walker and his wife Dorothy he was the tail gunner Eric unfortunately they died you see there is only Jamie and myself left now of the crew, er Norman Turner he was the pilot that we had the replacement pilot I think he was from Macclesfield his er his widow Dorothy she still corresponds Christmas time, and er Jim Chapman’s wife she’s still alive she keeps in touch, Bunny’s wife unfortunately is ill she’s in a care home now isn’t she yes, but we always stuck together for years you know year after year we were meeting up together the complete crew.
CB: And er Norman Turner was there until the end of the tour?
RF: Yes.
CB: Which you didn’t finish because of your problem with your ear, what happened to James Graham?
RF: He had to come off operational flying we lost touch with him then because he must have gone to OTU’s I know he was from er Girvan in Ayrshire originally that’s where he was born but I think he moved down to um Surrey Leatherhead lost touch with him but he’s died now.
CB: But he had to give up because of a medical problem?
RF: Yes um he he didn’t perforate his eardrum but he had loss of hearing it must have been the noise of the the plane of the engines.
CB: Well it’s fairly regular.
RF: Affected him.
CB: Now one of the things it’s difficult for people to grasp really is the situation where you’re the bomb aimer you are lying down looking forwards and vertically into the inferno what’s it like doing that?
RF: I didn’t mind it at all you know it was something er I can’t say I enjoyed it but I was glad to be in that position rather than the navigator, the navigator was tucked away in a corner like the wireless operator they were tucked away in the corner they couldn’t see out, I could see out the gunners the mid upper gunner and the rear gunner they could see out like I could and the pilot and the flight engineer but the navigator was tucked away in the corner you see and the wireless operator inside the plane, some of the er people I trained with in South Africa kept in touch I don’t know how they managed to find me one of them was from Kingston upon Thames he joined the Police Force after the war but unfortunately I never had a chance to meet him and he’s died, the other one the daughter put a letter in the Squadron Association Newsletter asking for information about her father and I saw the letter after I’d joined the squadron I was getting the magazine every so often, and I saw the letter and I correspond corresponded with her then and told her that I was training with her father out in South Africa and he came to the squadron as well but he was er a flying officer so we never sort of kept together in the squadron he was in the officers mess I was in the sergeants mess, but er we trained together but I had photographs I sent to her and she was grateful because she hadn’t been told anything about her father he’d been killed on an operational flight and her mother remarried and never talked about her father she was born a couple of months after her father was killed, so er she was very grateful that I’d given her some information about her father and sent photographs and things she goes up to the reunion every year and we have a chat up there that’s er.
BF: Pat.
RF: Pat.
CB: One of the aspects of this project that’s interesting is how many veterans like you have been unable, my father was one of them, unable to communicate with their family what they did in the war why do you think that was?
RF: Yes they didn’t like talking about it, our squadron um Wing Commander er he was killed unfortunately on the same night at Pat’s father but he was our Wing Commander and er his daughter she also managed to contact me and I gave her the information um she now lives in Pangbourne and she was er what was her name Jallet isn’t it?
BF: Yes Jallet.
RF: Susan Jallet and David Jallet they were doing the er doing the catering and everything for the reunion until their health failed.
CB: Right I’m just looking to see who they I haven’t got it down. Right so that’s really helpful thank you very much indeed er now Vic is there anything that comes to your mind that we?
RF: Did you want to pay a visit?
CB: I do in a minute yes. Do you want to stop now do you want to stop?
RF: No.
VT: Just a couple of things.
CB: This is Vic Truesdale now with a question.
VT: And will you put it to Reg ‘cos I think he’ll.
CB: Yeah to Reg okay.
VT: Er you didn’t it would be interesting to know how he chose the RAF and he told us about um where was it in London in the?
CB: St. John’s Wood
VT: St. John’s Wood but we didn’t know I think how he chose that.
CB: So the question is um you said that you joined the RAF at St. John’s Wood but why was it that you joined the RAF after the experience with the Navy and the Fleet Air Arm what made you decide to join the RAF.
RF: I can’t think I I just changed my mind that’s all [laughs] yes.
CB: But it was it because why didn’t you go to the army why didn’t you choose the army?
RF: I wanted to learn to fly, I wanted to be a pilot but er there we are you can’t get all your wishes, but er my first er target was the Fleet Air Arm for some reason it may be because my brother was in the Merchant Navy I don’t know.
CB: So when you did the original assessment then people tended to get categorised in the PNB pilot navigator bomber grouping did they suggest at any stage you should start pilot training or was it always directly to do with observer?
RF: I think we had tests in Oxford at the time and er it was er eyesight, colour vision and my eyesight was 20/20, my colour vision was perfect, so maybe that’s the reason they wanted me to be an observer.
CB: But you were happy with the decision?
RF: Yes yes I enjoyed it training out in South Africa.
CB: If you had had the option of becoming a navigator instead of a bomb aimer would you have preferred that?
RF: [sighs] I wouldn’t mind either really I would have preferred being a navigator because I liked er doing the maps I liked studying the stars and the cloud cover and things like that I used to enjoy that type of training when I was er I’m still a weather forecaster aren’t I [laughs].
BF: Yes.
RF: I forecast the rain today.
CB: As a result of your training that’s as a result of your initial training you learned about the weather?
RF: Yes.
CB: As part of your training.
RF: And I always liked maths when I was at school that was my favourite subject so looking at maps and er working out routes and mileage and things like that was far better for me than doing the bomb aimers training but I didn’t mind.
CB: Now then after a while the aircraft had H2S radar to what extent did you get linked in with that?
RF: It didn’t affect me at all but I it did the navigator but I was fortunate as I told you as I finished up in the same crew as my best friend as navigator and bomber aimer couldn’t be better.
CB: A final question to do with promotion, so you came off operations as a flight sergeant when did you get promoted to warrant officer?
RF: I can’t remember.
CB: What were you doing at the time?
RF: It may have been after I er did the the er bombing instructors course could have been I think it was in Doncaster I did the course.
CB: Yes okay. I think that covers most of the items thank you we’ll pause there. Supplementary question here from Vic which is you had to go to South Africa on the ship which became detached what was it like first of all being on the ship on its own and then back in a convoy what did you do?
RF: Well I remember crossing the Equator we had to go through a certain ceremony what did they call it?
VT: Neptune.
CB: Neptune.
RF: Yes I remember going through that particular phase before we got to Freetown and when we got to Freetown as I said we were there I think for three or four days waiting for another convoy we used to enjoy it because the natives used to swim into the harbour come up to the boat and ask for Glasgow tanners and we used to throw coins into the water for them and they used to dive in and pick them up they were always coming up and shouting “Glasgow tanners, Glasgow tanners” because it was the only English words they knew I think.
CB: Yes yes, what was the ceremony at the Equator what was the ceremony what did that entail?
RF: Well a special ceremony when you cross the Equator I can’t think of the name.
CB: Yes but what did you actually do you had to step across a line on the deck did you?
RF: Yeah or something or you went in the water or something.
CB: So then you were underway on the ship what were you doing all day on the ships?
RF: Well we were told to er man the guns we had a certain shift to do you know.
CB: Which type of gun is that?
RF: On the on the Merchant on the on the er passenger boat I can’t remember we weren’t given any training.
CB: They were big guns not machine guns?
RF: Yes they were big guns and we were told to go on a shift perhaps five hours or seven hours I can’t remember but we never had to use them.
CB: So the guns are in a turret are they? Were they open or were they in a turret?
RF: In a turret but I could stand inside you know I remember looking out and seeing the flying fish out on the ocean there.
CB: And which shift did you prefer bearing in mind this was a hot area?
RF: Which?
CB: Because of the heat which shift did you want to choose so you had to go on the guns and it was hot?
RF: I didn’t mind I didn’t mind.
CB: No you didn’t no.
RF: I think the name of the ship that we went in was Scythia [spells it out] Scythia [spells it out] and I think the other boat that we came back on was Empress of Russia.
CB: And how long did it take for the voyage?
RF: I can’t think it took three weeks to get to Freetown I know that and then it er must have been from Freetown we left in January must have been about six weeks down to Durban, we spent quite a long time in Cape Town after we’d completed our training waiting to come back and I managed to er get up to the top of Table Mountain I didn’t climb up I just used the cable car.
CB: Oh right. What planes were you flying in training what aircraft?
RF: Er Avro Ansoms and the Oxford.
CB: Which one was the gunnery which one for gunnery?
RF: I’m not sure we used both of them, I was very fortunate actually when I was training because er there was a person on our course by the name of Fraser and every day they put a notice up on the noticeboard saying what flight you were in for training and Fraser was always shown before Freeth this particular day Freeth was put before Fraser and his plane crashed and he was killed, I went to his funeral I remember that I was one of the pallbearers but er you know it’s all fate isn’t it.
CB: At the time though how did you feel about that?
RF: I didn’t think of it at the time you know I was just sorry for him but I it struck me afterwards you know why was it always Fraser and Freeth you know on the noticeboard it gave you details of the flight for the day and you’d look at the noticeboard and you’d see which plane you were going to er join and which target whether it was bombing or navigation and Fraser was always there before Freeth but this day it was Freeth before Fraser.
CB: You mentioned flying in the Manchester earlier did you go on any operations in that or was that only?
RF: That’s just training.
CB: What was that like for flying?
RF: It was a bit er bumpy you know it wasn’t very good compared to the I preferred the Wellington and er when I was taken off operations I remember flying them in a Martinet I don’t know what I was doing in the Martinet that was in OTU and er I went back in the Lancaster the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight I was invited to fly in that that was in September Nineteen Ninety Nine and um went up to Coningsby to join it and er we did a fly pass at Cleethorpes they were unveiling a memorial there to boar fighters and we did a fly pass again at Northcotes airfield in Yorkshire and then we went up to Leaming in Yorkshire North Yorkshire I was up for nearly two hours I went down to the bomb aimers position at my age.
CB: Fantastic.
RF: Nineteen Ninety Nine how old was I then seventy eight was it? Seventy eight I managed to get down into the bomb aimers position I had to be helped to get over the main spar I couldn’t climb over them.
CB: But a great experience.
RF: Yes wonderful.
CB: Right I think we’ve done really well thank you Reg. Now we are talking about one of the squadron commanders Wing Commander Penman.
RF: Wing Commander Penman.
CB: And what did he do?
RF: He was 61 Squadron Commanding Officer and for one particular reason I don’t know he wanted to go on a flight and he selected his crew, he took the er head of the navigation team, the head of the er bomb aiming team, the wireless operator, he selected his own crew took one of our crew members I can’t think of his name now and er unfortunately they were killed.
CB: All of them were they all killed or just him were they all killed or just him?
RF: They were all killed and they are buried in Germany his daughter was born a couple of months after his death and she now lives in Pangbourne Susan Jallet and she comes up to er the reunion regularly.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Reg Freeth
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AFreethR160531
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Pending review
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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.
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Freeth grew up in Wales and worked for the Civil Service in the Labour Exchange before he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He trained as an observer in South Africa and flew operations served as a bomb aimer with 61 Squadron from RAF Syerston. He later became a bombing instructor, then an administrative officer. After the war he returned to work for the Civil Service.
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2016-05-31
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Jackie Simpson
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01:23:50 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
South Africa
England--Cumbria
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
61 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Manchester
Martinet
observer
Oxford
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Millom
RAF Syerston
RAF Torquay
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/368/6092/ADeytrikhA160426.1.mp3
4a435123e44f4a9c72d4bc7278abb6ba
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Deytrikh, Andrew
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Wing Commander Andrew Deytrikh (1921-2016, 1381508, 111248 Royal Air Force), his log books and three photographs. After training as a pilot in 1941, Andrew Deytrikh flew Spitfires on 66 Squadron at a number of locations until July 1944 when he joined Vickers Armstrong as a production test pilot. After the war he served on 604 Squadron Auxiliary Air Force flying Spitfires, Vampires and Meteors. He finished his air force career as a wing commander air attache in Finland.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Andrew Deytrikh and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-04-26
Rights
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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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Deytrikh, A
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 26th April 2016 and we are in Crowthorne with Andrew Dektesh and we are going to talk about his experiences, I mean’t to say Deytrikh, I beg your pardon, and we’re going to talk about his experiences in the RAF from the earliest days that you remember Andrew.
AD: Very well, ah we start now do we?
CB: Yes please. So where were you born?
AD: Ventnor, Isle of Wight.
CB: And tell us about the family and schooling and things like that?
AD: Well the family came over from Russia in Nineteen Nineteen, and they came over with the whole family on a British destroyer in the Black Sea from the Black Sea and they were allowed to leave the ship at Malta when the grandfather went all the way to London via trains and to to get a visa for the entire family to come and live in England, this he did and er as far as I can remember we have no further journey by sea except by train through er through Italy and north north of Malta, my sister was already born her name was Natalie and the parents then relied on the grandfather’s funds to be able to either purchase or to rent a big enough house into which they could share with the entire family and er as far as I can remember the the number in the family was quite con considerable and er the family was really quite large and they did have a young man called Serge and he after not too long in England he left to get educated in America how he got there or which ship he used I’ve no idea but anyhow he went there and he settled there well away from us and of course he er he did really very well indeed elec in the electrical system, he used to come and visit the family which then had settled or rented a house in Earls Court and there we remained for quite a considerable number of years until in fact the war broke out as far as I can remember we didn’t and the various families either got married here and then they went there way but not necessarily abroad. Can we have a few minutes.
CB: Right now we’re just now talking about your parents and what they did so starting with your mother and then your father, so what did your mother do?
AD: My mother took up sewing and she started a workshop in Knightsbridge where she could also employ English people to teach her how to sew and this she did remarkably successfully because she didn’t require any more teachers for quite a long time she cottoned on to doing all kinds of dresses for all kinds of people and eventually she was really doing too much, because my father was unable to find a job and he learnt how to be a taxi driver in London and for this purpose he required the knowledge that all taxi drivers in London know they know where all the streets are and of course he didn’t he used to go round on a bicycle in London to try and learn where all the streets were and where they went and what he could use and the way they actually did it and he did become a a taxi driver to bring in some money of some sort not very much but he used to drive the taxi at night because he didn’t want to be seen as a taxi driver amongst all his his gentle gentlemen friends [laughs] well he didn’t know [unclear] so he drove the taxi at night.
Other: [unclear]
CB: So Andrew when Dad wasn’t out taxi driving what was he doing?
AD: Well there was very little he could by which to earn some money so I think he must have spent a little while playing tennis at the Anglo Russian Sports Club in Chiswick and er that’s where I think he spent quite a lot of time because he didn’t like driving in in the daylight virtually he liked to do it at night for reasons that er are probably embarrassed then if if some of his friends saw him driving a taxi.
CB: Okay.
AD: And that’s that’s where I think he he started like that and then he was able to learn how to make ladies handbags because then they could sell handbags in the sewing in the sewing department where mother was in in Knightsbridge and it was a very nice place she’d she where she found the money was grandfather but grandfather he overstepped the mark with his money and they all lost the money with the with the er.
CB: The crash?
AD: With the crash let’s see Nineteen Twenty Four that’s when the family had to somehow fall apart and find different things to live in.
CB: And where were you at school during this time?
AD: Needless to say you would always find somebody who wants to make a name for themselves and this headmaster he took a liking to all the Russians emigres who came and they all had to find schools for their Russian born born children so he used to make it especially cheap for the poor Russians who had no money at all so how my moth how my parents managed to send me to the school and it was a lovely school we were beaten quite frequently because we er either I had no money no manner no manners at all or something like that but anyhow we found one headmaster and we were very sorry to leave the school in the end I was beaten three times I think but this was this was proper beating this wasn’t the cane the cane like at the main schools in Lon in England this was on your bare bottom with a rubber er shim shoe[?] so in other words every time we played sport which was very nearly every day we all had to get under under the shower so everybody could see thTB who’d been flogged today and all the markings were on on the bottoms of course [laughs] but anyhow it didn’t do me any harm I think I was beaten twice for lying or something like that I’ve never lied since even through all my life through my [laughs] with er in my in my adult adulthood I’ve never lied really it hasn’t been necessary to lie.
CB: So Prep School was run to age thirteen so where did you go?
AD: Polytechnic Regent Street
CB: Okay.
AD: But the headmaster wanted to send me to one of the expensive schools which we couldn’t afford and er I think they knew the person who ran ran that school they were in the Polytechnic Regent Street and whether I got into there at a reduced fee or whatever it was I don’t know but all I know is that my mother and my father they owed money for my schooling for quite a number of years later and she and she paid it if all off in the end she paid it all off in the end.
CB: So what did you do at the Poly at Polytechnic?
AD: I learnt how to speak English and how to behave myself [laughs] and this is where they taught us properly they put on the gowns and they wore the, what do you call those things?
CB: Mortarboards.
AD: Mortarboards that’s it I miss out words now.
CB: That’s all right okay.
AD: Mortarboards that’s right and we had to say [unclear] there was no none of this coming over without a tie and all this carry on but now they don’t know how to respect their teachers at all or the teachers don’t want to be respected.
CB: So what age did you leave there and what did you do?
AD: I was one year late I had to spend another year in the fifth form because I missed a year I had to have two glands removed I think that was it, and my two friends they both were in the higher form and when they left one joined the Air Force and the other joined the Navy the Fleet Air the Fleet Air Arm and that’s what I went for I’d thought I’d go and learn how to fly on those bi-planes what do you call them?
CB: Swordfish.
AD: Swordfishes that’s it and they turned me down despite the fact they were short of pilots they turned me down do you know why? Come on guess.
CB: Because you didn’t have a British name?
AD: That’s right well it was more than that I didn’t have British parents didn’t have they were foreign ‘oh we don’t take foreigners’ so I immediately joined the Air Force they took you straight away.
CB: Yes.
AD: They didn’t bother to interview you at all they wanted you [laughs] so I was very happy there I think I would have had a watery grave if I’d joined the Fleet Air Arm.
CB: So what age did you leave school?
AD: It was either seventeen or eighteen.
CB: Did you go straight in the RAF or did you have to go somewhere else first?
AD: No I got a job and I liked liked chem chem chemistry I loved doing at a chemistry shop and it was a firm in Langley Bucks not very far and I got a job in the laboratory that did test testing of the metal that was melted in in this firm and they used to produce en en engines or something to do with the Fleet Air Arm exactly what they did produce I don’t know but it was all ra secret so I believe something to do with submarines and then I stayed there I remained there for about a year or a year and a half and er that brought me up to November Four November Forty I think that’s what it was and that’s when the name of an airfield gone again where they built the –
CB: Oh Cardington.
AD: Cardington.
CB: Yes.
AD: Where I where I started with Cardington only to be told that I wasn’t worth the money they paid me [laughs] they said ‘you’re not worth anything as an AC2’ that’s what I was told [laughs] though I didn’t believe them at all I said ‘we must be worth something’ anyhow it all turned out the end.
CB: So what did you do at Cardington?
AD: Inoculations all the time, marching that’s about it.
CB: It was an initial training wing?
AD: Yes it was it was.
CB: And then what?
AD: And then I volunteered for pilot training and luckily I got it they didn’t alter it in the end which they did with some boys anyhow we got we got sent to [unclear] they called it the English Riviera.
CB: What um Tor Torquay?
AD: Torquay that’s it we got to Torquay where we given timber made rifles to do guard duty on certain certain places [unclear] and I waited to go on the first course of the pilot’s course that’s where I waited.
CB: How long did you have to wait?
AD: It seemed an awful long time but it wasn’t.
CB: Right.
AD: Within one year I was already on the squadron.
CB: So.
AD: Already trained and er I could fly straight away.
CB: Really so where did you go from Torquay?
AD: Yes give me time.
CB: So this next thing was your elementary flying training wasn’t it?
AD: Yes Cam Cambridge I think that’s right we were billeted in where all the students were billeted.
CB: University students yes?
AD: Yes but we didn’t do any flying there I was still able to do do my maths and I was really glad because I came top at maths [laughs] but you see none none of the other chaps who were volunteering to go they they hadn’t done they hadn’t done anything but they didn’t do very well at school I’m afraid.
CB: So from Cambridge didn’t you get any flying in Cambridge?
AD: No then I think I went to Hull Brough that’s it.
CB: Okay.
AD: That’s it Brough Tiger Moths.
CB: Okay yes.
AD: And that was the bit change it was lovely and once you’d um finished with Brough with the Tiger Moths it was that next next aeroplane which was [unclear].
CB: The Harvard next was it?
AD: Similar to the Harvard.
CB: Manchester.
AD: No no better than that no it was a big one forgot a single engine big one.
CB: Okay.
AD: I’ve got it in the log book.
CB: Well we’ll have a look in a minute.
AD: I’ve got it in there.
CB: But where did you go for that?
AD: From there?
CB: Yes to do that flying training? So you went to Brough and did your initial training?
AD: Yes I did.
CB: So there then you had to go to the advanced training?
AD: Yes that’s right.
CB: So where was that?
AD: Ah that’s gone too.
CB: Okay we’ll get to that.
AD: Does everybody have this trouble?
CB: Some do.
AD: Oh obviously not everybody [laughs].
CB: It’s a big variety but er in practical terms the fighter group was different from heavies so you didn’t do twin engine so?
AD: No I didn’t.
CB: So after you were on this other one
AD: It’s a well known its a well known light aeroplane brilliant.
CB: It’ll come to us in a minute okay.
AD: Yes.
CB: So when you’d done that at what stage did you get your wings then or later on?
AD: No it was later on Scotland
CB: Yes
AD: On the starboard side [laughs].
CB: Oh er
AD: Actually
CB: Montrose?
AD: Sorry.
CB: Montrose?
AD: Yes yes it was Montrose it was Montrose oh that’s where I think I got my wings.
CB: Yes okay, and what were you flying in Montrose?
AD: I think we’d got some clapped out old Spitfires that had been worn out with during the Battle of Britain [laughs].
CB: Yes I can believe it.
AD: I think well my log book will tell me.
CB: Yes, shall we pause for a mo, is your log book handy?
AD: Oh yes it is.
CB: So we’ve talked about you being we’ve talked about you being at Brough for the elementary flying school.
AD: Yes
CB: Er where you’re on Tiger Moths, we’ve talked about where you were at Montrose where you were on the Milesmaster [?] that we were struggling for earlier.
AD: Yes
CB: Then you went to the OTU the Operational Training Unit at Grangemouth so what happened then?
AD: It’s a complete blank I can’t really remember very much.
CB: What were you flying ‘cos now you’re on the advanced aeroplanes? So you are on the Hurricane and Spitfires now at the OTU?
AD: Yes yes could be, now I remember the first flight in the Spitfire it terrified me [laughs].
CB: Did it in what way?
AD: Well I I never had anything ahead of me for so long it was over six foot and I couldn’t see how am I going to and they’d keep on telling me ‘oh you’ve got to apply rudder on take off because it’ll its going to wind round to the left or to the right’ and I couldn’t get all that but I did.
CB: You did.
AD: But I did in the end.
CB: So because you couldn’t see over the nose you had to weave when you were taxiing?
AD: Oh yes that that.
CB: And so that was the first challenge wasn’t it?
AD: [Laughs] It was and of course what happens [coughs] you find your so slow that you’re boiling before you get to the end of the runway to take off so you had to shut it down and cool it down and then start starting it up all over again.
CB: So what was there an electric starter or did they have to bring the triac k [?]
AD: Oh trolleyack [?] yes.
CB: Yes
AD: [Laughs] Everything was with the trolleyack [?] [laughs].
CB: So what was the reaction of the ground crew let alone the aircrew when you overheated?
AD: Well they well there fed up with all these students though who are coming here.
CB: Messing up their aeroplanes?
AD: Well that’s it, then they’ve got to take the trolleyack[?] up to the aeroplanes we couldn’t tow it because there was nothing to tow it on to.
CB: On the aeroplane? How did they get the trolleyack[?] out there did they have to push it or?
AD: Pull pull it.
CB: They did.
AD: Oh yes.
CB: Basically on foot?
AD: I think so.
CB: Which is why they didn’t like it?
AD: They said ‘well you could quite easily take off in this as long as you go quickly’ we didn’t want to go quickly anyway [laughs].
CB: So you’ve done your taxiing and you’re not boiling so what’s the next part of the procedure?
AD: Well to keep it straight down the runway.
CB: So you progressively apply left rudder do you or right rudder?
AD: I I can’t remember I think yes it could have been.
CB: Well one rudder or the other.
AD: It could have been right rudder [laughs] I can’t remember which way it swung [laughs].
CB: Right but the point of the question is thT opening throttle you were encouraged to do gently and then correct with pressure on the rudder is that right?
AD: Yes.
CB: And then you’d get the tail up fairly quickly would you?
AD: Yes not not too far.
CB: Right.
AD: Otherwise you’d lose your propeller [laughs].
CB: Any incidents of that?
AD: No.
CB: Not you but the others?
AD: Not me I don’t think I ever had a any terrible incidents.
CB: So now you are taking off at what point do you retract the undercarriage?
AD: Once once you are airborne.
CB: Immediately?
AD: Yes because you are going to get too hot you want to cool you all down [laughs].
CB: Okay so the significance of that is the speed or the fact that the undercarriage itself is blanking?
AD: Yes it’s blanking it all.
CB: The radiator?
AD: Yes.
CB: Right so now you are climbing what are you climbing at roughly?
AD: I should think about a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty.
CB: Oh quite slow?
AD: Yes.
CB: So you’re not on full throttle because you don’t want to overheat immediately?
AD: I I don’t want to run out of fuel either [laughs].
CB: Right so we’re at the OTU still so you can’t so there are no dual Spitfires so?
AD: No.
CB: So how did the instruction go?
AD: Well it went very well and there there were no difficulties on that first flight really nothing that frightened me.
CB: Okay so did you ever have a situation where the instructor flies beside you in another Spitfire?
AD: No they didn’t have the spare ones I don’t think they were running out of numbers of Spitfires.
CB: Were they?
AD: I think so.
CB: So how long would your flight be when you were at the OTU?
AD: I think the first one was only half an hour I think that was enough I think for me.
CB: That was just general handling what did you do just do did you do any aerobatics?
AD: I did only what the instructor told me I did I don’t want to do anything I I hadn’t been told what to do and I stuck rigidly to that.
CB: Right.
AD: And I’ve never had any difficulties really.
CB: So on you’re you’re doing er what did you do left hand circuits?
AD: Yes.
CB: So you are coming in go down downwind and then you go crosswind?
AD: Yes.
CB: And when you are turning what’s the main concern there to get right?
AD: Not to go down too quickly.
CB: Because?
AD: Because your you’ve still got flaps to do.
CB: Right so when do you put the flaps down?
AD: Once you are in in a straight line.
CB: On final.
AD: Yes.
CB: And when you are coming in what speed are you coming in on final?
AD: It had to be over well over seventy.
CB: Right, what’s the stalling speed of a Spitfire?
AD: Er I think it was about sixty five or something like that you didn’t want to lose seventy.
CB: No, so at the OTU there’s no dual so do they alternate between flying a Spitfire and flying a Manchester or what did they do or Master rather did they check you out regularly in a Master?
AD: Yes they used to dual a Spitfire circuit in the in the other one.
CB: In the Master.
AD: Yes.
CB: So did your hours at the OTU then you are ready for squadron?
AD: Yes you were ver very ready to go to Cornwall I didn’t even know where Cornwall was [laughs].
CB: So your first you joined 66 Squadron at Portreath.
AD: I did.
CB: How did that work?
AD: I had to wait a rather long time to get to get I wanted to hurry up and get on with it they didn’t want you to go too too quickly they didn’t want to take any risks with damaging an aeroplane because we were very short of aeroplanes.
CB: Because we are talking about Nineteen Forty Two here aren’t we early Forty Two that’s why they were worried about aeroplanes?
AD: Yes yes it was yes.
CB: So the characteristic from your log book of um er your time there is that you moved stations regularly why was that?
AD: It was er constantly rumoured that we were moving.
CB: Do you know why?
AD: Not really whether it’s because they were just having a general er exception or the number of hour days you could have at one station I don’t know.
CB: So going back to first station Portreath?
AD: Yes.
CB: When you arrived what happened the CO said?
AD: The C I’m trying to think who the CO was now I think he’s probably signed here [looking through log book].
CB: What I mean’t was what did he actually tell you because you arrive having come from the OTU?
AD: ‘Some somebody will take care of you and tell you all all about the Spitfire now you’d better get out and go and go find out what he wants you to do’ I think he’d [unclear].
CB: That would be a flight commander would it?
AD: That would be the flight commander yes.
CB: And how many flights in a squadron?
AD: Er [sighs] flights in a squadron there are only ttwo.
CB: Right.
AD: Although we are separated three times but there are it is only two two squadrons no what am I talking about two flights normally makes up a squadron.
CB: So the reason I am asking this is because the OTU had no dual and so?
AD: No.
CB: No dual control aircraft because the Spitfire in the war didn’t have a dual control arrangement.
AD: No we didn’t.
CB: So I am just wondering how you were effectively inducted into the squadron which was a front line operation?
AD: I don’t think they paid too much attention to that all I know is I had to wait a long time.
CB: Yes.
AD: Till I was allowed to go on flying and join the people who do the er –
CB: The circuits?
AD: No not the circuits no the patrols over the over the ships coming coming into England.
CB: Right so that was really my next point which was on your operation what was your first operation?
AD: That was follow me for the next hour and a half.
CB: So its shipping protection is it?
AD: Yes.
CB: Patrols?
AD: It was the convoys.
CB: Convoys?
AD: Yes we had to do the convoys.
CB: And this is all in the ?
AD: And this is all everyday everyday the convoys.
CB: Right so what sort of numbers of convoys were there many of them?
AD: Well they all took such a long time that you you only had one hour above them so they just move along like that.
CB: The merchants ships in those days were lucky to do seven knots.
AD: Well it did take a long time and of course the Germans sometimes used to bur to come bur burst in and hope to catch you unawares.
CB: What sort of height would you be flying at for convoy protection?
AD: It was only not very high about two thousand feet or a thousand feet because they all came in er low level.
CB: Oh the Germans all came in low level did they?
AD: They did yes.
CB: Where were they coming from?
AD: They were coming from either Cherbourg or that’s a what’s that piece of France that juts out?
CB: Any part of Normandy, Brittany?
AD: Yes Brittany that’s it.
CB: So which aircraft were they using?
AD: They were using 109’s and some of them had the pleasure of flying their 190’s and the 190’s were really quite an effect effective machine.
CB: So when you joined the squadron which model of Spitfire did you have?
AD: I had the 5 I think it was the 5 or could have been the one before it.
CB: The 4?
AD: Well I’m not so [unclear] that I ever flown the 4.
CB: So mainly 5’s and then you were flying over the convoys?
AD: Yes.
CB: And relatively low who was giving cover to you high up?
AD: The good lord.
CB: Right, so did you get jumped by the Germans?
AD: No but if there was a panic we were too late for it because we would have found out at home and by the time you get to the convoy they’ve gone.
CB: Yes, so apart from convoy patrols what else were you doing from in the early days?
AD: We used to be on readiness at the er runways edge every so often.
CB: Quick reaction?
AD: That’s it and when you spent an hour at the end of the runway you were hoping you can go home [laughs] and have a coffee or something like that [laughs].
CB: ‘Cos in the summer time it would be getting quite hot?
AD: It was well it did.
CB: What about in the winter oh well this was summer time.
AD: Well no.
CB: Oh no this is winter you were at Portreath. When you went to Italy what did you do there that was only short?
AD: Well we
CB: In Hampshire.
AD: Well we were always very busy.
CB: Were you?
AD: Because it’s very near the coast and it didn’t take long to go to go to get on onto a convoy that had been attacked.
CB: Right so now you are over the convoy what opportunities did you have to have a go at shooting at the Germans yourself?
AD: Very little because they didn’t come over in hordes as they did during the Battle of Britain they there wasn’t anybody to shoot at unless they were going to come over low fast and get in and get out.
CB: So how often did they get caught?
AD: Not well they didn’t do that all that often because I think even they were afraid to be caught.
CB: So moving on from there then you went up to the Orkneys so apart from the fact that what was the locals attitude to you?
AD: Well the local attitude was ‘why do you have to make such a lot of noise we don’t want all this we don’t want your aeroplanes’ so they were sad to see us so we were trying to be polite in the end.
CB: Did you have special briefings on how not to react?
AD: No no we didn’t but I don’t think it had a lot of them had twigged that they didn’t like us.
CB: Right.
AD: I don’t think many of them understood that.
CB: Just their temperament was it?
AD: We did have I did have a friend of two that I did know and I think I got the message from him that that ‘don’t you realise that you’re are a nuisance here’ well that.
CB: Well that was the basis of the hostility was it?
AD: It was.
CB: Not that you were English but because
AD: No not nothing to do with being English.
CB: Because you made a lot of noise?
AD: No.
CB: And what were you there to do?
AD: To catch the high fliers air er German aeroplanes that used to fly nice and high and we couldn’t get at them because they were too too high so what did they do they dismantled all the armour-plating that the pilot had round his seat and made the aircraft lighter so you could get up [laughs].
CB: How successful was that?
AD: It wasn’t very successful because we didn’t like it [laughs] we didn’t like it.
CB: So how high could you get?
AD: I think er the ones that we flew there they we were locked in remember we couldn’t get out without pulling something and we didn’t believe that the hood would open if we had pulled it I don’t know there are things I will never know.
CB: No.
AD: I can never understand why the engineering officer could couldn’t very well pull the thing for us to tell us and say ‘now this is the way it’ll work’ and it [unclear]
CB: You were screwed in because it was pressurised is that what it was why were they screwing you into the plane?
AD: A As well we didn’t we never liked the noise it made so we used to leave it off we didn’t use it.
CB: Leave what off?
AD: The high pressure thing.
CB: Ah right, so what was the seal like when you were up in the aeroplane then?
AD: Well it we didn’t care so long as we could breathe it was the oxygen we didn’t really care.
CB: Because you were young and it didn’t matter.
AD: Yes it always helped somebody else or it might well so you didn’t just worry too much about it.
CB: No, where were the German planes coming from?
AD: Norway.
CB: And what were they?
AD: Sorry.
CB: What German aeroplanes were they?
AD: They were the big weather weather ones wwith four engines the ones that would be easy to shoot down.
CB: The Condors?
AD: Yes.
CB: And you couldn’t get up there?
AD: We couldn’t get up there [laughs].
JS: How high could you fly Andrew?
AD: Well there I think thirty five thousand miles oh um feet was about the maximum we could make.
CB: And these people were above that?
AD: But towards the end we er we could mmmake for forty odd thousand.
CB: Could you?
AD: Yes but it was still falling out of the sky.
CB: Of course, so after you were in Scotland then you came down to the south so what were you doing in the south you were at Church Stanton then it was Redhill, Kenley?
AD: Yes Kenley and that’s all virtually in the Lon London area so we weren’t very far away from London.
CB: No, did you have any business coming towards you?
AD: Sorry.
CB: Did you have much coming in?
AD: No we were never if they were warning us they were always either late getting us airborne.
CB: Right.
AD: And when they got you airborne the controller would come on and say ‘sorry you’re too late dark they’ve gone’.
CB: Changing the subject slightly how much of bomber escort did you do?
AD: Quite a lot.
CB: And what was your role in bomber escort how did that work?
AD: To make certain you were both sides of the air of the er squadron of bombers er you could have a flight each on each side or if you if you were lucky you could be appointed the on the tail of at the tail of the bomber crew to make certain you could actually spot them coming coming for coming to chase them we er needed somebody at the end.
CB: Right, and er so you are escorting the bombers are you above them marginally or the same height or what?
AD: Not not well you are slightly above them so to give you a little bit of speed speed if you are attacked if they are attacking the bombers.
CB: So er what sort of bombers were you escorting in your experience did they tend to be the same?
AD: I’ve forgotten the names I’ve forgotten the names now.
CB: No, but did they tend to be medium bombers or bigger ones or?
AD: Medium ones.
CB: Always British RAF or were they American what were they?
AD: They could have been American too but the poor Americans they never knew where they were half the time [laughs].
CB: What navigationally?
AD: Yes [laughs].
CB: Right.
AD: I think only one chap er er the leader knew where where he was going.
CB: Yes.
AD: All the others didn’t seem to care they just followed him.
CB: Yes well they worked on the bomb leader principle didn’t they the bombing leader?
AD: Well we don’t know what principle really [laughs] so far they didn’t learn off our principles.
CB: So flying close to the bombers is a variation of what we talked about earlier is that actually quite a dangerous position to be in or was there always top cover when you were doing that in other words other squadrons flying high up?
AD: Well if you’re flying close and they want you close you’ll know that there’ll be others there.
CB: Above?
AD: Above or below we sometimes used to fly below them.
CB: On what basis to stop them coming up?
AD: Yes because.
CB: Because they’ve got to climb up?
AD: Because they’ve got their guns and shoot upwards.
CB: Oh right okay yes.
AD: So I suppose.
CB: Were you briefed about the upward firing?
AD: No we weren’t.
CB: Guns?
AD: No we weren’t I’m afraid I didn’t know about it.
CB: Right so I’m just trying to establish why you mentioned them firing up do you mean that they were flying upwards and shooting or that they were guns mounted to fire upwards?
AD: No whether the upward firing ones were night fighters possibly they could have been night fighters I don’t know whether they um but we never came across them.
CB: And you didn’t in daylight?
AD: We didn’t no.
CB: How often did you have to do night sorties?
AD: Not very often but when you did you had to go and do it.
CB: Yes.
AD: But you see the Spitfire was such a poor aeroplane to have as a night fighter you had these these big exhaust pipes either side of the of the aircraft so whichever side you looked at you had to blink your eyes.
CB: Because?
AD: Well because of the light.
CB: From the exhaust?
AD: They are very very bright at night they shone they really shone very well.
CB: And so how often did you engage in air to air combat with German aircraft yourself?
AD: Myself very seldom because when you could see that there were squadrons or they er or two squadrons as the case may be they would probably disappear very shortly and you either had to know to do something quickly and unless unless you did they would go away very quickly.
CB: What were their tactics really?
AD: Not to excite the Spitfire in anyway I think [laughs].
CB: So you’re escorting the bombers the Germans are coming in what are they doing exactly?
AD: Yes and then when they when you see the Germans coming in your squadron commander will say ‘turn turn about you’ve got to turn about you’ve all got to do a very tight turn’ and then what happened you lost the bombers all of a sudden come out where are all the aeroplanes and you are on your own that’s what hap that’s what does happen.
CB: So did the Germans have a technique for dealing with that to take advantage of it?
AD: Well you see since you can’t join you can’t join up again because you didn’t know where they are you come out of the your tight turn and there’s nothing there.
CB: Because you’ve missed the Germans in the first place is that what you mean?
AD: Well yes you have missed them or they have stop or they have stopped going at going at the er British bomb bombers or Americans as the case may be.
CB: Now in Bomber Command one of the important parts of their training particularly at the Heavy Conversion Unit and afterwards was well and at the OTU was fighter affiliation.
AD: Yes.
CB: So that’s when the fighters are making mock attacks on the bombers.
AD: Yes.
CB: How often did you have to do that?
AD: Occasionally but it was very occasional er it wasn’t a permanent thing or a weekly thing or a monthly thing.
CB: And how were you briefed about how to deal with it?
AD: Well I think they did have the occasional person from either from a bomber squadron or a friendly bomber squadron who could send somebody over to er to talk about it.
CB: Ah.
AD: I think that did happen but it didn’t happen very often.
CB: But I’m talking about where you’re flying and pretending to attack the bombers.
AD: Oh I see.
CB: That’s the fighter affiliation.
AD: Yes, no I don’t you know I can’t remember very much bomber affiliation with us.
CB: By the look of it you weren’t stationed in areas where there wouldn’t be much of that to do anyway.
AD: They’d only be there when we have to escort meet meet er two squadrons or three squadrons of bombers at a specific time they weren’t really good with the time.
CB: No who weren’t?
AD: No they weren’t.
CB: The bombers?
AD: Yes.
CB: And what do you mean by that?
AD: They were always late and we were always short of fuel.
CB: Right.
AD: Well we can’t very well give up escorting them once there over the target you can’t do that you’ve got to ssstay on and then have less fuel to go and land with but anyhow it did work out in the end.
CB: When you were flying bomber escorts what communication was possible between the bombers and the fighters?
AD: None I don’t think the squadrons commanders were ever given the frequency so they can get so they can talk to them.
CB: No. Again changing the subject er how many there were dogfights taking place on and off sometimes there was no dogfight but people got shot down how many people do you know or did you know of who were shot down?
AD: I think I can only assume that they were shot down I can’t because they just didn’t arrive back for tea or er lunch or whatever it was.
CB: So if they weren’t shot down what else could have happened to them?
AD: They could have run out of oxygen which is and then they fly into the sea and they don’t know that they are anywhere near the sea it was just terribly sad when they run out of oxygen and he doesn’t know he’s run out of oxygen.
CB: Can they not tell that they’re short of oxygen there’s no gauge for it?
AD: I think you probably reach a certain amount of hope possibility of thinking that way what’s going what’s going to stop you from flying into the sea.
CB: Right.
AD: Well that’d be one thing.
CB: Okay so.
AD: And we did have one case where the poor the poor boy he just flew straight into the sea.
CB: And being shot down how many people did you know who were shot down?
AD: Well my squadron commander was.
CB: What happened to him?
AD: Ah but he was still our squadron commander he was he managed to land somewhere near England.
CB: Did you ever get shot down?
AD: No.
CB: Did you ever get damage to your aircraft?
AD: I was frightened at one stage just when we had to do a tight turn because the bombers were being attacked well I when you find that you forgotten where all the aeroplanes are where why have they disappeared and they do disappear and you don’t know which direction they’ve disappeared and I was being followed by somebody who was trying to shoot me down in fact three of them they were I had three people on my tail and luckily I was on my way home and I was above them and I could see I could see the shots going passed me on either side and I could see in my mirror three of them having a happy time shooting at me so I thought I’d put put a finish to that all and I turned round and opened up all my guns everyone that would fire I would fire now and I’ll get somebody or one of them and all of a sudden they disappeared all three of them I couldn’t find them they ww when I looked for them.
CB: And its interesting in that circumstance you’re higher than them?
AD: Yes.
CB: How did you turn round?
AD: As quickly as I could.
CB: Yes but up, down, sideways or what?
AD: On the straight straight at them I was going as I aimed myself straight at them.
CB: Yes.
AD: So at least er something will be damaged but you don’t know but you’ll never know.
CB: No.
AD: You’ll never know.
CB: But you wouldn’t do a loop up or go down?
AD: Oh no.
CB: You’d come round hard?
AD: No nnot not in the turn I was keeping that for my down my downward thrust because that’s where I where I wanted the speed and they just vanished all three of them so with any luck I frightened them.
CB: Yes. So what guns did you have on the plane in those at that time?
AD: Well two were canons yes and er and four machine guns.
CB: Right, so that’s the Spitfire the earlier Spitfire that’s a 5 is it?
AD: I think that was a 6.
CB: 6.
AD: It could no the 6 was up in The Orkneys.
CB: What was different about the 6 then?
AD: Well I think it had four blades.
CB: Ahh
AD: I think I had four blades at that time.
CB: Right, so what so you had Spitfire 5 as time moved on what was the different ranges of Spitfires you moved to models?
AD: It was all to do with the len the length of the nose which seemed to be increasing all the time.
CB: So after the 5 did you go to a 9 a Spitfire 9?
AD: Yes we did have 9’s in the end.
CB: And they had four 20mm canons?
AD: No not four I think four was too much for the for the er Spitfire the whole thing shakes a bit but it was very nice to have the canons there but you don’t have all that amount of ammunition to fire.
CB: No, so what did they um what was the reason given for having so few canons just two?
AD: One er one on each wing.
CB: Yes, but why didn’t they put four on did they explain why they didn’t?
AD: I think they had had difficulty in fit fitting them to start off with to have two too close together two close together I don’t think the aeroplane would have liked it too much.
CB: Right, so you kept with the same squadron throughout the war?
AD: Yes.
CB: And er your log book your first log book runs out before I can see beyond Nineteen Forty Three where did you go in Forty Four and Forty Five you were in Hornchurch in Forty Three?
AD: Yes
CB: But you stayed on fighters flying all the time didn’t you?
AD: No well yes I did fly but not operationally.
CB: Okay.
AD: I got taken taken off operations flying just before D Day.
CB: Oh.
AD: I said ‘I’ve been waiting for this day and I’m not going anywhere I want to stay stay for the big day ’ and I did stay for the big day and after the er after that that’s when I went I I left the squadron.
CB: To do what?
AD: To fly with the people who actually make the Spitfire what’s the name of it?
CB: What Vickers Supermarine?
AD: What?
CB: Vickers yes.
AD: I went to work for Supermarines as one of the test pilots.
CB: In the south?
AD: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AD: Oh yes just er just very near Salisbury.
CB: Right they also had a plant at Marston at Swindon.
AD: Yes well they did yes but we used to go on on certain airfields where they were producing Spitfires and they needed testing.
CB: Yes and that’s what you did?
AD: I was I was able to do that mark you they didn’t want me to go to go there they wanted to have me in training command and nobody ever wants to go to training command [laughs] and I certainly didn’t because that would have been one way to get killed very quickly because er that’s where all the deaths happened at er in the training command.
CB: Right
AD: Or that’s that’s where we thought it all happened.
CB: Yes
AD: [Unclear] I thought Kyle was coming for you?
CB: So you worked as a test pilot how long did you do that for?
AD: I think about nearly two years.
CB: Oh did you.
AD: Yes but then I got sent to Germany.
CB: After the war this is?
AD: That was after the war this was after the war yes it was called no it’s gone.
CB: What the airfield?
AD: No not the airfield what the whole thing was called.
CB: Oh I see right.
AD: What we called it a certain thing.
CB: Well the occupation forces?
AD: The occup it was part of the occupation.
CB: Yes.
AD: Yes.
CB: Right so where were you based there this was with the squadron again was it?
AD: No no oh no this was completely different this was completely different.
CB: So let’s go back a step so you’re still a test pilot when the war finishes were you when the war in Europe finished?
AD: WWhen I when I finished it was.
CB: As a test pilot?
AD: The war the war was still on.
CB: As a test pilot?
AD: Yes.
CB: Oh right okay.
AD: Yes it was.
CB: Okay so where did you have a ground job next or what?
AD: Well it was a ground job but er it was er a pppeculiar ground job they took me on as part of the occupation forces as a Russian interpreter which I could manage.
CB: Because you kept up your Russian?
AD: Oh yes.
CB: Throughout.
AD: Well I had to pass exams and everything yes.
CB: Right.
AD: They didn’t do anything without.
CB: No no.
AD: Something you just [unclear] no.
CB: So you were a part of the occupying forces?
AD: Yes I was part of part of the occupying.
CB: Well how were you employed as an interpreter?
AD: On the borders with the Russians.
CB: Right so you’re in your full uniform?
AD: Yes.
CB: Acting for whom it was part of the administration was it it wasn’t the RAF you were working for at that moment is that right?
AD: Well well the RAF paid me.
CB: Yes.
AD: But who who the money come from this I don’t I didn’t didn’t know.
CB: No, so the war is finished let’s go back a bit though but um because your wife you met in the RAF where did you meet her?
AD: Hornchurch.
CB: Okay and what was she doing there?
AD: She was er a plotter.
CB: Right on the airfield or nearby?
AD: Nearby.
CB: And er how did you keep in touch with her throughout the war?
AD: Very poorly [laughs] because we weren’t allowed to be too ffriendly with the WAFS [laughs] and you probably know we weren’t allowed to get closer than about one or two feet or something like whatever it was [laughter] [unclear] but it didn’t make any difference to me I paid no attention to that when I did bring her back after the dance it was the station dance that I went to I dropped her outside the guard room and what did I do I kissed her which is def which is absolutely verboten [laughs] and it was outside the guard room but they weren’t on duty [laughs] and that was at Hornchurch.
CB: So you got away with that one?
AD: Yes but there was nobody there to say ‘oh you shouldn’t have done this or you couldn’t do that’ or whatever it is.
JS: What rank was she Andrew?
AD: Sorry
JS: What was her rank?
CB: What rank was she?
AD: Oh she was a leading aircraftswoman.
JS: Oh right.
AD: She didn’t want a commission she was very happy as she was.
CB: Why did she not want a commission because we’ve come across this before wife’s not wanting a commission why was that?
AD: They probably I don’t know I can’t think why not I said ‘anybody can get a commission whose reasonably intelligent’ and I’ve been in as a plotter and you’ve got very good remarks about your situation why don’t you want to be no she didn’t want to command anybody and er tell them to march properly or left foot or right foot or whatever it is she didn’t want any of that.
CB: Now the plotting of aircraft is what she was doing?
AD: Yes.
CB: It didn’t take place on the airfield did it it took?
AD: Near nearby.
CB: Was it?
AD: It was nearby it wasn’t on the airfield.
CB: So how did you come to meet her then if she didn’t actually work at the airfield?
AD: I met her at the dance.
CB: Oh at the dance.
AD: Yes I met her at the dance whether I had met her before the dance I don’t know but all but all I know is I was very glad that I had met her.
CB: Gosh.
JS: Can I interrupt?
CB: Yes.
JS: Andrew she was an LACW1 and you were an officer?
AD: Yes.
JS: Was it an officers mess dance or a sergeants mess dance?
AD: No it was the station dance.
JS: The station dance oh yes.
AD: The station dance.
JS: Did you know the protocol of officers taking WAF’s out WAFS that were LACW1, 2’s or whatever ?
AD: Well I did but I still would but I still used to take her out I did I did.
CB: But you weren’t supposed to?
AD: But I wasn’t going to be told.
JS: That’s it.
AD: [Laughs].
JS: We did have station dances where all ranks were included.
AD: Yes they were.
JS: That’s right yes.
AD: They were included all ranks.
JS: They were very few and far between weren’t they very infrequent should I say?
AD: Yes or there was an er occasion of some sort on the station or something like that.
CB: And um how did you you didn’t get married until Forty Five was that after hostilities finished or wqs the war still on?
AD: The war was still on.
JS: In Japan.
CB: No in Europe?
AD: In Japa.
CB: Was the war in Europe still on?
AD: No no it wasn’t no when I got to Germany the war was all over and I made use of my German language the way I learnt it at school anyhow it was, you’re a lovely boy.
CB: So I am just trying to establish how you came to be married when and what what made you decide to do it then?
AD: Because I was off off off operations.
CB: Right.
AD: I wasn’t flying over Deutschland anymore.
CB: And why didn’t you get married before then?
AD: Because I was on operations.
CB: Right and
AD: I had no intention of getting married while I was on operations.
CB: Because yes but why?
AD: Well [sighs] because I wouldn’t have wanted to leave her er a wife alone virtually I suppose.
CB: Right now you did your stint in Germany then what happened as part of the occupying forces what happened next?
AD: Oh I’ve got to think this I think when I got back from Germany I think we handed in our our things and that was it.
CB: You were demobbed?
AD: Yes.
CB: Do you remember where you were demobbed?
AD: No I don’t.
CB: Okay, so now out of the airforce what did you do next?
AD: I suppose I was off looking for a job to do but also [coughs] I I did join the Royal Aux Auxiliary Air Force because I obviously hadn’t had enough.
CB: That happened immediately did it they took you on?
AD: Yes straight away.
CB: And er where were you living and where did you fly from?
AD: I was living in a very posh place that was for rich people and it was North Kensington and it was a we had to share a flat in those days we shared a flat with somebody else and it was it was a lovely flat and that’s where we were living.
CB: As a family or just you and your wife?
AD: Er I think we’d had Catherine by then.
CB: Right, so what job did you do when you left the RAF what’s your first job when you left the RAF what was that?
AD: I’m trying to think.
CB: Oh you are.
AD: Yes I it [laughs] it is working but
CB: I’ll stop
AD: It’s not working very it’s not working very
CB: I’ll stop for a bit
AD: For a short period of time.
CB: So what did you do?
AD: I analysed metals in a laboratory that’s what it was and it was a very nice interesting job going to be paid very much more than five pounds a week and I think because of that I decided to think of something else and I couldn’t think of what to do but the Auxiliary Air Force was a godsend because they paid us they paid us not not normal kind of money that you’d expect but they paid sufficient to make it possible to buy a loaf of bread or whatever it is.
CB: So how much commitment was there in a month being in the Auxiliary Airforce did you have to do something every week or how did it work?
AD: Oh I used to go every week this was money to go to the airfield and fly [laughs] it was extra money but exactly how much I can’t I can’t remember it was whatever they were prepared to pay.
CB: So you started with Spitfires how did that progress over the years in aircraft?
AD: It progressed very nicely I was going through a second period of I wonder if I really want to fly that Spitfire anymore but anyhow it didn’t last very long then we had Vampires and um Meteors
CB: How did you find those after flying the piston engine?
AD: Lovely.
CB: What about the Vampires?
AD: There was no difficulties there.
CB: Right, the Vampire compared with the Meteor what was that like?
AD: The Meteor was better ‘cos there were two engines and it was a oohh a stronger aeroplane and it had two engines and it was nice.
CB: Were you always stationed at the same place for the Auxiliary Air Force or did you have other a variety?
AD: No we moved from Hendon we moved to er I’ll get it in a minute.
CB: Yes it’s okay.
AD: North Weald North Weald it’s just across the way virtually.
CB: Yes yes.
AD: And then I think I moved into my first house so I think I had to borrow money from my my bits of my family who were prepared to lend us the money to bor to bor to borrow the necessary amount.
CB: What um what was the rank what was your promotion like how did that work?
AD: Well I was still a flight lieutenant but I was a senior flight lieutenant I was in charge of all the other other boys that had been taken on because the CO of my 66 Squadron took over from John Cunningham who was the first CO Auxiliary CO had given up because he was doing too much test flying in in er his company and er this chap he took he took over now why have I said that he did take over there that’s right and he and he became the six the 66 Squadron although the squadron itself was 604.
CB: Right Auxiliary Air Force?
AD: That was that was the big change I ever had was 604.
CB: So when did you get promoted to squadron leader or did you jump that and go straight to wing commander?
AD: No I didn’t jump anything I had to pass the exams at [laughs] and in the end I hadn’t passed the exams for squadron leader that’s right and then it all all altered slightly because they were short of er of all these people would get taken on as er in the Foreign Office you’re taken on by the Foreign Office virtually.
CB: Oh.
AD: As and air attaché that’s it I became an air attaché.
CB: Did you really?
AD: Yes I became an air attaché because of my Russian know knowledge and Finland is only round the corner there.
CB: So you went to Finland?
AD: I went to Finland.
CB: How long did that last?
AD: Three years.
CB: As a wing commander?
AD: Yes.
CB: So they re-engaged you effectively as a did they or were you an auxiliary did you have auxiliary on here?
AD: No because they’d given up the auxiliaries when I when I left unfortunately.
CB: So this is the mid fifties is it?
AD: Yes Fifty Three to Fifty Six I think I was in Finland.
CB: Right
AD: Yes.
CB: A nd that’s the origin of the name of your house?
AD: That is quite correct oh you’ve guessed that have you [laughs].
CB: So what did you do there?
AD: I became a spy as all attachés are spies except undercover you didn’t you didn’t behave like a spy you attended all the necessary meetings that all these chaps had and er the Russians were the big spymasters I’ve got a photograph of all the spies that I did work with if you’d like to see them
CB: Fascinating.
AD: Would you?
CB: Yes.
AD: They were they were from Norway from er from er I can’t [unclear] I’ll show you the photograph yes.
CB: Right so you were working as an air attaché from Fifty Three to Fifty Six what did you do after that you returned to England what did you do?
AD: I worked for the Government in the Government Office.
CB: Right the books on there.
AD: It could it could well be it could well be.
CB: [Laughs] And then when did you retire from work altogether?
AD: I don’t know.
CB: Was it sixty or sixty five or?
AD: Yes I must have been sixty five I should think.
CB: Thank you very much that was really interesting.
AD: And here’s a photograph of the first squadron I went in Portreath as a young man and I must have been twenty.
CB: Really
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Title
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Interview with Andrew Deytrikh
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-04-26
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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.
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01:29:22 audio recording
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eng
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ADeytrikhA160426
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Pending review
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
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Andrew Deytrikh’s family emigrated from Russia in 1919 and he was born in the Isle of Wight. He grew up in London before being employed in a laboratory testing metals. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1940 and after training as a pilot he joined 66 Squadron at RAF Portreath protecting merchant convoys, and then went on bomber escort duty. Towards the end of the war he became a test pilot and was then selected as part of the Occupation Forces as a Russian interpreter. He met his wife who was a plotter in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and married in 1945. Post war he worked testing metals at a laboratory and became an air attaché at the Foreign Office in Finland for three years. On his return he worked for the Government Office. He retired at the age of sixty five.
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Finland
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Cornwall (County)
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Jackie Simpson
66 Squadron
aircrew
Fw 190
ground personnel
love and romance
Me 109
pilot
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/273/3425/AHibbardL170221.2.mp3
5a07a7983c3d49d0d418cc7bdd29ff0d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/273/3425/PHibbardL1704.2.pdf
999ca0d570c954b7f1a0b64c75a9a3ac
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hibbard, Lindsay
Lindsay Hibbard
L Hibbard
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Lindsay Hibbard DFC (434253 Royal Australian Air Force), and a photograph. He flew 32 operations as a wireless operator with 57 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Lindsay Hibbard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-21
Rights
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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
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Hibbard, L
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Jean MacCartney and the interviewee is Lindsay Hibbard. The interview is taking place at Mr. Hibbard’s home in Banora Point, New South Wales, on the 21st February, 2017. Now then Lindsay, I believe you were born in Murbah, I was going to say Murbah ‘cos I happen to know that that’s the normal contraction but for everyone else, we better say Murwillumbah in 1924.
LH: Yes.
JM: So did that mean that you, your family was in Murwillumbah or, and they were staying there or –
LH: Yes, they were at that stage, they moved to Brisbane in 1927.
JM: Right.
LH: Yes, just for education, to be educated.
JM: Yep. And er, so 1927, so you had your first three years in Murwillumbah and then, and then Brisbane. What part of Brisbane were you in?
LH: Cooparoo.
JM: Cooparoo right. I’m not overly familiar with some of the suburbs of Brisbane, that one’s not ringing a bell. Which was that north, south, east?
LH: Oh it was towards the south, yeah.
JM: Towards the south, right.
LH: Near the Logan motorway.
JM: Oh, okay, right, right.
LH: Which wasn’t a motorway then.
JM: No, no, no, no, no, that’s right, yes, but I’ve, I’ve, I’ve driven up there and seen the turn off for the Logan motorway so that makes sense, yep, okay. So, from 1927 er, so that’s –
LH: 1939, we came back in 1939.
JM: Oh okay, to back to –
LH: To Tumbulgum.
JM: To?
LH: To the farm at Tumbulgum.
JM: Oh Tumbulgum, oh okay, so you had a farm there?
LH: My dad had a farm there from nineteen hundred and two.
JM: Right.
LH: He came up from Macklay in nineteen hundred and two.
JM: Mm mm.
LH: To the farm at Tumbulgum.
JM: Yep right, and so why, why were you –
LH: Still own it, well only some, the brothers still owns it, but anyway.
JM: Right, okay.
LH: Been in the family.
JM: All that since, that’s a hundred and sixteen years.
LH: Yes.
JM: My goodness gracious, and er, so did the whole family move to Brisbane?
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: So what, so what father, father just had somebody looking after the farm while you were up in –
LH: No he used to come down on Mondays –
JM: Right.
LH: To the farm and go back on Friday.
JM: Oh okay.
LH: Spend the weekend with him.
JM: Oh okay right, right.
LH: He had share farmers in.
JM: Share farmers in helping him, right.
LH: The farm was split into two farms.
JM: Right, right, okay, well that’s interesting. So you did your education in –
LH: That’s the reason mum nagged him into taking us to Brisbane so that we could go have a good education, completely wasted just quietly, but, [laughs], I’ve always been sorry that the poor old bugger [laughs], wasted all that money on us.
JM: Mmm.
LH: Went to the Brisbane Grammar School.
JM: Right, okay.
LH: Just on Brisbane [unclear]
JM: Yes, yes, a good school. And, and did you finish your Leaving Certificate there or -?
LH: No juniors, that was juniors.
JM: Intermediate.
LH: Came back when I was fifteen.
JM: Fifteen okay. Right, yes well if I did some arithmetic when you said you went back to ’39, fifteen, yes that’s right. 0kay so when you went back to the farm, did you then work on the farm?
LH: Yes.
JM: Right.
LH: I never learnt anything till I got on the job.
JM: [laughs] So basically you were just an offsider to dad on the farm.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: So what were you running on the farm?
LH: Well now there was dairies in those days.
JM: Yes, yes, very much so.
LH: We converted to cane after the war.
JM: After the war right, that was a fairly early conversion still though really, wasn’t it? You would have been one of the first cane –
LH: Well no, they used to have cane back, oh the sugar mill had been on the cleat since 1880 or something like that.
JM: Oh yes, with the Con, the Condong one you’re talking about?
LH: Yes, the Condong Mill yes, yes, and most of the farms grew some sugar but er, dad had a [unclear] went on the dairy, stayed on the dairy the whole time.
JM: Right and what and then he went back to the sugar afterwards?
LH: Well he died three months after I joined the Air Force.
JM: Oh I see.
LH: He died in 1942.
JM: Right.
LH: Yes, three months after I joined the Air Force. [phone ringing]
JM: Okay Lindsay’s now dealt with his phone call so that’s all good. So we were, you were saying your father died in ’42.
LH: Yes ’42 three months after I joined the Air Force, he had a heart attack, fifty five.
JM: Goodness me, okay so –
LH: I’d been away at that time initial training, ITS.
JM: Right, right okay, so that’s interesting.
LH: But er, they didn’t call me out of the Air Force because me brother was coming back from the Middle East, he’d been at the Battle of Alamein, and the night he was coming home .
JM: Right.
LH: But unbeknown to us somebody pulled strings in parliament and got him out so when he landed back in Australia to run the farm.
JM: Run the farm.
LH: ‘Cos mum didn’t have a clue.
JM: Yes, yes. So were there just you and your brother, one other brother?
LH: No just after that the eldest brother was killed in Malaya, on the Thai Railway, he was, well he died on that anyway. Then there’s my brother, the one coming back he was in the [unclear] and then there was me, there’s four years between each of us.
JM: Each of you okay. And so, so you, you were helping dad on the farm until you enlisted.
LH: Yes.
JM: And so you just enlisted when?
LH: I got in the Air Training Corps, I did a year in that before, well I started when it started up.
JM: When it started up.
LH: In Murwillumbah.
JM: In Murwillumbah, so that was what when you were sixteen/seventeen?
LH: Yeah, sixteen.
JM: Sixteen. And then you enlisted then as soon as you were eighteen.
LH: Yes.
JM: And you enlisted in Brisbane?
LH: Brisbane yes.
JM: Okay and then you did your initial training, you said, at Kingaroy.
LH: Kingaroy.
JM: So that would have been what early ’43, or did you start in late –
LH: Late ’42.
JM: Late ’42 so you would have started up there in December? Did you?
LH: No it was before that, sixth of the eleventh ’42.
JM: Yeah, that was your enlistment but what about your ITS?
LH: That’s when I went in.
JM: That’s when you went in, oh right, so that was Kingaroy. So after Kingaroy when did you do your WOP, your wireless operator?
LH: I did it at Maryborough.
JM: You did it as Maryborough and what date was that? That’s July ’43, you were certified on the fourteenth of the eighth ’43, so that’s July ’43.
LH: Yeah that’s was wireless.
JM: Yes that’s your wireless, that’s what I’m saying.
LH: Then we went to do the gunnery course.
JM: Yeah then you did the gunnery after that, yes, which I presume was at Evanshead?
LH: Evanshead, yes.
JM: So Maryborough was fourteenth eighth ’43 was the graduation of that, and then the gunnery at er, was graduation at Evanshead was 17th September ’43 so that’s all good, okay. So how did you find, what I mean, I guess we can backtrack just a second, the fact that you had joined the ATC you had, you had an interest in that?
LH: Yes, it was always going to be Air Force.
JM: It was always going to be Air Force, yeah, and as I say having joined the ATC then obviously the natural progression was to go to in –
LH: So as soon as you got your eighteenth birthday you didn’t do anything, they just sent us to the centre in Brisbane.
JM: In Brisbane.
LH: To be interviewed.
JM: Okay. And what, what, what process was there for putting you into wireless, did you ask to do wireless or did they say –
LH: When I enlisted I didn’t but then I, yes, I did.
JM: What, ask for wireless?
LH: Yes, when I first went up for an interview. Well I had a sister, see, who had all these pilots, and gunners, and navigators, [unclear] visiting her, wireless ops [unclear]. Well I always figured I wasn’t confident enough to put myself in the hands of a crew, you know, I never felt, I had to be part of the crew but not the pilot.
JM: Not the pilot, okay. So you specifically decided on, on wireless so that’s good, so then they were able to oblige and you um, did, did your wireless, and then of course the usual story that they got the wireless people to also do the air gunning course as well so you –
LH: I held a gunning gunnery hits on the [unclear] board for Evanshead.
JM: Oh did you.
LH: Yes, well he told me when I was, just when he left, before we left, they definitely give me a [unclear] and everything I had thirty percent hits on the grove which was unheard of.
JM: Oh really.
LH: Yes.
JM: Well there you go. Was that because you’d been doing some shooting on the farm?
LH: Well I fired little bursts, instead of long bursts, they had what they called a Vickers Go Gun, gas operated, and it used to jump around and we were in the back of Fairy Battles, and we had no communication with the pilot at all. To start firing he waved his wings and to stop firing he pumped the tail up and down. And we were attached to the floor by [laughs], by a, a, what we called a fair rein, it was clipped if you didn’t have that on, you bounced up and down, you really hit the top. [laughs]
JM: You made –
LH: And we used to shoot at aluminium patches on the water and sand patches on the gunnery range.
JM: Right, so the patches on the water were in the ocean I presume?
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: Out there off Lennox Head or something I suppose –
LH: No there’s a gunnery range, a bombing range just beside Evanshead.
JM: Right, right okay, interesting. And so you ended up with the top score, well at that point obviously.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: It would be interesting to know whether anyone ever bettered that after –
LH: Well I don’t think they would have.
JM: Yeah.
LH: Because you’re alone, the gauge wasn’t all that big [unclear]
JM: No.
LH: Used to jump around so much –
JM: Jump around so much.
LH: Yeah anyway.
JM: As I said –
LH: That’s said my claim to fame.
JM: Your claim to fame.
LH: [laughs]
JM: Oh I’m sure there’s a few other claims to fame, but um. as I say, did you do, when you were on the farm, did you do a lot of shooting –
LH: Oh we used to do a lot of shooting, oh yes.
JM: So therefore, you probably had quite a bit of, you were your aim was pretty, you know.
LH: Oh yes.
JM: And I guess, what were you shooting on the farm?
LH: Anything that moved, pigeons.
JM: Pigeons yeah.
LH: Pigeons.
JM: Did you have any foxes, rabbits or anything like that?
LH: No, there’d foxes but not rabbits.
JM: Did you shoot foxes as well?
LH: Well if we saw them we did.
JM: Yes, yes. So all of those moving targets would, would be very useful training for you in terms of –
LH: Yes, yes, oh I always thought I’d have been better as a gunner than a wireless op actually [unclear].
JM: Oh well, that’s all a good back story there so –
LH: It was no long, not long after this that we were sent to Sydney to get the boat, we didn’t know where we were going to.
JM: Going, no.
LH: Just put on the boat and sent to San Francisco.
JM: Yes okay. So you went down to um, you went to, you were sent to Sydney and then you –
LH: Transferred. We missed the first boat. What happened, they put us on leave when we left Maryborough, final leave they called it, and then we had to go to the South Brisbane Railway Station to get the train to Sydney, and the fellow, the fellow who was handling all these troops that were using the train, the train, he kept sending us home. And then they found that we should have been gone a month before, and anyway he put us on the train and sent us to Sydney and we missed the boat, and they sent us onto Melbourne and we missed the boat again, and then they sent us back to Sydney and then we got on the “USS Westpoint”, which was an American troop ship but it was an American top cruise liner before the war. “Miss America” it was before the war.
JM: Mmm.
LH: And believe it or not, we’d heard about these troop ship meals, you know, how terrible they were.
JM: Mmm.
LH: The first meal we had [unclear], turkey and asparagus and sweetcorn [laughs], we couldn’t believe it [laughs].
JM: So you lucked out, having had the inconvenience of going Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, all over the place, you ended up on –
LH: On the cruise ship.
JM: On the best ship.
LH: Three hundred and forty of us I think, on this forty thousand ton liner.
JM: Wow.
LH: Yes and we went to San Francisco.
JM: And you didn’t have any yanks, US troops of course, they –
LH: A few Americans, pregnant, no a few Australian pregnant women, and a few American wounded.
JM: Right.
LH: Yes.
JM: Right.
LH: But the women, there was a couple of dozen of them you know.
JM: Yes, yes.
LH: ‘Cos they were all coming this way.
JM: Yes, yes. So then, you had three hundred and fifty troops on this –
LH: Three hundred and forty, yes.
JM: Three hundred and forty troops on this huge boat, so you had a life of luxury compared to a lot of the other chaps.
LH: Oh hell yes, yes.
JM: Did you each have your own cabin or did you have to share?
LH: No, no, no, no, no, they put us in a very confined space.
JM: Oh did they now, oh.
LH: Yes, yes, a very confined space.
JM: Oh that wasn’t very nice.
LH: Well it was really, no, we had plenty of water, and plenty of everything you know.
JM: Yeah, yeah.
LH: Plenty of food, we could hardly get down the gangplank when we got to San Francisco [laughs]. And then they sent us across from San Francisco to New York, we got on the train.
JM: By train, yes.
LH: San Francisco and got off in New York, got off and then we were –
JM: No that’s right, and that was the normal thing, just to push you straight through. So then you got to New York, did you have any time in New York, before you left New York?
LH: Yeah we had a, had a I think a week or two, we were waiting, at that time that’s when the “Queen Mary” had to cruise in to, yeah, it had just got back into action. We didn’t go on the “Queen Mary”, we went on the “Andes”.
JM: Right.
LH: Just over twenty-seven thousand ton cruiser, we went from there to Liverpool.
JM: Right, oh Liverpool, okay, that’s different. So what date are we talking about here now? So, I guess if we finished the training, it has to be, you finished your gunnery training in September ’43, so this has to be end of ’43, potentially even early ’44?
LH: I think that the change of currency on the boat [pause], [looking through log book].
JM: Yeah, that’s right. Sorry.
LH: August 1943-44, air to sea.
JM: Yeah that’s you starting to do your gunnery stuff so we need to go past that.
LH: March/April ’44 that’s when we got in to Ansons.
JM: Ansons. Okay so obviously the point is that March, so obviously you’ve landed in the UK around about March, March ’44, is a good approximation for, for all we need at the moment. Okay so you –
LH: We were sent to advanced flying, thirty-first of the three, ‘43.
JM: Yes.
LH: That was Ansons.
JM: Yes, and what dates was that, that was the March and April was it?
LH: March/April ’44.
JM: Yes okay. And so what do you remember about that, that would have been the first time, because I mean –
LH: There was night flying.
JM: Night flying yes, ‘cos you had. wouldn’t have done, because your flying up until that date was only sort of sitting in the back of the other plane –
LH: Of the Fairy Battles.
JM: Fairy Battles, doing your –
LH: Being whacked [unclear].
JM: Yeah, yeah, so this is your first time in –
LH: Mainly Ansons.
JM: Er, a big plane, when you’re actually enclosed so to speak as well, because the Fairy Battles are open canopy there so, so was that the first time you’d been in a full plane like that.
LH: Yeah, yeah.
JM: Had you done any flying in the ATC, had you been up in the air at any time?
LH: No, no, no.
JM: So this was when you found out whether you really liked flying or not?
LH: Well I was always a bit worried about it [laughs] but it was better than marching [laughs].
JM: Yes.
LH: Well we got on the Ansons the thirty-first of the third ’43 to the thirteenth of the fourth ’44 [pause].
JM: Right, okay, and so –
LH: That was just for practice bombing mostly.
JM: Bombing, so basic flying, well advanced flying I should say, yes. So what did you do, so you probably did a, probably did at least one other, well you would have done OTU?
LH: We were sent to Silverstone on the fourth of the fifth ’44 to crew up.
JM: Oh okay, so that’s when you did your crewing up, yeah, okay. And what was, which squadron, what base were you at there?
LH: Silverstone.
JM: Silverstone, and did you have a squadron number there I should say?
LH: No, no, no, no.
JM: No, no, no.
LH: We just crewed up.
JM: Crewed up, yeah.
LH: They put, I think, thirty of each of you all –
JM: In a big room, square room.
LH: Didn’t know who they were, you had to sort yourself out.
JM: And so you, did you have any Australians, any of the chaps that you came over on the boat with, or any of the chaps that you done any of your training with?
LH: No, no, the fellows we came over on the boat with, they were there for wireless ops but none of the others.
JM: Yeah, so it was only the wireless ops that you knew.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: And obviously being only one on each plane, you weren’t going to end up together.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: So okay. So which, so what did you end up with in the crew?
LH: Well there was an Australian pilot and navigator.
JM: Right, who was your pilot?
LH: Jackson, Flight Sergeant Jackson.
JM: Yes.
LH: And er, and navigator Jim Wilson, and there was bomb aimer he, his name was Fred McClure, and then I was the other, I was the wireless op, and there were two pommie gunners.
JM: Right.
LH: Yes, so that was the six, you didn’t pick up the engineer until just –
JM: Oh once you start, almost dreaded, start ops.
LH: That was when you, oh yeah, when you got to heavy conversion.
JM: Heavy conversion, yeah that’s right, okay.
LH: So that went to [unclear] it’s on Wellingtons.
JM: Mmm, hmm.
LH: On the twenty-ninth of the fifth.
JM: Twenty-ninth of the fifth, okay, so all good.
LH: Then we were sent to 17 OTU at Towcester, at Towcester or whatever you call it. No that’s we’re still on Silverstone here. The fourth of the seventh ’44, yeah that was the last trip when we finished with Wellingtons.
JM: Right.
LH: Fourth of the seventh, yeah.
JM: Right, and then –
LH: And they wouldn’t even let us, they made us stay for the last one, but the pilot got married and they wouldn’t let us go to his wedding, yeah. We finished our last one with Wing Commander Lister, but anyway.
JM: Right, so then, so then you went into your OTU?
LH: No that was the end of the OTU.
JM: That was the end of the OTU, so when did the OTU end, that was at the fourth of the seventh was it?
LH: Ah, OTU.
JM: I wouldn’t have thought so, that I would have thought, it would have been a bit –
LH: Fourth of the seventh, yeah.
JM: Was that when it finished was it?
LH: Yeah, yeah, when OTU, that was on the Wellingtons.
JM: Right, okay. So what leave did you have in between any of this, so what did you do?
LH: Well we were given a week or two at the end of OTU and then we were sent to er, Heavy Conversion Unit [pause], Heavy Conversion Unit, Winthorpe, on the tenth of the eighth ’44, that was on Stirlings.
JM: Yep.
LH: Yeah, and that’s er –
JM: And that was probably about a month was it?
LH: [Looking through photos/book]
JM: Be careful, don’t rip them. It’s, it’s stuck there, so you probably won’t be able to separate that for the moment, but I will -
LH: Oh that’s it.
JM: Yeah but I wouldn’t, it’s very stuck up on this corner I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be –
LH: The pages –
JM: Yeah, be careful, yeah well either that or it’s deliberately, looks like it’s been deliberately glued together so –
LH: Well there’s the summary for the course, that’s the Heavy Conversion, er, August/September 1944 unit [unclear] 1661, dated eleventh of the ninth ’44.
JM: Yes that’s right, that makes sense.
LH: I wonder why they glued them together?
JM: Oh possibly there was some figures that needed to be changed and rather than changing the figures they just glued the pages together to go into a new –
LH: Then there was the Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston, that was on the twenty-ninth of the ninth ’44, and the second of the tenth ’44. Then they sent us to Scotland.
JM: Yeah, okay.
LH: October ’44, 4th October.
JM: Right.
LH: Then we were given a few familiarise station exercises and then we were sent to Nuremburg.
JM: Right okay.
LH: Remembering what the one before [laughs].
JM: Yeah okay, well we’ll come to that in a moment, let’s just backtrack for a second. You said you had a week’s leave at the end of –
LH: At the end of OTU.
JM: OTU.
LH: Yes.
JM: And so what did you do, what sort of places did you go to?
LH: Oh well I always wanted to go to Scotland and we had a Scotch rear gunner, so I went up to Edinburgh with him, spent all my leaves in Edinburgh and then I –
JM: Right, right, well so that was good. And so you met his, did you stay with him and stay with his family?
LH: No, no, no, no, ‘cos he er, I had a hostel that started like the Australian Air Force started one later on, so we used to stay in hostel accommodation.
JM: Right, right, okay. And so did you see a bit of Scotland then did you, or just around Edinburgh?
LH: Mainly round Edinburgh but I got to know a few people there, lovely people, and up to Aberdeen and that’s about as far as we went.
JM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well with only a week that didn’t give you much scope, but I mean –
LH: Well when we got on the squadron, you was supposed to get ten days leave every six weeks, but as the crews kept knocking off you kept moving forward, and then you had ten days every four weeks, and they were very good to us there was [unclear] give us five bob a day every day, every day, we were on leave that’s money, isn’t it.
JM: Oh my, yeah. So your crew altogether at this stage and at this point you’ve also now picked up your engineer I guess?
LH: Yes, we picked him up at the Stirlings, with the Stirlings.
JM: Yeah okay. And who was your engineer?
LH: A Joe Black, a Geordie from Newcastle.
JM: Right.
LH: Nice little fella.
JM: Yes, and so then um, you were posted to 57 Squadron and –
LH: 4th October ’44.
JM: 4th October, yep, and that’s, you did a few training runs?
LH: The first op was on the nineteenth, we did a fortnight’s familiarisation you know.
JM: Yeah okay. So your first op was –
LH: Nuremburg.
JM: Was Nuremburg. Nothing like a small task to start with?
LH: Yes.
JM: What was it –
LH: Well they lost ten per cent, they lost more on the trip before that than they lost in the whole of the Battle of Britain.
JM: Yes.
LH: Five Hundred and Sixty, they lost ten per cent of their planes on the trip before.
JM: Mmm.
LH: Over eighty planes. Eighty planes with [unclear] would you believe, yeah.
JM: So this would be in October ‘40?
LH: Yes, 19th of October ’44.
JM: Yep.
LH: And the second one was, the second was on the twenty-eighth that was to Bergen, Norway, U-Boats pens.
JM: Right. So what –
LH: That was a, oh no, the second op was the twenty-third, it was to Flushing in Holland, that was the second op.
JM: Right.
LH: That was done in [unclear], air gunners [unclear].
JM: Right.
LH: We nearly came to grief then because we got er, it was a beautiful day and the pilot didn’t put his retaining harness on, and we were just cruising along at about three and a half thousand feet, and then an anti-aircraft shell exploded in the bomb bay and put the plane in a mad dive. Up to three and a half thousand, and he didn’t have his harness on and he was floating in mid-air, and he ended up, he had to put his two feet on the control panels to pull us out. The only time I prayed [laughs]. Nearly wet, nearly wet me pants as well. I didn’t. We were all in mid-air, the plane was in a vertical dive –
JM: Vertical dive –
LH: Yes, yes, and we nearly came to grief then but anyway –
JM: So he managed, he just managed to exert enough pressure –
LH: Well he pulled us out yes, but well we didn’t have much clearance from the ground by the time he –
JM: Was it ground or water you were over at that point, ground?
LH: We were over the water going in to the downspin, but [unclear], well we’d have been over the sands, but that was where the gun emplacement was.
JM: Right.
LH: And the third one was er –
JM: Just a minute before you go to the third one, let’s go back to Nuremburg. What can you tell me about Nuremburg?
LH: That’s the third one. Oh no, it’s the first one.
JM: No, Nuremburg was the first one.
LH: Now when you go to, go to, before you go on ops your pilot is put in with another crew in –
JM: Second dickie?
LH: Yes, second dickie, and he did that, and when we got to Nuremburg nobody seemed to know what to look for. Well see, I’m inside the rear turret, and one of the gunners saw these lights out of the port and we went, and we were late over the target, nearly everybody had gone home then.
JM: Any particular reason for being late or-
LH: Well that’s because they’d missed, instead of turning off at the right time to make the bombing run, they’d overshot and had to turn round and come back.
JM: Back, oh.
LH: Yeah, yeah. And then once the bomb aimer got his sights on the thing, he told us, open the thing, put the nose down and go for it. Yeah, but we had quite a few near misses though shrapnel holes in the plane.
JM: Right, from that trip, from that?
LH: From anti-aircraft guns.
JM: Anti-aircraft guns.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: Well I mean I guess if you are on your own, you’re a bit more of a target when you’re sort of sitting out there on your own.
LH: Yes, yes, yes. And they’d all gone, yes. By then probably all the guns were in their fixed position, so they’d put them in a fixed position and just fire as many shells. As soon as they found what the bombing height was, they’d just fire guns into us, you know.
JM: Yes yes.
LH: But you couldn’t sort of aim at them. Anyway, that was another near miss.
JM: Yeah, yeah. So all those holes, golly gosh, yes.
LH: Then the third one was Bergen.
JM: Yes.
LH: That was over Norway a submarine pen.
JM: Gosh and what happened there?
LH: Nothing much happened –
JM: Nothing much –
LH: Oh well, it was a, it was one of those targets that they, the Germans put them near the village as a, and they generally tried to put up a smoke screen, but if you got in before it, and they hadn’t marked it, but they wanted you to sort of get near misses. And knock off population so we didn’t get too friendly, sort of thing.
JM: So did you have any pathfinders going in dropping anything for you or in advance, or were you on your own just doing your own thing?
LH: No, no, [unclear] there would have been a couple of hundred planes I suppose, yes building up.
JM: Right, gosh that’s a fair number.
LH: Yeah. As I say anyway, it was well marked, I mean.
JM: It was well marked by simply just the number of planes.
LH: Yes.
JM: Okay. So that’s the end, that’s getting towards the end of ’44?
LH: That’s the end of October, and then the 1st November was Homberg, that was oil refineries.
JM: Mmm.
LH: Nothing particular there I don’t suppose. And then that’s the 1st November, the 2nd November it was Dusseldorf, it was daytime yeah, that was the [unclear], then the 4th of November was Dortmund-Ems Canal. Strange to say that was one of the most dangerous targets in Europe because they relied a hell of a lot on the Dortmund-Ems for transport, and the only thing they’d do, we could do was, there were two viaducts in Gravenhorst and Ladbergen and let the water out, blow the [unclear]. Now the Germans, then they’d build them up again and just when they were about open, we’d go back and blow them down, so they’d know when we were coming and that’s why it was one of the most dangerous targets believe it or not.
JM: Because they organised their defences because they anticipated your return.
LH: Yes, yes. They nearly brought is down later on [unclear]. And then the next one from that was Turin, that was a tactical target, and that one the wheels, the undercarriage wouldn’t lock down or wouldn’t say that it was locked down, so we sent a crash [unclear] to Carnaby, but anyway it had just a malfunction in the electricals as it happened, so we landed on [unclear]. And then [unclear], oh that was at Carnaby. Then the next one was the twenty-first, that was Gravenhorst, had to go up and somehow bomb the other viaduct.
JM: Right, again was that a similar sort of story in terms of the way they protected the –
LH: Yes, yes, ‘cos they waited for us.
JM: Yes.
LH: And then the next one was Trondheim, Trondheim.
JM: Back up to Norway?
LH: Yes, back up to Norway, now that was sub pen again. Now what happened there we had to, had to fly at night under a hundred and fifty feet for a thousand miles and we didn’t have radio altimeters, and at one stage I dunno how the plane but what they call a long tailing area, a long –
JM: Yes.
LH: It’s got a lot of little ball bearings on the end of that –
JM: Ball bearings, yes.
LH: And that hit the water and tore up, it was only thirty feet under the plane.
JM: Under the plane.
LH: And everybodys screaming, “climb”, and [laughs] but er, to make it worse, we got there and then they put up a smokescreen and they couldn’t get a clear view to mark the target, so having done all that, we had to fly back with the bomb load.
JM: Without dropping the bombs?
LH: Yes.
JM: So did you drop them off –
LH: We didn’t have to fly back low, we came back at normal height.
JM: Normal height sort of thing, yeah. But did you drop the bombs?
LH: No, no, we landed with them.
JM: Landed with them.
LH: There’s only a few, well most of the ‘dromes were alerted all the way from top of Scotland down to Lincoln, expecting we wouldn’t make it to land there, but we got back to base. I think there was only two planes that were struggling a bit for base and you know. Well we landed with one hundred and forty gallons in the tank, but it was, it was, that was two thousand miles.
JM: Well I was going to say, it’s a long way up to Trondheim.
LH: Two thousand miles.
JM: Yep.
LH: Two thousand one hundred and forty-five gallons of petrol, so that worked out a mile to the gallon.
JM: Plus all the bombs.
LH: Carrying bombs and everything, and we carried them there and we carried them back, yes.
JM: Yes. Amazing, must have been a very good pilot to be able to manage the, the, to nurse it along to maximise, yes –
LH: Yes, yes. So that was –
JM: So that’s your pilot, and that was still, um, Jackson?
LH: Oh yeah, all the time they’re all Jackson.
JM: Yeah. What’s his first name?
LH: Jerry.
JM: Jerry.
LH: Jerald.
JM: Jerald, mmm mmm.
LH: Harcourt I think was his, J H, Harcourt, Jerald Harcourt Jackson.
JM: Oh, okay.
LH: And anyway that was the twenty, that was the 3rd November. Then we get to December [unclear], that was on the fourth. The sixth was Giesson, that’s night time raid. And the ninth was Heimbach Dam, the first drop on Heimbach Dam was abandoned, I don’t know why I record it anyway. And then we did a daylight on Heimbach later on, that was on the eleventh of December, then must have gone on leave.
JM: So you didn’t do, in December you didn’t do anything on the Baltic Fleet in um, um, I don’t know how you pronounce it. Gdynia or something like that [spells it out].
LH: Oh Gdynia
JM: Yes.
LH: No.
JM: No you didn’t do any of that, right.
LH: No. There’s just [unclear] and Heimback Dam, then we were put on leave.
JM: Right, so what did you do for your leave there?
LH: Edinburgh.
JM: Edinburgh again, yes.
LH: [laughs] yeah.
JM: Did you have some attraction up there by this stage or not?
LH: Well I did have some. Funny thing, in 1962 one of the girls I used to go out with turned up in the Tumbulgum pub as the barmaid.
JM: Good heavens.
LH: By then I had five kids and a wife and everything, and she thought we could just go [unclear] [laughs]. Anyway I never said anything to my wife ever about it, but anyway it was good [unclear] because the pub was full when she was the barmaid there, and the proprietor thought she was paying a bit too much attention to his, to her husband, so she fired her, and she took all the customers up to the Riverview Hotel at Murwillumbah [laughs]. You could have tried to get in, but bloody emptied the pub. Anyway how the hell she found me after twenty years after the bloody war well –
JM: Amazing, she must have been keen.
LH: Oh she was [unclear] she was beautiful.
JM: Well, well.
LH: Well now we come to January.
JM: Come to January.
LH: The 1st of January, back to Ladbergen again, the Dortmund Ems, and then on the fourth, Royan, that was a garrison of er, I don’t know, [unclear] the fifth that was [unclear], that was tanks [unclear]. Ah that’s one I’m think about. And then there’s the seventh was Munich, that was a long one.
JM: Anything stand out about that one?
LH: It was eleven and a half hours, the Klondean one, it was a very long flight. Sorry what did you say?
JM: Did that Munich, anything about the Munich trip stand out or just, or was it just –
LH: Only the Swiss, came back over Switzerland, you could nearly hear the people drinking gin slings, and all the lakes were black, all around was white, and all the lights were lit up, because all Europe was blacked out, oh beautiful, why we didn’t bail out I don’t know [laughs]. Oh beautiful. And then on the fourteenth, it was Merseburg [unclear] oil refineries. On the sixteenth was Brux, that was Czechoslovakia oil refineries, that was about ten hours that one, and Merseburg was ten hours too.
JM: Gosh.
LH: Yes, ten hour trip. That took us to the end of January, then put on leave again.
JM: Yep, Edinburgh again?
LH: Yep.
JM: Yeah.
LH: [laughs] That was done for January. Ladbergen again [unclear], and then on the seventh, Pölitz, that was oil refineries, and then, oh that’s one where we nearly came to grief at Pölitz. We got four direct flak hits that put the intercom out, and blew one tail off, it was a hell of a lot, hell of a thing to see, cracked through the main spar, er, not the main spar, the one that the landing flaps were on the –
JM: Yes.
LH: Cracked through that –
JM: Cross member –
LH: No, we didn’t have wings, these were on the landing flaps, and we didn’t know that and it could have come unstuck when we were landing, luckily it didn’t, I mean.
JM: Yeah till, unstuck. And this was in February would you say or late January?
LH: That was 7th February.
JM: 7th February, yep.
LH: And for some reason they gave me a gong for that, I don’t know what for, I didn’t know they posted it out to me [laughs]. Oh, asked if I wanted to go and get it in England [unclear].
JM: No.
LH: No well that was after Pölitz, it was oil refineries. And then the nineteenth was Poland, that was Leipzig, that was more oil refineries. Then the twenty-fourth it was a daylight back to Ladbergen, Dortmund Ems, that was the end of February.
JM: Mmm. There couldn’t have been too much left of it by that stage was there? Or what did they keep building rebuilding it back again, yes –
LH: No they kept building, you know, and I think they knew there’d be plenty of easy targets, you know, there was, they could concentrate on the night fighter force.
JM: Their artillery onto, yes. Bees to the honeypot again was their view, that they could whack ‘em all off, whack ‘em off.
LH: And then March, seventh of the third of March, Ladbergen again.
JM: Mmm.
LH: And then 5th March was Poland oil refineries. The 6th March was Szczecin, that’s the Baltic Port of Denmark , the Germans were evacuating faster than us, ahead of the Russians, well thought out, they, Szczecin was the Danish port, and er, when we went in to bomb they put, we didn’t know, they sent in mine layers just before we went in, and they mined the whole of the front of the harbour and as we started dropping bombs the ships all started up to get out of the harbour they ran into this minefield, yes. It was pretty, I felt sorry for the poor old people killed in that way, but you know [unclear]. And then the seventh, that was to Hamburg, that was oil refineries. And the twentieth was Poland again, Leipzig oil refineries, we was betting on them at that stage. And the twenty-third was Wesel, now we didn’t know that was the crossing of the Rhine, yes we did that.
JM: So you were part of that, that big mission there for that.
LH: Yes [unclear], troop concentration [unclear].
JM: So what did you have a specific target that you had to –
LH: No, no, I think they took Churchill along to view that and they pulled the troops back for miles from the target, It was a pretty significant move in the war.
JM: It was, it was, it was a turning point in terms of, yeah.
LH: Into Germany.
JM: Into Germany. that’s right, yeah, yeah. But you were just part of –
LH: Just part of the bombers.
JM: You don’t remember roughly how many, how many planes were up there that night? Was it, that was another night one I presume?
LH: Aye?
JM: Was that a night or a day?
LH: Oh yeah, night.
JM: Night.
LH: Yeah.
JM: You don’t remember how many were, planes were up that night?
LH: No, there would have been at least two-fifty but no, I don’t think it wouldn’t have been bigger than that I don’t think, but two-fifty was a fair, quite a lot of bombs to drop, ‘cos each one had about seven tons to drop so seven thousand, fourteen thousand pounds.
JM: That’s amazing the amount of bombs when you think two hundred and fifty planes all dropping that sort of thing.
LH: Then back to, back to March [unclear]. Now we can do April [unclear], Nordhausen, now we didn’t know that was a concentration camp at that stage. It was daylight, but when we were coming up on the target I can remember this, the Germans, if they knew what we were up to, they’d put up a box barage and that would be a wall of guns that would be pointed into a, into a put a box that the planes were going to fly through –
JM: Planes were going to fly through, yep –
LH: And then they’d fire as many shells as they could.
JM: Shells as they could.
LH: When we was coming up, it was a beautiful clear day, but this was like a thunder cloud, just when they opened the burst of shells, that’s how many were going, yes, yes, a bit scary but anyway. And then we come to Mölbis, Leipzig, power, oil refineries, and that was the end bit.
JM: So what’s that?
LH: 7th April I think.
JM: Yes, 7th April. But that in total were there –
LH: Thirty-two ops.
JM: Thirty-two ops yeah, that’s, and all the same crew right the way through?
LH: Yes, well the navigator missed one trip, he had the flu or something.
JM: The flu or something, yeah, yeah.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: But otherwise the complete –
LH: Otherwise it was the same crew
JM: The same crew, yeah, and therefore –
LH: So funny thing, when, when we got hit with lots of flak, you’ve got no idea the incredible amount of damage and yet nobody got hit, nobody no.
JM: That’s amazing isn’t it, that no one got hit, that was incredible.
LH: Yes.
JM: So then let’s go back to Pölitz, um, and you say that so, and that’s where you were, and after that, is where, a as a result of that you were given the DFC, awarded the DFC?
LH: Yes.
JM: Did all the members of the crew get the DFC?
LH: Only the pilot.
JM: The pilot and –
LH: Only me and the pilot.
JM: You and the pilot, right.
LH: It was Pölitz, wasn’t it?
JM: Pölitz, yeah.
LH: Oh yeah, Pölitz.
JM: So what with the, that’s where you had some of the biggest direct hits with the flak?
LH: Yes, yes, yes.
JM: Yes so –
LH: Well we had no idea of what, the plane flew, but why I don’t know. It was really, really, one tail was blown off completely.
JM: One tail gone, yes.
LH: It was such a mass of holes, yes.
JM: Did the, didn’t damage the hydraulics or anything so you had to –
LH: Oh yes I was covered in hydraulic oil, well it busted some pipes but er, and they couldn’t, couldn’t, the dry cleaners couldn’t get it out, had to, buggered me uniform, and I stunk like anything with hydraulic oil, yes. And we landed at, I can’t remember the, landed at down near the white cliffs of Dover, a base round there.
JM: Yes. So were you able to land properly?
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: You didn’t have to do a belly landing in the grass or anything?
LH: No, no, no, no. no.
JM: No.
LH: Well we were lucky, I think, I often wonder, this is just between you and me, how many losses were due to poor maintenance you know, because some planes they just went on and on and on and on and on. Like you all had your letters, and some letters kept going pretty, you know, pretty regularly you know, and I was often wondering whether maintenance had to do with some of it. It’s just my thoughts though.
JM: And did you, did you, after like that trip for instance did your plane, did you have to go onto a different plane then?
LH: Well no, we went back –
JM: They patched it up and –
LH: No we had to get back by train.
JM: Yeah, but the plane itself –
LH: Well they patched it up.
JM: Patched it up. So did you do any, so the next missions after that, ops did you do in a different plane or?
LH: No, it didn’t come back to the squadron until after we’d left.
JM: Right.
LH: And that was one of the things that stuck in me craw, because the crew that went down to fly it back to the base they, there was a, one of the WAAF’s at the station was getting an award to something and one of the London newspapers took the crew down to get pictures of her directing the plane in, and it was our plane, and they sent each of ‘em a big photo.
JM: A great big photo.
LH: He showed it to me but he wouldn’t give it to me, he didn’t. Miserable bugger.
JM: Who was that who showed it to you?
LH: It, it was a fella that did one op before the war ended and they’d gone down to pick it up.
JM: They’d gone down to pick it up. So they effectively were, nonetheless the paper didn’t have a clue the fact that this crew was purely doing a ferrying run and had nothing to do with the plane itself?
LH: Yes, yes, it was on a ferry run.
JM: Yes, yes, I see.
LH: So that’s it again, there’s the plane there you see [showing photo].
JM: Yep, yep, right.
LH: It had done ninety-seven trips by the end of the war.
JM: So you were, so you were flying “Sugar” were you?
LH: “Sugar”, yeah.
JM: Yeah, okay.
LH: And it had done ninety-seven trips by the end of the war and er –
JM: So what did you, so which one did you fly for the last, ‘cos you basically did another two months –
LH: Oh well I said, I think the last one was “W”.
JM: Yeah, you had basically two, two more months ahead of you, about another seven or eight.
LH: Yeah, they just put us on any plane that was available.
JM: Right, yeah.
LH: After, after Pölitz was “O”, “P”, “Q”, “W”, the last one was “W”.
JM: So would you say that there was any one event or sequence of events, out of all of that, that stayed with you more than anything else?
LH: No not really, just that we were incredibly lucky in stages.
JM: Lucky, yeah.
LH: No I think luck played a hell of a part really, but we had a good crew you know, a very good navigator and a very good pilot and yes. He used to worry me, he was so small but [laughs], and the funny thing, he couldn’t even drive a bloody car and two years later he’s flying a plane [laughs].
JM: It’s a common story that many of them were flying planes before they had licences, that’s what is a very common story and it’s just so, so bizarre that, and not only were they flying planes but they were flying planes in the most extraordinary difficult and dangerous circumstances and, and it just –
LH: Eighteen hundred killed training you know.
JM: That’s right extraordinary numbers. And then, with, so then you were, was on leave before you then discharged –
LH: We was put on leave until we were –
JM: Until you discharged, so that was April, so you basically had nearly six months, April, May, June, July, August, September, five months, so you had some leave over in the UK, and then you were, when did you come back to Australia?
LH: Well, I had my twenty-first birthday on the boat we came back through the Suez via Panama Canal.
JM: Right, well just a second the leave that you had after you concluded, you completed your tour –
LH: We went on leave until we were called to Brighton.
JM: Right.
LH: And then that was about a month, and from there we waited for a boat to come home, and that was “The Andes”.
JM: Again. So you went over and back on the same –
LH: Yes, we went over we crossed the Atlantic on “The Andes”, and we came all the way back to Australia on “The Andes” through the Panama Canal. It was a very interesting trip.
JM: Oh.
LH: And then when we got back here we were put on leave and then of course, the war ended before even we were given any jobs, and then I must have been a nutcase because while I was on leave, I got a telegram asking if I’d take a job, if I was interested in distant um, taking charge of a section of thirty-four WAAFs, mind you, in Bradfield Park and discharged, and I knocked it back [laughs]. And then later, there was one time, asked me if I’d like to go back to the victory ceremony on “The Sydney” to England, and I knocked that back. I must have been a bloody nutcase.
JM: Mmm.
LH: But anyway that’s that. I just wanted to get out.
JM: Yeah, you wanted to get out and er, um –
LH: Two offers like that, bloody hell.
JM: Good offers. So you don’t recall any particular reasoning, apart from the fact that you’d just had enough and you wanted out? Is that probably the, just the main -
LH: Well the war was over really –
JM: Yes that’s right, the war was over by that stage. So just backtracking there for a second, when you were on leave before you went down to Brighton, was that back to Scotland again?
LH: Yes, Aberdeen and that yeah, yeah. Oh we got in with some returning PoW’s, sort of thing, they’d been in German PoW camps, wild as ever, yeah, yeah [laughs].
JM: Yeah –
LH: Everybody’s letting their hair down sort of thing, yes.
JM: Well that’s right, I mean, imagine what it would have been like for those guys in the PoW camps.
LH: Oh, boys open like jack rabbits, hey no, to tell you what they must have been well looked after ‘cause they were all in pretty good condition.
JM: Okay. So then you had your twenty-first birthday on the boat on the return home?
LH: Yes.
JM: And um, and you said you came home, you, and you, the route for your return home?
LH: Through the Panama.
JM: The Panama, so that was an interesting experience.
LH: Yes, yes. They wouldn’t let us off the boat at Colón, that was the Atlantic side of Panama because the mob before us went through the town and wrecked it –
JM: Wrecked it, yeah.
LH: Yes, so they wouldn’t let us off, we had to stay on the boat.
JM: Right.
LH: [unclear].
JM: And were you confined to a small area again?
LH: On the boat?
JM: On the boat
LH: Well we –
JM: Were you allowed a bit more, spread out a bit more?
LH: Well you had your bunk, you had your bunk, but you had the run of the boat sort of thing.
JM: So how, but I suppose you would have been –
LH: But I couldn’t get over, we, we was warrant officers of course, not officers, and we were warrant officers and because oh, up to sergeant they were treated like the troops, but we had stewards and everything and you had everything set out on tables, table cloths and everything, yeah. Oh, we lived like bloody princes all the way home.
JM: All the way home, yeah.
LH: Yeah.
JM: And were there a few more troops on board, coming home, than there were going out?
LH: I think about two thousand, I think about twenty-two hundred I think on the boat coming home.
JM: Yeah, yeah. So slightly more than going over.
LH: Yeah, there were a couple of hundred FANYS, that’s Field Ambulance National Service Women, and that was it I think. And the officers looked after them, they didn’t let the troops [laughs].
JM: Didn’t let the troops near them, protected them, yeah.
LH: Yeah [laughs]. I tell you what, if you came through it you wouldn’t miss it for quids, you know you don’t think of the odds, it but it’s a really, a really good experience anyhow.
JM: How do you feel it changed your life?
LH: Well I was told, 1945 to 1984 that I had post-traumatic stress for all that time. Well I didn’t say anything, I knew I wasn’t right, but at one stage I used to ball, start crying for no bloody reason. I, I, you know, I’m still a bit of a nutcase, but thirty nearly forty years after the war [unclear], he said, ‘you should have been on a pension at the end of the war’, but nobody read it.
JM: Nobody recognised it.
LH: They had, if you got that in Bomber Command you’re classified LMF, yeah and that went on your record, yeah. Sorry if I was a bit rude but anyway, yeah. And then in the First World War, they used to shoot them for cowardice, yeah. I can’t, I know some fellas used to disappear off the squadron but we never sort of queried it so maybe they could have been some breaking down.
JM: Mmm, right.
LH: But I always used to look out the window when we took off, think, now there’s twenty going and nineteen coming back, surely the odds were in my favour, but, well you sort of think like that, but I don’t know why, yeah. Probably funny, you probably think it’s funny.
JM: No I don’t think it’s funny, I mean it’s, it’s just an amazing um set of circumstances to be working through when, when you know you are not even twenty-one. I mean it’s just, I think of what, what you chaps went through and what youth of today sort of sees as a problem for them and I think they, they don’t, their not in the same ballpark, it’s just a terribly different world so.
LH: I think the secret was not to let it get to you.
JM: Yeah.
LH: Not, not to dwell on things that you did do. But the thing that stuck in me crew and I didn’t get a campaign medal, that really stuck in me crew.
JM: Which campaign medal was that?
LH: For Bomber Command, you didn’t get a campaign medal. You could send away for one in 1970, but it wasn’t a, a one that was recommended by the Air Force.
JM: But there is one that’s now available for the Australian Bomber Command.
LH: Yes I got one.
JM: Oh you did get one.
LH: I sent away for one.
JM: Right, yeah.
LH: It was in 1972 –
JM: No, no, no, no. This is within the last few years.
LH: No, no that was just a –
JM: A clasp.
LH: A clasp, yes.
JM: Yes, yes.
LH: I stuck it on and it fell off and I don’t know where the hell it is anyway, yes.
JM: Right.
LH: And they told us that, and when I rang up, that’s another thing that stuck in me craw, I rang up about that to somebody over in England and they said, ‘Oh you contact somebody down in [unclear] because you’re colonials’. I thought, mmm, right buggers –
JM: No there –
LH: They, they sort of looked on us as a different class but they didn’t then.
JM: No, no, that’s right.
LH: But I thought it was a bit of an insult actually.
JM: So which particular, so which you’ve got 39.5 Star.
LH: Yes.
JM: Yeah, what else and which and –
LH: Oh I’ve got them all on a, on a thing there.
JM: Okay well we’ll get back, we’ll get those shortly then, we’ll come back to those. So then you came back, so there were quite a few Australians in the crew there, there was what, there was only one, one Englishman wasn’t there, two?
LH: Two, two.
JM: One was Scottish.
LH: Three, the engineer and two gunners.
JM: The engineer and two gunners that’s right. So did you keep in touch with the pilot, the navigator, or the bomb aimer, once you all came back?
LH: No I never, I never was one for writing letters, some of them contacted me. The bomb aimer ended up a homeless alcoholic and he died at er, fairly well he was not an old man, but anyway, and he was really young so I don’t know why, whether, why it would have been him but, his father was a top Melbourne surgeon.
JM: Goodness.
LH: And, and he well, I don’t know.
JM: What about Jerry and um –
LH: No, Jerry who was a lawyer and, and he ended up at Tukka, down on the Murray, and he married a, a fine lady and she came out here.
JM: Do you know if he’s still alive or you don’t?
LH: No, no I’m the only one left out of the crew.
JM: You’re only the one left, yeah, right.
LH: I was the baby of the crew, yes.
JM: Crew right.
LH: The mid upper gunner was twenty-eight, and the rear gunner was thirty-six, but no pretty older than me.
JM: Goodness, thirty-six is very old, yeah.
LH: Yeah, yeah.
JM: I mean, twenty-eight was considered old but thirty-six was even older, but yeah, and compared to you being less than twenty-one –
LH: Yeah, well, Jim, Jim Wilson was about three years older. That’s a funny thing now, he got engaged after the war to a pommy woman, and when he came back here, his mother was in a nursing home with a full time nurse, and he ended up marrying the nurse and cancelling the other one. Now the other one married an American Mustang pilot and she went back to California.
JM: America.
LH: Now here’s where the funny thing happened, Jim’s wife died in 1980 something, late eighties, and he was moping around and his crew, oh no, his kids bought him a trip on a Russian cruise liner, this is incredible, on a Russian cruise liner.
JM: Yeah, to?
LH: Wheeled him onto the liner and said, “Stay there, don’t come back.”
JM: Right, where was this Russian cruise liner going?
LH: I don’t know but anyway the, on the cruise liner the American, the pommy dame that he was engaged to and got married, her husband had died and she was on the Russian cruise liner.
JM: Yes.
LH: Now you wouldn’t read about it.
JM: You would not read about this.
LH: You would not read about it. So anyway, the outcome was that he used to go over and stay with her for four months, and she came out here and stayed at his place for four months, and then they had four months apart. But you, you couldn’t think that up if you were writing a book could you, you could not think that up.
JM: Unbelievable. And what that’s the way they –
LH: Well she yes, she died a few years ago and he died.
JM: They continued that way until they both, until she passed away basically.
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: What an incredible story, I really am –
LH: But you’d have thought she would have had a shitty on him for dumping her in the first place.
JM: Yeah, that’s right, yes.
LH: But that’s, that’s war.
JM: Mmm, that’s right indeed. So then once you discharged in September, you’re back in Australia in September ’45?
LH: Yes.
JM: And knocked back the other bits and pieces, so what, you come back up here to –
LH: No it never shifted from me, it’s the best place in Australia you know.
JM: I know that. So you’re back up here to the farm and –
LH: Yeah well, sort of at a loose end, didn’t know, I didn’t make, I made a bad mistake in I could say bought this war service scheme here, where you bought the farm and then they funded it at three per cent.
JM: Yep.
LH: But I didn’t take that up because my dad was taken, and we end up splitting the farm up, the three boys that was, took a third each, and we arranged, see, dad had left everything for life interest to me mum and we ended up buying it off her at a price that we paid so much a year that if she lived to be ninety-five that she’d have a good income for the rest of her life.
JM: For the rest of her life.
LH: So that’s how we got control of the farm, sort of thing.
JM: Right, yeah.
LH: And then we converted to sugar.
JM: And then you converted to sugar, yeah. And so did all three of you convert to sugar or -
LH: Yeah, well I was the first one but the others followed on.
JM: Oh okay. And so, so then you each had your own part of the old farm?
LH: Yes, yes.
JM: So who ended up with the house?
LH: There were three cottages on the farm.
JM: Right.
LH: But when I got married I, I built another house.
JM: Right, yeah.
LH: And luckily I got the third of the farm with that house on it.
JM: Right.
LH: With the house and the cottage. Oh, me youngest brother got the, the bigger house, because it was thirty-six squared, that’s pretty big.
JM: And when did you get married?
LH: 1952.
JM: Was it a local girl I take it?
LH: Yes, well the family didn’t sort of approve, we were known as the wild Hibbard’s [laughs], but I started to pick her up once [laughs] one, to take her out one night [laughs], as I walked up the side of her house, I heard her father say, ‘Here comes the yokel’ [laughs]. Anyway, she must have known I had nothing because I had the arse out of me pants and she worked in the bank so it must have, so it wasn’t money she married me for [laughs]. Blimey, they were the days.
JM: But you made a go of it and you –
LH: But that’s what I say, these fellas who were supposed to have married bliss, I don’t know. This fella reckoned I, I should have been, should have been treated for it right back then, but I, I had to pay, you had to earn a living then, and I think that, you know, one thing that worried me in Vietnam they gave them a listen now. When you go for your interview, these are the questions that are being asked and here’s the answers you’re given, that’s why I’ve got a mate getting nine hundred bucks a week and he’s no thicker than you or me. So there’s a lot of fellas playing the system, I mean, not right, but anyway.
JM: So you married in ’52 and then you had at least one son?
LH: Yeah, I had five kids.
JM: Five kids.
LH: A son, three daughters, and a son.
JM: Right. So did they stay on the farm or did they go off and do other things?
LH: No, they all, oh one want to stay on the farm but for a reason, oddly I had to, well I figured that the way sugar was going that it was going to be in trouble, so I sold out.
JM: Right.
LH: While there was a quid in it.
JM: Yeah.
LH: Mmm. I helped in Meadow Farm and I was a partner in it and that, and when I did that he, he sold his too.
JM: Mmm.
LH: But the only, he only went in it [unclear] two hundred thousand, hundred and fifty thousand, he ended up getting eight or nine hundred thousand for it when he sold it.
JM: That’s all right.
LH: He and his wife, he started playing silly buggers and they split up. But he’s got a good job now in tourism, always been able to walk out of one job into another and another sort of thing.
JM: Into another.
LH: And there always good jobs.
JM: That’s good. And where, when you got out of the farm, where did you go then, what did you do?
LH: Oh no I didn’t retire from the farm until I was seventy-six.
JM: Yes, yes.
LH: Yes, then I came straight here.
JM: Oh, okay, right, that’s when you sold out.
LH: Yeah, yeah. But by then I had twelve flats in Murwillumbah, and I kept the farmhouse, which was a mistake as it turned out, but anyway, I left that to the daughter. When I sold out, it was worth about seven hundred and fifty thousand but when [unclear] took off and all the people moved up to Murwillumbah, the traffic passed the door, reaped it’s value.
JM: Yes, yes.
LH: Could have used it, I went on the stock market and did all right.
JM: Mmm, well that’s quite, quite a –
LH: I don’t know if it helps you.
JM: Well the point is Lindsay, when we discussed, when we were setting all this up, is that, you know there’s just not recognition given to the Bomber Command people in the past and this is just a very belated way of making sure that some of recollections, true recollections of those veterans is recorded for posterity and that’s what it’s all about.
LH: Oh yes.
JM: That’s why –
LH: I really think they could have given ‘em more recognition with a campaign, a proper campaign medal [telephone ringing]. It was for putting solar panels on the roof and I tell you what, you send away to one, one charity –
JM: And you have a hundred back.
LH: Hah [unclear].
JM: Yeah that’s right.
LHL: Anyway.
JM: No, well I think we are probably just about wrapping up, we’ve probably covered most of the things that we needed to cover, the, yeah, I don’t, your crew obviously were a tight group –
LH: They weren’t one’s for partying but some crews had a lot of time in the pub and this that and the other, but they weren’t like that, no, no.
JM: And none of them, they were all good solid citizens.
LH: Solid citizens, yes.
JM: And none of them had any real superstitions or carried good luck charms or anything like that?
LH: Not that I know of no, no.
JM: But even if they did it was obviously worthwhile because of the fact that you all got back safely right through.
LH: Very steady, very steady lot, yes. I always had it stuck in my mind, it was something me dad told me from the First World War, ‘don’t ever volunteer for anything, don’t ever’. So when we were picking a crew, I didn’t go looking for a crew, I just stood back and let everybody sort themselves out, and the last crew looking for what got me [laughs], which wasn’t a very good bargain but that was my outlook on.
JM: Yes, well that’s right, clearly you, it worked, because, I mean, you clearly had a good pilot because he managed to get you home safely after all those ops after some pretty hairy experiences, so that’s even more important so yeah.
LH: Had a good navigator, that was very important.
JM: Indeed, indeed. So at this point, we’ll wrap up the formal part of it and as I say again, thank you very much for your time, it’s been marvellous talking to you.
LH: I don’t know why they waited until most of them are dead because –
JM: Unfortunately, but I mean it’s better than nothing.
LH: [laughs] Not much.
JM: Thanks Lindsay.
JM: Yeah, we’re just talking to Lindsay Hibbard again on 23rd February, continuing on from our interview on 21st February 2017, we are just talking in a bit more detail about a couple of the ops he did. 16th January, that’s in ’44, yeah. January ’44?
LH: October ’44.
JM: No I want the 16th January ‘44
LH: ‘45
JM: ’45, sorry my apologies, yes ’45, January ’45. Okay, 16th January ’45.
LH: Sixteenth, Lancaster –
JM: Ops, Bruge –
LH: Czechoslovakia ops –
JM: [unclear] yes.
LH: Oil refineries.
JM: Yes.
LH: Twelve five hundred standards and one four thirty standards.
JM: And you were on three engines?
LH: Bombed on three engines.
JM: So what was the story there, were you, how did you lose the, the other engine?
LH: It was a runaway, what you call a runaway prop, it just sort of disengages from the motor and got up to I think, to six thousand revs and if they hadn’t of controlled it and brought it back it would have caused a fire, but it was a malfunction of the propeller so they shut that motor down.
JM: Shut that motor down and then just continued on and completed?
LH: We bombed on three engines.
JM: Yeah.
LH: We jettisoned six five hundred pound bombs to, when we lost the prop so that at twelve thousand feet, yeah.
JM: Right okay.
LH: And he got a DFC for that.
JM: Sorry?
LH: He got a DFC –
JM: The pilot?
LH: The pilot.
JM: Yeah okay, the pilot got a DFC for that, yes that’s understandable, to manage all of that, and to have complete, to have successfully complete the bombing raid as well and then get back home again, that’s pretty good to say the least. So that time you were DXT so –
LH: Yes.
JM: Yes okay. So all right, and then on the 7th February ’45, you were on –
LH: Lancaster ops for Pölitz.
JM: Pölitz, yes. Four direct flak hits here.
LH: Yes, yes. Is that the one that we crashed on?
JM: No, not that one.
LH: Well we were [unclear].
JM: So what sort of damage was that, how much damage?
LH: Oh god, it blew the tail off and there was bloody hundreds and hundreds of holes, you know, the H2SN was blown off, it made a bit of a mess of the plane but nobody got hit.
JM: Nobody got hit. And what, did you have any extra –
LH: Oh yeah we rolled –
JM: Roles to do?
LH: Knocked the intercom out, and I don’t know, I didn’t know what I was doing but I fixed it anyway, ‘cos that’s what they gave me the DFC for, it went out twice.
JM: Mmm, right. What did you have to do to fix it?
LH: I had to find, find a set of wires in amongst the bloody carnage and mess and connect them up again.
JM: And at this stage there’s still flak coming around hitting left, right and centre was there so that you were –
LH: From the first here, yeah, and then there was some later on, it had it on the –
JM: Citation?
LH: Citation.
JM: Let’s pause a minute while you perhaps get the citation out. Right, Lindsay’s just got the citation here for me and it reads, ‘Warrant Officer Hibbard has throughout a large number of operational sorties proved to be a wireless operator of great skill and ability. On one occasion in February 1945, his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire shortly before reaching the target area, this resulted in the severing of a number of cables causing the failure of the intercommunication system. Warrant Officer Hibbard quickly traced the seat of the damage and effected repairs. Whilst over the target, the aircraft was again hit by anti-aircraft fire and the intercommunication system rendered unserviceable, but with cool confidence, this warrant officer once more effected repairs. Warrant Officer Hibbard has, at all times, displayed outstanding courage, determination and initiative’.
LH: Yeah.
JM: Terrific.
LH: I didn’t think I was that good.
JM: Well I think there’s a fair degree of modesty here Lindsay, which comes back to, I suspect, to some of your country upbringing –
LH: I think they built it up a bit I didn’t think it was that good.
JM: Well the fact that you got it all working again and you had to do it not once but twice, it just means that the amount of flak you guys were copping and, as you say, got so much blown off.
LH: We landed at Manston –
JM: Manston, yeah. And did the pilot get a bar or anything as well?
LH: Not a bar, he just got a DFC.
JM: Yes, but I thought you said he had already been given the DFC for in the January.
LH: No, no, no, oh no, he didn’t get a bar for that.
JM: No, oh okay. And did any of the, none of the other crew members got any recognition out of that flight?
LH: No, no.
JM: Because you were having to try and do things in amongst a whole pile of ricocheting and everything else. Yes, okay. So that was probably, I think that was the last, that was the second, so that was the last time you flew DXU.
LH: Yes but that was the squadron commander’s plane actually I think.
JM: Right.
LH: It wasn’t –
JM: Right, oh okay. So he obviously must have been either in a different plane or not on that raid?
LH: No, he wasn’t on that raid.
JM: Oh okay, okay well that’s, that’s basically the couple of things that I had picked up on just going back through my notes and that’s, that’s good. And then is there anything else that you had thought of that we didn’t cover when we chatting a couple of days ago.
LH: No, haven’t.
JM: So you were flying in a few different planes over the course of your tour, with as you say a fair proportion was in “Sugar” but you certainly had a few more –
LH: Oh yes, because they had to maintain them.
JM: Planes, yes, that’s right, so that you were rotated round a little bit while they maintained it, and that, that new one, the one you were on over at Pölitz, that would have needed a fair bit of maintenance to get, before that could go back up in the air again?
LH: It was Pölitz that Teddy got shot down wasn’t it?
JM: No I –
LH: MacDonald, Teddy MacDonald.
JM: Yeah, yeah, but it was –
LH: It was either Pölitz or Rositz -
JM: I think it might have been Rositz, but because that was in January so –
LH: No February was Rositz.
JM: Yes, but he was.
LH: I said it was either Pölitz or Rositz that it was.
JM: Well he, I haven’t got my notes in front of me and I just, but I know it was January that he went down. And he was headed towards Leipzig from memory, I think Leipzig sticks in my brain as to where he was headed towards but he didn’t actually get there.
LH: Must have been the oil refineries that time. Oh well anyway.
JM: Yeah, so that’s it, yes, thank you very much, thank you again, and I shall stop the recording now.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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AHibbardL170221
Title
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Interview with Lindsay Hibbard
Rights
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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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:34:20 audio recording
Creator
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-21
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
California--San Francisco
United States
Panama--Panama Canal
California
Panama
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Vivienne Tincombe
Description
An account of the resource
Lindsay was born in Murwillumbah, Australia, before moving to Brisbane in 1927. Lindsay tells of growing up on the family, and how his eldest brother was killed in Malaya on the Thai Railway, and his older brother returning home to run the farm after his father passed away. Lindsay joined the Royal Air Force in 1942. He did his initial training at Kingaroy, before moving on to training as a wireless operator at Maryborough, completing that in July 1943. He tells of his experiences on the gunnery course at Evanshead, where his ‘claim to fame’ is that he got 30% of his hits off target. After going to San Francisco and New York, Lindsay tells of his trip across to Liverpool. Lindsay flew in Battles, and then went on Ansons, Wellingtons and Stirlings. He flew 32 operations all with the same crew, including Nuremberg, Dusseldorf, the Dortmund-Ems Canal, to the oil refineries at various locations, and operations to bomb the U-Boat pens in Norway. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1945, after his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire on the way to the target at the Politz oil refineries in February 1945. The anti-aircraft fire severed a number of cables causing a failure of the intercommunication system, and Lindsay managed to make repairs. The pilot also received the same award for bringing the aircraft down safely. Lindsay jokes that his uniform was ruined as they could not get the oil out of it. After the war, Lindsay tells how he returned to the farm, his encounter with a lady who he used to date in Edinburgh, and his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress.
57 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
Battle
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster Finishing School
Operational Training Unit
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Silverstone
RAF Syerston
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/330/3490/ASolinD170220.1.mp3
72bf807187c9aefe4305a0b3bcca21db
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Solin, Donald
D Solin
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Donald Solin (427265 Royal Australian Air Force)
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-20
Rights
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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
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Solin, D
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Jean Macartney, the interviewee is Air Commodore Retired Donald Solin. The interview is taking place at Don’s home in Carrara, Queensland, on 20th February 2017, also present is Don’s friend Helena. Don let’s start at the beginning I believe you were born in Perth in 1924.
DS: Yes.
JM: Yes. And does that mean that you lived in Perth for your early years of?
DS: Until I was eighteen.
JM: Eighteen.
DS: And the day I turned eighteen I was conscripted of course into the RAF as everyone else was I think, and I ended up in well it was a crowd called, and there was a you know stopping, stopping the bombs, no bombs, you know. Anyway, er, we were tying explosives around bridges you know [unclear] that was our main watch that happened, concerns about the Japanese invasion and then we wouldn’t explode them, we would rush off somewhere and say yes they had exploded and after that we would go back untie them all again for tomorrow. Now that went on for several months and it didn’t appeal to me very much because I would always wanting to fly. So I pulled all the strings I knew which were not many, I had no one in particular to help me but anyway we made it finally. In the meantime being in the Air Force, er not very at there was an idea where we took twenty-one lessons prior to joining aircrew, and I started on a session of lessons, and for one way and another of course I then became switched over after a lot of trouble from the Army, and I then became an AC2.
JM: Right. Let’s just pause there for a moment.
DS: Yes.
JM: And go back before you were eighteen and you were conscripted, your schooling was in Perth so you —
DS: Ah t was all over the country.
JM: It was all over the country.
DS: Yes, all over Western Australia.
JM: What because your family were travelling or?
DS: Well mother had been, ‘cos she was a district nurse and she had been divorced for very good reason and there were two small children living with grandparents and I was one of those, been looked after very, very well, we lived in Donborough, and we had all the delights of being able to fish and swim every day, and go rabbit shooting, and fox hunting and god knows what, and it was all very good. So that was brilliant in-between until we got a bit older, not much doing, very little, so I had a lot of catch up to do of course as soon as we go on to these twenty-one lessons from the Air Force, and it introduced me to things like algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, which I hadn’t really done much more than hear about average schools don’t cover too much, I finished it but boys one year you can’t catch up too much, so anyway that was it.
JM: So that was like equivalent to an intermediate certificate?
DS: Yes I believe it was Union [?] University, Western Australia.
JM: Right.
DS: That was hard as I went back I was very good really but nonetheless so there was plenty of catch up work.
JM: And so you that would have been sixteen you finished sort of that schooling?
DS: Er, I finished schooling at fourteen.
JM: Fourteen.
DS: And left school then.
JM: At fourteen okay. So between fourteen and eighteen when you were conscripted what sort of things did you do?
DS: Nobody asked me that for a long time, but I, I got a job, any type of job all I wanted to do was to work and get a few dollars. Now I got a job with Harris [?] Centre the big hardware people in Western Australia and they were, they covered a whole lot of things and you could do everything from broom sweeping to filling bottles and I did all that, it was all right, l had a, they were a good crowd, very good. But that was it then that covered two years at least may be three out of the four, anyway and then —
JM: And was that in Perth?
DS: Yes, yes. And then I did something else for a pharmacist for some time until the day I was eighteen.
JM: And had your mother come back to Perth at this stage and you were living with her or were you had the grandparents moved in to?
DS: Yes she was back from er, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten. I think the last, her last country post was Greenwood [?] she was the matron at the hospital there, and I lived there for a while until the local [unclear] you can’t do that because the maternity ward is just so close to where you were sleeping and what’s going on there is not good for growing boys, something in that order so they said right oh well you’re out. So some very nice English lady who already had three children more than, more than she could manage was good enough to take me in. So that was it whilst we were in the country we were staying with this and finally we got together with mother in Perth for say about twelve months before the call up date.
JM: That’s call up, so you had your call up and sort of then from the time, well I think you did your initial training, in June 1942 at Clontarf, so that would make you twenty, a bit over twenty, about twenty and a half so then you were in the Army for about two years?
DS: Oh no, no, no.
JM: No, not that long?
DS: Probably.
JM: Right okay.
DS: I was only the Army for about three or four months.
JM: Oh okay, right.
DS: Not that that matters, and then we were in the course of doing these lessons from the Air Force the crowd that gave you lessons, I’ve forgotten, er but I’m not sure about the time but anyway —
JM: No, no, I think it was my actual, I’ve got an arrow in the wrong place I can see where I’ve made the mistake so that’s okay. So then you did your initial training at Clontarf and then did your pilot training —
DS: At Cunderdin
JM: Yes, that was when you were in to Tiger Moths.
DS: Yes we were on Tigers but then you did the solo bit.
JM: Yes.
DS: In time yes.
JM: So how long before you went solo?
DS: Six months, quarter hours I think it was something like that.
JM: And how was your experience first, of your first solo flight?
DS: Oh well, course all of you, you know, all of you are as proud as punch you can’t think of anything else really, er, but we were mostly very happy about that, but then it was only a matter of another weeks or a month or so we went off that job and of course on to —
JM: Avro Ansons? Ansons, Avro Ansons?
DS: Oh Ansons, yes, and of course they were very reliable you, you could make a dozen mistakes you know and they would still be in the air, but, er —
JM: Which was a little different to the Tiger Moth situation?
DS: Oh yes, oh well the Tigers you had do give them some respect because they were so gentle but really that’s about it the way you had to treat them and once you get used to that you’re right, gentle [unclear]. They used to say there was a saying, gentle treat them like a woman, and so that’s what we tried to do and that was successful. So we went on the job and that was another four months graduating [unclear] with hundreds and thousands of others, and then it was only a matter of days or may be weeks and we got the posting and of course the posting was to the UK. And well there was via Laporte.
JM: Freemantle.
DS: I went to Melbourne.
JM: So Freemantle to Melbourne.
DS: Melbourne.
JM: And then Melbourne to —
DS: Sydney by train.
JM: Oh okay right.
DS: And then there was an amalgamation of bodies and they got on, we went on The Matson Line.
JM: Right.
DS: The Matsonia [?]
JM: Right, so when would this have been?
DS: It was about the middle of ‘43.
JM: The middle of ’43.
DS: And, er, wended our way to the US and across the US, in the normal way, and then —
JM: Across to New York obviously.
DS: Yes, sometime in New York big camp [unclear] there, enormous place a small city in itself and then finally we got on a boat to England, that was the Queen Mary.
JM: Right the Mary, yes.
DS: All very nice that was the first of the [unclear] that could go unaccompanied by a whole of plethora of ships because they were fast, it was fast enough —
JM: To out speed the German U-Boats and all the rest of it?
DS: Subs.
JM: So did you land in Scotland, land in Scotland?
DS: Yes, yes, and finally ended up on the south coast.
JM: To Brighton?
DS: Brighton.
JM: Yes.
DS: Where there was a whole load of us and er, not much time there and then we were off to a whole load of different training, we’d go do this course, that course.
JM: You do your affiliation in a sort of is that where you first started flying Wellingtons?
DS: Er, Wellingtons was the first large aircraft yes, yes.
JM: So it was a conversion from your Avro Anson to your Wellingtons?
DS: The Wellingtons was the next. Did that, and it was a nice old aircraft really you know and of course it was the mainsail of Bomber Command early in the piece [unclear] you know a first class bomber. Always did stay as a bomber but of course less and less significance, anyway —
JM: And from that conversion course did you then get, is that when you were posted to 149?
DS: Oh no, no, no, oh crickey you can’t get away with that, there was half a dozen courses in-between, one on stars you know meteorology, another on beam landing systems, and another on some other, oh there was a whole load a plethora of reasons that we had to do another week here, or a week there, always in a tent it was winter, and anyway—
JM: In a tent did you say?
DS: Mostly in a tent somewhere?
JM: So you didn’t even have the Nissen hut?
DS: Oh yes, we lived in, we had our permanent time there, but when you’re posted off to a course somewhere you know you’re a week away from it.
JM: Right, so if this is approaching the end of ’43 you’re coming into the winter?
DS: Yes, I, I, I [unclear] a little bit because we had to have someone on patrol every night you know with the heater in the middle of the, of the unit you know there was thirty-six bodies I think in the, in the tin shed that we were in, but they were nice units but just made to put beds in after all, and we, but we had this fire in the middle and that was very useful, very useful. Anyway so it was only then a matter of getting another posting to another place and we then converted onto the next step up.
JM: Then the Halifaxes or Stirlings?
DS: Stirlings.
JM: Stirlings right.
DS: Stirling was the first four engine that we had and we loved it.
JM: How did you, what sort of differences would you feel you experienced between flying the Stirlings and the Wellingtons, anything stand out for you?
DS: Not really no.
JM: Only major difference is four engines versus two obviously —
DS: You just had to get your fingers over the fourth thing you know make sure that you had it covered, I remember having initial problems with it you know not my fingers but obviously it, it becomes easier, no trouble at all, so that was it amen, you finally get a post.
JM: Posting.
DS: A post, at we got ours at 149 Squadron, but, just out of London, north of London, and but ah her we go, we were quite happy to go, go off in a Stirling really but they had mainly Halifaxes and Lancasters there so, they’d only just getting the Lancs so what happened the first thing we did was oh you can’t fly that you’ve got to do a course first. In the usual way so we did our course on the Lancasters and about the last day or the second last day a posting came through from whoever does the postings in the UK to say your crowd, your crew 82 special duties.
JM: Right. Just before we go to that you by this time had a crew.
DS: Oh yes.
JM: So where did you crew up?
DS: Before we got in the four engine aircraft.
JM: So
DS: That was after the Stirling, after er, —
JM: At —
DS: After the Wellingtons.
JM: After the Wellingtons.
DS: After the Wellingtons yes, that was about crewing up time.
JM: That was crewing time. So who what sort of crew did you have, did you have a mixed, mixed crew then if it was 149?
DS: They were mixed.
JM: Oh no you weren’t actually on 149.
DS: We went into a, the expert way in which it’s done, your shoved into a room like so many cattle, and said, ‘Right everyone’s got to make their own crew, pick their own bodies, seven, seven each, and that’s it.’ Very scientific of course. So how much, how do you know who the hell unless you know people, and as a pilot you, you only learnt people’s names and friendships since you’d been on the course, so it’s the luck of the draw really right from day one. But of course that’s the whole of the Air Force then became Bomber Command is a story of the luck of the draw and if you’re really lucky you’ll be all right, [unclear] bad luck. So anyway we crewed up all Western Australians and that was my scientific method of ticking the box, a perverse, quite a perverse crowd, navigator for example who was subsequently killed in an accident we had in Italy, er, he was a great [unclear] of a person he was over twenty-eight most of us were still eighteen or —
JM: Twenty, I think you probably would have been about —
DS: Nineteen twenty.
JM: Nineteen twenty by this stage.
DS: So whatever it was, you weren’t all that old. Anyway you crew up and you ask what, what was the crew, I mean there was a bomb aimer from Sydney who had done nothing much but drift in his life but a nice guy, and then the wireless operator who, whose still alive we became you know real, real close, he’s the only member of the crew that’s still around other than myself, so and then we’d got an English engineer who had according to him had all kinds of experience in a Rolls Royce factory but in fact I think in practice had very little experience but a nice bloke but he was a womaniser and loved drinking, but you know all full crews had that I guess, [unclear] anyway that was it that was our crew.
JM: That was your crew. So you’re together you did your concluding together for Wellingtons sorry Stirlings and then you get the you’re about to start on Lancasters when your told you’re going off to, so you didn’t actually do any operations, do any ops?
DS: No less. No, I did no operations at all in England.
JM: In England right.
DS: As it happened at the time well it was something to do with someone who [unclear] because the timing was right it was just at the end of our conversion course. Obviously they didn’t want another crew although the squadron had have a number of losses but, er, and that was it. I would they made to go on oh you’re content for a week here, the posting [unclear] about a week second time down to somewhere in the South of England, we were then flying Stirlings and we had to press a button, right here we go it’s a brand new aircraft no hours on the clock. [unclear] you’ve got to give it every check possible, it’s yours, it’s yours if there’s any complaints feel free but give it now because it’s then yours, so we did just that.
JM: And this is a Stirling?
DS: Yes. Talk about it performing perfectly the whole time, we wouldn’t have given it back anyway so [laughs] there was no way, and that was the aircraft we took away with us.
JM: Right.
DS: Another week or so later they said, ‘Right you’re off to across Africa.’ We didn’t know you know we just got a posting that’s all, so we were posted to Radar Salem, North Africa [?] and we stopped there for the night and thought oh you know we’re on our way certain we were going to the Far East because they were very short, the Japs were getting the better part of the war there, so we reckoned we were on our way. But no it wasn’t that at all we got a posting to North Africa and another part of North Africa if you’d like to call it that, BNA, British North African Forces. And so we go to Algiers it was a place called Blida, big aircraft, a big Air Force base just outside of Algiers the capital, and they said, ‘Right oh you get this ops here.’ And we, we were in, we were actually posted to 624 Squadron that was our first post and we flew several on to [unclear], Africa South, but just across the Mediterranean from there. That was about the time there was a big upheaval when we, we lowered, took over, captured or freed up whatever, a lot of, held up ships, French, French warships, that were valuable to the allies but were being held up and put away the German fleet. Anyway so we thought oh we’re here for ages, but no we were there about four or five, six maybe six days, not sure, and a signal came through this time saying we’re going to the Far East, but no we’re going to Italy then.
JM: Right just before we get off to Italy, in those four, five, six trips, did you drop any bombs at all, were you just surveillance or what?
DS: All bodies.
JM: Sorry?
DS: We dropped bodies.
JM: Bodies right. Were they Special Forces or something?
DS: A whole lot of activity going on particularly in Southern France.
JM: So they were what Special Forces that you were dropping or?
DS: Oh yes, well we were in, of course still 624 Squadron was a part of the Special Forces, Special Bomber Command Forces. And then when we, we moved over to when we got the posting to Italy we found out that was Brindisi and that was Brindisi 148 Squadron which was still of course RAF, actually it was all RAF [unclear]. We had any, we had a mishap and [unclear], on take-off on one trip apart from that it was [unclear] aircraft.
JM: So how did you go with any particular damage to the airplane or?
DS: Well the aircraft was in pretty [unclear] shape I’m not too sure whether they could fix it up or not because we didn’t stay long enough to see what and you asked blokes about it, ‘Oh no, oh no, never heard of it.’ Anyway.
JM: So that was the most —
DS: That was the excitement.
JM: The excitement in those half a dozen or handful of trips, yep.
DS: Brindisi we got to.
JM: Got to Brindisi —
DS: Brindisi yes. We had, there was a Polish flight, really nice squadron on the other side of the airbase, we were on this side, whichever side you were looking at. They were operate, they operated absolutely separately from us and I have to say they were fearless, there were lots of days that we couldn’t fly because of the weather because of the distance, it didn’t worry the Poles they were always flying, and particularly a bit later on we had four trips towards Poland, er, we weren’t allowed to go fortuitously or otherwise a week or so before we got there, maybe it was that week, we were helping, we were trying to help the Poles, when the Russians were approaching and of course they had the German Panzer there, then they had the Russians coming that way. They appealed to every squadron everywhere, commanders in chief the lot, we want all the assistance we can get, anyway it was quite a game, half a dozen [unclear] as many as they had planes for about five hundred or more were lost over wasn’t over Warsaw but it was I would say the battle for Warsaw.
JM: But you weren’t on that particular mission?
DS: No, no, oh no fortunately, once again luck of the draw, and they said cancelled all, all, all those trips to Warsaw, Poland, but there were plenty of others till we [unclear]. We never ever had a prime aim or you’ve got to do this or you’ve got to do that. We just —
JM: Mission by mission basically.
DS: We were on call.
JM: Yes, yes, for whatever they decided they wanted to be the next target.
DS: One of the big thing was, or one of the big things if not the biggest, Tito of course was commander of the forces over the, over the war, and Tito was a very vigorous fighter, we weren’t too sure whether he, which side he was on but we were supposed to be helping him and each second or third crew were surprised you know we used to call it [unclear] with the Luftwaffe quite [unclear]. There were all kinds of things they introduced I remember a land mine in those days of course these things were about this round all big heavy —
JM: A couple of feet wide?
DS: Oh anyway all the holes in aircraft that you get in and out are square you see so we had to cut a big round hole to accommodate these, course we had —
JM: So these were the bombs that —
DS: Oh we didn’t drop them as bombs —
JM: You didn’t drop them —
DS: We dropped them as for TJ [?] forces when we dropped those kind of things, that was quite a frequent player because arms and ammunition actually were always short for on the other side. Mind you we didn’t know too much of what was going on, they very rarely opened up to say we’re going to do this, or you are going to do that, or you’re going somewhere, but you never ever well very rarely ever knew there was no fixed place. Mainly the trips at night when we were dropping bodies were in the dark and mostly on a hillside that was hard to find always of course, but that, that was all part of the, part of the act of course.
JM: And what, and you still had your initial crew?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: That you’d crewed up with —
DS: Yeah we had —
JM: That would have been 14 —
DS: 148 —
JM: Stages there, so that crew had come through from all each of these different stages, you still had the same crew?
DS: And we were all together except the navigator who we lost on the, oh what trip it was but it was on 26th December ’44, would have been ’44 or ’43?
JM: Probably ’43 I’d say.
DS: No.
JM: No ’44.
DS: And we crashed, I should never have ever really, this is off the record of course, but I should never ever have going forward we lost an engine on take-off, so many times it’s easy to turn back your excused you know so it’s just to press on, this was an occasion I thought we’d press on you know the old story, press on regardless —
JM: And you were taking off from?
DS: Italy.
JM: From Brindisi?
DS: Brindisi. When we got to about the Slavic Coast, the north coast it became pretty evident our engines were overheating and the engineer said, ‘Oh we can’t go anymore.’ Because dropping stuff we have to go low and then you’ve gotta, so it got to the stage that we thought we’ve gotta go back, and we went back cut across to Italy and we looked for a nice soft landing spot of course and we picked a fairly good spot it was a grape growing place in, a place called San Pico [?] if I remember rightly, and unfortunately you, you don’t know the aircraft but the Halifax was, we were flying [unclear] the navigator used to be way beyond the front and you had to climb two flights of stairs to go up, and at, on that particular flight we were loaded to the hilt, there were extra clothes and food it was Christmas time you know, and er, he just couldn’t get up the stairs he had the certain navigation equipment that he should have done this with but struggling up to get the stairs and sooner or later of course you know he the props flew off, the right, the right hand motor had been what do you call it not seized up, but it had been cut off because —
JM: Feathered?
DS: It was propeller, it had been feathered [unclear] but it had been freewheeling there’s a word for it special [unclear] anyway. So as soon as the prop hit the ground the bits just flew off and fortunately the pilot was just about that far in front of where the props fly off so it missed you know who, but unfortunately the navigator was right in the road and it cocked him, so I don’t know what number trip it was but we, that was, we flew on for months after that you know borrowed a navigator. You’ll have to excuse me I’ve got to go to the toilet frequently.
JM: We’re just resuming now we’re picking up on December ’44, so where you had —
DS: We did a number of very interesting trips following that —
JM: Following that —
DS: The most interesting one was when we took four very brave characters to the Hitler’s retreat[?] up in the mountains, of course we came from Southern Italy just a bit to the left, our big concern, biggest concern in getting there and getting back there was, there was a squadron of Messerschmitt 362 had moved into somewhere near Trieste, and of course we had the option of our own of doing our own navigation you know we were well away from this crowd, so we dodged them without any trouble, then we had to find this virtually a torchlight, and I said, ‘oh no trouble.’ We’ll follow the mountains close to the mountain peak of course and they were all mountain peaks [laughs] heck of a place. So anyway we finally estimated what we reckoned what was right, confirmed by the blokes we were carrying because the method of identification was pretty raw really, but that’s the problem we were happy when they was off, snow and it was desolate you know but very close to his headquarters, we flew around a long time looking for the place but anyway we’d done what we were doing for months no too keen on that trip at all but anyway —
JM: And they dropped successfully?
DS: Oh yes, yes, the drop was. Unfortunately we never or very rare ever heard back from the blokes as whether it was successful or otherwise. But obviously some of the operations were captured before the blokes got to the ground, because the, they’d been the fellas down there had been captured by the Germans and they were using the signals you see, but you know that’s war and I guess happens all the time. Anyway so that took us up till about they declared armistice in Europe and then of course we thought well we’ll get a week have a little rest and peace and quiet, but the next important job was flying all the oddbods all over the place back to Europe, and of course that was a very joyful task, but we didn’t partake because the next day or the day after another signal came through all Australians have got to be returned they wanted everybody in a hurry so that was it, and then we boarded the first ship, or a number of aircraft ready we’d got over to Egypt and we were on the banks of the river there, The Nile, for months, months, and then the war finally ended whilst we were there, they dropped the big bomb —
JM: Hiroshima?
DS: Hiroshima, that was it, end of story.
JM: And when you were in Egypt there you were just —
DS: Doing nothing.
JM: Doing nothing just waiting?
DS: Waiting, waiting, waiting.
JM: Okay backtracking to Brindisi again, you obviously because it was such a long period of time a long posting do you have any recollection of how many ops you did altogether?
DS: We did forty.
JM: Forty ops?
DS: Forty trips yes.
JM: Okay from Brindisi?
DS: No, no all told, our log books recorded, I don’t have mine I lost it mine years and years ago, Rod Harrison said we logged forty trips.
JM: Right, right. A fair reasonable number would have been while you were at Brindisi?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: So what sort of things did you do in your down time during ops?
DS: I’m afraid we probably drunk too much red wine but I’m ashamed to say, but there wasn’t too much to do —
JM: That’s the point —
DS: And you had to fill in the day and every now and again of course they did say the weather was so terrible, but the Poles can fly but you can’t, so we got four days off we’d say right we’re off to, the favourite place was Pollina[?] in Sicily but that wasn’t very far away from Mount Etna, a road goes through from Pollina [?] up to, to the mountain, and you know it’s a story really but we got hemmed in there was the biggest snow of all time there were hemmed in just as we’d kind of settled in ready to come back [unclear] very little time.
JM: So what you’d driven up —
DS: Oh no, no, oh you’d get to the, the accommodation was in Pollina [?] a little place by the coast and then you would scrounge your way up there was plenty of vehicles going all the time Italian vehicles, so we got up there without any trouble it was the getting back of course we had to have a quick lessons in skiing, and you know we were trying all the time to do a bit of this and of course falling off most of the time but—
JM: So where did you get the skis from?
DS: Oh they loaned us to, they said, ‘Right you’re quite welcome to them just hand them into whatever centre it was back in the Pollina [?]. So I think one or two of them were badly bruised but we didn’t break anything except didn’t break any bones really they were badly bruised, lucky because when you can’t steer properly you’re bound to hit a tree and things like that, anyway we were much better skiers at the end of the time because it was a hell of a long way from up top down to where the road, where the snow stopped, a long way, unbelievable.
JM: Did you have any sense of time, sort of was it four hours, five hours, or any sense of timing at all?
DS: Really lots of time.
JM: And how did you sort of navigate, how did you know where —
DS: Ah well you know but it’s —
JM: You followed the road I presume?
DS: Yes, well more tried to follow the road but you knew if the road was east to west you knew that it was basically east to west or whatever it was, so that was one of our special trips, mind you we did quite a number of others. I don’t think we ever told the story, we were going north, north to Naples but anyway that’s another the story, but we were particular keen about Malta [unclear] never done this, never done that, there was a thousand rogues and vagabonds there, every street corner was covered with them, and of course if you were stupid enough to be out after dark you were asking for trouble, anyway we, we probably had a few drinks one day or every day I guess, but we it was after dark and we were still out and of course we got the greatest lashing of all time the whole crew.
JM: The whole crew?
DS: No there were only five of us there I think five out of the seven, the two other were too smart to come with us but probably a good idea of what was going to go off, but anyway —
JM: So how did you get to Malta?
DS: Ah, that’s another story. We had a, I’ve forgot the name of the type of [unclear] kind of a major repair very close to us, they fixed all kinds of aircraft from all over the place, so if they had anything that was flyable that we thought we could, that I thought we could fly we flew, so we had this water repair and we could [unclear] there was supposed to be —
JM: Another type?
DS: Another type, yes, that’s right. And we just squeezed in should never have had quite that many but anyway I was, I thought I could fly this in and so we did, I got it down there but very glad to leave it to someone else to fly it back because I don’t think I could have done it again but, and there were all kinds of other trips we could do.
JM: So just going back to you flew, so you got this aircraft it —
DS: Yes. Borrowed it.
JM: Borrowed it, flew over to Malta, had a bit of a day or so in Malta and then you in the evening you copped a bashing, and how did you —
DS: Get home?
JM: Get home then?
DS: I’m not too sure but we finally made it, there were some reprimands of course [laughs] but fortunately it didn’t extend beyond that, mind you they wanted, they wanted crews to fly, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t kind of send us off and say right you can go somewhere, but that was, it wasn’t our biggest adventure really, but these are the things that you know, all the aircrew, or nearly all aircrew were up to it one way or the other.
JM: No that’s right and of course the difference being with you being over there in Brindisi was very different to squadrons back in the UK —
DS: Oh yes.
JM: When they had leave they could go to London or wherever it was, but as you say sort of very much almost left to your own devices at Brindisi.
DS: We were entirely, entirely. Eventually it was rare when well Rome particularly was always a magnet to go up and you know you had to have your photograph taken in —
JM: For the —
DS: In all the places that were old and historic and that was all good fun but —
JM: So how many times do you think you would have gone to Rome?
DS: Oh several, several times.
JM: Any particular incidents stand out then?
DS: No, no real nasty incidents, we were stuck on the road sometimes, all you could see were Indians, and you know you think —
JM: How did you get to Rome?
DS: Always vehicles going, coming and going all the time, sometimes took an aircraft halfway if it was down for servicing or going back again, there was always a you know, never really anything exciting happened other than the historical photographs outside this place and that place, and of course seeing it, ah that’s right I forgot to mention our, our historic visit was the day we visited Rome and we had a special trip, an invitation from one of the padres that were training, under training here and they were quite a few of them a good number of Australians’. And anyway so we had this invite, special invite, a couple of cartons of cigarettes you know to do all this, so but we did it, and we had this personal interview with the Pope and received his blessing.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: That was a, we thought it wasn’t a big deal, but everyone else thought it was a big deal after, but it was exciting, and you can remember things you try to have a good look and see the big ring on his finger all that.
JM: So that was what a ten minute —
DS: Oh that was, we had an audience —
JM: An audience?
DS: There was a great crowd out the and we sat out there, he had a thing like this right up at the front, and at that stage he used to stand, I’ve read about it since, he’s now down on the floor level for some reason they cut out this special groove, ‘cos they were all first to get the blessings if there’s any blessings left [unclear] they on the floor, but anyway that was you know so at the time, but otherwise it was all pretty average, pretty ordinary you know, all we wanted to do really was to get home, and but we then spent four at least four months over in Egypt waiting for a ship before we got home, that was the time the bomb was dropped, the big one. We got home as peaceful civilians you might say.
JM: And when you were flying did you have any lucky charms, or any of the crew have any lucky charms, or have any suspicions that you used to that they following that anyone followed, ‘cos some I know that having talked to a few other chaps that you know other chaps did have lucky charms, and did certain things in a certain routine that you know never varied, I mean obviously the usual checks and all the rest of it.
DS: We were a pretty ordinary crew really, a pretty ordinary crowd. One of our, well it wasn’t a problem but for social aspects all the rest of the crew were under twenty-one years of age and we had these two blokes were twenty-eight and they were quite elderly.
JM: By comparison yes.
DS: Yes, so that, that upset some of them, well it didn’t upset them but it, it was divisive in as much as they didn’t all want to come with us, but mostly we drank too much anyway, nearly all the time if we could get booze but you couldn’t get good beer anywhere.
JM: Not in Italy I wouldn’t have thought.
DS: So you just drank what there was.
JM: What there was?
DS: So to cut a long story short, mother was very pleased to see us get back, she was down at the ship there so [laughs]
JM: I’ll say. And I didn’t check before did you have any brothers or sisters?
DS: I had a sister who joined the Air Force about the same time as I did and she became a radio operator and they used to be stuck up in the bush up around Jordan [?] or out north from Jordan [?] in the bush there, where the [unclear] that was it she —
JM: No it’s just that so for your mum there was only the one that she had to worry about coming back, returning from overseas, yes.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that was in you came back and then you ultimately were discharged in February 1946, is that right?
DS: Yes, that would be.
JM: Is that right?
DS: Yes. Had a week or two after we got back not very long, anyway.
JM: And then what did you do for the next few years?
DS: Well, they were very, very busy years, because when I was in the desert waiting for the ship we bought a store at Mingenew[?], do you know west at all?
JM: Not really that area no.
DS: You’ve gotta know Mingenew relatively speaking, it’s not the most salubrious town around, a typical country town, wheat and sheep, but all the good properties all the nice houses are way up in the [unclear] not many around town except the pub and our store that was good whilst it was there. I was there for not long a year or so but it was everything was rationed you know, milk, you were around at that stage or were you?
JM: Not quite no.
DS: But everything was rationed, I mean cigarettes and booze were most wanted, hard to get but you know, you couldn’t buy extra milk or cream or butter, a whole range of stuff, it was very difficult to even think that we were like life could have been like that, but anyway that didn’t last for long. I trained to be a schoolteacher, quite stupidly, god knows how I got the thing in that you know, but anyway so we left the store round there and a fortune with it for an academic career. And we were going fine, I was I did the teacher’s course and it was only two years.
JM: At Perth? Was this at Perth?
DS: At Perth yes. Became a I forgot what they call it something psychological and so and so expert you know, I only had about five minutes of training on the course. Anyway that was, that was good until and I was gonna, oh mother was happy with that, she said, ‘You’ve got a job for life son you’ll never get the sack, oh there’s permanent holidays’. Anyway so I was busy teaching, I had because of my training you know I did ended up as a special class of kids, children, and some of them had an IQ as low as fifty-five and that’s a if you know IQ’s that’s getting down a bit, nice you know, lovely children and all that but you know I was happy to stay doing this every day of the week. Ah in the meantime I’ve bought another store [unclear] you’re good at this and I thought should be a supplies store, and my wife said oh I’ll look after the store through the day and we had a manager in as well, he used to drink all, a fair drop, it was hard to get of course, and everything was sailing along beautifully for the first several months but until one day two big burly strong fellas came in and they were from the union the teacher’s union, and of course they said, ‘Oh we understand that you’re not in the you know, you haven’t joined the teacher’s union.’ And I said, ‘No that would be right I haven’t.’ They said, ‘Oh you’ve got to join the union otherwise you can’t stay, you can’t be a teacher you’ve got to be in the union.’ And I said, ‘Well, you serious about that?’ So I said, ‘Okay well.’ That was a very big silence and there we are I went off to the headmaster and that finished that job. [laughs] So no more, no more academic career for me.
JM: What, what sort of years was this, this was about ’48, well you said you did about two years training so are we up to about —
DS: No, no, no, not two years training.
JM: Teacher training I thought you said.
DS: Oh yes, yes that’s right yes.
JM: So are we up to about ’49?
DS: Well, what, two years on top of what after the discharge, would have been about right, I needed another six months to get a leaving certificate as well.
JM: Right.
DS: To allow me to do it.
JM: Do the two years.
DS: So there’s two and a half years, busy years, between drinking and, and school work, there was no spare time, oh and of course I got married in the meantime.
JM: I was going to say you mentioned your wife there, so we, I was going to find out, fit that in as well, when you got married and how, when you met your wife?
DS: Well, we met in the usual way, before I left we were both in the surf club.
JM: Which surf club?
DS: City Beach.
JM: City Beach.
DS: City of Perth, and it was you know, things were very rough and ready out there, we had a, although we had a nice, nice big shed for dressing and undressing, and we had a nice big heavy surf boat, which, which it took about eighteen blokes to just get off the ground, but we had to walk across the sandy beach you know to get it back up to the surf club. Anyway, that was, that was the recreation side, but I met Julie used to come along with several other elderly sisters, two elderly sisters and another one or two girls, and you know in the usual way we got to talking, a bit of this, a bit of that, and we decided it mightn’t be a bad idea all the rest of ‘em had said they were getting married, doing this and doing that. So we said that would be a good idea, but not till we got, not till I got back from overseas. So we did just that, got back from overseas and a couple of months later I still hadn’t turned twenty-one so it was pretty quick but it was all fixed, and she was very good she looked after the shop while I was still teaching, and then she took over the ladies section up at, when I bought the big place up at Mingenew [?], and of course you know very handy to have a wife, who suffered the most. [laughs] Very handy. Anyway you know and then the Korean War hit.
JM: So then yes, so what you decided to give teaching away?
DS: I gave it away, I packed up
JM: Yes you gave it away after that —
DS: And it wasn’t short, no it was about that time I started to get letters from Air Force Headquarters, and so they, they decided that things were getting serious again and we were needed to re-arm and the Air Force of course had let everyone go, a lot had gone [unclear], so the first thing they wanted was old aircrew back particularly, oh of course we were still on the active reserves so wanted to see you back, so that took some months of wangling and selling my business and you know cleaning up. And then you don’t have a house to go to, Air Force then had very limited accommodation, so you had wherever you went you had to buy your own house and you know self-accommodate, so we did that of course, you just get by. And then of course they said all of you we’d like you to stay and they gave you, you get up as your old rank was flight officer. So you go back as that and then, I don’t know whether that’s when I got a new number was it? Perhaps it was 051723. Anyway, so that was it, it was just a nice long career in the Air Force.
JM: But well yes. So you were still based in Perth at that time?
DS: Oh yes, that lasted about five minutes.
JM: And from there?
DS: Melbourne.
JM: You moved to Melbourne yep. And that how long were you in Melbourne roughly?
DS: A very short time.
JM: A very short time.
DS: So then you, you needed experience of course.
JM: Because at this point you’re not flying?
DS: No.
JM: Your in —
DS: I was doing a bit of flying but there were too many old war time pilots that had gone back and they were very, very jealous of their careers and they didn’t want any extra crew around, so they said, ‘Oh you better do this, you better do that, become a teacher you’ve got the qualifications.’ So I said, ‘No, no, no I don’t want to do that.’ And I took the job as equipment officer and, I, all I know about it, all the girls used to hand stuff over the counter, when you wanted clothing and stuff you know, I thought that’s what the equipment officer, that’s what they do. So of course, it is what they do, it’s a very small part of it of course, so that was my view of it. So we did this there was really no appreciation of time you know you get [unclear] So we got, till we got up to Canberra, and of course once you’re there you’re stuck there, you know it doesn’t matter what you do or say or where you wanna go. Oh we had a couple of years in the States.
JM: Okay, what sort of, heading up a base or something?
DS: No, no, no, they didn’t want too many strangers, too much for them. There was the nicest, kindest people in the world as long as you didn’t cast any shadow on the mishap or the US generally, well no, no trouble, I mean we enjoyed the place it was all very nice. So we had two years ensconced to the Air Force base, and I was the chief missiles man quite a new sidewinder missiles they’ve still got some a very basic missile but very, very effective.
JM: So what you were looking after their —
DS: Well looking after our interests or trying to.
JM: Or trying to.
DS: Yes. And that was an Air Force base where they’ve got a lot of [unclear] and we they were kind enough to lend me a, an F100 which was very modern aircraft and the gentleman with me the pilot he’d got a flare for me you know and it worked, and we saw it work it was all good fun.
JM: So that would have been a very different flying experience to your Stirlings and your Lancasters?
DS: Oh yes, a world apart, world apart, but mind you Bomber Command was Bomber Command and they had nothing better anywhere, and the States never got, never got up to the bombing raids because they were, their aircraft weren’t specifically built for that particular job whereas our aircraft were, and they might have been clumsy to get around them because there was bits of stuff sitting out the floor here you know, but they were essentially for carrying bombs, the more they could fit on the better, and they did just that. Well —
JM: And, except when they were used for transferring all the at the end of the war, after the war had concluded and were transporting all the troops back from, from Europe back to England, of course then it was a fairly difficult exercise trying to get the chaps you know I believe they just packed in and sat on top of their parachutes.
DS: Well in some parts in others they only had a handful of blokes.
JM: So how many, you did a few of those —
DS: No, no, I was ensconced in Egypt by then.
JM: Yes, yes, in Egypt by then.
DS: But my friends, who one was a Kiwi, another a great Englishman, and we were in close contact with and they had some terribly exciting trips to all parts of Europe picking up two blokes here and three blokes there for different reasons why there were only two or three there, and of course there were other sad scenes too where they got a lot of others, but anyway that was and I, we weren’t there, I missed out on all that I’d have loved to have been there, but so endeth the —
JM: So then, we were just talking about that flight you know comparing that flight for you in that F100 —
DS: Oh yes, yes. F100.
JM: Compared to the experience in —
DS: Oh, chalk and cheese.
JM: Chalk and cheese, yes that’s right. Again that’s more or less the fighter pilot which again you know as we said, we’re talking specifically designed for bombers, for bombing raids.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that’s a major, major difference there and then. So what sort of roles did you ultimately do in Canberra?
DS: Oh well, briefly I’d have to say pen pushing, there was a lot of politicking and inter-action with the department you know the crowd that were close to defence and —
JM: Defence affairs?
DS: No, no, defence affairs, there were well I should, I should be able to spout it off but I can’t, anyway that, there was a lot of as we got sent on a course, lot of politics.
JM: Foreign affairs?
DS: No, Air Force Headquarters.
JM: Oh Air Force Headquarters.
DS: You know you always had to be a bit careful of which side of the camp you know, we got a very nasty senior civilian in the Department of Defence, he was the first of the Defence Ministers that was oh rough, and gruff and anti-services, so there used to be this constant battle all the time you know to get, to get to do this to do that, now of course many years later there well and truly integrated, were into their department as well as they’re are with us and hopefully things work differently now sometimes they do, but anyway that’s not for me to say. But I enjoyed it every minute, the last couple of years when I was Air Commodore the last year anyway when I was briefly in charge of our branch, er, I used to be at work at seven in the morning, half past seven, but purely there was a load of stuff to do always, always working, always behind, but I always had my dilly bag and maybe a carrier bag, I’m afraid I wasn’t not much of a nightlife at home because had to do the books, the Air Force books every night, anyway that’s another matter, but I enjoyed it anyhow.
JM: Which Air Force books were those, which Air Force books?
DS: Oh, the books, the books, er, well our own branch in particular because we had thousands of blokes in the branch, but you so far away from most of them you only know the names of all those that are up close and we did it, we had a an Air Vice Marshall who was actually senior to me and he was posted to Defence so it didn’t leave too many others round our way, but that didn’t matter, we enjoyed, I enjoyed life, and going to the mess and having a few grogs, but not half as many as I drank as a younger bloke, not half as many.
JM: No.
DS: So it got to be different anyway.
JM: Oh that’s right, that’s right. And of course as well I mean you were going home to your wife and all the rest of it so that’s a totally different situation.
DS: Yeah well we flew over from Perth with, er, we only had one child at that stage, and he’s since dead, died, what we did bring over was a big cattle dog, I’d been, one of the blokes had come back from the Kimberley’s and he was a drover and he bought it origin magnificent countryman good family, he said, ‘There.’ But cattle, on the cattle side I can speak for exactly [unclear] crossed with a dingo, but he said, ‘He’s a faithful animal.’ So we had this, I called it “Aspetari, Aspetari Peter” so that was his name [laughs] not quite an ordinary dog’s name.
JM: Not quite.
DS: My navigator we used to in the end we used to call him, the navigator that replaced poor old Fred, we used to call him Aspertari which is Italian for going slow, or a derivation of that anyway. Anyway so we brought our big dog over, he used to bite anyone he could, oh he was always heeling and very, very rarely would he break anyone’s skin, but I bought a lot of socks for people, he used to grab it and anchor it you see, grab a bit of sock with it, there all good stories.
JM: That’s right yeah.
DS: All good stories.
JM: So when you, so you retired in what?
DS: Ah, it would have been, it was either ’80, ‘4 or ‘6, or ‘8, it was one of those multiples, I’m gonna say the middle one about ’86.
JM: About ’86.
DS: Yes, it’s very close to that anyway. So I didn’t need to retire I could have they wanted someone to take over the support command and then post another bloke into my job, so I went home and told the bad news to Julie my wife and she said, ‘Oh love, I just don’t wanna move again, I, we’ve been from there, to there, to there.’ So then we bought three or four houses along the road, none of them very good but good enough to live in for the time being, and that we’d, she’d had enough and I wasn’t far behind so I didn’t take much convincing so I threw it in. But you know there comes a time for everything.
JM: That’s right. And did you stay in Canberra then?
DS: Oh no, the day, oh we left the house and oh we came straight up to the Gold Coast that’s right. I bought a block of flats pretty clapped out they were but all they needed was a little bit of —
JM: TLC?
DS: Oh perhaps a lot of TLC.
JM: Okay.
DS: But anyway, that was, the story is they were right next to the Grand Hotel, you don’t know the Grand?
JM: Not really, where, which part are we talking about?
DS: On the coast, on the Gold Coast, at Labrador.
JM: Labrador, right okay.
DS: There’s this much water between us and the ocean.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: The road up there, anyway, I didn’t, we didn’t realise at the time what an asset it was but of course I don’t know why you know you get the urge when you’re younger and for some reason you want to do something else. Anyway this crowd came up from I don’t know Canberra probably and offered a price and it meant I made a few dollars, and I was silly enough to sell it, mind you the wife had worked too hard there and I wasn’t too keen about that either but, and so, I was stupid enough then to buy I think we bought some more flats but they, they weren’t as good, oh anyway that’s another story. I bought two more blocks of in Main Beach and they did become very valuable, but by that time I’d gone, we had a house a very comfortable place but you know there you are.
JM: Yes, by this stage a few years had passed by —
DS: To get away from the Air Force too, you can’t go to any of the, we went to the reunions till they finally wore out.
JM: Yes.
DS: But there’s a limit, there weren’t that many bods around here, but —
JM: So in terms of then maintaining contact you said that your wireless operator is still alive?
DS: Oh yes.
JM: And what was his name?
DS: Rod Harrison.
JM: And whereabouts is Rod?
DS: He lives in, um, oh, it’s 19 —
JM: No just the, Queensland, New South Wales?
DS: Oh sorry he’s in Perth still.
JM: Oh he’s in Perth okay right.
DS: Yeah, when we were younger and fitter we used to visit each other of course, his wife died at the end of the century and my wife died nine years ago, so we’d been on our own, he was foolish enough to remarry at the age of eighty-four but you know that’s life.
JM: And what sort of contact, you said made reference to a couple of other chaps that you’ve spoken to, a Kiwi chap and another chap are they Bomber Command people were they?
DS: Yes the Kiwi blokes gone he was with us in 14, 148 Squadron, yes he died, and the other guy I can’t remember.
JM: Can’t remember that’s okay that’s fine.
DS: It was bad enough remembering, you know ’cos I’ve been in the RSL for years and years and years, but even there the old timers have all gone and I’m the eldest member there certainly the only ex Bomber Command, so nobody knows anything about it, nobody cares, that’s my how I get the message, and it wouldn’t matter if you walked in with the VC tomorrow it wouldn’t upset any of them. Anyway that’s enough.
JM: So that’s —
DS: I’ll come back to one or two reasons, the luck of the draw and if your just lucky, and postings come up and they protect you, I mean I was protected with going to a special unit, how you’re picked for it, God knows and he won’t tell us, so you can never find out, but these things just happen that’s it.
JM: And it was good, it was good for you too that you were able to take your whole crew with you at the same time which makes a big difference because having that core of people around you to come back to, and when you came back, I mean obviously as you say they’ve all passed away now bar Rod but did you keep in contact with the initial ones?
DS: Oh except our engineer, the old Englishman and even nice correspondence didn’t elect any, he was that kind of a character.
JM: He just didn’t want to maintain contact with you?
DS: No, but he was a happy-go-lucky engineer. So, but you know that’s life, I’m very fortunate to be around I suppose although there are many bloody days I think that’s a misfortune, one of them is that I’ve gotta go to the toilet all the time, and I’ve gotta go again.
JM: You’ve got to go again. Well, is there any other particular things at this point that you wanted to bring up?
DS: No.
JM: Well we’ve covered a tremendous amount of territory there Don and I very much appreciate your, your candidness and —
DS: Well nothing to hide, nothing to –
JM: No, no, no, just being able to sit and reminisce that’s so important and I’ll thank you for it. Thank you
Dublin Core
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ASolinD170220
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Interview with Donald Solin
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:32:13 audio recording
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Pending review
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-20
Description
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Donald Solin grew up in Perth, Western Australia and worked in a store before joining the Air Force. He served in Europe and North Africa. and flew 40 operations as a pilot with 624 Squadron, a special duties squadron dropping supplies and agents into occupied Europe. He was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of Flying Officer. He rejoined the Royal Australian Air Force during the Korean War and eventually retired with the rank of Air Commodore.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Algeria
Australia
Italy
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Mount Etna
North Africa
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Jackie Simpson
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
624 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
crash
crewing up
Halifax
love and romance
pilot
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Tiger Moth
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/186/2434/PMarshallS1513.2.jpg
df6f6cc8ff0327e30fb6a0b48ae46145
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/186/2434/AMarshallS150508.2.mp3
cfb718b423c94b1acd547feb3a16e437
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Title
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Marshall, Syd
S C Marshall
Description
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Ten items. The collection contains two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Sidney Charles Marshall (1924 - 2017, 1594781 Royal Air Force), his decorations, training notes, photographs and a photograph album. Syd Marshall was a flight engineer with 103 Squadron and flew operations from RAF Elsham Wolds.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Syd Marshall and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-05-08
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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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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AMarshallS150508
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre the interviewer is Mick Jeffries, the interviewee is Mr. Sidney Marshall. The interview is taking place on 8th May 2015.
SM: My name is Sid Marshall, I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 8th May 2015. I live in Boston, Lincolnshire, right then? I left school in 1938 at the age of fourteen which most people did in those days, this was about a year before the outbreak of war, so when that started I was still only fifteen, and I had gone to work with a local engineering, agricultural engineering I should say, we were repairing tractors and all kinds of agricultural equipment, and of course this I suppose was considered in war time to be extremely er important, farming, farmers were never called up and that sort of thing, and when I got to be eighteen I er discovered, in conversation with my boss that I was in a reserved occupation, which simply meant that my job was considered more important than me joining the forces, but I think there is a bit of peer pressure comes into it here, everybody keeps saying to me ‘when you joining up, when you joining up’ , and eventually I got a bit fed up with this and I discovered that if I volunteered for aircrew I could get out of it, this was about the only thing I could er go to do, er, which would get me into the forces and away from me civilian job. It’s quite a performance getting in as well, I had, I went one day I was out on the job and I knew the recruiting officer was at the local, [coughs] excuse me, was at the local Job Centre and er so I thought I would go and see them and to my surprise when I got there it was a young lady, and she looked me up and down and I was in my greasy overalls, I suppose I didn’t present a very good picture really, and she said you know I told her I wanted to volunteer for aircrew, and she said, ‘ you know you have to be absolutely fit for aircrew’, and she was sort of trying to be put me off I thought anyway I insisted, and of course that’s how it all started. I didn’t say anything to my boss about it for a start, but I had to tell him when I got called for a medical, I started off, I had to go to Lincoln and this was the same medical that was used for any kind of military service, they used to jokingly say if you had two arms, two feet, and you were felt warm, you were all right, [laughs] you’ve heard that before.
MJ: Yes
SM: Er, anyway I, eventually came round I had to tell him when I went to Lincoln, I said look, tell the boss ‘I said look I’ve volunteered for aircrew duties and I’ve got to go for a medical’, so I went and this was pretty simple really, and er, I there was then a break of probably a couple of months, and I then had to go to Doncaster which was the full aircrew medical. You had to go and be prepared to stay there for a couple of nights, so the thing was spread over three days really. So anyway I got myself to Doncaster, and I found the Selection Board and all that were in the top floor of a multi-storey shop, and er, the first thing you had of course was the medical because if you didn’t pass the medical then you didn’t go any further, and they were very very strictly, they didn’t exactly turn you inside out but very nearly, you had to blow up columns of mercury and hold them, and you had to do various exercises, you were given a much stricter medical then had been for you know for what I call ground crew job. Anyway I passed the medical okay and in fact if you didn’t that was as far as you went, if you hadn’t passed the medical you were sent home again, that got the first day over. The second day [coughs] because I hadn’t been to Grammar School I had to sit a maths and general knowledge sort of test, anyway as an engineer I had been taking lessons in er [coughs] excuse me, in science, er maths and technical drawing, and of course that had boosted my education enough and I managed to slip past the exam okay, and that was about the last thing on that day. The third day you went before a panel of officers and they asked you what you wanted to do, they interviewed you and er, I realised the fact that I hadn’t been to Grammar School was not going to help me and they said ‘what would I like to do?’, and of course I think everybody wanted to be a pilot originally, anyway I told them I had been studying at night school and that and they said ‘ oh I think you’ll just about make it’, but to try and put me off they said ‘we have got such a lot of applications we probably won’t be able to take you in for seven or eight months’, I think it was just a gag really to put you off. Anyway they then asked me was I what work I had done and as soon as I mentioned that I had been working in engineering for four years, ‘oh your just the chap we want you can become a flight engineer’ and I’m afraid my sealed, fate was sealed at that, so that’s how it all came about. I went back home anyway and told my boss that I’d be going shortly but I was another, I should think another two or three months before they called me up, and er, anyway that was it, he never got on to me about it I think he understood how I felt, and he did say, ‘well your job will be there when you come back’, which was fair enough wasn’t it. Anyway the time came round for me to go and I found myself on Boston Station early one morning with my little suitcase bound for Kings Cross. I got on the first train and er, when I got to Kings Cross there was an NCO working there, waiting I should say, and by that time there were seven or eight of us who were all going to the same place, we had to report to what they call the er, er, oh dear, RTO, that’s the Rail Travel Officer, and er she gathered us all up and then we set off on the underground to St. John’s Wood Tube Station. We got off the station there and there was a corporal there waiting, marched us in some sort of disorder to the holy, holy place, Lords Cricket Ground, that was where it all happened. The first day we got there, we were booked in, they took our names and that sort of thing, and then we were given a card with a number on it and told to go and sit in the grandstands until we were called, of course there were hundreds of other lads there, and er, eventually my lot was called, and you went in and you had another er medical, it was only brief, it was what they called, it had all these er initial letters in the forces, this was an FFI, free from infection, I don’t quite know what they thought what we’d had picked up in the interim, but anyway it wasn’t very severe that one, and we went on, and then er, the next then we got to er [coughs] we went and got kitted out, we were given a kit bag and you went down the line, and I was fascinated by how they got the size of uniform right, there was a sloping line on the wall marked off in feet an inches, and as you walked by one bloke called your height out [laughs].
MJ: [laughs].
SM: Another bloke put a tape measure round your chest and that’s why, that’s how they decided the size of uniform unit. So you finish up with arms full of stuff and a kit bag, and we stowed all that lot in there and that’s about all we did the first day, and of course the next day we had to kit ourselves up in uniform and something else that really tickled me was [coughs], we decided that, you’ve seen Poiroit on the television haven’t you in these very posh block of flats, well we were in one of those, mind you it wasn’t very posh, there was nothing much on the floor and each room just had a double bunk each side and that was it there was nowhere to hang your clothes up or anything else, if you aren’t wearing it, it lives in your kit bag [laughs] or hung on the end of your bed, and we er, and we were there in all for about three weeks, and when I wrote home my address sounded very good, and it was er, the house was called Grove Court Mansions and it was in Grove End Road, St. John’s Wood, London, which is a very posh address isn’t it, and of course when my mother wrote back, she said ‘ [unclear] lad you’ve got such a nice place’, I didn’t disillusion her, [laughs] I let her think if she was happy I would leave it at that [laughs], and we were there for about three weeks altogether, we started to drill, we had another full medical, we were divided up into swimmers and non-swimmers, and we started er the you know we had our meals by the way, the zoo of course was closed in those days, London Zoo, not being too far away we used their canteen that was our cookhouse, we had our meals there, and anyway time passed pretty quickly and we got to know er some of the other lads, there were four of us in this room and er, I, and we managed right the way through our training to keep together [coughs]. As I say in all we were about there for three weeks and then one night we were packed up and we were put back on the underground again back to Kings Cross Station, and they never tell you where you were going, and when you got to Kings Cross, I thought if you are going to Kings Cross you are going North. We got to er, overnight, we travelled at midnight, I think they put troops and that on the train at night to leave the trains free for the civilians in the day time, imagine that was the idea. Anyway we found ourselves in the early hours of the morning at er York, clambered out there and we were put on another train and er we arrived quite early in the morning at Scarborough, and here’s another posh address the place we went to there was called The Grand Hotel, and of course the forces used these places, they were empty in those days, nobody taking holidays were they, but it wasn’t very grand, but we didn’t have to worry us too much, because we had our breakfast there and then we were all drawn up outside and we were ticked off where we gonna’ go and they found there wasn’t room for us all at er Scarborough, so my flight which consisted of something like thirty of us were put on a train again and went to Bridlington, and this is where I did my, we got these letters again, this is ITW, Initial Training Wing, and when we were in London it was ACRC, which sounds a bit queer but it was Air Crew Reception Centre, you get used to all these letters don’t you. So this was where our initial training was going to be and in all I think we were there for about eight weeks, and it was the middle of winter and we used to do PT on the beach in the snow with the spray blowing off the sand, and do you know you never catch cold because you are fit aren’t you, and er when we went into the er Ex’, we were based in the Expanse Hotel, which I’ve seen since it’s still there, it is one of the top hotels, but of course they took us to these places ‘cause there was accommodation available didn’t they. We lived on the ground floor of the hotel in my particular case, and we were told when we went out to leave all the windows open get some fresh air in, well the sea was rough and the spray was blowing as well [laughs] which didn’t help matters. Anyway we were introduced then to our er instructor, a drill instructor, Corporal Horrocks, I won’t tell you what we called him, because would it be rude to mention it?
MJ: If you want to.
SM: [laughs].
MJ: It’s up to you.
SM: I won’t mention it, but you can guess what it was, he was a very nice chap actually, and er the only trouble was he was, we got lads there some of them from London, some of them from all over the country, and he was a Geordie, and you just couldn’t understand what he said a lot of the time, his favourite thing we used to drill in the streets, and of course along the seafront, no traffic about in those days as nobody had any petrol did they, and we used to be marching up and down there and I remember one occasion we came out of a side turning up to the promenade and he said something, he said ‘hey up [?]’, and we didn’t know if he said right or left and we parted company like that you know, one line went left the others went right, and there was a group of women coming up there with their shopping bags laughing their socks off at us [laughs], and of course he bollocked us as they say for that [laughs], but he was actually a very nice bloke he didn’t mess us about too much, and er we did, we had lectures in the Spa which is a sort of dance hall place there isn’t it, and we were, and I think the main thing was getting us fit, we sometimes we’d go jogging in just of a pair of shorts and if you like a vest if you like, and I remember on one occasion, while we had it I don’t know we had a rifle, a bayonet, a tin hat and all that and a gas mask, we never used any of those things did we? Anyway we, they took us one day, I’ve forgotten the name of the place there, seaside on the coast near er, and we all got out and er we had to march to the far end which was probably three or four miles and then we this lorry followed us up, we had to chuck all our kit in the back of the lorry get stripped off and run back, [laughs] this is all part of the getting fit process, and we had lectures as I said in the Spa, er it’s surprising we did drill instruct, drill we had to do shooting, we then started using, do clay pigeon shooting which was shooting at moving targets which I think was more akin to aircrew than anything else wasn’t it, anyway we were you know there in all for about eight weeks, and then we got at the end of the time we, it happened to be Christmas, we were very, very, lucky, we were sent home we had a ticket wherever you were going to get home and then we had to go back to London, so I was home for Christmas so that was very nice, I had a full week at home, and then I was back to Boston Railway Station again and down to Kings Cross and we had to return, and again we had to report to the RTO, that’s the Rail Travel Officer, they had these offices on all the main stations to you know supervise troops travelling about telling them where to go and all that sort of thing, and this time we were put on a train we knew were we were going, er we were put on a train to Wales, and we rode at first of all, I think we got as far as Cardiff and we had to change onto a slow local train then and this was taking us to our final destination for that, we pulled up er, went through Barry, and er we eventually stopped on the little wayside station it was at the bottom of cutting and it was one of those places where there was only about one man there he was the station master, the signal, the porter, and everything else, and er we got off the train there and er we then marched up there was a corporal, there always corporals aren’t they, corporal met us, with all our kit and that we were marched up to the RAF Station at Saint Athan, this was where we were to be for the next, I don’t know seven or eight months. In the war time you know the courses get shortened, I think the engineer’s course at one time would probably be nearer eighteen months, at the time I got there it was down to about seven or eight months, and er, if you had er, some people had engineering experience like myself didn’t find it too difficult, but some of the lads had never touched it and they of course you know an exam about every fortnight and if you didn’t get on very well you got put back a week, and I think if you got put back more than twice you were kicked off the course [laughs]. Anyway we were there for, let me just get my book, I’d only really got to er we’d just arrived at Saint Athan hadn’t we, for our training, I didn’t realise then how long it would be but we actually, er training of flight engineers lasted about seven months, and it covered all aspects of the aircraft, we had to know a little bit about everything, we had to know about the hydraulics, I mean the undercarriage and the bomb doors and all that sort of thing are all hydraulic, so then we had to learn about brakes because they’re pneumatic, and we had to learn about the engines and how to get the best out of them and keep in in an eye in view the amount of fuel we were using, if you opened the engines up too much the fuel consumption went up drastically and if you did that too much you might think you hadn’t got enough fuel to get home with again [laughs], this is the sort of things you had to you know get used to, but this is what we were taught to do, we had at the end of it we had actually we had an exam about every couple of weeks and if anybody was not quite up to scratch they were put back and did that section over again and you could do that twice but if you did it more than twice you got chucked off the course for taking too long [laughs]. All in all I was at Saint Athan for about seven months, you can’t really go into detail about it, it’s too technical and too complicated, but we had a [unclear] a list of all the things we had to do anything mechanical or anything that worked was my option, and my most important job really was in a Lancaster you know you got four engines and you got six fuel tanks and normally the two sides of the aircraft are separate, there is a valve in the mains bar[?] where you can open so you can transfer fuel from one site to the other, [sighs] but normally you took off on the middle tank, there was a tank between the engine and the fuselage, another one between the two engines and the third one was out in the, out part of the wing, so you’ve got, your wings are full of petrol and the floor underneath you was full of bombs, it’s not a very good situation really to be in is it, you don’t really want to get hit, and er, the most important job I had to do was, ‘cos an aero engine uses a lot of fuel er, anywhere between about twelve hundred and fifty horsepower each engine, in fact to put it an easier way a Lancaster did about one mile to the gallon, which is pretty [unclear], not far is it, and if you had a full load of petrol you could go out somewhere there and back and do two thousand miles and that was about your limit, you always had to keep at least a hundred or nearly two hundred gallons er back for landing you don’t want to be landing on your last gasp of fuel do you, and when of course they were arranging operations they took the weight of the aircraft and er then they [coughs] I had to look at the plan and calculate how many miles it was there and back, shall we say if was probably fourteen hundred miles there and back, and without going into decimal places the Lancaster did about one mile to the gallon, so okay fourteen hundred miles you want fourteen hundred gallons of petrol and they gave you two hundred gallons extra that’s your safety margin, so if all goes well you should arrive back at base with two hundred gallons of petrol, but it does allow for the fact you might get delayed, you might have a head wind which might make it take a bit longer to get back home again, you might not be able to land at your own base because it’s probably fog bound, so you have the hours grace, and I remember of one occasion we had to, we came over, got over Britain and we set off, er the bomb aimer, sorry, the navigator gave the pilot his last course back to base, we hadn’t been going long before we had a radio call through to say that we couldn’t land at base because it was covered in fog, and er we were to land I think it was somewhere in Norfolk, anyway that’s fair enough so we made a slight alteration of course and we are heading towards this not long after that we got another message to say we couldn’t land, it was Langham in Norfolk, can’t land there it’s now fog bound as well, so we start to circle around and they said to stand by, so did a wide circle round, we went round a couple of times, and I said to all of them [unclear] ‘we soon want to be landing somewhere because we are getting down on fuel’, and almost at the same time the wireless op, the mid upper gunner came on the, on the intercom and said ‘I can see a glow in the sky skipper it might be FIDO’, you know fog dispersal, so we made our way over there and we’d been told to stand by but we never got any further instructions I think they were struggling to find us anywhere to land, so we went on and we circled round over this and your call log if you were in trouble you called dark here, that was your trouble, it mean’t you were in difficulties, and our, our call sign was suedecoat, aircraft was C-Charlie, so you called ‘darkie darkie from suedecoat charlie’ and we got an immediate call back the usual lady’s voice, WAFS, ‘are you over an airfield with FIDO burning?’, so we think we are because we could see the glow in the sky so we came down a bit lower and er we called em again and they gave us landing instructions, and it was quite, I say it was a bit scary really, because do you know what FIDO was made of there were pipes laid down by the side of the fuselage, the runway, not too close to the runway, they were blocked off at one end and then holes drilled, a bit crude really, holes drilled in them and at the upper end near the entrance to the runway was a pump and a fuel tank and they were pumping neat petrol into these, and I don’t know who did it some brave guy must have gone out and lit it probably used a flare or something like that, and they only did about half the length of the runway but when you got lower you could actually see the flames and you usual drill was, er ‘yes Charlie you are clear to land call down wind’ that’s when you are coming down wind, so we called ’Charlie down wind’, you’ve got your wheels down, got your flaps down, [?] down, you then turn and say ‘Charlie Roger call funnels’ and your lights from the high up looked like a funnel that tapered into the runway, so they guided you onto the runway, in this case it was the flames, so we got on funnels they called ‘Charlie funnels’ they said ‘Charlie [?] mission is a Charlie pancake’ that means land, so we landed and there was a bar of flames and when we went over the bloody aircraft went ugh like than [laughs], like a kick up the backside, because tremendous heat from these flames literally lifted the aircraft, anyway we came in and we landed, I had my fingers crossed ‘cos I knew we’d got some damage, I said to Luke[?]the skipper ‘I hope to Christ we haven’t got a flat tyre if we swing off into that lot it will be unfortunate’, anyway we landed all right we taxied to the end and er a vehicle met us there and we followed it round, they took us round into a spare dispersal and of course you went through your drill close your engines down everything else, shut everything off, and er you can’t really leave anything in the aircraft so we went out loaded up with our parachutes and everything else which, we were then taken to a room where we was briefed, debriefed, and we discovered that the aircraft there were Mosquitoes, because one or two of them took off in that lot to go and bomb, so that’s they were using the flares to guide them, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, we heard this roaring come along, said ‘Christ it’s a Mosi’. Anyway we were debriefed, then we were given a meal and then we were given an armful of blankets and pointed toward a hangar, a Nissen hut, you go in there and there was Buckaroo [?] on the floor, it’s like dark brown lino on the floor usually isn’t it just so you can sweep it up, and you make your bed up and I think we was that ruddy tired, we just chucked the, we had three biscuits you know what biscuits are? Three padded squares that you put end to end, tuck a blank around it and that’s your base for your bed, I don’t know if we even bothered to do that we were that ruddy tired I think be then we just crashed out and went to sleep, we couldn’t get undressed ‘cos you’d nothing with you, trouble is when you got diverted like, you got no shaving kit, you got no ‘jamas or anything like that, you just had you were in what you were. Then we slept the sleep of the just there and next morning we went we found out, found the sergeants mess and had some breakfast, very much do it yourself isn’t it [laughs], and then we got, er we went to see, I think we went to see the CO or the squadron leader anyway, and he said ‘well you chaps look as if you are stuck here we can’t er, you’ve got some damage which your aircraft has got to be repaired before you can take it off again, you might even need an engine change’, and we discovered it was two days before Christmas and we knew we’d got Christmas festivities on at our base, ‘that’s bloody handy we are going to be stuck here over Christmas’, anyway our skipper went to see the adjutant and they had a bit of argy bargy with him and he came back and he said ‘we’re going home on the train’, we did we got [laughs] he’d got a , he’d got a ticket for the lot of us, so we the truck took us to the, I can’t remember where the nearest railway station was, um it might have been Cambridge even, I don’t know, I can’t remember now it’s a long long time ago. Anyway we got on there and we had to get on the train I think it took us to Norwich, then we had to go across to Peterborough, and then when we got to, we went through Boston and er we went back we got back to Grimsby, and then we had to get on a packed line from Grimsby to Elsham, now that railway train ran through Elsham that was still about three miles away from the camp, anyway we rung up and they come and picked us up, and you do, you don’t ‘cos we took our parachute with us and everything, and when you get on a train with your flying kit carrying your parachute you get some very funny looks off people [laughs], that was one of the most interesting things that ever happened to us, and anyway we had our ‘cos when you went on ops you emptied your pockets you’d no money, you’d nothing have you, you couldn’t even go in the sergeants mess and buy a pint as you’d no money. We had our Christmas there, and I, shows you in my book anyway, em I think we had Christmas and it was about four days after Christmas eventually one of our other crews flew us back to Graveley to pick our aircraft up, so we didn’t do anything for nearly a week [laughs] is that the sort of thing you’d be interested in?
MJ: Yes
SM: That’s a bit unusual and er.
MJ: Yes
SM: That was, we were halfway through a tour when we did that, but it’s just something that came to mind. I think er the first time we ever went out we got hit, I’m going backwards now. When you got the you’d finished your full training, ‘cos we did some further training after we got posted to a squadron and er we thought well we’d only done about nine and a half hours flying on a Lancaster, we did our ITW that’s interesting our heavy conversion[?} rather on Halifaxes, which wasn’t very good for me because I’d been trained to go on Lancs’ so I had to learn about Halifax a bit quick we did about sixty seven hours flying on heavy conversion unit[?} and then we went to Lancaster Finishing School and we went to Elsham we’d only nine and half hours flying on the Lancaster which wasn’t very much was it? We found out when we got there the reason was though because we’d, know you know what H2S is now the down [?] scanning radar and not all squadrons had it. The reason we went to the squadron was we were nearly there for nearly a fortnight before we did any operations because we’d never seen this apparatus before and the bomb aimer was the set operator so he had to learn all about the H2S and then we had to go on cross country flights using it to get the hang of it and get used to it so we were a fortnight really before we did any operations and of course we eventually we were ready [laughs], and that was I think it was the 14th October 1944, and er, the first, did I had already mentioned when we got, no I haven’t, um, so no I was going to say we got hit on our first trip didn’t I. We went our first trip was to Duisburg and er over the target we were going lined up you got, once your bomb aimer has taken over you can’t diverge you have to do what he says, he’ll say ‘left, left, steady’ and ‘right, right, steady’ and then when you dropped your bombs you also drop a photo flash and you take a photograph, well of course the photograph doesn’t want to happen until the bombs have hit the ground does it, so you going along straight and level over there you’re being shot at but you can’t do anything about it because you have got to keep straight and level and er then a light comes on on the dashboard telling you that the photographs been taken, and then you can open the throttle, put the nose down and get the hell out of it [laughs], and while we was over Duisburg I was also we used to have another job had to do was throwing bundles of Window, you know strips of silver paper, there was a chute in the nose of the aircraft and this stuff came in bundles with a bit of string looped through a brown paper wrapper, pull the string, tore the wrapper and you put it out the chute and it scattered all over and it caused blips on the radar which they couldn’t pick out the aircraft from the rubbish if you like, and I was down in the, down in the nose doing that, and of course er this pilot shouts out he said ‘come and look at this engine’, and I scrambled up and there were flames coming up out of the side of the end [?] port engine, and you remember to do your drill, the first thing you do is shut the fuel off, close the throttle, wait while the engine slows down then you know what I mean by feathering it, you know what I mean by feathering it , but if you don’t feather it the windmill will keep turning, so you have to turn the blades of the air screw so that the edge on to the wind so it’s stop turning and then and only then you can fire, fire extinguishers in the engine cowling, there’s two extinguishers in each engine fastened on the back plate and er you just press a button and er ‘cos there was flames coming out of the engine but we didn’t know what it was at the time and it went out, but we discovered afterwards if it had been petrol it probably wouldn’t have gone out, but a piece of shrapnel had gone through the side of the engine, smashed a hole the size of my palm in the engine casting and of course the oil spilled out and got on the red hot manifold [?] it was the oil that was burning fortunately for us not petrol, so that was our first time out we came back on three engines [laughs]. Just by way of introduction. Switch it off a minute. - Is it ready?
MJ: Yes.
SM: Well on this occasion I was asked to speak at a meeting which was a fundraiser aimed at raising funds for the new spire to go up on Canwick Hill, and I said I was wondering really what I could talk to you about, something I’ve often been asked about was what was it like to fly in a bombers stream at night, I said when you took off of course from your station you circled round over your own base until you had a time to set course, and I said there were several in er problems arose there because you’ve got people going right and people met head on an all this and collisions, so we had a special arrangement where we went from our base to Goole to Crowle to Scunthorpe and then back, all the aircraft in that area went round this big circuit instead of meeting other head on and that kind of thing and when it was your time to set course the navigator would tell you and you’d cut across and er so you set course at the right time, and well on this occasion I’m thinking about we often flew down to Reading and of course if there was no enemy activity over England you could keep your navigation lights on, you’ve got a red and a green light on your wing tip and a tail light that’s all you have got in’it, you don’t have any headlights or anything on car on aircraft, I said to you we flew down to Reading we changed course and then we [coughs], excuse me, we headed towards the coast and as we crossed the coast everybody starts to switch their lights off ‘cos you going in to over enemy territories and over the sea, so as up to then you can see one another ‘cos you’ve got lights on, now it’s all gone dark and it’s dark outside, I said the nearest thing I can give it to you is, you imagine you are driving down a motorway and everybody has their lights on and all of after time they start switching their lights off, first this one and then that one, and you finish up you are still bombing along there at about seventy miles an hour and now you can’t see one another, and I said you’ve got your eyes peeled you are looking in the dark because in an aircraft you you’re going a good deal faster er even with a bomb load on you probably cruising at about hundred sixty five or hundred and seventy mile an hour, and I said you find that er we used to have, I would sit beside the pilot, the pilot’s looking out in the front and over to his wing tip, I’m taking that side from the front round to the wing tip, the gunners are taking a quarter of the sky each at the back and if he is not doing anything else the wireless operator probably stood in the astrodome he’s keeping a look out as well, so you’ve got have five pairs of eyes looking out, and I said you see people sometimes coming when you get to a turning point everybody doesn’t always turn exactly the same you find somebody drifting towards so you have to go up a bit and he goes underneath you and then you turn and then you probably find you are chopping somebody else off, I said it was a bit scary, it was, that’s about as much as I told ‘em [laughs], and that was gonna’ last the rest of the trip wasn’t it, you didn’t put your lights on again until you were back over friendly territory at er it was a bit scary really the er you can imagine if it [unclear]. Anyway I er – I think that’s about it, was that any good? I remember being asked at a meeting some time ago to speak for a short amount of time I was at a loss to know what to talk about and I suddenly thought about to mention what it was like to fly in a column of aircraft at night, there could be three or four hundred aircraft all going to the same place, and er there would be spaced out of course, each aircraft had a time to be over the target and that sort of thing and it really meant that a raid that was gonna’ last er probably twenty minutes the aircraft flying at hundred eighty miles an hour roughly I mean, twenty minutes so that means that you’ve got a string of aircraft probably sixty miles long and that’s [perfectly fine until you get to a turning point when you find that er you’ve got you’ve got no lights on of course and er you might see a little bit of exhaust flame, but they carefully put some covers over the exhaust because it gave your position away to the fighters but also it mean’t so you couldn’t see one another either [laughs], it’s do debatable which is the worst situation, but getting along talking about what it was like at night if we were flying over England you could keep your navigation lights on providing there was no enemy action and I think on one occasion we flew down to Reading and then turned across head towards the coast as we got approached the coast everybody switched their lights off and of course you could see one another with your lights on so now we’re going along, your flying along at about hundred and sixty, hundred and eighty miles an hour and you can’t really see where you’re going, and on top of that you can’t see the other people who are going with you, er all you might get is a flicker of light now and then from something and er and I know it was the case of the pilot looking out the front and across to his wing tip and I’d be doing sitting at the side of him providing I wasn’t doing anything else keeping a look out, the gunners had got a quarter of the sky each er which they’re looking out for aircraft coming up behind you and er[coughs] excuse me – getting lost – I’m sorry I’ve lost my track.
MJ: That’s all right.
SM: The nearest thing I can tell you to flying along in a group of aircraft at night with no lights on, I want you to imagine that you probably driving down a motorway at night and everything is lit up as usual, headlights, sidelights, a bit of street lighting, you imagine what it would be like if suddenly the all the lights went off gradually, first one switches their lights off and then another, and you finish and you are still buzzing along probably sixty seventy miles an hour but now you can’t see one another and it was exactly like that in the air, unless somebody got very close to you, you couldn’t see them you had to keep a really good lookout, and er it was certainly the worst point was when you reached the point where you’re changed direction and you’ve got people cutting across the front of you and you went up a bit and let them go underneath or dived under or went underneath and so you could keep an eye on them and it really was quite exciting, never muind exciting it was ruddy dangerous really wasn’t it [laughs], but er that was what it was like, and er you had everybody provided everybody kept on time it wasn’t too bad but it was still a crush when something like three or four hundred aircraft all going to pass over the target in the space of about twenty minutes and er it really I think that was one of the most dangerous things apart from enemy action of course which er hopefully you’d avoid. – You asked me what I did on VE Day as it happens I was home on leave and of course as you can imagine there was great excitement everywhere and add to that we were very fortunate in Boston that the annual May Fair was there and of course this gave us something to do and I remember me meeting up with some of my friends I mean er a lot of them were away in the Far East and all over the place but there always seemed to be somebody you could meet up with, we’d got a couple of pals and then we got along with some er local people we had also one of my pals who was in the Navy joined us and we came across a I think it was a sergeant in the American Air Army and he seemed to be on his own a bit so we adopted him as well, and you know how it goes on these nights you [unclear] you pick up until you’ve got a little group don’t you and I remember particularly that we er went into one or two of the pubs and of course beer was always short in those days it wasn’t very long before they ran dry we came out of there and went somewhere else, there was a lot of toing and froing in that respect and by the end of the evening we had er several sufficiently to put is in a good humour I’ll put it that way, and I do remember particularly towards the end of the evening we had the sudden idea that we would swap clothes and I think I finished up the day with this American chaps tunic I think he was a sergeant actually, and one of my pals had got his sailors hat on, and we were all mixed up and we were going round, it was really very jovial and thoroughly I think we had a jolly good time and nobody considered the fact that we were improperly dressed or anything [laughs] silly like that it was just a jolly old night and a really memorable occasion, and it’s not the sort of thing that it happens every day very often is it?
MJ: No.
SM: Was that all right?
MJ: Sidney Marshall let me thank you on behalf of the International Bomber Command History Project, this is the end of the recording taken by Michael Jeffries on the date of the 8th May 2015 at three thirty. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Syd Marshall
Format
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00:44:58 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-05-08
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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.
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eng
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Pending review
Identifier
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AMarshallS150508
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney Marshall grew up in Lincolnshire and worked as an agricultural engineer. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force at eighteen and trained as a flight engineer. On his first operation to Duisburg one of his Lancaster's engines was hit by shrapnel and they returned on three engines. Returning from another operation they had to divert and land at a station in Norfolk with the help of FIDO, as the aircraft was nearly out of fuel. He also discusses what it was like to fly at night over Germany as part of a stream of hundreds of aircraft, and his experiences of VE day celebrations in Boston.
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Wales
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Duisburg
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1944-10-14
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
103 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
FIDO
flight engineer
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Mosquito
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF St Athan
recruitment
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/3476/PRaettigDW1615.2.jpg
cbcc3dd2e97c4f14e41a2f0ed5c29812
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/3476/ARaettigJ160708.1.mp3
15e3edb9454a40b0514352c19b1344c3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
Rights
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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
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Raettig, DW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Okay my name is Pam Locker and I am in the home of Mrs. Joan Raettig of *** and if I can just start by saying an enormous thank you on behalf of Bomber Command for agreeing to have a conversation I know you feel a little nervous about this but er it just means all the more that you are prepared to give us your er interview. So if we start can you just tell me a little bit about your family and you know where you lived and the sort of the start before the war?
JR: Well I lived in Hull well I was going to say all my life until the war I was at school when the war broke out I was evacuated I believe it was the day before war broke out it hadn’t actually been declared when we were all evacuated.
PL: So what school did you go to in Hull?
JR: I went to The Boulevard I was evacuated from The Boulevard and at the beginning of the war Kingston High School opened and when I came back from being an evacuee I started at Kingston High School which was a brand new school.
PL: So how old were you at the start of the war?
JR: Just fourteen.
PL: And did you have brothers and sisters?
JR: I had one brother who was four years younger than me we lived in Anlaby Park.
PL: And did you was he evacuated as well to Scarborough?
JR: He was evacuated with a friend to a grandmother’s who lived in Bridlington just for a short while, he came home again as everybody did because nothing happened.
PL: So is in fact the phoney war at the very start?
JR: Yes the phoney war when they thought we were all going to be bombed and everything and nothing happened so I can remember being in a crocodile at the station with a label round my neck, my gas mask on my shoulder, a carrier bag full of tins of bully beef and food, a suitcase which I can’t remember what it was but it would be just an ordinary suitcase with our clothes in, with my school friends and I suppose two thirds of our class.
PL: Can you remember how you felt you know were you frightened?
JR: Well it was just strange that’s all I can say I was with my friends we didn’t know where we were going we finished up at Scarborough and we went to I suppose you would call it more or less a boarding house it was a small hotel and I think it was near Valley Bridge and I think they called the area Grosvenor Crescent and it was just my class one teacher and I think there were two of the mothers, and when we arrived the residents were still there, I went into a little room with a friend with a three quarter bed and we stayed in that because the residents were in the process of signing out it must have been the weekend mm.
PL: Do you know how many of your class went?
JR: Ah may be twenty twenty of us.
PL: Eighteen?
JR: Eighteen.
PL: And can you remember what it was called the place you went to?
JR: No I can’t I‘m sorry, and then we eventually um got organised with school and we went to school part time at the Scarborough Boys Grammar School which was under Valley Bridge, I can’t remember whether we went mornings or they went mornings but we did half a day each at the Grammar School.
PL: So what did you do with the other half day?
JR: Ooh went into Scarborough went on the beach wandered about I don’t remember doing anything very organised, and then after may be a couple of months we moved er a lot of the children had gone back home and we all moved all the girls from the school moved into the Astoria Hotel on the south side over the Italian Gardens and all the boys from the school went into the Adelphi which was one or two doors away and the same place and we all went to the Boys Grammar School part time, er I can vaguely remember some of the food it wasn’t too bad but um it wasn’t very inspiring [laughs], and I can remember the winter because it was soo cold, I don’t know where we got a toboggan from but we went tobogganing down the Italian Gardens there was a statue of Eros in the pond part way down and I know that wore a school cap and scarf, the bathing pool which was down below was empty and we went roller skating in that but during that really I don’t we went home at Christmas and then we came back in the snow the train got stuck outside the station and eventually we got into the station and got back to the hotel and there was about eight or nine inches of snow everywhere and then the pipes in the hotel froze and burst we had no heating, no hot water, and we were soo cold we went to bed with all our clothes and our coats on [laughs], I can’t remember how long that lasted eventually it warmed up [laughs].
PL: So was this [coughs] was this 1940?
JR: Yes it would be after Christmas it was the beginning of 1940.
PL: So everybody snuggled up together?
JR: Yesss we just piled everything on top of us and that and we went to bed with our coats on cos it well you can you imagine snow here yes I remember that mm.
PL: So how did you get to school when it was so snowy did you have to trudge through the snow?
JR: Well you walked it was life you didn’t get taken to school in the car you went on your bike of we walked we walked I suppose we walked in crocodile mm that was virtually my life then I presume it was but I don’t remember very much about I know we used to go to the castle we used to walk for miles and we used to go and spend our pocket money I used to buy a Fry’s chocolate cream in Woolworths every Saturday, and just occasionally our parents came over at a weekend and they used to take us to Rowntrees I think it was Café I think it was in Westborough.
PL: What sort of things were you given to eat what was your diet like?
JR: Perpetual stews the only thing I can remember having for my tea was bread and jam and er one of those cheese triangles.
PL: What wrapped up in foil?
JR: Yeah one of those and bread and jam and I think we had porridge for breakfast but I don’t I do know that when I got home I wouldn’t eat cauliflower so we must have had cauliflower every meal I can’t remember much about the food, but I do remember when we were in the first hotel that our teacher went to the chip shop for us [laughs] one night and she went for how every many twenty separate penneths of chips, apart from that I can’t remember a lot, oh there was no petrol much to be had and I had a friend whose father was an undertaker Robinsons Undertakers at the corner of Boothferry Road they were there and another friend whose father had er a grocery and beer off store at the corner of Delapole Avenue Prettys don’t suppose you’ve ever heard we three were friends for years and petrol was short so Mr. Robinson sent his funeral car [laughs] to pick us up to take us to the station after Christmas so that’s how we got to the station to go back I don’t remember coming home at all I do remember our air raid shelter they came before the war started to dig out holes in everybody’s garden round us and shelters we were on a clay basin all the holes filled with water so we couldn’t have them, we had a shed attached to the back of our house there was the kitchen, the coal house toilet, and then a shed built on and my father got the shed reinforced with a concrete roof, sandbags which we filled they’d been barley bags and when it rained all the barley grew so we had a green wall um.
PL: Now whereabouts was this in Hull where did you actually live?
JR: Anlaby Park Woodland End.
PL: So you did ever spend anytime in the air raid shelter?
JR: Too much eventually we go so fed up getting up and down every night sometimes two or three times a night they put bunk beds in the air raid shelter for us and I think we slept in there every night for oh maybe nearly two years and if the all clear went after midnight we didn’t have to go to school next morning and my mother hung a calendar on the wall and we didn’t have to go to school she turned it the other way round so we knew whether we had to get up or not in the morning [laughs] I think we had a little electric fire in there we had a kettle and we had my parents had chairs and my grandma used to come down to our house every night because she was on her own she only lived at the other end of the road she didn’t have a shelter so she came to us and that was you know just life you went to school during the day.
PL: So it would have been your mum and dad your brother and yourself and your granny?
JR: Yes
PL: All in the shed?
JR: All in the shelter well it was I don’t know it was enlarged it wasn’t that tiny we got bunks along the side.
PL: So was this when you came home for sort of ?
JR: When I came home from Scarborough that’s how I lived.
PL: Right.
JR: Originally we got in and out of bed every night until we were sick of it and then we slept in the shelter I think we were sleeping in the shelter before the blitz because the sirens used to go every time any bombers came over to go to the other side of the country and went again when they came back sometimes they threw spare bombs out on us on the way back sometimes it was a particular raid on us you never knew.
PL: So did you experience a raid when you were in the shelter?
JR: The air raid shelter yes we had four Ack Ack Guns in Costello Playing Fields [?] just over the other side of the road to us and before the end of the war they put for more there but they never really went into action they tested them well they came round and said they were going to test the guns open all your doors and windows and to report any damage but the four original ones used to go into action.
PL: So was there any damage your house to your family house?
JR: Not really we got a bit of ceiling down but we were very very lucky, my father used to do fire watch and he was also in the Home Guard he used to go onto the Ack Ack Guns at Hedon once a week and he worked in the Engineers Department in the Guild Hall and he used to be on what they call Centre Control I think he did that about once a week where they organised the rescue parties after each raid and he was on duty one night and he got a report through to say a land mine had dropped in Anlaby Park and in actual fact mother was doing fire watch that night because he was in Centre Control they dropped a load of incendiaries just inside Costello Playing Fields and they had to bend back railings to get through to put the incendiaries out well a friend who was he’d been a skipper he was on a minesweepers he was home on leave and he managed to bend the railings and get through and then she came dashing back into the air raid shelter and said ‘cover your heads’ she’d seen a land mine drifting across the park which of course there were no obstacles do you know the area? It winds across Anlaby Park Road just cleared the houses in Anlaby Park Road and dropped in Ropeby Park and it didn’t do a great deal of damage it fell in a field but me dad didn’t know that you know he was having a fit he thought it had dropped in the middle of our area.
PL: So was this day time or night time?
JR: That was night time she’d seen the shadow this box drifting across I can remember they dropped a stick of bombs a couple of streets from us and I was in the shelter and we were counting them because we were told you never heard the one that hit you so we were counting ‘one, two, three, four’ and that’s it, a lot of this was fun do you realise [laughs] because we were much younger at that age then they all know too much now they’ve grown up before there born.
PL: So how old were you when you came back from Scarborough?
JR: Fourteen I was just fourteen when we went.
PL: So so how long were you there sort of six months?
JR: Well only probably six months because we went September well the blitz was in May wasn’t it and I was back for that I mean I can’t remember what order these things happened in I can remember when was I going then I don’t know do you know Plantation Drive Anlaby Road well one night a bomb dropped right at the end of Plantation Drive on Anlaby Road I don’t think it was a double carriage way then but it dropped right in the middle Plantation Drive had trees down the middle and it went so deep it burst the mains and everything like we usually had you know no gas no electricity but this had thrown the clay up and everything so high that the people there was a bungalow at one side and houses the other they couldn’t get out of their gates and there was a row of shops opposite it broke one window in these shops but it did untold damage down below [laughs] there were all sorts of different types of bombs we had to clamber over all this, I don’t know how the buses ran but somehow they did they got things going again so you weren’t stuck in an inch of snow or anything I mean things just got going I mean in those days the trains had snowploughs on the front they were steam trains.
PL: So when you lost your electricity and your water?
JR: Well you just waited for it to come on again.
PL: There was also a sort of faith that it would?
JR: Everybody helped each other out if gas was off if you’d got electricity you helped your neighbours and of course we had black out some of our windows were permanently blacked out the bay windows at the front all the little ones all the transoms were permanently blacked out and er I think two of the big ones were blacked out permanently and then me father made shutters with bits of lino and wood that fitted In the others, I keep forgetting about all these you said it would come back, and I can remember one day my brother was in the garden we’d come home from school it was apart half past four five o’clock teatime and he suddenly said to my mother ‘oh that’s a Dornier up there’ and she said ‘don’t be daft’ and then Ack Ack Guns went off and there was no air raid warning I think I don’t know what happened it was quite low you could tell what it was I saw it I didn’t know it was a Dornier but he did.
PL: So it was a strange thing because it sounds like when there was no raids you were sent away you were evacuated?
JR: And then we came back.
PL: So how did how that how did that happen why did it happen like that do you know do you remember?
JR: Well I mean some people stayed away the whole war evacuated but we just didn’t a lot came back what else we had big air raid shelters round the school field and I can remember going in one night when it was nearly time to go home we had to all go into the air raid shelters and forms along the side great long brick surface shelters we were back there we had allotments behind the school and we got so fed up we gradually filtered out of the door and went home I don’t know how long it was before the teachers around there were no children in the school in the shelter [laughs] but we just went home we just got on our bikes and went home.
PL: Did you get into trouble for that?
JR: I don’t remember, we had a barrage balloon on the school field, I’m getting lost I don’t know.
PL: So so moving time on a little bit as you are going through your teenage years during the war what did you do for fun what did you do for with your friends what sort of things did you do?
JR: Well we just sort of played I mean we were children then weren’t like the teenagers today we used to play cricket in the street we had a bogie we’d made and you could go up and down the street on it.
PL: You had a what made?
JR: A bogie, you know four wheels with a plank and we put a sail on it my brother would probably make that and we used to go to the pictures.
PL: Where would you go where was local to you?
JR: Anywhere we used to go into Hull was a bit older then used to go to the Carlton sometimes you just lived life you didn’t stop you went shopping in what shops were there Thornton Barleys [? ] finished up in Albion Street Museum and the dresses were on the mm I don’t know some of the exhibits that were still left although most of them were put in storage somewhere and then that was bombed and they moved into the what eventually was the Gas Showrooms at the corner of Storey Street, Hammonds was bombed their shop was the store room in West Street.
PL: So I guess you’d go in to do shopping and you weren’t quite sure what was going to meet you when you went?
JR: Well no not always I mean you got used to seeing houses flattened and walls gone and bedroom curtains flapping about in it was just life.
PL: Tell me a little bit about rationing?
JR: Well I didn’t have the worry of it we ate reasonably well we they dug up all the spare bits of ground there were tennis courts in Anlaby Park which were all dug up and my father had an allotment there so we had plenty of veg we had three chickens you gave up your egg ration to have your own chickens and we always had a stewpot of chicken food on our coke boiler in the kitchen we used to do quite well with eggs from our three hens they had names Jane, Tilly and Beth.
PL: So they did live on the allotment or did they live in your garden?
JR: No in the garden my father had kept birds before the war so we had we kept these three hens in the bottom of the aviary and then my brother started keeping rabbits with his pal they bred rabbits he had I don’t know what make Chinchillas or something and Rex say it were Rex and his pal had a Flemish Giant and they used to breed them and they were only about ten years old at that time and we used to kill them to eat and the meat was jolly good and one Christmas somebody knocked at our door to see if we could let them have a rabbit because they’d nothing for Christmas dinner I think I seem to remember going up to Swanland to a farm for a goose one year for our Christmas dinner and my brother and his pal had a tandem that they’d bought between them and he and I went on this tandem he must have been a bit older then and we had to ride up Tramby Lane to Swanland and it was foggy and of course there were no lights and coming home he turned round to me and said ‘can you remember where the road bends’.
PL: And who was carrying the goose?
JR: Me I suppose I was on the back, it wasn’t great fun being around in the black out.
PL: So did everything stop at night and everything happened inside and nobody went outy?
JR: No it didn’t stop at night you could go to the pictures in the winter but I mean there were no headlights on anything no streetlights you had what you call a pencil torch with a tiny little thing like that on it that you shone on the floor if it wasn’t moonlight or starlight and I don’t know what else [laughs].
PL: What about things like you know clothes and?
JR: Well you made do I knitted so many striped jumpers I lost count you pulled all the old ones out and kept all the good wool washed it wound into hanks and washed it and then wound it into balls and knitted it up again and I can remember knitting a jumper with about two rows of each colour you had to knit the back and the front together to match them we could get an abwool [?] which was seaboot wool[?] because we were a port the fisherman always had these thick abwool jumpers, socks and you could buy one ply, two ply, three ply and we could get that without coupons and it was oily but when you washed it was lovely and soft and warm some poor children had to wear vests of it which were really itchy I had a cardigan made of it and later on much later on at the end of the war I made a rug with abwool three ply clipped on canvas and when it was washed it was like sheepskin I had that for years after we were married I still had that.
PL: And what about shoes I mean was it sort of handing shoes around?
JR: Sorry.
PL: Shoes you know you were growing and you know children growing?
JR: Well we managed to get enough shoes I never went without shoes I won’t say we had any choice probably lace ups and sandals and that was your lot welly boots ‘cos of course I worked on the land after the first two or three years of the war I trained in horticulture and then I had to stay on the land I wasn’t in the Land Army.
PL: So how old were you then when you went to train for horticulture?
JR: I went to Waterperry I think it was in the end of 1942 for two years I’ve got some photographs of that if you want to look at them they’re here.
PL: So what sort of things did you?
JR: It was a practical place so we did all the hard work and we were on food production as well, I’ll show you the photographs [looks for photographs] so this is 1944.
PL: So that’s Waterperry House?
JR: Yes that’s where we all lived the students it’s still on the go now but not at it’s attached to some research.
PL: And whereabouts is it?
JR: Outside Oxford in a village called Waterperry this is the grounds and that’s my friend [showing photographs] that’s how we cut the grass [laughs] one pulling and one pushing didn’t have any petrol mowers.
PL: So it’s like the cutters of the mower with one person pushing and one person pulling?
JR: Yeah that border it’s still on the go there you are we worked in a walled garden with the coldframes there’s some of us in the greenhouse there [showing photographs] only were about ten students there and that is the girl I met last year at my ninetieth birthday and I haven’t seen her for seventy two years.
PL: Goodness what’s her name?
JR: Mary Spiller she’d been on television on Gardeners World and unbeknown to me Susan got in touch with her again because I don’t know if you are interested in gardening did you watch the Christine Walkden programmes taken from the air and she landed at the different gardens well she landed at Waterperry because it is still a very well known garden and Mary Spiller was the oh dear what do they call them not the curator the.
PL: The head gardener?
JR: No no no she was far too old for that she was ninety mm custodian sorry my brain is slow she was the custodian and Christine Walkden have you seen her one of the gardeners I think she’s a Yorkshire girl very blunt and she interviewed Mary there, Mary did go back and work there for a time mm then I think she left but she was virtually head gardener and she developed it up quite a lot after the war and she’s just done another programme Susan my daughter had been in touch with her something I think it’s going to be Inside Out or Outside In or whatever they call the programme eventually.
PL: So your job here then was to?
JR: We were practical students but we did get a certificate at the end of our two years we did a certain amount of academic work as well but it was a mainly practical course as you can see that’s Mary doing celery trenches can you imagine doing that now I mean this was the old way of gardening.
PL: So looking at the photograph with the lady with her spade digging an enormously deep trench?
JR: That’s a celery trench earthing celery up and you had to be so precise everything had to be spade deep and be in dead straight rows can you see in the distance there all the [unclear] fruit trees along that wall and there were fan peaches we ate quite well there because every misshaped fruit that couldn’t be sold in the shop we had a shop in the marketplace I think it opened two or three times a week we got so we ate well.
PL: So guessing the plan here was that had the war continued you would have then become a land girl?
JR: No I never went in the Land Army there was no need I just had to stay on food production.
PL: So it was all about food production?
JR: There were land girls working here as well I was here
PL: What’s the difference between land girls and food production were they more like farmers?
JR: Yes they could be I didn’t do farming when I left Waterperry I went to Bishop Burton which was another college it’s still there now and we took over the I went into the orchard oh this is still that’s in the vineries turning grapes that’s Mary again, that’s me in the tomato house, she lived in Hessle Jo Cockins she was in charge of fruits, I think that’s me planting out something there, and that was the principal on the tractor we had that we had can you see the mowing all this and that was a mini tractor, now that was another girl Valerie Finison she went on there’s several plants now named after her she raised Alpines I didn’t stick to it I got married and now these are getting further on now, that’s Ascombe Bryan in the fruit trees they had a trial orchard there at Ascombe Bryan and I was the only non-land girl oh no I think the foreman’s daughter was there we didn’t keep up the trials with the fruit but we had to grow the fruit and spray it and do everything and the land girl I lived with eventually in the village we lived in the coachman’s cottage attached to the hall which was just a sort of one room downstairs and you went up a little staircase through a door and there was a bedroom upstairs open to all the haylofts and we lived I lived there for two or three years cooked on a primus stove when the and we had a coke stove that heated it had a tap at the side that heated the water and if it was cold we could put a stew on the top of that and leave it all day so it was there when we came home there was one bus a week to the village everywhere else we had to walk right down the lane from the village to the main York Tadcaster Road.
PL: So how far was that?
JR: Don’t know can’t remember a mile probably quite a long road not very good at distances and if I’d been home at the weekend and had to get the bus back I had to try to find a white gate in the hedge so that threw any light that was showing from it to know that was where I got off the bus and I had to walk down this country lane.
PL: So when you when you decided that you wanted to did you decide yourself you wanted to go into food production were there choices that you were given?
JR: Oh no there was no choice I would have had to go in the forces.
PL: So literally from sort of sixteen how old would you have been then?
JR: I left I think it was 1942 Mary and I were talking when I went so I was there two years so York 1946 so I was still at York then but I think I went did I say that was 1944 when I was at Waterperry so I must have been there 42 to 44 and then I stayed at York at Ascombe Bryan well I was there on VE Day I don’t know whether I was there on VJ Day I think I was.
PL: So four teenagers then you’re looking at groups of young men or young women the choice would be food production?
JR: Well they were conscientious objectors the men who worked at York.
PL: Right.
JR: And the foreman he was older but the men were conscientious objectors or women and we got village women out to pick fruit there was only a few of us worked there quite a big area and the land girl and I we put on an exhibition of apples in the Mortimer Museum in Hull English apples were brought to through to Hull to show people what English apples were and they didn’t believe us we stayed here a week with them this big display in the Mortimer Museum and then we took it to Leeds she came from Leeds so she lived at with my mum you know at home here so when we were in Hull and when we went to Leeds we lived there.
PL: So the Mortimer Museum what sort of a museum was that can you remember?
JR: No I can’t remember because I mean it wasn’t there it was all put in storage somewhere it was City Hall I think I don’t remember what the exhibits were there because it was just an empty space to us when we put this big exhibition up I mean she and I didn’t do it on our own we had a crowd of us did it.
PL: So moving on to the end of the war and being told that the end of the war did you celebrate you must have been?
JR: I went home for VE Day and I can remember our old gang who weren’t still in the forces me brother was too young he did his National Service after we all joined forces and we walked down Hessle Road and all the terraces had bonfires in I can’t remember doing anything particular at home but we walked all around to see the celebrations at night with all these bonfires I think there was a big bonfire at the back of us ‘cos there used to be an area between Pickering Road and Plantation Drive Woodland End there had been a brick pond and it had been filled in with black sand from radiator works and I think we had a big bonfire on there and then we just went back to York Ascombe Bryan.
PL: So was it a big sort of overnight celebration?
JR: Err yes just a one off but I mean loads of our pals were still in the forces.
PL: So did you go into town did you go into Hull?
JR: No
PL: You stayed on the Hessle Road?
JR: No we just went round Hessle Road area and then walked round and came back but I mean most of that area had been flattened, I can remember going into Hull after the blitz I mean I was in the air raid shelter all the blitz so we didn’t know much about it so we could hear walls crashing and pumps going and it was all on fire we put our heads out of the shelter it was one big red mass and my grandmother lived in Brid and she could see it from there and of course they could see it from Holland and they asked for volunteers I was at the school then ‘cos they asked us for volunteers for children to go messages if we had bikes and report to the Guild Hall I think I got as far as what was the Cecil Corner then and you couldn’t get any further everywhere was rubble, hosepipes, fire engines, and I never got any further, but you somehow or other just went on to say it was life I was very very lucky that none of us were killed a lot of our school pals just went from school to the forces I don’t know my husband was working by then but he went in at eighteen he did six years in the RAF I didn’t ‘cos I didn’t know him until 1948 so I can’t really say much about him.
PL: So what tell me briefly what happened after the war so did you stay down in Oxford or did you come back, what did you do, how did you meet your husband?
JR: Oddly enough at the printers in Hull, I gave up horticulture I did work in horticulture for a while but it wasn’t like it is now there was nothing doing they were no garden centres or they were only market gardens if I’d done it now it would have been a totally different thing but I never liked being indoors but I finished up working at Harlands Printers and he was leaving to start his own business as I was as I went into the office and that was it we just met and I think it was that was 1948 we got married in June 1952.
PL: So he was in the Air Force you say?
JR: Yes he was in Bomber Command ground crew he was at Lissett a lot of the time Rufforth he started in Driff and one of his first postings was in Driffield I don’t know where he was he was down south some of the time but he finished up at Lissett he was there for a few years.
PL: So did you your family presumably stayed in Hull then?
JR: Yes.
PL: Lived in Hull and then when you got married did you come back and live in Hull what happened?
JR: Well I was in Hull then I was living at home again by then ‘cos you lived at home you didn’t go get a flat there was nowhere to live there were no houses when we got married we lived off we lived on Queens Road behind the cobblers shop I don’t know how we managed to get it we rented this place there was a range in the kitchen well you well I suppose what you would call a kitchen it wasn’t much bigger than that toilet and lobby there you went through from the kitchen where the range was and the range had a water boiler and an oven on it the water boiler leaked and I kept firewood in it and the oven I had nappies in it when I got my first when I got Susan my daughter [laughs] those iron fireplaces gave out the most wonderful heat the bars came out we had those iron fireplaces with bars in the what was the dining room and we had the room over the shop but we didn’t use it lot I mean we had no bathroom if we wanted a bath we went to our parents the toilet was in the backyard with the coalhouse.
PL: So whereabouts was it in Hull?
JR: Pardon.
PL: Where was the house?
JR: Queens Road it’s now a parking lot with bins on it at the corner of Elves Street [laughs] well it was a terrible old place that we lived in I mean we finished up with a bucket in the bedroom to catch the water coming through the roof we were so lucky to get a place on our own you can’t appreciate do you realise that over ninety percent of the houses in Hull were either damaged or demolished there was no leaving home and getting somewhere to live so we lived there for a year or two and then we moved into Walmsley Street.
PL: Do you remember how it’s interesting to hear how buildings sort of virtually started you know with ninety percent of the buildings gone I mean was it temporary accommodation?
JR: Well they were all patched up but not like today when everybody wants their own space you lived at home my husband lived with his parents till he got married they were away all the war his parents he never saw them because his father was a sea captain he finished up in the Suez he was on Shell Tankers and he was ferrying water to the troops up and down the Suez with him being a captain his mother was able to go on trips with him and they’d had a family inquest just before the war started when it was we didn’t think it would materialise should she go on this trip to Malta with him or shouldn’t she and they decided yes go and she never came back couldn’t get back.
PL: It must have been a terrible time?
JR: Yes well she experienced a few dos I think she finished up in South Africa and he was in the Suez and then I don’t know what it was after the war when they came home the boys got my husband had two brothers one of them was stationed down south he was up here the other brother was in the Navy and they got telegrams from both parents they were both landing in England on the same day one at Liverpool and one at Southampton so the brother down south met his dad I think it was [unclear] and my husband met his mother, and you mentioned rations now they came back and had to get ration cards and things ‘cos I mean they hadn’t lived here for the whole of the war and they said to the kids ‘don’t know what you are moaning about we’ve got plenty to eat’ so what had they done they had eaten a month’s ration in a week [laughs] had to go back on hands and knees to ask for another ration card ‘cos they’d no food left that was one of our funny stories ‘what you are moaning about we’ve got plenty’.
PL: So what did you get for a month?
JR: I know we had our own resources with our butter rationing and so much marg and mother took so much out for cooking and we had a flag in with our names on and there was also grandma’s saucer she had a flag on they were all in the sideboard and every meal these came out and dried bread was put on the table you had to make it last and we used to sit and look at grandma and she’d say ‘oh all right just one piece’ and my father wasn’t allowed any sugar in he had to have saccharin’s because mother said ‘no you are not having the sugar’ she needed it for odd bits of baking she could do or she made she made pastry with liquid paraffin once, oh you’ve no idea, that dried egg was revolting.
PL: How was the liquid paraffin pastry?
JR: Oh we never knew we just ate what we got given we weren’t bothered I don’t know she used all liquid paraffin she probably made the fat I just don’t know I know she told me she’d put some in.
PL: And what about meat?
JR: Oh we didn’t get much meat sausages were nearly all bread and if mother used to go shopping on her bike and she saw a van which she knew had sausages on it she followed it to get in the queue at the beginning to get some.
PL: So how did she know it had sausages on it?
JR: Well you got to know where they were delivering to they were all little vans they weren’t great big container things like this they were just little vans that used to go to the shops and you had to register with your butcher I mean I was rationed when we got married I registered with the butcher and I registered with the maypole that was on the go then I can’t remember how much I had it’s no good I just can’t remember but er I say we had.
PL: So was there a bit of a black market?
JR: Oh yes but my father wouldn’t entertain it so if mother got anything ‘don’t say anything to your father’ don’t and that was another thing I don’t know how she managed it but the butcher got her some sheets and she said ‘don’t tell your dad’ ‘cos they were off coupons and sheets were on coupons we had sheets that were turned sides to middle pillowcases from edges of sheets everything was used.
PL: So it was recycling?
JR: Until there was nothing left and I mean I made up all our clothes anyway I made them after we were married I made all the children’s clothes.
PL: So after the war finished it must have felt like the war might have been finished and people were coming home and there was still enormous hardship?
JR: Yes there was still big hard big shortages of everything I mean we never saw a banana and oranges were reserved for the babies there was orange juice for babies and rosehip syrup what I remember and dried milk national dried milk but I mean you just forget it I can’t remember it all.
PL: Well that was fascinating thank you so much for sharing your memories with us, is there anything else at all that you would like to be recorded?
JR: Well I don’t know what you want to know [laughs] I I just can’t think of anymore I’ve jumped about a bit.
PL: Thank you very very much indeed.
JR: Is it of any interest then?
PL: Absolutely.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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ARaettigJ160708
Title
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Interview with Joan Raettig
Rights
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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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:56:28 audio recording
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Pending review
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-07-08
Description
An account of the resource
Joan Raettig (nee McGuire) was born in Hull and at the age of fourteen was evacuated to Scarborough, the day before war broke out. She experienced the bombing of Hull and spent nearly two years sleeping in an air raid shelter because they were fed up of getting up and down every night, due to the frequency of the bombing. She describes her life during this time, houses being flattened, shops that were bombed in the city relocating into museums and store rooms, her family’s experience of food and clothing rationing and how they managed during the war. At sixteen she studied horticulture and food production, before moving to Ascombe Bryan, and then returning to Hull. She met her husband in 1948, who was RAF ground personnel, they married in 1952 and settled and raised their family in Hull.
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
bombing
civil defence
evacuation
home front
love and romance
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/264/3412/AGrayLW170301.1.mp3
8141028f5d068b9ddb3bbcb25f8c5b0d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Gray, Lloyd William
Lloyd William Gray
Lloyd W Gray
L W Gray
L Gray
Bill Gray
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Lloyd William "Bill" Gray (428691 Royal Australian Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-01
Rights
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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
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Gray, LW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
LWG: Anyway look I’m in a mess because my wife just recently died and that leaves one in one hell of a mess of course and I haven’t been able to redress the place as it is, so excuse that.
RG: Right.
LWG: Tell me then, I want to know, why I’m little confused is that my eldest brother’s eldest son is Robert Gray.
RG: Oh truly.
LWG: And when you ring I thought he was the one that had been addressing me if I seemed a bit offhand because I thought he was having a shot at me. [laughs]
RG: Okay, no you didn’t, I didn’t take that wat at all. Yeah actually I am sorry with the name and the spot I would be [unclear] as well the correct way both of us, so yeah okay, okay I see that point.
LWG: You don’t look anything like him I can tell you —
RG: He’s a very lucky man, a very lucky man. [laughs]
Other: I’ve just got some kind of admin type stuff to do to start. What year were you born Bill?
LWG: Tell me before we start that I’d be intrigued to know how you got on to me.
RG: Okay what it is we it’s the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln there setting up an archive —
LWG: In England?
RG: Yeah, yeah in Lincoln.
LD: It’s the University of Lincoln.
RG: That’s running it.
LWG: Right.
RG: So what they’re doing is there putting up a, Lucy’s actually got a there’s a sheet there that tells you a bit about it, but basically it’s a museum archive for Bomber Command, so there collecting right across the world interviews with people like yourself, veterans, just to capture the stories, capture the whole story as much as we can before it’s all too late. Now how they got on to you was we are directed by a woman in Sydney, Annette Gitteritz [?], she was told about you by someone else here in The Grange, I don’t know who that was she just said somebody else here in The Grange mentioned to her that you were a Bomber Command veteran and that’s how she got on to you and she got your details, that’s the best I know Bill. We just get our records would you go talk to this person.
LWG: Well, I’ve had a busy morning already, the postie came and gave me that —
RG: It’s one of those awards yes.
LD: Oh it’s another one?
LWG: Well I, I haven’t got every, all my so called medals and so on, one reason they contacted me and said, ‘Oh well we’ll try and rouse that for you.’ And that arrived only by the post this morning.
RG: Oh okay.
LWG: So I haven’t opened it yet.
LD: Just to interrupt can you just do the intro on the —
RG: Yeah I just need to do an intro for the recording Bill. This is a recording with Bill Gray in his at his home in Deakin, ACT, on 1st March, 2017, interviewers are Lucy Davison and Rob Gray.
LD: The name’s William Lloyd Gray.
RG: Lloyd William. Sorry his full name is Lloyd William Gray.
LD: Okay. All right I just need to do some a bit of an admin here. Where were you based Bill?
LWG: I was in 3 Group and that was at Mildenhall.
LD: Mildenhall yeah, no worries.
LWG: Think that’s Suffolk isn’t it?
RG: Somewhere in that area.
LD: And did you only fly Lancasters?
LWG: Oh in operations yes.
LD: Yes, yes, no worries. Okay do you have a pen Rob?
LWG: No you’d only fly those things one at a time. [laughs]
LD: Now do you —
LWG: Plus I was a flight commander, a flight commander of 15 Squadron, RAF.
LD: Okay, so I can fill in all that. Are you okay that your name is associated with the record or do you want to remain anonymous?
LWG: Oh I’ve got nothing to hide.
LD: That’s good no worries.
LWG: Depends on what you’re going to do with it or use it for.
LD: So you’re Lloyd William Gray.
LWG: Lloyd [spells it out] I was told by my folks that I was called that because of Lloyd George.
RG: Oh yes.
LWG: Thank God they didn’t put the George in.
RG: Yes. [laughs]
LWG: I’ve never used Lloyd don’t like it.
LD: Can you just sign this one.
LWG: Well what I am signing?
LD: You’re just saying that Lincoln University can use the audio record that we have here.
RG: For research purposes.
LWG: Just there?
LD: Yes. Thank you.
LWG: That’ll do.
LD: Okay, not a problem.
LWG: I was born in 1923 which makes me too old for these things now I would have thought.
LD: The only other thing is if you have any documents that you want to donate to the university, do you have any documents or anything that you want to donate to the university?
LWG: Oh I’ve actually got my log book there what did I do with it?
LD: Just if there are there’s another form to sign to you know say ‘cos we would just take copies of them and there’s another form to sign but we can sort that one out later, yeah we can sort that one out later, no worries. All right. So I read up on you a bit —
LWG: Anyway where’s, where’s my log book that’s interesting I went and got it a minute ago and I put it down somewhere and I’m probably sitting on it. [laughs] Probably put it down when you rang the bell there it’ll come up, it’s easily identified, here we are that’s it.
RG: Yeah that is it yes.
LD: That’s not like other log books.
RG: No it’s different it’s a pilot’s log book we haven’t seen a pilot’s one before. All the people we’ve interviewed with one exception have all been navigators.
LWG: Navigators?
RG: Yes for some reason we’ve only interviewed one other pilot and he didn’t have his log book he’d already donated it.
LD: Oh.
LWG: When we get right into this I’ll tell you about my navigators I had three in all.
LD: Sorry.
LWG: Not at the same time though.
LD: Can I jump in again Rob please. So are you okay for us to take photographs of your log book and send to the university?
LWG: Well probably as we go along let me sort all that out.
LD: Yeah no worries.
LWG: I am surprised that you contacted me anyway and I must confess I was dreading it very likely because I thought about my brother’s son [laughs] I thought it was [unclear] taking the mickey. [laughs].
LD: No, no not your brother’s son.
RG: With the name thing you said you never liked Lloyd for Lloyd George, well so my father’s family emigrated to Australia in 1925 they came in on a ship called “The Barradine” and dad was almost born at sea and they were gonna name him Barradine that would have been the worst thing possible I would think. [laughs].
LD: Anyway if we can get, we’ll sort out all the other stuff afterwards, but like I said I, I read up on you a bit and you’re really a local boy aren’t you from what I read you were born in Goulburn and grew up in Queanbeyan is that right?
LWG: Yes that’s true, if you go back far enough, I’ve had a very complicated life really and I suppose if you want to know it all of course it’ll come out anyway not that it’s anything to be ashamed of. My dad was a policeman and I was born in Goulburn because there was no hospital, you could be born in Australia in 1923 closer than my grand my mother’s mother and father lived in Goulburn so they took me over to Goulburn to live.
LD: Oh so your parents were actually living in Queanbeyan?
LWG: No, oh no, in those days I’ll tell you where, I was born and my dad was then, I told you he was a policeman, that’s where you stay and move on as you get promoted and so on. I was born when they were at a place called Daysdale you would have never have heard of that it’s near Corowa, that’s New South Wales. And from them he went to, er, now let me think where did we go to Leyton, from Daysdale to Leeton to Jellico [?] which is south of there as well, Jellico [?] to Culcairn, Culcairn we went then from Culcairn to Crookwell, Crookwell to Kuma, Kuma[?] to Queanbeyan, and there I finished my schooling by riding a bike from the police station in Queanbeyan to Civey [?] every day. And got the leaving certificate.
LD: That’s a good long ride every morning.
LWG: It used to take us thirty five minutes and we’d be hanging on behind a bus [laughs] or a truck used to sit on. Do you know Queanbeyan?
LD: Yes.
LWG: Do you know where you cross the road there’s a bridge, a bridge side and so on we used to hang on there because there’s a downhill.
LD: Yes.
RG: Yes.
LWG: So that means if you took off from there you got your speed up quickly on your bike.
RG: Indeed.
LWG: And then we used to sit on sit on in behind Quadlings bike, you ever head of Quadlings?
RG: No, no.
LWG: Well they owned it, anyway he used to hate us doing that he used to look in his rear vision mirror. We went to school the four of us, two in, I had a great mate called Freddie Greentree, I don’t know whether you know Greentree’s Café, Queanbeyan?
RG: No.
LD: Mmm, a long time ago aye.
LWG: Oh yes everything’s a long time ago now.
LD: Yes.
LWG: We used to sit up the top there and as the bus came down, down, going downhill we’d peddle like mad get behind the bus and you’d catch your wheel right up the back you know and then means you’re in the draw of the bus —
RG: Yep you’re in the slipstream.
LWG: And of course eventually the ultimate did happen it wasn’t me, but Freddie hit the back and it threw him off and broke his leg and things such as that. There’s so much that you know you, I can talk about which goes through my mind which will be useless in a sense although that presents you the sort of person to you.
LD: Well that’s exactly it and this background kind of really is important because it shows the kind of you know the, it’s shows the people who are behind all this you know, you’re not just a pilot there’s a person behind this and you know and it’s important I think. Anyway what kind of work did you do, did you work before you joined the Air Force or did you join directly from school?
LWG: Er, well I suppose waiting for, well work I suppose, ‘cos then war had started then, and my brother was, I was born into a wonderful family in actual fact. My eldest brother was R. R. Gray and I don’t know whether you remember the name if you ever got a refund from the tax department it would have been signed by R. R. Gray.
RG: Okay.
LWG: I don’t suppose it rings a bill, but anyway Ron he became a deputy commissioner of in Sydney, but he was in records section in the tax department so as I came up to the end of the schooling of course he got me in at the tax department.
RG: Oh okay.
LWG: So I joined that and I was working there for oh how long was I there? Six months or something like that.
RG: Was it in Canberra or in Sydney?
LWG: Here.
RG: In Canberra here.
LWG: I was a despatch clerk and that meant I licked the stamps [laughs], and I used to get have them [unclear] was always bleeding [laughs] and mother used to go [unclear]
LD: They didn’t get you a little sponge? [laughs]
LWG: Well they did and I thought that’s ridiculous because that have you ever tasted the sponge when you, you know you’ve got a sheet of stamps, you’re not sending one letter out you’re sending out so they [unclear] got their share of it. [laughs] So I was there for about six months when I and next big thing that happened is I turned eighteen, ‘cos I wanted, I always wanted to fly aeroplanes of course. And when I was eighteen I got my dad to walk me down to the oh the town clerk in town in Queanbeyan and joined up there and they, I had a, eventually had a medical, a big medical down in Sydney, Palmer and Pluckett Streets [?] you’re making me think way back a long time now of course, but if you want to get a format of what I’m about you probably need to know these things.
RG: It helps, it all adds up.
LWG: And I passed the test there, that was one hell of a test incidentally. Always tell the story about the way they tested you Palmer and Pluckett Streets down in Woolamaloo, if you know Woolamaloo?
RG: I do I was in the Navy I was a guard and I —
LWG: Were you? Good.
RG: So I know Woolamaloo well.
LWG: What were you doing in?
RG: I was in weapons electronics.
LWG: Ah.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: Did you have an association with Harmon?
RG: No, never got posted to Harmon no, no, no, never got posted to either of those.
LWG: They put Harmon in whilst I was, we were in Queanbeyan incidentally.
RG: Ah it would have done ‘cos it was during the war wasn’t it, the early stages of the war yeah that’s right.
LWG: We used to have a lot of sailors coming in —
RG: Villconnan Transmitting Station [?] as well —
LWG: Villconnan was receiving, I’ve forgotten which one was receiving —
RG: Bombshore was receiving I think that was transmitting Villconnan yeah, yeah.
LWG: So.
RG: So medical was seemed a bit rigorous —
LWG: They did it down at Plank Street in Sydney, I remember I was there all day walking around with underpants, I can’t remember whether we did, I didn’t think we had underpants in those days [laughs] all day.
RG: You said the hearing the test, you said the way they tested the hearing —
LWG: Oh yeah that was, that was corny, I even laughed because everything was very serious you know, they put you in a, open a door and I stood there as everyone else was ‘cos there was a queue and there was a bloke standing at the far end of that room with the door, the window open and all the noise was coming from Woolamaloo, Woolamaloo then was a busy place is still is.
RG: Yeah absolutely.
LWG: It was busy because not because of trucks it was busy because of horses drawing the feed.
RG: Ah.
LD: Ah, ah.
RG: Yep.
LWG: And there was a lot of noise you know cracking of whips and all sorts, so it was unbelievable hearing test and the bloke at the window would say twenty-two [whisper] he’d whisper it, [laughs], and I would say twenty-two. [laughs]
RG: Very scientific. [laughs]
LWG: I remember on one occasion I should have [unclear] and he said, ‘Speak up I can’t hear you.’ [Raucous laughter]
LD: Funny.
LWG: It’s funny that, that I did a lot during the war but I’ve lived with it ever since incidentally you never got away from it because every time I put my head on pillow I’m thinking about the war or part some part of it ‘cos I was always in it, and a bit unusual as well because I turned eighteen and immediately I was called up into the Army.
RG: Right okay.
LWG: Because when I joined up with the, they accepted me into the Air Force incidentally except there was a ten months waiting list and did the whole thing but in the course of that they called me into the Army and I ended up being the defenders of Sydney ‘cos I was up on North Head.
RG: What unit were you with, sort of militia unit or?
LWG: 110th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment.
RG: Right okay.
LD: I’m sorry but just for the tape for the future they had conscription in Australia then?
LWG: Yes, yes.
LD: Just to be clear for the record that’s all.
RG: Yeah, yeah. So sorry North Head did you say?
LWG: North Head. Actually I had to be trained of course and so on.
RG: What were you doing in the battery?
LWG: Gunner—
RG: [unclear] or something.
LWG: Now actually it suited me because it was to do with the air because it was a Bofors Gun, do you know what a Bofors Gun is?
RG: Yes yeah, we had a lot of those on the ships, same guns hardly changed still using them into the ‘80’s yeah.
LWG: Well I went this 110th Light Anti-Aircraft tour of duties, and they took me first in the Army, took me first to the showground where I got my Army hat and uniform which is a story in itself, to get the uniform they used to, they had a big long counter and there were blokes there serving, serving you with your uniform and they didn’t come up to the measuring tape or something, he’d say, ‘Oh he’s a thirty-six’ or whatever.’ I remember I the first weekend after getting my uniform they gave us that weekend off and thought that was strange wasn’t it gave you a weekend’s leave which means I came back to Queanbeyan changed trains at Goulburn and we got here late, well early in the morning, my folks were still in bed and I used to creep in, did this a number of times. So on this occasion creeped in and knocked on the door and folks were still in bed, I walked in and my mother looked at me and she cried and she said, ‘What have they done to you?’ ‘Cos I could walk with the uniform they gave me and I put it on I could walk in that take three steps before it moved, before it started moving. [laughter] Sounds stupid but it was a fact.
RG: Oh yeah, yeah.
LWG: And of course she spent the whole weekend, which is of course why they gave us leave, she spent the weekend with the sewing machine sewing the uniform. [laughs] Unbelievable.
RG: So where did you go for your training with the Army, you were kitted out at the showground?
LWG: There was, you know where the racecourse is?
RG: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: Well next to that was another racecourse do you know what that was?
RG: No.
LWG: Kensington.
RG: Ah.
LWG: Kensington Racecourse and they’d taken that over by the Army so they took us to Kensington Racecourse where this regiment was. I was a gunner I wasn’t a private I was a gunner.
RG: A gunner yes artillery yeah.
LWG: [unclear] All that’s incidentally, I’m in a mess I understand that, most of that though is because, um, I don’t know how to take all this, if you want to, wanting I’ll be talk, telling, giving my story for the UA.
LD: Oh yes.
RG: Oh yes.
LWG: You know the UA? Military and they’d been interviewing me about that and I thought that’s how you came by —
RG: Ah it might have been actually, it might have been someone through UA yeah, yeah.
LWG: Could have been. Anyway they’ve been doing a lot of research on my history, anyway to quickly go over the top of it they trained us in, Percy Lamb, Percy was at school with me, he also did the riding to Cirry [?] and so on, and Freddie Greentree did, there was four of us used to do that, and he was called up the same time as I was and we both went into this Bofor Gun regiment, and ‘cos I’ve got to think back about all these things.
RG: So you did your initial training at with —
LWG: We went in mainly with a lot of old blokes and so on, some were young, and Freddie, and Freddie Greentree and myself stood out in one particular way we could read and write.
LD: Ah yes, yes.
LWG: Most old people couldn’t read and a lot of them anyway.
LD: Yes we’ve heard that before.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: Which is amazing isn’t it.
RG: It is actually.
LWG: Because of that he and I picked things up quickly, Freddie and I, and because we did and the Army we found was completely useless they were learning themselves ‘cos was early in the war, and Freddie and I eventually became, no not Freddie, Percy Lamb.
RG: Percy yeah.
LWG: Freddie Greentree, not Freddie Greentree, Percy Lamb, Percy and I. Percy and I became well we were best friends anyway, he was a bigger man Percy than I was I’ve always been a little squirt as they call it, and eventually we became bombardiers which is equivalent of corporal and we became instructors.
RG: ‘Cos how long would have you been in the Army by then for God’s sake not long?
LWG: Not very long no. I think I was only I can’t remember how long about six months I think.
RG: Oh wow.
LWG: And I’ve got a huge ringing in my ears ‘cos we ended up eventually in North Head, and you know what’s up in North Head?
RG: There’s a quarantine station.
LWG: Right on the head was a big coastal —
RG: Oh battery, coastal battery.
LWG: What was that —
RG: Nine point two inch I think they had.
LWG: Nine point something.
RG: Nine point two yeah, yeah, big, they were a bloody big gun those ones yeah.
LWG: Ah.
RG: I doubt they were naval guns.
LWG: And we didn’t know it in that we put in our Bofor Gun we established it there and put a bag —
RG: Sandbag.
LWG: Sandbag.
RG: Yep.
LWG: Protection around it filled it with the stuff which we were levelling the garden, the heads, and we built this high protection around it, now what was I gonna say about that?
RG: What, what your ears.
LWG: They had to shoot eventually, they shot, can’t remember if it was one or two, if you stand beside a big gun and they put a shell in it ‘cos you know how it’s done I suppose or may be longer and then they shoot it, we’d just finished building this wall around our Bofor Gun, knocking it down and putting it in place by bricks you know, and we’d worked pretty hard on that levelled it off and so on, and it shot once or twice I can’t remember, once or twice now, but you could watch the shell come out of the end of the big gun, oh it came up out of the ground it was on a lift and we didn’t know we had that, I didn’t know.
RG: Bit of a shock when it fired.
LWG: So we were there it just said that we were having a shoot today and the next thing you saw was this blasted big thing and they shot it and to my surprise we stood just beside it and, and to my surprise you could see the shell come out of the end of the bow and you could watch it all the way, and we could see them taking a tug boat —
RG: For the target.
LWG: The target, splashed in the water didn’t hit it, it was close but it hit the water, but this huge concussion.
RG: Concussion.
LWG: And both my ears are screaming now and can’t do anything about it.
RG: Didn’t put you out for aircrew service at all though?
LWG: I didn’t tell them about that.
RG: I thought that might have been the case. [laughs]
LWG: [unclear]
RG: Oh yeah they’d have knocked you back on that wouldn’t they. Did it ever cause you any problems with you know communication with the aircraft with the headsets?
LWG: Well I came through that.
LD: So once you left the Army ‘cos my little record says that basically you were discharged from the Army and you joined the Air Force the next day —
LWG: Well that’s the work we just waved goodbye they didn’t want us to go, and they promised us we’d become sergeants immediately [laughter] and they were going to send us to officers training.
RG: Oh okay.
LWG: That’s Percy and myself.
RG: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: ‘Cos we were —
RG: ‘Cos you were educated.
LWG: In actual fact we were a week there, in the [unclear] we couldn’t comprehend most other kids couldn’t read or write.
RG: Yeah we interviewed a bloke in Wogga [?] a couple of weeks ago and he said exactly the same thing that, that the guys he was in with in the Army most of them were illiterate yeah, yeah, he was in the Army first as well.
GWG: Illiterate sounds a bad word but it wasn’t their fault.
RG: No, no.
LWG: [unclear]
RG: Yes, yes, absolutely.
LD: So once you joined the Air Force did you, did you go to an ITS immediately, or did you have to wait for that to happen, or how did that work?
LWG: We were up in North Head protecting Sydney. [laughs]
LD: Trying to hit the targets pulled by tug boat.
LWG: Gosh I’ve gotta think back so far, ‘cos the Army was unbelievable —
LD: Doesn’t matter if you can’t remember.
LWG: Mmm?
LD: Doesn’t matter if you can’t remember it’s a long time ago.
LWG: Oh yeah but it was very interesting. I gave a list of towns where I’ve lived and at this stage, the first I’d been in the way of travel was the place which is five miles in distance and a million miles from Care [?], do you know where that is?
RG: No.
LWG: That’s Manley.
RG: Oh of course yes.
LD: Yes of course.
LWG: And we had gone, my family and I, had gone to Manley a number of times and so we knew about Manley, and so whilst I was up on the Head incidentally we went up there just at the time when the submarines came into.
RG: Yes, yes, yes.
LWG: Into Sydney Harbour, and so everyone was on edge then.
RG: Do you remember —
LWG: We had, we were a group that went was servicing that Bofor Gun of course but we only had one rifle amongst us and we only had one clip of bullets so you had to be precious with those.
RG: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: And I don’t know whether, I used to get as scared as hell so did the rest of us because North Head is populated by thousands probably of bandicoots and at night of course you’d be on duty minding the gun on your own and you’d hear this rustling and we were expecting the Japanese at this stage.
LD: Yes, well when you had the Japanese fleet of subs in the harbour, yeah.
LWG: And um,
RG: It’s probably lucky you only had five bullets or there’d been a lot of dead bandicoots. [laughs]
LWG: There certainly would have been, when you hear guns going off all night because —
RG: There’s all the shooting down in the harbour itself wasn’t there.
LWG: Well we know what was happening there it was all of us up there on North Head.
RG: Oh really okay yeah you’re centuries firing at —
LWG: Oh well yeah they get nervous.
RG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
LWG: There was one bloke, we were in tents, there was one bloke there I can’t remember his name, late at night he’d all of sudden sit upright and scream his head off and that used to put you on edge. [laughs]
RG: So so when you say the Air Force came back and said we want you, so where did you do your initial Air Force training?
LWG: At Greatfield Park [?] we went in there.
RG: Oh yes yeah.
LWG: We went in there I think it was course thirty-two.
LD: That’s the same as Burt Adams.
RG: Yeah but,
LWG: Adam?
RG: Burt Adams, navigator, he’s the chap out at Wogga we interviewed a couple of weeks ago he was in thirty-two course as well.
LWG: Really.
RG: Yeah, yeah, pretty sure it was thirty-two.
LD: He said he started off in thirty-two until he became ill.
RG: He had a bad run he got appendicitis and got taken off the course and put on the next course and then and then he got put on the next one and you know yeah he had a bit of a rough trot on that.
LD: But he started on thirty-two course.
LWG: Ah. Well it’s interesting every time I went to a new place or moved on as we did I immediately joined forces with a special bloke and each time was fortunate enough to, to hook up as very close mates, we weren’t gay and all that sort of garbage, I don’t understand that.
RG: I think this happened in the services I did the same thing you’d join a new ship and you’d always be beaten and there’d be one bloke who’d was your special oppo and often he would be posted away to a different ships or whatever and you’d probably never see them again but you’d find someone else who’d be yeah.
LWG: We were all together for quite some time and he’s in the War Museum over here incidentally his story.
RG: Who’s that?
LWG: Colin Flockhart [?].
RG: Flossard?
LWG: Flockhart.
RG: Flockhart.
LWG: Colin Flockhart. His sister is a resident here.
RG: Oh okay.
LWG: Allison Aitken, she’s, she married —
LD: Is Colin still with us?
LWG: Colin no, he was killed, I think most of the blokes, my close friends were, would build up as we moved on of course we all went over you know that’ll come out in due course.
LD: So was Percy in the same, was he in 32 Course with you as well?
LWG: Yeah.
LD: Oh good.
LWG: But he did, he, we went to Bradfield Park, Bradfield Park was an ITS they called it an Initial Training School and you couldn’t I personally at school I did use to reasonably well at school I always had the ambition of being top of every class I always came second.
LD: That’s pretty good still.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: What was I gonna say then, ah, I hooked up with when I went to ITS, the first bloke I met was this Colin Flockhart, and we became great mates he was a wonderful fella and he would have been one of those blokes that was always coming first, [laughs], but he and I followed one another over to England sadly he was killed over, oh, it’s really is becoming dull this day. That’s my diary lets have that.
RG: Yeah sure.
LWG: This incidentally is a cover, we all bought one of those ‘cos there was one of the ground staff was making these.
RG: Oh.
LWG: She would walk around all these people who had got this book, we all bought one and it’s done its work ‘cos it protected the book.
RG: Yeah, yeah, [unclear] was sitting there —
LWG: Now what was I going to tell you, what was I —
LD: You were saying —
LWG: Oh this has got a list of everything you need to know here, what I flew, where I was, that’s all the places I was at, and you can have a look at that if you like.
RG: Yes I will thank you.
LWG: ‘Cos I need glasses on.
RG: Yeah.
LD: Bill did you do any of your training overseas, you know some people were sent to places like Canada and Rhodesia and stuff to do their training?
LWG: No, let’s catch up, we did split in this course, some went elsewhere and so on, but that’ll tell you where I went. The first place was —
RG: Temora [?].
LD: Temora [?].
LWG: Yeah once we got out of ITS that was Bradfield Park we went to Temora [?], [unclear] that was —
LD: Yeah but, yeah there’s a —
LWG: That was Avro Ansoms.
LD: Yeah there’s a bunker there still a communications bunker, a World War Two communications bunker there still.
LWG: I wouldn’t be surprised.
LD: That place on the coast yeah.
RG: South Australia?
LD: Oh no I’m not.
LWG: That’s South Australia.
RG: You’re thinking of someplace else.
LD: Maraputa [?].
RG: Maraputa [?] you’re thinking of.
LD: Yeah sorry.
LWG: I got my wings in Mallala [?] went to Temora first after Bradfield Park, then went to Temora.
RG: Was Temora was for single engine flying or and then multi engine at Mallala?
LWG: No that, they were Tiger Moths.
RG: So single engine.
LWG: Yeah single engine.
RG: Yeah, Temora, so Mallala that —
LWG: Mallala was Avro Ansoms, we were going, we all wanted to fly Spitfires.
RG: Of course yeah.
LD: They had other uses for those Spitfires —
LWG: But in actual fact one would discover when you got to England wasn’t the Spitfire that won the war it was the Hurricane.
RG: The Hurricane yeah, yeah.
LWG: Hurricane was much more adaptable.
RG: Spitfires had the glory though didn’t they?
LWG: Oh god yeah they had a new one out every couple of weeks and so on.
RG: A good looking aircraft.
LWG: Mmm?
RG: A good looking aircraft.
LWG: Oh yes, well they won that race.
RG: Yeah they did, yeah.
LWG: England to Australia, fascinating.
LD: Bill did you have any trouble qualifying as a pilot did you pass everything easily and you said you always liked to try to come first?
LWG: Not easy no, this was something new, it was, I’d only been, I always wanted to be I tell you what I always wanted to be I wanted to be when I was early life I wanted to be firstly I wanted to be a lion tamer.
LD: Of course. [laughs]
LWG: Lion tamer where did I go from there, [laughs].
LD: A lion tamer to flying a Lancaster it’s a bit of a leap isn’t it?
LWG: Actually I learnt a lot lion taming it was good, I had an, we had an Alsatian dog we used to put him on the, on a chain and put the chain on the clothes line and he would chase up and down, used to make a hell of a lot of noise.
LD: Oh yes, yes, yes.
LWG: But he was a lovely dog and I used to tame him I used to crack I had a whip, crack it and he’d look at me with [unclear] but anyway I wanted to be a lion tamer, but then I always wanted to be a pilot wanted to fly used to read books [unclear] have you ever heard of that.
LD: No.
LWG: So I always wanted to be a pilot.
LD: Well that’s good that you were then.
LWG: And the first flight I had we were at Crookwell, I think it was Crookwell, and someone came in with a DH type of aircraft and [unclear] well the pilot came in, came in and was talking my dad he wanted to take people for joy rides but dad being the policeman there he had to give his permission and he, the pilot was pulling out his [unclear] I’d like to had a trip and the pilot there was talking to my father used me as the lever [laughs] so eventually —
RG: How old were you then do you reckon?
LWG: Six or something like that, it was a De Havilland landed about three miles out of Crookwell and he agreed to take my mother, and my brother I think Ron, anyway I think four of us went up in this aircraft we got into a bit of a cabin it had a hole in the back I remember through that I could see the pilot I didn’t see much of the ground ‘cos I was watching him I remember, but anyway that was my first trip in an aeroplane thought it was wonderful. Then I used to build up, my big job in the home was cutting the wood and in those days you didn’t cut, you didn’t get a little box and I used to position them so as I could sit in the middle of them, that had wings on so on and I used to fly that. [laughs]
LD: The dog may have been quite relieved about this change in vocation I think?
LWG: Who’s that?
LD: The dog he may have been a bit relieved about the change in vocation.
LWG: Oh it was a lovely dog.
RG: So just going back to the training, so Temora first, then Mallala —
LWG: Mallala we got our wings at Mallala.
RG: And that was Ansoms yes?
LWG: Avro Ansoms yeah. Do you remember you won’t remember any of this, during whilst we were there or it was just before we got to Mallala, a bloke was I don’t know whether it was a Mallala either, but he was in an Ansom and another aeroplane landed on top of him.
RG: That was at Wogga or here in [unclear].
LWG: Yes it was here —
RG: Funny the top one the crew on the bottom were killed —
LWG: A photograph —
RG: And the top guy —
LWG: He landed them both together —
RG: But he had the engines on the bottom one ‘cos his engines stopped and he used his control surfaces and they gave him his wings and they damn well should have. [laughs]
LD: I’ve seen a photograph of that it’s just unbelievable.
RG: I think it was Wogga or here in Quinty.
LWG: Here in Quinty it was singles.
RG: Ah it must have been Wogga then or may be Temora. So that was the end of your flying training?
LWG: Oh no, gosh no.
RG: In Australia I mean.
LWG: That’s getting your wings, we got our wings of Mallala and I’ve got photo of that there was about sixty of us came out on this Course 32 and you had, I don’t know but I don’t remember how many hours we’d had when we got our wings and then they brought us back to Sydney or took us or sent us home and then took us to Bradfield Park again. Bradfield Park, we weren’t there very long but then they took us down to the harbour put us on the “Mount Vernon” [?] I think it was the name of the ship.
RG: Yes, yes, “Mount Vernon”.
LWG: That’ll tell you because it’s got a better memory than I have, that left we didn’t know where we were going, they told us we were going, of course all this was happening at the time the Japanese were —
RG: Yeah ‘cos this was the —
LWG: It was twelfth —
RG: 12th August ’43, even had U-boats down here at that point.
LWG: Oh yeah. They bunged us into this “Mount Vernon” used to be called the “Old Washington” it was an American ship and you always know when you are in, in with the Yanks, they used to have one thing they always be doing and say over the tanoy, ‘Now here this.’
RG: Yeah, they still do it. [laughs]
LWG: Do they.
RG: They still do it, they do though yeah.
LWG: This is Jo. Come in Jo.
Jo: Oh hello you’re busy I’ll come back later.
LWG: Alright I shall see you a little later on, okay sweetheart, thanks. She’s upstairs lovely girl yeah, she become, she was great friend of my wife’s.
LD: Ah that’s good.
RG: So “Mount Vernon” where did you go?
LWG: Ah “Mount Vernon”, they put us in the “Mount Vernon” we thought we were going to go north but instead of turning left they turned right, and we were on for a fortnight roughly I think —
RG: Ah yeah exactly fourteen days.
LWG: Took us over to San Francisco.
LD: So did you go via New Zealand?
LWG: Ah in that direction but no we didn’t stop.
LD: Okay, so you stopped, so you —
LWG: Went direct to America yeah.
LD: Okay, and, and you —
LWG: And they took us from the boat.
LD: San Francisco.
LWG: We passed out of [unclear] watch him — [laughs]
LD: He couldn’t swim over.
RG: I couldn’t swim anyway [laughs], I never even passed my swimming test in the Navy believe it or not but I still got to warrant officer anyway.
LWG: They put us on to a, on to a train at San Francisco we were on that for how long?
RG: Four days.
LWG: Four or five days.
RG: Yes.
LWG: Took us across America.
LD: These the Pullman carriages.
LWG: Yeah, Negro, there was one Negro waiter on each carriage. We were always we couldn’t understand how they used to treat the Negros, I couldn’t understand the Negros that they formed big battalions out here there were lots of them, you’d think that the way they used to treat them they wouldn’t force them to become soldiers.
RG: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: Anyway they took us we went as far as Massachusetts, I think it was Massachusetts this Camp Miles Standish [?]
LD: Ah that’s where Ken went.
LWG: That was an embarkation place not far from Boston and we were there for some time. Ah —
LD: Was it in the winter when you were there?
LWG: We were only there for —
RG: No it’s summer, summer, August.
LWG: Summer.
RG: Actually you were there for a while you were there for —
LWG: I was there for six weeks.
RG: Yeah, yeah, you left on October more ten weeks or so.
LWG: Colin Flockhart, who was my great friend we were together all this time of course, and we parted there because we were supposed to be there for ten days I think and eventually we were there for —
RG: It was about ten weeks.
LWG: Ten weeks.
RG: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: ‘Cos every time they were going to move the next day some of them would come up with an injection they gave us to test us, we had, one of the blokes got scarlet fever so we all had to be tested.
RG: Yeah.
LD: Yes ‘cos it’s so contagious.
LWG: I was a positive which meant that I had come in contact with it apparently this is what they told us. Colin Flockhart hadn’t he didn’t get the red dot.
RG: So he got moved out first.
LWG: So he went out first, he, he came over on the “Aquitania” I think it was.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: But we went down eventually they put us on to, went into this room in trucks, huge room, big pavilion and had doors on it and I didn’t catch on at the time, none of us did didn’t know where the hell we were they didn’t tell us, but it proved to be the side of the “Queen Mary”.
RG: Ah.
LD: Ah.
LWG: It was against the wharf and all the blokes were [unclear] and there were, I don’t know how many there were of us about a hundred I suppose, but there was sixteen thousand Yanks going on there as well.
RG: A huge number of troops.
LWG: And all the activity was there and they put us in this room and when we got in there I thought it was a big building I’d gone into it proved to be this ship.
RG: “The Queen Mary”.
LWG: They put us somewhere downstairs wherever it was and it sailed out, we passed the Statue of Liberty and so on, didn’t tell us where we going all that sort of thing.
RG: Did you sail in convoy or unescorted?
LWG: We were going in convoy.
RG: Right okay.
LWG: But the convoys speed was four knots that was open to U-boats and so on so as soon as we got passed the Statue of Liberty I remember “Queen Mary” we took off.
RG: Yeah she did thirty odd knots.
LWG: Yeah, altogether different.
RG: Did they, ‘cos we had Lucy’s uncle was a tail gunner who was killed and but he went over on the “Queen Mary” was the “Queen Mary” wasn’t it?
LD: “Elizabeth”
RG: “Elizabeth” but they used them as anti-submarine lookouts, did they do that with you guys at all?
LWG: [unclear]
RG: As anti-submarine lookouts they used them, they used the airmen as lookouts for periscopes and submarines and so forth.
LWG: Oh no.
RG: No they didn’t do that with you guys.
LD: Was the ship very crowded?
LWG: Yeah there were sixteen thousand Yanks on it.
LD: Were you guys hot bunking?
LWG: Hot, hot —
LD: Hot bunking no.
LWG: What’s that?
LD: I have heard of you know basically that the ships were so crowded that at times you know basically people would leave the bunks somebody else just comes into it directly that there weren’t enough bunks for people to have separately.
LWG: Oh no, actually I think on the “Queen Mary” I think we, we laid down on the ground, we were down like the fourth, we were underneath the water level anyway. And they kept you busy by putting you in a queue, you had to queue, join the queue you’d find the end of the queue and you’d spend all day going around for your meals.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: It used to take that long. And we were on it for five days.
RG: It doesn’t say here actually how long you were on the “Queen Mary” but it would have been about four days or so, five days.
LWG: Yeah, we went to Liverpool I think.
LD: You arrived in Liverpool, and where, and before you actually sent to an ITU and everything where did you stay?
LWG: You should be able to tell me, we all went to the same place when we got to Liverpool —
LD: I’ve heard Brighton or Bournemouth.
LWG: They put us on a boat, a train and took us down to Brighton.
LD: You went to Brighton —
LWG: And Colin Flockhart was there, he had the bed next to him reserved. [laughs]
RG: They put you in one of those hotels in the seafront?
LWG: “The Grand Hotel” I started the other one was “The Metropole”.
RG: “Metropole” yeah.
LD: That’s where Ken stayed “The Metropole”.
LWG: I didn’t get “The Metropole” until later on I went into “The Grand”. And incidentally when we got our wings we all became sergeants except one he happened to be the, his name was Tom Hughes, he was the grandchild of, er —
RG: Not Billy Hughes?
LWG: The premier, the prime minster.
RG: Billy Hughes.
LD: No the present —
LWG: The prime minister, what’s his name?
RG: The president?
LWG: Yes the president.
RG: Oh, oh, oh Turnbull.
LWG: Turnbull yes.
RG: Ah this is Great Britain, oh okay.
LWG: You go back you find, and he incidentally he obviously came from a special family because he was the only one amongst us all —
RG: Who got a commission.
LWG: Got a commission. [laughs] And he never ate with us either what’s more he used to when we were being trained at Mallala, I remembered you’d see him occasionally during the course of the day but he didn’t chase the mice and so on like the rest of us did.
RG: So he just kept himself away.
LWG: He always stayed in a hotel.
LD: Oh.
LWG: And that’s not I’m up to belittling I wouldn’t have minded doing it myself.
RG: Oh no, but you know yeah.
LWG: But then he was favoured he came with us in the boat to, the boats as well, but he, he came on, he broke away from where I was he went over on the “Aquitania” sent to Britain, England.
RG: Then from Brighton you went on to somewhere in Wales, 29 AFTS, Griff Pidard?
LWG: Clyffe Pypard.
LD: So what OTU was that?
RG: That’s 29 AFTS.
LWG: Didn’t do anything, I remember I taxied a Tiger Moth somewhere, Colin Flockhart had to hang on to the wing if I remember, but we, we then had to be, things started to move of course and we had to wait for our opportunities, we had a lot to learn. We had to learn to fly but by the time I could fly a Tiger Moth before the Avro Ansom which was [unclear] they’d been civilian training if you like just to how to fly an aeroplane used to have to learn to fly a little bit more than what they taught.
RG: So at 29 AFTS did you, what did you fly there was it Oxfords?
LWG: I went on to, eventually I went on to oh what’s the name?
RG: Oxford?
LWG: Yeah, Morris Oxford, not a Morris Oxford.
LD: That’s a car. [laughs]
LWG: It’s got another name, something Oxford, the Oxford and it was a very nice aircraft and a little bit more elite than the Avro Ansom.
RG: Was it a twin engine?
LWG: Twin yeah,.
RG: Twin yeah.
LWG: Oh we were destined for bombers then, well we were when we finished at Mallala in actual fact, I don’t know of anyone who went on to Tigers.
RG: Coastal Command?
LWG: And I’m thinking about it these days I’m pleased they, that’s, that was playing with toys compared with what we were doing.
RG: Yeah, yeah absolutely. So was this the Oxford at, that was in Wales wasn’t it Clyffe Pypard?
LWG: Clyffe Pipard, er well it was all, I never actually knew I knew where the pubs were [laughs] I don’t well that’s about the only time we didn’t know anyone and you’re kept busy, the amazing thing is and they didn’t say this when I went to Bradfield Park, we, we had to do air frames and learn about aeroplanes and the air and wings and all that sort of thing, but god that was the best schooling you’ll ever get, they started, the first thing they did they got us all in we all had to write out our wills, because that’s was happening of course everyone, and all the blokes, Colin Flockhart, and all the others [unclear] and the fact that I wasn’t touch wood about that I suppose that’s plain fortunate.
RG: And then?
LWG: Anywhere where are we up to?
RG: Well that was 29 AFTS and then it says here you went back to Brighton for a while only about three weeks in Brighton, and then you went on to 23 AHU at Hednesford.
LWG: At where?
RG: Hednesford.
LWG: Hednesford. Oh we were, there we, there we split up, Colin Flockhart he went on and I had to wait, they took me and, this is all [unclear] Actually I’ve had someone else doing my story and I ought to just give you that because I did all the research for that, that’s the third eye that’s —
RG: Mmm. It would be good to get hold of that but —
LWG: Anyway —
RG: So AHU is it?
LWG: We went from the Oxford which was a nice aircraft to fly but it was still a training type of aircraft and then ah, then we went on to Wellingtons. Where we were when we got —
RG: It said here you went from to Brighton to Hednesford, Hednesford and then to Wheaton Aston 21 AFU.
LWG: What’s after that?
RG: And then after that is reserve flight at Purton, and then ATU, 30 ATU at Hixon.
LWG: It must have been Hixon where I, I think where I was when we got our crew.
LD: Yes I was wondering about that crewing up experience.
RG: You must have done that before you got on to the Wellingtons.
LWG: It’s all so long ago now.
LD: Excuse me Bill where’s the toilet?
LWG: Oh yes sorry, in there third door shut there that’s the toilet.
LD: Thank you.
LWG: Or if you’d rather be more further away from us you go into that bedroom down there, be right there I think. There’s a light switch on your left hand side.
LD: Thank you.
RG: So would have crewed up for the Wellington though wouldn’t you?
LWG: Yeah now, we’ve got to guess the stage how I got my crew was interesting, er, let’s have that.
RG: Yeah sure.
LWG: Get my glasses what did I do with them?
RG: I did see them actually, there we are.
LWG: I’ve got them there have I?
RG: Oh no there’s a pair there, there broken ones.
LWG: Well you can help me.
LD: How?
LWG: My glasses, there probably in the bathroom are they?
LD: Oh okay I’ll have a look.
LWG: What have I done with them probably in my darn pocket.
LD: Not in the bathroom.
LWG: Oh it’s all right.
RG: In your pocket? [laughs]
LWG: There’s the aircraft I flew.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: Oxfords, we went on to Wellingtons, then we were on to Lancs, then on the Lancaster Mark 2 that had radial engines, then eventually we ended up with that got on to the Mark 3, 4, 5 I think.
RG: They had the Merlins didn’t they?
LWG: And they were Merlins a lot of difference mainly because the 2 the Lanc 2 had the Hercules and that was radial so it was good next to the ground.
RG: But not high at altitude.
LWG: Not high.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: But the 2’s with the Merlin engines lovely aeroplane, it was a lovely aeroplane, but the Merlin was wonderful as well the Merlin.
RG: Your crew was it a mixed RAF, RAAF, RCAF?
LWG: Yeah.
RG: Did you have one crew all the way through Bill or did it, did you?
LWG: Am not sure about that mainly the navigator was, I got my first navigator and towards [unclear] We all got to, no it must have been, confused where was I when we got our?
RG: It doesn’t matter Bill when you got the crew it will be in here anyway.
LWG: Give me my thoughts though, slow down.
RG: Do you want that open page again with the —
LWG: I’d be lost without this thing. Should have done my own research shouldn’t I?
RG: Ah. [looking through book]
LWG: Ah 30 ATU Hixon we were Staffordshire, and I started off with one, two, three, four, five crew.
RG: That’s a crew for a Wellington isn’t it five?
LWG: Yeah we were at Hixon and they, I’ve forgotten how many there were of us I think there might have been twelve, twelve pilots, twelve navigators and so on, and put us all in a room together ridiculous, and said [unclear]. Met another great mate his name was a nickname of course his name was Danny because his name was Daniel Carne and I think one thing that was outstanding was that he was, he had been a professional snooker player.
RG: Ahh, he’d have been handy in the pubs [laughs]
LWG: Yeah, I loved snooker as well not as though I was all that good then, but he used to use me as the wall that is he’d bounce off me because, we, he and I met one another in the snooker room of course.
RG: Right yeah.
LWG: And we both had a game and he’d say you can break so I would break and then he’d sink them all.
RG: Clear the table [laughs], so he was in your crew was he your first crew?
LWG: He was just like another bloke I met later on who was a cricketer, Keith Miller, Keith Miller, he just looked like Keith Miller slicked back hair.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: And he and I became great mates and I was always having to put up with him and his girlfriends because he attracted all the girls.
RG: Yes.
LWG: You know and so on. But he was a great bloke we got to know one another very well over the snooker table he taught me how to play snooker properly and so on and —
RG: So crewing up you just in that room and you just found —
LWG: Well they put us in there were twelve pilots as I was saying all the ones along, and they said, ‘Right oh sort yourselves out into crews.’ Which I thought was ridiculous, and I said to Danny I said, ‘This is ridiculous come on we’ll go have a game of snooker.’ And we did, he said ‘Good idea.’ And we went next door away from this group that were all milling around trying to make friends and so on which was just plain ridiculous, and after a while there was a knock on the door and what anyway, well there’d be twelve blokes came in and they had formed themselves into the crews but they needed a pilot, they said ‘We’re looking for a pilot, two pilots.’ So we, I said ‘Well.’ To Danny I said, ‘Well god this that’ll suit us I suppose so we’ll toss.’ [laughs] And I tossed and that way I got my crew and he got the others, and I had one, two, three, four, five people, one of them was an older bloke, Sergeant Lake he was to be the navigator and he didn’t want to go to war his wife didn’t want him to go to war and he had a lot of trouble.
LD: Yes.
LWG: Eventually the crew came up, he came with us and we started training and so on and he showed his true form and the crew came up to me one day and said, ‘We’ve had enough of George I think your let’s see if we can find another navigator.’ So I asked the CO whoever it was because we’d been doing a bit of work together, I said, ‘I think we’ve [unclear] a problem.’ I thought, he said, ‘Oh you’re lucky we’ve got another navigator here who’s looking for a crew.’ His name was Steve Tinkler and was Steve Tinkler navigator, Steve Tinkler, pas de deux [?] because he’d already done one —
RG: One tour.
LWG: One, what used to be called?
RG: One tour of operation.
LWG: Tour yeah, and he wore glasses, proved to be a bit of a drunk used to have to put him together [unclear] [laughs] He was a great bloke, but he was older, and he was a genius.
RG: Was he AAF or RAF?
LWG: He was RAF, he came from Ireland, lovely bloke had glasses, and mumbled a bit and so on, but he was, he proved to be, he was great with G, you know what G is?
RG: Yep, yep.
LWG: He used to be able to, he got that down to a fine art and now you should be able to turn here because you’ll turn onto the runway or something he was so good —
RG: Precise.
LWG: Advanced, and I was lucky to get him. So he did another tour with us twenty-four he finished his second tour, and then I got another —
RG: So when you say he was older he was only a couple of years older?
LWG: Yeah, but he was, oh he would have been in his forties may be I suppose.
RG: Oh he was in his forties okay.
LWG: Could have been, I never asked, I never asked him. And I remember we’d just changed and I got another, there was another bloke on Mildenhall Station looking for a new crew he was an Indian, Stanley Berry and he’d done some, I’d forgotten how many he’d done, he might have done six or seven or whatever it was trips himself with somebody, with somebody else and I lost him eventually not didn’t lose he did his twenty-four, and we went on our, I remember when he left we went to, where did we go where we went missing? That’ll all come out anyway. That’s the time we got lost at Stockholm, got caught in a storm and we were reported as missing they lost contact with us and so on, and Steve Tinkler was getting nervous ‘cos he used to listen to what was happening and they weren’t hearing from me and they were trying to contact someone, so they assumed we’d been shot down so he gathered all the gear and he robbed my wardrobe I remember and he’d gone didn’t want to wait, he’d gone by the time we got back and I lost contact with him then.
LD: Were you able to get your belongings back?
LWG: Ah, I didn’t know what he’d took he’d ransacked the thing, that was a terrible thing you know he and I, he was a great bloke, I used to put him to bed every night because he’d, he’d go into the mess and drinking he used to put twelve whiskeys on the table and he’d drink and then I’d grab him and take him home and put him to bed.
RG: Twelve whiskeys that’s reasonable enough yeah. So, so he was your first navigator or the first one was the chap who wasn’t up to it.
LWG: First one was George Lake.
RG: Yeah, and then —
LWG: Oh, George we eventually dropped him and he joined another crew and in actual fact my crew didn’t tell me about this until later on.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: He followed us with another crew and was shot down the first —
RG: First trip?
LWG: The first trip.
RG: So how many trips did you do?
LWG: Twenty-nine.
RG: Twenty-nine.
LD: And was that all with 15 Squadron?
LWG: Yeah.
LD: Yeah. And they were all in Lancasters?
LWG: Oh yeah.
LD: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: I, I, we did which is unusual, we did, I did more daylights than —
RG: Oh okay.
LD: Right.
LWG: I did some which day trips, I had, I was good at formation flying and stuff, and I always believed first I was leading the squadron, then on a couple of occasions I led the whole raid, we used to do that in formation.
RG: Any particular trips stand out for you?
LWG: Oh yeah, there all here, one was the one I just mentioned where we got lost which will come up in due course.
LD: So were you with that trip where you got lost over Stockholm were you able to get back to Britain or did you go down over Europe?
LWG: No well I got back, we lost contact. We were chased by [unclear] lights, runway lights going on and off we was at, we were within, right up here, Heligoland, terrible weather and so on we recorded. Anyway we got back and I didn’t, I hadn’t, we’d been chased by the Germans of course and I kept quiet and I was over, we got back to the squadron before they knew I was, that we were coming back, anyway that’ll all come out one way or another. Er, so long ago now really dragged us back, that’s why you’d be better probably taking what —
RG: Well look we will do that, we will take it them as well, yeah.
LWG: Later on. You can see that, can you see that one —
RG: On the top there?
LWG: Yeah.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: They haven’t put it into a book form yet there doing that.
LD: ‘Cos we can copy that and return it to you.
LWG: Well you can do that, but there, there’s a few things that I want to change in there although definitely take them, I don’t like to lose contact with these things.
LD: Oh no I understand that entirely absolutely.
RG: Oh yeah this is lovely.
LWG: There’s a few things that I want to change in there anyway but more or less that tells you about what I’m telling you now.
LD: So were you or any of your crew injured during your ops?
LWG: Not to [unclear] the aircraft [unclear] we used to bring it back US and so on flak and whatever, but no we, none of us actually came to any harm in the air.
LD: Fortunate with that. Did you, were you was the aircraft ever so injured that you know you were damaged that you were coming back on one or two engines that kind of thing?
LWG: Oh yeah. Never did I have to come back on one or two for that matter, come back you’d lose an engine but usually you’d lose them for other reasons. You’re always being attacked of course and had holes all over you and so on and they’d have to patch it up, but I was lucky we didn’t get hit personally but the aircraft was many times.
LD: Were you more concerned about doing the daylight raids then the night time raids or did that not make much difference for you?
LWG: Oh they were both difficult if because leading the raid for instance you had to make a lot of decisions it wasn’t all according to orders and you had to make decisions and so on. We used to be going up and the Yanks were coming back in daylight, and at night time one of the big things that was always pretty difficult and you’re always being shot at and all that sort of thing, but at night time was like they draw the curtains down because everything was in the dark you didn’t have lights on.
LD: The time that you got lost over Stockholm, ‘cos I haven’t, I had heard that you know Stockholm didn’t have blackouts were you able, you said there was a bad storm, were you able to see any lights in Sweden to help you navigate home?
LWG: We was very lucky as a matter of fact because we were lost well and truly, the navigational equipment, like G and all that sort of thing went US and we lost our way and we were in, it was a bad storm that they hadn’t predicted. They sent five of us there to, what were we doing? Oh we were mine laying and we had to find exactly where we were to drop the mines in the right spot it was in this area of the water that the Germans were using all the time and we had to be certain of what we were doing, and everything went US with the aircraft when I took off. ‘Cos they sent in, they sent a hundred I think it was a hundred off as a diversion, for the five of us and I was sent from 15 Squadron the others came from different squadrons and the five of us were the ones that were doing, what they were looking for was to drop these mines, ‘cos the Germans were moving their ships with stores and so on up to Caterech [?] and so on up to Russian.
RG: You see right up in the Baltic, it was in the Baltic.
LWG: And we ran into, to start with, we left, we ran into this storm and it was very thick they were flying blind as we used to say and G and so on didn’t work when you got anywhere near Germany ‘cos they used to jam all that. And we got lost and, what happened, how did I do this, I decided to go low ‘cos we’d been doing that from probably twenty thousand feet or something, and so I dived down broke, broke cloud and I was over a big city with all the lights on.
RG: So you were over Sweden?
LWG: Yeah we were over, oh what’s the name?
RG: Stockholm
LWG: Stockholm yeah, and we thought that was so and it proved to be that but we’d been blown a long way out of our area and so on running short of fuel, on the way back everyone else had gone home because they’d sent a hundred over Heligoland to side track the Germans.
RG: Yeah.
LWG: And, oh god what happened, as I was flying back towards England it started to clear and I could see the ground well you couldn’t see the ground ‘cos it was dark and so on, but we did come back over an area where I knew there were Germans had night fighters and so on, and I noticed just in front of me the lights came on and go off which meant that was one coming one of the fighters being sent off, that happened six times when I thought I’m gonna have to do something now so I thought well I’m going to do the opposite of what they would do and as blind as I am I’ll get down on the deck. I couldn’t see the deck at all ‘cos it was dark but guessed the best area as far as the height was concerned the altimeter told me that and as I was flying over these lights kept going on they came on six times and they’d sent six fighters off and they didn’t catch up with me until I could see the searchlights in England.
RG: Right.
LWG: When one attacked —
RG: Were you still down low at that point?
LWG: No well I was lowish but I wasn’t real low. I didn’t you couldn’t tell it was just black you couldn’t tell how high you were and my altimeter I’d never [unclear] you couldn’t read it because of the storm the barometer changed.
RG: Ah massive change to the air pressure, yep. So you were —
LWG: Anyway I started and I had to do what they used to call a corkscrew so and I was good at doing I used to teach them how to do the corkscrew, that meant you didn’t do things finally you had to be in desperate situations and I used to teach that to the rest of crew in 15 Squadron, got a few bods coming along ‘cos they all did the same thing corkscrew was something that would help them out of trouble. Anyway we were doing that and I threw them off into the dark and I must have been flying a hundred feet at that stage ‘cos you couldn’t see the ground it was a bit of a worry, but eventually we came through that and ‘cos we were something like an hour late or something they’d written us off.
RG: You must have been dead low on fuel?
LWG: Yeah.
RG: If you were an hour late.
LWG: Yes we were.
LD: Were you able to land at your at Mildenhall or did you have to land elsewhere?
LWG: That’s where Steve or John, ‘cos we’d been described as missing.
RG: Did you ever have to come down in another field, another airfield?
LWG: Yeah. I remember coming down once on a Yankeedrome, they had, oh let me, what was the name of the aircraft they were flying?
RG: A 710, Liberator, Liberator?
LWG: You what?
RG: The Liberator.
LWG: Liberator, Liberator. And we had to be diverted once and we landed there, we all looked like a bunch of kids incidentally, and they grouped around us when we got to that place and we went into the bar and they were saying, ‘There only bloody kids.’
RG: Were they, were they older though?
LWG: Oh yeah, no they were all older blokes.
RG: Oh okay.
LWG: Oh interesting, we landed there and they were trying to work out what they would do with us anyway one of them offered to show me one of the Liberators and we went over and they used to carry cookies as you know, used to carry about twenty thousand pounds of bombs huge [unclear], and we went and had a look at these Liberators, and they said, ‘come and have a tour bombed up ready to go.’ [telephone ringing in background]
LD: So do you remember carrying the tall boys or the grand slams.
LWG: No, no we didn’t do that. Well they were using them because they wanted to penetrate the pens at Heligoland but they never did it you know. Oh incidentally, I remember leading the crew and I had to position the formation and we were, what was it, three thousand [unclear] daylight, we went to Heligoland and, oh god, I’ll have to study my old book again to find out what we did.
LD: So when you finished your tour Bill —
LWG: I didn’t finish a tour.
LD: You didn’t?
LWG: No.
LD: Oh okay.
LWG: They called the war off. [laughs]
RG: How, how, how many were you expected to do in a tour?
LWG: Thirty.
RG: Thirty okay. You know if that varied over —
LWG: It was automatic but all things went through but thirty was the deal. We all wanted to do that ‘cos the whole crew wanted to do that ‘cos we were senior people at that stage.
LD: So when they called the war off were you involved in missions over Europe you know dropping food and bring POW’s back and so on?
LWG: Yeah we dropped some food, actually we dropped food because I, they gave me the job of flying over our drome where we were to find out what height we should do it from.
LD: Oh yes, yes.
LWG: And I did that for them but I never actually, did I drop, I might have done one trip with food otherwise I did a number of trips on bringing prisoners of war back.
LD: Right okay.
LWG: Used to go to a place called Reims and oh this is a bit of tale might tell you a little later on. Used to go to Reims.
RG: Where were you when, what’s your memory of VE Day what was, what happened to you on VE Day when they called the war off do you remember how you thought about it or what you did?
LWG: What did I think, well you were relieved, but I didn’t throw my hat in the air and those sort of things. I was very involved at the end on Mildenhall, but no what they did is they just pulled the sheet from underneath your feet and you were of no use to anybody from then on you had to find your own way. Poms wanted us to go back to redress the country and so on, British were good, some of the Australians were bad, a lot of idiots amongst them as well.
LD: So were you involved with Tiger Force, or the preparations for Tiger Force were you involved in that in any way?
LWG: Oh no I think no, trying to think what was they called the ones supposed to deal with used to go pick up drop a flare?
RG: Oh Pathfinders.
LWG: Pathfinders. I wasn’t in the Pathfinder group but I was doing their work for them.
LD: Oh okay. What sort of work were you doing for them?
LWG: Just leading, we used to be in front of everybody.
LD: Oh okay.
LWG: I remember Pathfinders, I was leading I’ve forgotten which troop that was towards the end anyway I was, had everyone formatting on me and five of these Pathfinders came up and they took a wrong turn I think we bombed as a consequence I heard later on we bombed a prisoner of war camp or something, I’d forgotten about that.
LD: Yeah.
LWG: 5 Group were supposedly the elite of the bombing group but they got the pick of the troops.
RG: Pick of the crews and so forth yeah.
LD: When you were doing the day time raids you must have been involved with some precision bombing were you?
LWG: Precision.
LD: Yes.
LWG: Well none of it was haphazard I can tell you that. [laughs]
LD: Some of it was perhaps more precision than others, but were you involved in any particular raids for very special targets?
LWG: Well they were all special targets. Oh yeah, we used to go out in hundred or two hundred lots and so on and, oh, if you didn’t of course you‘d have Gerrys all over you share the weight a bit, and they were firing those oh what is they called, the V2’s, V1’s.
RG: Was you involved in the raids at Pienemunde at all?
LWG: Pienemunde.
RG: Did you do those at all?
LWG: Yeah I think I was on Pienemunde I forgot.
RG: It’ll be in here in the log —
LWG: No we knew Pienemunde, we, I can’t remember, we certainly did it whether I was on airstrips or not now, but that’s why that books important to me, forgetting things.
RG: Yeah.
LD: It’s not surprising it’s all so long ago. So once they called the war off were you, did it take long for you to get back to Australia or were you floating around Britain for a while wondering what to do?
LWG: No I was, took us back to Brighton.
LD: Yeah.
LWG: And we were lost souls then, no we were there for some time, came back on the, what was the name of the ship, I went through it around the world.
RG: “Stirling Castle”.
LWG: “Stirling Castle” yeah. Came back through the Suez.
LD: Had a bit of a Cooks tour didn’t you?
LWG: Yeah all the way round.
RG: And you did do a Cooks tour of Germany the cities after war I know it’s in here in your log you did one of the Cooks tour trips after the war.
LWG: What’s it got in there?
RG: You did Operation Exodus ones which was the prisoners, and a Cooks tour of Germany from your base at Dover to —
LWG: Yeah I was, I was a senior bod in Mildenhall and we were given the opportunity of taking the ground staff and aircrew around anywhere we wanted to go in Germany and that we called a Cooks tour, Baedeker and yes we did that. I did that in fact it was interesting, Molly and I, Molly was my wife, Molly and I went back to England and we took a trip down the Rhine. [telephone ringing] Excuse me I’ve got to take this. She’s took over from my accountancy I built up in Batumba [?], she was my secretary.
LD: I was wondering what you did after the war?
LWG: Another story altogether.
LD: Did you have trouble finding work when you came back?
LWG: Oh well, that’s a different story you’ll find that I’ve had a very full life one way or another, it didn’t stop with the war anyway.
RG: Well I’m just going to photograph your log book page by page so we’ve just got a record of that if that’s all right?
LWG: Yeah I think that’s all right. I didn’t make any extra secret thoughts or anything like that in the corner I just used to, I was too young, didn’t realise what I should have done, because I had an actually an amazing story to tell, can’t do it now forget things, and my brother Ron comes into that and oh lot of things happened during my life.
RG: Did Ron serve during the war as well?
LWG: No wouldn’t let him go, he, he became the commissioner of —
RG: Oh he was a reserved occupation.
LWG: Yeah, he was very wise, he used, he had signed your refund cheques [laughs] but that was not a big deal.
RG: I was always going to get a refund cheque.
LD: So when you came back to Australia if you became an accountant you must have gone back to study is that right?
LWG: Yeah, um, I have to think about this, I was working in the tax department when I turned eighteen, when I turned eighteen I was called into the Army and I had joined up into the Air Force, and after the ten months when I got into a course and started and when I came back I was still acceptable, pardon me, to the tax.
LD: Yes, yes.
LWG: But I had to do my studies which I did mainly by teaching myself, asked for all the accountancy work and they told me, oh when I came back I was a very sick boy I ended up spending totally six years in Concord Hospital I got a bad touch of the flu in London, got sick, got pleurisy, I was sick when they brought me home in the boat, and I spent six years in Concord Hospital.
LD: Oh my lord.
LWG: In three goes. And eventually they sacked me if you like or whatever, and in the meantime I had studied accountancy and I passed that and got qualified as an accountant here in theory and I was called back to the tax department and I came back here and Ron told me that you’ll never get anywhere if you came to Katumba to Canberra so we’ll send you down to Sydney, so I went down to the tax department in Sydney, so what street was that? Elizabeth Street.
LD: Yes.
LWG: And I was there for years and till eventually I got sick and I was gonna die and all sorts of things because I contacted tuberculosis, so I was in hospital for six years about and they told me I’d never work again.
LD: Oh right, yeah.
LWG: Eventually they, um, now what do I do with this, anyway I decided I would try for work, oh I got married [laughs].
LD: I figured Molly came into it somewhere.
LWG: Yeah I married Molly she was my nurse at Concord Hospital.
LD: Oh that’s so sweet.
LWG: Yeah she was a beauty. So she spent her time nursing me there which I, and I got to the stage where I was getting well, she was myself actually, until I was told they couldn’t do anymore for me anyway and we decided to get married which we did and I decided. They said the best thing you could do is get up in the mountains clean air and so on.
LD: Yes, yes.
LWG: I’d been the yardstick in sense for people in Concord, I got onto a lot of equipment and I refused they wanted to take my lungs out and all sorts of things.
LD: Oh.
LWG: I refused on that we decided we’d try and right it ourselves and we did eventually.
LD: That was probably a good decision.
LWG: I taught myself to, I had got the infection up here on my right lobe, I taught myself they said you’ll never, I had a haemorrhage, they said they’ll never cure that because you can’t stop yourself from moving it, so despite the fact you had to stop moving using that the only way we can do that is take your lung out.
LD: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: I saw what that meant and I saw people getting around despite this because they took all your ribs out, so I said no I’ll do it myself, took me a year, I controlled my ribs sitting very I used to get them to force me to use my stomach.
LD: Yes
LWG: And the lower lobes kept this one as steady as I could.
LD: Goodness
LWG: And it took me a year and they said, took me, you know those scans, ever had a scan?
LD: Yes, yes, I have indeed.
LWG: I had the first scan it was brought to Concord, and they used me as a guinea pig, and they put me in a room all by myself, near the hospital labs, heard this thing clanking, getting closer, and closer and closer and trying out a lot of bad stuff whatever. Wasn’t even aware of that, I became a guinea pig. Anyway after a year they said that cavity has healed itself, the best thing you can do is get up in the mountains so Molly and I got married we went up to live in Katumba [?].
LD: Oh that’s remarkable —
LWG: The best thing I ever did —
LD: Remarkable tenacity.
LWG: Beg your pardon.
LD: Remarkable tenacity.
LWG: And I hung my shield up took me six months to get my first customer basically built up the biggest accounting practice in the mountains and eventually, I had a wonderful secretary, in fact she just rang me, she took over I gave her the practice, she got her accountancy qualifications and she’s running the practice now, she rings me up every day if she’s got a problem, it was her she rang earlier.
LD: Oh that’s wonderful. Did you and Molly have, well yes you obviously had children you spoke to me about them.
LWG: Two children, boy and a girl.
LD: Do they live nearby?
LWG: One lives in [unclear] and Janet is [unclear]
LD: Oh that’s good.
LWG: And they’ve both got kids and so on so it’s all gone rather well.
LD: It’s a remarkable life you’ve led you know, especially this you know this section in Bomber Command you know you said when you went to the American base they were surprised how young you were you know when you look at those bomber crews they were you know they were —
LWG: Well we were only kids we hadn’t done anything in life.
LD: Yeah, I look at my son sometimes, my youngest son you know and I can’t even imagine him doing that, I just I can’t wrap my head around the level of you know skill and —
RG: Responsibility.
LD: Yeah amazing responsibility involved with lads that was so young it’s, it’s a remarkable thing that you all did it really is and yeah it’s, it’s you know.
LWG: There were thousands of us doing it of course.
LD: Yeah, it is important that it is remembered and acknowledged, it’s very important.
LWG: Of course the Yanks were a different thing altogether, interesting the Yanks do things better than we do, Australians I’ve got no time for in total sense, not real smart.
RG: Us Australians?
LWG: Yeah.
RG: Yeah I agreed.
LWG: The Poms were good but they had sense and did it according to oil, if you know what I mean by that because they do things according to what they were told and —
RG: What they were supposed to do.
LWG: The Yanks were different altogether they were freelancers, oh yeah they would do everything because they would pay for it number one, they wouldn’t do it on the yardstick they’d do it properly and I admired the Yanks they were great in their way. The Poms were good, the Australians they were caught short.
RG: Sloppy is that what you mean.
LWG: Yeah, not that they weren’t sincere and so on they were doing that but I don’t know how you’d describe it.
RG: Cut corners a bit or?
LWG: No they certainly weren’t better. The Poms showed us how to do it, the Yanks would do it, and in between the Australians towed it along and that wasn’t wrong. Incidentally Colin Flockhart he was killed and Rolly Wall was and everybody was killed around I was lucky and that not to be killed.
LD: What happened to your friend Percy, your school friend Percy?
LWG: We finished, they wanted us to stay in the Army because what I told you everyone, most of the people we went in with couldn’t read or write and which means they were taken from an area there was nothing wrong with them in a sense but they wanted us to stay. Used to do stupid things they weren’t Australians are good but not the ants pants that we think we are.
RG: Take unnecessary risks?
LWG: Oh?
RG: Take unnecessary risks?
LWG: Oh no, no, oh some of them might have done that no I didn’t mean it that way no, I’ll get into areas where I’m very critical. The worst thing I decided to do was to move out of Katumba and come here to Canberra and I keep saying oh what a terrible place this is, and it’s not the place the city of Canberra’s wonderful but it is, it has everything here just the people who live in it I’m sorry I’m not throwing this at you but I wouldn’t give you five bob and the rest of my family live here and their part of the deal, this working as a public servant is for the [unclear] not for real people in my book, well you can see the decisions they make, or don’t make, or shouldn’t make.
RG: Well Bill thanks a lot, you know, we’ve got a lot of good stuff. Your, you’re a Knight of the Order of Leopold, Belgium.
LWG: I saw you turn that up.
RG: Sorry,
LWG: No —
RG: Yeah, yeah, I photographed the yeah it’s here a Knight of, when did you receive that the Knighthood from the Belgium, the Belgium Knighthood?
LWG: There was two of us on 15 Squadron well he might have been on 622 there was another squadron and he did twenty-nine the same as I did and the routine was that at thirty you got the DFC and so on, he and I only got to do twenty-nine and the CO said that I’m handicapped here because the routine is you know thirty, and I didn’t do thirty I only did twenty-nine, succeeded twenty-nine. So, and they gave me, what’s it called?
RG: It’s the Chevalier —
LWG: Chevalier, Order of Leopold.
RG: Yeah something like that.
LD: The Belgium Croix de Guerre.
LWG: Croix de Guerre yeah.
RG: Order of Leopold, Croix de Guerre with palm [?] It’s in relation to Croix de Guerre 1940 for courage and bravery da, da, da.
LD: And the Belgium Knight of the Order of Leopold.
LWG: Where did you get that from?
LD: The Internet Bill, the internet you’re famous. [laughs]
LWG: No I’m not. It’s interesting the DFC was, I was ready to, I hated the tax of course didn’t like public service but I suppose I lost my faith in human nature when I see what happens in public service in Sydney I got fed up of that. So I applied to and they were advertising for TAA so I got called up for TAA, but because of my health problem I got called into the Concord Hospital at the same time.
LD: So did you ever fly as a civilian pilot?
LWG: Yeah a little bit you might have—
RG: Yeah a little bit there’s a stuff about Cessna’s and things.
LWG: Things didn’t stop there but I was part owner of a Tiger, what did we buy, a Tiger Moth.
RG: All right.
LWG: I never [background noise] down here you can look there and you see you know where Seven Cross is there’s a big store —
RG: A big tower —
LWG: A big tower beside it, if you imagine that as cloud just looks like exactly like the cloud that was over when I landed on and I landed on Woodbridge, we had to break cloud I had to dive into this and then I came underneath ‘cos underneath that was an area where you could see ground and I broke cloud underneath and as I was coming down there was a Flying Fortress coming straight for me, how we missed one another I’ll never know, he crashed they were killed they were all burnt to death I suppose ‘cos they were burnt, I managed to stay within this little cell, what did I do, anyway a very hazardous trip doing steep turns, I only had three or was it two engines or something I’ve forgotten now, yeah this plane was coming straight for me and I flew it down and we just missed one another, they told me to taxi up the end of the runway when I got down.
RG: So you came down with FIDO on that one?
LWG: Yeah, FIDO had the cloud, that was what —
RG: Oh that was what —
LWG: FIDO had pushed everything up and gave you this little area if you could get in to it.
RG: So they’d done that to get you down?
LWG: Oh no not only me.
RG: And the rest of the stream.
LWG: There was I think three or four then, a lot of the aerodromes had FIDO we didn’t have it Mildenhall.
RG: I think Bert said they didn’t have it at Waddington as well.
LD: That’s right yeah.
LWG: As soon as we landed they had to sell the aircraft put us straight into a bus and drove us out of there to get us away from the place took us straight all the way back to Mildenhall.
RG: Woodbridge did you say Woodbridge yeah?
LWG: There was three I think the other two I can’t remember their names but Woodbridge was the one that was operating that day. I could see it, I could see it for miles in front of me ‘cos I was above cloud and there was this tower and that’s why —
RG: Oh I see pushed the cloud up —
LWG: Yeah.
RG: Ah okay.
LWG: Just looked if you —
RG: Yeah, yeah.
LWG: You see that you can imagine that as being a cloud —
RG: So it was a beacon as well as —
LWG: Well it was because it was daylight, well it forced all of the air up until it looked like —
RG: A tower.
LWG: A three story building and it just looks like that.
RG: Wow.
LWG: And I, what I did I found I aimed for the bottom of it and broke into that area and it was clear only in that area.
RG: Yeah it would have been quite small actually you’d have been doing really tight turns.
LWG: Doing steep turns all the time.
RG: Did you have any trouble the last chap we interviewed he finished his tour and was sent to training command at Wigsley and he said one night they had a couple of MM110 night fighters came back with the bomber streams in ’45 and couldn’t do anything they peeled off when they got into England they attacked Wigsley and they attacked Waddington. Did you ever have any problems with intruders coming back into the after a raid back into the —
LWG: What day or night?
RG: Night.
LWG: No I don’t think that happened I think he’s having you on, we certainly didn’t run into that, but then at the same time we were running into late in the, in the war itself as I said when the war finished I was still on squadron we were going and picking POW’s and bringing them back. We went to Reims.
RG: You had an overnight stopover in Reims didn’t you on one trip?
LWG: Yeah, and we went somewhere, we went to café we had no money and the Yanks saw us to that they’d shout us, we went out we were looking for somewhere, it came dark it was night and we couldn’t find any, what did we do, we had landed at a place called, that’ll tell me, Juvincourt, Juvincourt, [?] that’s right and there were two hundred aeroplanes sitting on this drome we decided as a crew, we decided oh let’s go out and we’ll hitchhike into Reims, ‘cos they told us Reims wasn’t far away which we did, and I think a Yank pulled up in one of his jeeps and we all hopped on and when we got in there we found that was full of Yanks it was evening, so we went into, had no money or nothing, went into a a French café I suppose it was a café it was interesting there was a big huge marquee tent you see which I associate with that and we went and got into this café or whatever it was and the Yanks were in there and they shouted at us ‘cos we had no money and so on and we came out of there and we wondered what we’d do, oh, I suppose I should show you that, I’ll take it —
RG: Put that back on the cradle —
LWG: I’ll show you, I only brought that one through there more or less, I’m lying because I got caught in a landslide.
RG: Oh
LWG: Down near Wellington.
LD: Oh, that’s enough to make you lay.
LWG: They want to take my legs off told them no.
RG: [whispers] Turn it off.
LD: Oh sorry
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AGrayLW170301
Title
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Interview with Bill Gray
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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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:06:45 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Rob Gray
Lucy Davidson
Date
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2017-03-01
Description
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Bill Gray was born and grew up in Australia and volunteered for the Air Force. After training, he flew 29 operations as an air gunner with 15 squadron from RAF Mildenhall. He returned to Australia after the war but contracted tuberculosis. He was hospitalised for six years, during that time he studied as an accountant, and met and married Molly who had nursed him at the hospital. After recovering he opened his own accountancy practice which he ran until his retirement.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
15 Squadron
3 Group
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
crewing up
FIDO
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Hixon
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Woodbridge
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/329/3489/PSmithNG1701.1.jpg
4468b6f3352faded13c6188715151f2b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/329/3489/ASmithNG161203.2.mp3
7eaf605fe11d56646d7146cefca804e4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Smith, Norman George
Norman Smith
Norman G Smith
N G Smith
N Smith
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview and a video interview with Norman George Smith (b. 1924, 427226 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew 10 operations as a pilot on 463 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-03
Rights
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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
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Smith, NG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RB: Now Norman have you got any questions for me?
NS: No, not really.
RB: Okay, well I’ll read this interview heading that I’ve got and then perhaps answer any questions you might have. This is an interview being conducted by the International Bomber Command Centre, and I am Ron Baron and I’m talking to Norman George Smith.
NS: That’s right, correct.
RB: And I’m in Western Australia, and also present is Kathy, Norman’s daughter, the date is 3rd December, 2016.
NS: Correct.
RB: Now can you tell me where you were born and when you were born?
NS: 1924, er, in Perth, then spent a bit of time Armadale afterwards.
RB: Right, can you tell me a little bit about your family, your parents, brothers and sisters?
NS: Roy my brother was the next one down, then had sisters, two sisters.
RB: And their names?
NS: Their names [coughs], what the hell were their names, Kathy?
KY: Lynne and Beattie.
NS: And Beattie that’s right, yeah Beattie. Lynne I always forget her.
RB: Lynne and Beattie
NS: She’s named after my mother.
RB: What did your father do what work?
NS: He was what they call a bush boss, he goes into the forest and worked out which trees to fall and made sure that the people picking up trees to take them to landing [unclear] were doing the right thing, picking up the right trees what I suppose had fallen down.
RB: Let’s go on to your schooling now, what age did you start school?
NS: When I was six at Whittaker’s Mill, I just lived about a couple of hundred yards from the school and in Whittaker’s Mill.
RB: And how long were you there at what age did you leave?
NS: That place there would be about eleven, eleven or twelve I think it’d be, and then we went down to Perth, but by this time I’d become a assistant in the timber mill workshop [coughs] and no more school.
RB: You didn’t like school?
NS: Well I wasn’t [unclear], wasn’t too bad at times I suppose but was too much fiddling around.
RB: When you were in the mill what sort of work did you do?
NS: Engineering, and whenever there was a [coughs] trouble in the mill itself at the weekend the engineer and myself as offsider picked up the bearings in the mill and all that sort of thing and we had a pretty good time together.
RB: What sort of wages did you get then, what sort of pay?
NS: Pay?
RB: Yeah.
NS: Oh gosh I’ve forgotten what pay it was but it was pretty good and I remember working at the mill, when I worked in the mill before I went to Perth and it was pretty good. We used to have, sometimes I used to work with the blacksmith and other times they’d be down in the mill itself and do a bit clearing out on the benches.
RB: What sort of hobbies did you have then? Did you enjoy —
NS: Swimming I did a mainly going [unclear] up and down the creeks looking for junies [?] there a sort of a prawn but in the water the white mermaid there only about two inches long, three inches, four inches some the big ones, a bit dirty they’d be about —
RB: Did you eat them? Were they tasty?
NS: Oh yes of course they are yeah, put them in water and boil them up like you do a prawn and there, there just like a prawn that’s all, there in the water, in the rainwater creeks not in the salt.
RB: As you got older did you have any other jobs?
NS: No I don’t think I did really, er none that I, none that I had pay for, might do a bit of self, self, self work, but Roy and I, Roy my brother we’d go off to the bush hunt around for kangaroos and things. Chop a bit of wood on a fallen tree that’s why what happened one day when I went to chop a bit of wood off the end of a tree and instead of hitting the wood straight away I got tangled in a bit of bush the back of the axe and it swung up like that and Roy was standing on the tree and it swung up to him and cut the back of his knee, and had to carry him down to the schoolteacher’s house, the schoolteacher took him away and took him down to Pinjarra to get fixed up, but saved his leg anyway.
RB: When did you become interested in flying?
NS: Oh that’s when I rescued a boy that was in the swimming at the bottom of the falls, out in the middle and he got a cramp but he started to sink and why [unclear] having a bit of a sunbake on the rocks decided so we dived in and grabbed hold of him but he pretty near drowned the two of us, had hold of me around the neck but anyway I got him, got him to the side and he was all right and took him home eventually didn’t seem any, he apologised to me said he was sorry sort of thing. His family reckoned I was pretty good saving him and they invited me down to Perth for holiday that’s when I went down to Perth and the first morning I when I went outside the house had a look out and overlooking the airfield heard the Tiger Moth flying away, suddenly flying away and that’s what I was going to do that’s me fly an aircraft and, er, all the books I’d been reading and monthly magazine learn how to fly a plane and I knew, pretty well knew there and then how to fly the plane and well, well eventually anyway I joined the Air Cadets and well I was going around Air Cadets, Air Cadets in Perth but I was pretty, I was gonna be an aircraft pilot anyway.
RB: When the war came, how old were you when the war started?
NS: Er, I wasn’t, I wasn’t eighteen yet. Eventually I turned eighteen and that’s when I joined the actual Air Force itself that was, that was just after my eighteenth birthday.
RB: Where did you go for your initial training?
NS: Clontarf, that was, no flying but what do you call it an ex school where all the pupils were women and I checked out, waiting for the cleaners to clean up the place, most of the pupils I think had shit on the floor, they cleaned up the place for us anyway and took us in from the tents we were in tents for about a fortnight, took us inside gave us a bedroom.
RB: How long were you there?
NS: Oh, about a month, two months, then we went off to Cunderdin then, where the Tiger Moths were that was what we had after.
RB: What was your first posting then from Clontarf?
NS: Clontarf, after, after, Merredin, yes down to Merredin.
RB: And what did you do there?
NS: That’s where we started to fly planes, and had a pretty good time chasing bloody emus in the planes making out we were gonna shoot them yeah yeah, on the beach firing at people in boats, little boats, make out we were going to shoot ‘em, dive on ‘em —
RB: What sort of aircraft were they?
NS: Tiger Moths, yeah, DH82A, but they were really good planes Tiger Moths.
RB: How long were you there?
NS: Oh, went up, from there we went to Cunderdin where we started really learn how to fly and it was pretty good become pilots eventually had to go to Geraldton, after Geraldton, I, I was up near [unclear] but I came back to Geraldton I knew the place you know, I knew all the corners and all the little, quite a few little huts they had two beds in ‘em, where people should go in when there’s any bombs, bombs coming over, instead of that we were using them as little beds to put the women in while we sort of cuddled up to them.
RB: How did you feel when you first went solo?
NS: I went solo eventually, and by that time I did pretty good because the chap that’s teaching me how to fly and everything apparently I was pretty good on doing the loop de loop, loop de loop, and he used to boast about me to all the other teachers and that in the mess, and I didn’t realise this but he used to keep me pretty near on the same thing all the time and I got fed up with him and complained to [coughs] to the head office. And the chap there he said, ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, ‘Well listen I can’t carry on being learnt anymore about the aircraft so I don’t think I can fly anymore you better take me down off this course.’ And they said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because the bloody teacher there keeps on telling me to do the same thing over and over again.’ And er, anyway they promised me a well they would fix that up, and then they gave me another teacher so okay I settled in quite well and became quite good. But apparently I still had the plane, not the plane the people that looked after me they realised that my first teacher that I wanted to get out of all he was doing was boasting about how I could fly loop de loop and anyway.
RB: And that was still in Tiger Moths?
NS: In Tiger Moths oh yeah, that’s all they had here in Australia at the time.
RB: Did you make any mates while you were there?
NS: Any what?
RB: Any friends, mates?
NS: Oh one or two, Bill, Bill was one, Bill Adam, he was the main one. There was only about one because quite a few of them didn’t come from Western Australia they came from Eastern States, but I got along pretty well the new teachers.
RB: Did you have any troubles there any problems?
NS: No only, only thinking that the Japanese were looking after, tearing after me one night when I was on guard duty and I heard these footsteps, and I said, ‘Okay halt or else I shall fire.’ And this was about three o’clock one morning and I still heard these footsteps so I let go of the rifle and bang, three o’clock in the morning woke the whole school up, and turned out it was aircraft hangars that looked the rooves, the rooves were false never went up to the roof about three or four feet from the roof then up to the roof they had can canvas and of course when the breeze blew it shook the bloody canvas and sounded as though somebody was walking around, and ‘cos I, when I let the rifle go off the CO didn’t like it much not being woken at that time in the morning three o’clock but, er. He said I did the right thing, but at that time it was wrong shooting at that time in the morning waking everybody up, but that was one of the times when I did the right thing but at the wrong time.
RB: When you were at Geraldton did you fly any other aircraft?
NS: Not there, not in Australia, no, no Tiger Moths that’s all we had, and then I got my wings went over to England, over first to America then to England, but got to England that’s when I started on other aircraft to fly.
RB: How did you get, how did you get to the UK from Australia when you were?
NS: By boat, boat to America that was in the coast of America, got that end I went ashore then they took us to an air, a big Air Force base just outside Boston and that’s when I, we were having a meal one day, three of us, three fellas and myself having this meal some ladies next door to us one of them come over and said, ‘You come from Australia?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s right, Australians.’ And she said, ‘Coming from Australia’ She said. ‘How did you learn to talk English?’ It showed you how much they knew about Australia in those days, but as it was I tried to explain to her and away she went she was quite happy about it. But, you can have some fun —
RB: And then you went by ship from the USA to the UK?
NS: Went from USA to America to Australia —
RB: To the UK?
NS: In the UK yeah, and then started doing a bit of flying when we go to the UK.
RB: So what was the first posting in the UK then? What aircraft were you flying? This would be in 1943 when you arrived.
NS: I’m just trying to think what aircraft we were flying then, flying first. Ansons, yeah Ansons that’s right, Anson Bombers we started flying them. And then went produced up that little bit further and started taking [unclear] Ansons, what’s the other ones.
RB: When you got onto your first squadron what squadron was that?
NS: Er, that was 463.
RB: And the aircraft type you flew there?
NS: They, they were, 463 now what were they flying, they were flying, they were flying Stirlings, Stirling aircraft, so we started flying Stirlings and then the next thing we know we were equipped with Lancaster Bombers
RB: And which squadron were you flying with the Lancasters?
NS: ER, 463, and the only time I got changed, when the war finished in Europe because we after 463 to 467 and waited for our ground crew to go out by boat they had to they were going to Japan. Actually we did that we made [unclear] to go out but funnily enough the Yanks dropped their silly little bomb and finished the whole show and there was no more bombing it simmered down.
RB: Did you do any other flights before you came back to the UK?
NS: Oh we, a few times, a few times we got out to Germany and France to pick up ex bomb, ex people that were captured by the Germans.
RB: Prisoners of war?
NS: Prisoners of war you see and taking them home and I put a sign on the side of the aircraft where the door was I decided to tell them welcome aboard curvaceous hostesses about and as soon as they got inside the aircraft they said, ‘Where’s the hostesses?’ I said, ‘You’ll have to put up with that bomb aimer today.’ He was in charge of them all, I hadn’t, I don’t know, working on the Lancasters.
RB: Did you enjoy flying the Lancaster?
NS: Yes, definitely, beautiful plane, it was one of the best planes I’ve ever flown in I reckon, but there’s Boddingtons, oh quite a few different planes, and, but the Lancaster was the best.
RB: When you were flying operations from Waddington did you have any incidents when you were over Germany?
NS: A few times, over Germany, actually ran out of petrol just about one day we were going to get home but ‘cos we went way out of place we went up over one of the didn’t matter what it was some other country up that way that wasn’t in the war and as I was going along I could see these aircraft, not aircraft, bombers big rockets going off and they followed us they were about two mile away at the time and turns about that, I said to the navigator, ‘Look at them because better alter the course’ I said, ‘We’re going the wrong way.’ And anyway after we come over The Channel, he said, ‘We better bale out get everything out and dive down to the North Sea’, and I said, ‘Well I’m not going to do that too bloody cold out there to get under water so I’m going to try and make England.’ And we made it only just not to our home base another aircraft, another aerodrome and the engineer there checked the bloody petrol down, and he said, ‘We shouldn’t have even it was empty, the tank was empty.’ Which means that we just managed to make it, but they filled me up with petrol, and the next couple of days we were there for a couple of days it turned out it was an American place and they treated us pretty well, we charged them a pound each to come round and have a look over the aircraft, we got quite a bit there was a lot of beer bought, all, all our money we had, all of it we got paid, but we spent most of the money on drink, and we’d all had a booze up.
RB: So when you finished bringing the prisoners of war back to the UK you were finished then, when did you get back to Australia?
NS: Well that Christmas, we got after the war finished in Europe we got back to Australia and as I landed all my family were there to welcome me back home. ‘Oh come on, welcome home, welcome home.’ And my dad was the last one he shook hands with me and he said, ‘It’s good to see you home, good luck Norm.’ And he said, ‘But I’ll tell you why, you better not tell me that you’re not, you’re not a boy anymore you’re a man.’ He said, ‘You’re smoking.’ And I said, ‘Yes dad.’ And he said, ‘Well you had to learn that in the Air Force.’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘When I made the cigarettes for you there was five for you and one for me.’ I said, he said, ‘It’s the same with the beer, you used to drink my beer.’ When it was Fosters, Fosters. He said, ‘I allowed you to drink the bottle empty.’ And he said, ‘Pretty good beer wasn’t it?’ I said, ‘Oh yes pretty well.’
RB: So when you left the Air Force what jobs did you have?
NS: Oh crickey, dozens. I went up to [unclear] oh by that time I’d got rid of my wife, I married in England, I married a girl in England before I left and she arrived back in Australia two or three months later. On a boat what they called the bride, the bride ship because all the, all the women on it were brides come out to all the Australian soldiers they’d married and she did mine was the same. I think that she played naughty and one of the [unclear] and went farming and she started playing up a bit till eventually I caught her one night having a naughty with a boyfriend and so I told her that she better come, she told me to go and see her boyfriend and tell him to come for breakfast he’d run away, but he wasn’t running away at all, he just went away, left the place, left his pay behind a fortnight’s pay left that behind, and told her that he’d gone so she come back to me and said would I stop with her and I said, ‘Well okay.’ I said, ‘But don’t expect me to be a good boy a good man to you.’ I said, ‘He’s ruined everything.’ Anyway she put up with me for a bit, had a daughter, looked after young Kathy, Kathy was the youngest one, Kathy was about eight years, about eight years between the kids, and anyway she turned to me one night and had a couple of naughties with me and the next thing I know Kathy arrived.
RB: So now you’re retired and they're looking after you.
NS: Yes.
RB: That’s good.
NS: That’s right.
RB: Yes.
NS: Then Kathy and I went one day to see the ex-wife where she was living with a chap at a farm and she was living with him, and then she goes into hospital and the next thing I know she dies, so that get rid of her. I finally got another woman and finished up marrying her and then she damn well died on me too.
RB: Well Norman thank you very much for talking to me and doing this really appreciate it.
NS: Hopefully I remembered all, my memory is not so good as it used to be but at a hundred and, I’m heading towards a hundred I’m ninety-two years old at the moment, but actually I’m ninety-three in three months, March I turn ninety-three.
RB: Well I do appreciate it and I’m sure they will when we get, we get this back home, thank you very much.
NS: Well if there’s any question you want to know?
RB: I think you’ve covered everything I think you can remember, yeah that’s great I’m going to turn this off now.
NS: Righty oh.
[Background conversation over tea and cake.]
RB: I’m going to put this back on.
KY: Frank were you ever up at Metheringham? Dad was actually at Metheringham in the beginning and then he was sent down to Waddington later but his initial training and flights were in Metheringham.
F: Scampton, and Skellingthorpe all round there.
KY: So that area of Lincolnshire that’s the central area was there other major bases through England?
F: No this was the main base, Bomber Command was divided into several groups, we were 5 Group was we had our own pathfinders and we had the Dambuster squadron, [unclear] we had our own pathfinders and we developed the ground, ground marking of the targets as well, by Cheshire, Wing, Group Captain Cheshire the last six months of the war.
RB: That was with Lancasters again was it?
F: Yes.
RB: Did they use any other aircraft for that?
NS: Er, no, they Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes were used.
RB: Mosquitoes.
NS: Mosquitoes were used extensively by the pathfinders and also for um [unclear]. That was one of the planes I was looking for.
RB: What the Oxford?
NS: Couldn’t remember what plane it was.
RB: Have you still got your log book Frank?
F: Yeah got it here.
RB: Oh okay. So what’s gonna go, go in a museum somewhere.
[General background conversation]
KY: Unfortunately dad has his flying jacket the nice big thick furry lined one — it was left on the farm it was left on the back of the door. Unfortunately it got left there.
RB: That was in December 1944.
NS: That’s right yeah.
RB: Did your flying take the same sort of route that.
F: Much the same.
RB: Start with the Tiger Moth and Anson and Oxford.
F: Oxford, then Wellington, then Stirling, and then Lancasters.
RB: Yeah, yeah.
F: Virtually the same.
NS: Tiger Moth —
F: Great plane, great plane.
[General background conversation]
RB: How did you find the conversion from single engines, to twins, and then to multis?
F: The only single engine was the Tiger Moth that’s all it was very simple to fly.
RB: Yeah Norman says that.
F: But the Anson was quite good the funny bit about the Anson was made by the same people that made the Lancaster, there was still a bit of a fear that when you crossed the fence in a Lancaster there was still the same feeling as the Anson, it was built under the aircraft the same sort of buzz in the same way.
NS: Did you ever fly Stirlings?
F: Oh I flew bloody Stirlings.
NS: Bloody things —
F: Terrible plane, the back of the Stirling was like a big truck, like a big truck with a wing on the top [unclear].
RB: They were just hard to fly were they?
F: No they were terrible things to taxi because you had to have your foot outside foot here and you had to brake as well because to taxi you’ve got to put you’ve got to use your foot and brake at the same time and you just didn’t have enough hands for it, if the wind was blowing — And then you run out the air.
NS: Not enough air.
RB: Oh right, the air always. Did you guys ever bomb in Stirlings?
F: No, no, no, only practice bombing that’s all.
NS: When I was in the Air Force the best place every day was in the officer’s mess [laughs] down a few beers.
F: That’s right yeah. We had a before you start the Stirlings in the morning you had to turn them over by hand because the oil could run down into the sill at the bottom there get a little oil on top if you start it it would blow the cylinder head off all had to be turned over, turned over by hand before you start.
RB: You guys didn’t do that you had ground crew.
F: Funny enough we used to do exactly the same thing with the Shackletons which is a much later aeroplane but based on the —
NS: What still hand start them?
F: No, no, no turn them over because the oil used to collect.
NS: What stay in the bottom?
F: Yeah. We had a rather nasty accident to a nice young little WAAF when we were on Stirlings because the little WAAF’s used to be delivering things around the aerodrome at night in little Ford 10 vans and they got off [unclear] but the girls were not supposed to drive under the aircraft but they found that they could drive under the outside engine of the Stirling ‘cos the engine was very high and keep under it a couple of Lancasters came in one night the girl was three months out of training school and of course in the night you wouldn’t tell the difference between the Stirling and the Lancaster in the dark and she was driving under the outside engine and took the top off her head.
Oooh.
F: Only a kid out of drivers’ school.
KY: My mum was a driver but in the Army and she was English and she grew up in County Durham up in the North, and she was down driving at the same base where dad was, I think there might be a picture in there of mum and couple of others who she was friends with.
[Pause]
NS: There’s a photo taken in 2004 when we went to Coningsby and that’s where Bull Creek no that’s Coningsby, that’s the, that was Mickey the Moocher then. That’s a copy of Frank’s plane, is that right Frank?
F: Yeah.
NS: So that’s the Lanc he used to fly and that’s a replica, they made a replica of it. That’s at Coningsby [coughing] [unclear].
F: About ten or twelve years ago I had a phone call from the secretary of the 56 Squadron asking me did I have a current picture of Mickey the Moocher because on one of the next conversions of the Lancaster they were going to become Mickey the Moocher and they wanted it, I didn’t have any black and white photographs and I went down to the local library and found a Walt Disney book, and I realised Mickey’s, Mickey’s mouth always the same colour, always the same.
NS: Oh yes Walt Disney was amazing.
F: So they converted them, and when we were going to England with [unclear] I rang them up and they said, ‘Yeah come up, come up, come up.’ [unclear] We were walking [unclear].
NS: Is she still alive, and who’s the young fella?
Other: He was the one that was taking us around wasn’t he?
NS: He was the tour guide was he?
Other: After that he was flying.
F: He was flying the old AC4.
NS: So he can fly Lancasters?
F: Oh yes. He was, like we had we sat down, we had a wonderful time, we were allowed to go inside the Lancaster I think if someone could have but today she was only a test flight.
NS: Was it the brand new one.
F: No this is the one at Coningsby the one that flies every year.
NS: There’s only one or two, one in Canada and one in England, is that right Ron?
F: This was the one in Coningsby and you see they change the nose over every four years for various reasons and it just happened that Mickey the Moocher was right over there.
NS: How appropriate was that.
F: We were the only crew that flew the old Mickey.
Other: The young chap there he was the one that flew it afterwards, you know take it over.
NS: No he must be in the Air Force.
Other: We even corresponded.
F: A couple of years or so hoping he would come out to Australia and see us but he never did.
NS: Well Ron, Lincoln was on the news the other night, last night or the night before they had a big show on on TV.
RB: There’s two sections, you’ve got the memorial itself which overlooks Lincoln, and then you’ve got an archive which is actually in the University and the recording is for the archive, and they are hoping to put basically they call it our life story of air crew, Frank and Norman, from the time they were born right the way through flying different types of aeroplanes until they actually flew their Lancs and did the business as it was.
F: So you really haven’t been able to do that?
RB: Not with Frank but I’ve done it with Norman.
NS: You want to ask Frank if he wants to go and do that you genuinely want to write down your name and particulars so I can keep it on my notebook and email if you’ve got an email address.
KY: Frank have you been inside the Lancaster that’s up in Bull Creek Museum.
F: Yeah I’ve been in it but not for a long time no.
KY: We put dad in it about a month ago.
F: Oh yeah.
KY: And there was a lot of climbing over.
[general background conversation]
KY: There were a couple of places where even I struggled to get through and I had to virtually crawl through to get up to sit in his seat.
NS: No they were, they were a difficult aircraft to get out of [unclear] —
F: The pilots we sat on the parachute and we had full hardness, the rear gunner had the same so all the rear gunner had to do was to turn it to a side where and he could do it hydraulic by hand and get about six foot off the ground and open his doors and put his knees and go straight backwards so he could very quickly get out, we used to practice that actually and we’d play catchy catchy when he fell down just for fun. [laughs]
KY: ‘Cos dad said he didn’t remember there being that many things hurdles that he had to get through —
NS: Well you didn’t, you didn’t notice it when you’re twenty years of age.
KY: No I suppose not.
NS: No you’d be bouncing through the air. [laughs]
F: There all, there all parts of the aircraft, other aircraft have the same thing now —
RB: Name and address, website, er email.
NS: So Ron if you, if you want to put this interview together ask Frank if he’d be prepared to go in there on his own and you two talk. What do you think Kath would that be all right? [unclear]. Is that all right Frank?
F: Yeah okay yeah.
NS: ‘Cos otherwise we’re interrupting as, I’ll take it in thee and we can stay out here Kath is that all right? The bomb aimer forgot to put the switch on.
RB: Sorry Norman go on.
NS: The bomb aimer rang me up and told me we were over the target, but we didn’t bomb the target, I said, ‘Why not?’ He said ‘Well I forgot to put the switch on probably. No I didn’t did I’ Made him go back again and have another go. The air officer commanding wasn’t very happy about me doing that because [unclear]. Told me off about it I never did it again.
[general background conversation]
Other: Now Norman’s just told Ron about the time remember I told you in the car, the bomber didn’t release and he had to come back round the stream and redo it? Did that ever happen to you?
F: No I don’t think so.
Other: So the bombs always went off when they were meant to. ‘Cos he got in big trouble and got told off.
NS: I did the wrong thing.
Other: That’s easy to do.
NS: Well we survived.
[general background conversation]
NS: We had two Australians you know.
Other: Well where your two Aussies, yourself and who else?
NS: Warrant officer.
Other: So you were an Aussie and he was an Aussie and the rest were Poms were they?
NS: Yes.
Other: May be that’s what they did back then Frank, just had a couple of Aussies and the rest were Poms. These are all copies of your log book and everything.
NS: Oh yes.
Other: Yeah, they there are, there’s these incendiaries that he dropped. Didn’t you say that you had one of those stuck?
NS: We had one of the big ones, I think it was that one.
Other: The big cookies there. He had one stuck in his bomb bay and you had to do it freehand didn’t you?
NS: [unclear]
Other: Yes, you guys want to stay here, Norman I’ll come back out here with you.
RB: I’ll put your log book back in my bag when you go home, okay.
Other: That was a disaster, never mind. I could get this opportunity now just one on one. [muffled noise]
RB: It won’t take long Frank, just a brief —
Other: Linda could you turn the music off please there just going to do some interviewing.
RB: How do you pronounce your surname Frank?
F: Moritz or can be Morris, MOR ok.
Other: I’ll leave it with you.
RB: Thank you John. Have you got a small table that I can put in front?
Other: Oh for the thing to go on. There you go, turn that around that way.
RB: That’s great thank you.
Other: No worries. Put that aircon on for you?
RB: Are you comfortable.
F: No it’s all right.
RB: No you’re comfortable. No we’re fine John, John we’re fine.
F: Bits about our family Moritz had been in Australia since 1837 actually we were one of the early settlers in various parts and I’ve relatives all over Australia now.
RB: Right.
F: We were part of some Irish family because the original route to come over —
Dublin Core
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ASmithNG161203
Title
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Interview with Norman George Smith
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
Format
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00:55:57 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Ron Barron
Date
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2016-12-03
Description
An account of the resource
Norman George Smith grew up in Western Australia. After leaving school he became an assistant in a timber mill workshop before volunteering for the Australian Air Force at the age of eighteen. He flew operations as a pilot with 463 Squadron from RAF Waddington. He returned back to Australia at the end of the war and recalls how he was welcomed home by his family. He also talks about how his first wife arrived from England, and his subsequent family life.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
463 Squadron
467 Squadron
aircrew
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
pilot
RAF Waddington
Stirling
Tiger Moth
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/96/3368/ACatlingG151121.2.mp3
972a4a544e0f1ef8c50f71fc347f68c4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Catling, Gordon
Gordon Catling
B G Catling
G Catling
B Catling
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Sergeant B Gordon Catling (3005381 Royal Air Force), a poem and a list of 29 operations he completed as a rear gunner with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe during 1944 and 1945.
The collection was been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Gordon Catling and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2015-11-21
2015-12-28
Identifier
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Catling, G
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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SJ: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre my name is Sue Johnstone and the interviewee is Gordon Catling, the interview is taking place at Gordon’s home in Ipswich Suffolk on 21st November 2015. So we are recording now so it’s er just start from the beginning.
GC: Well as I said I was born in Suffolk born in Ipswich and er went to school in Ipswich and when the war broke out I was only er just turned fourteen and er I went to help in my friend’s father’s shop butchers shop I got fed up with that and I put my age up a year when I was fifteen to get a driving licence to drive a motorbike at sixteen the reason was so that I could join the fire service as a despatch rider they didn’t let me join straight away they let me go as a part time messenger boy and then I did finally get in there at the age sixteen at er that was when I was really sixteen I did manage to get in the fire service and I was a despatch rider there until 1943 when I joined the Royal Air Force, I went to ACRC at London from there we went to Bridlington for the ITW then we went on to Bridgnorth for the EATS and from Bridgnorth to Walney Island for the ATS Air Gunner School, I passed out there in er May forty four no forty three, er sorry.
SJ: That’s ok just take your time no rush.
GC: Passed out there in May forty four yes and I went on then to 14 OTU at Market Harborough where I was crewed up with four Canadians and my mid upper gunner who we’d done our training with which give us six of us in the crew for Wellington, we lost our Canadian bomb aimer and then we finally got a British bomb aimer and then from there we finished our training and we went to RAF Scampton er no sorry RAF Swinderby to do our heavy conversion on Stirlings and we met our engineer we finished out we went to Five Lane Finishing School at Syston and then in the October we got posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe which is just outside of Lincoln, um we went on operations after about being there for a couple of weeks they sent us on our first operation um all I can say about it is we were looking forward to it but we were scared.
SJ: Yes
GC: And er one or two things did happen to us when we were doing a tour the first bad thing that happened to us was when we were going to Munich and the route to Munich used to be through Southern France then over the Alps then towards Munich we were flying in F for Freddy and in the middle of the going over the Alps the aircraft lost power and we stalled and of course instead of flying over we flew through them we didn’t carry on the skipper returned to base and we landed at Bardney still with a four thousand pounder on board, the next thing that happened to us was at we were bombing Politz I think Politz [unclear] and as we were leaving the target coming out there was a terrific bang we had been hit by a shell and um the intercom all went everything went the call light in the rear turret just flashed on and off and I thought that was the letter P which means parachute I was just getting myself ready to jump out of the aircraft when the bomb aimer came down and sought to see if I was all right at the end we got back from that all right, the next really bad thing we had was on 1st February 1944 we were briefed upon a placed called Seele[?] and er approximate seven o’clock night when we were just on our bombing run the rear upper gunner actually looked up and saw a bomb bay open on the aircraft above a bomb bay open with all the bombs on and he just shouted at skipper ‘Christ dive to port to port skipper’ and the cookie [?] [unclear] missed us but the incendiaries hit the side of the aircraft.
SJ: Oh gosh.
GC: And the aircraft was um a lot of incendiaries went off and they caught fire so the mid upper gunner and and the wireless operator used the extinguishers and also threw the bombs out of the aircraft ‘cos all the side of the aircraft was ripped open the rear doors gone the [unclear] gone as well and er that’s what they done and er I was looking up at the fuselage ‘cos my turret was US and ‘cos we’d lost and engine and the doors had gone and I looked up and saw something burning just outside the turret so I climbed out a bit got hold of it that was a couple of incendiaries threw them out the door just managed to get hold of them the end that wasn’t burning got back to the turret and I operated the turret by hand for the next three hours before we landed at a place called Horsham St. Faith in Norfolk just outside Norwich which was the B24 station after being there for three days we returned to Skellingthorpe and we assumed operations again nothing really happened to us much I know towards the end of tour we were I forget what town it was now we were attacked by Messerschmitts 262’s but they were so fast we just couldn’t do much about it, I enjoyed the life and we had a good crew in fact the best crew in the world I am the only survivor and I would never would say I wouldn’t missed it but wouldn’t missed it but I did you know I felt I had done something.
SJ: Yes.
GC: Um but there again I wasn’t the only one and I survived, after that I volunteered to go on to Tiger Force and I thought oh yes but instead I was sent out to India and I stayed in India.
SJ: Still in the RAF?
GC: In the RAF, came out the RAF in 1947 and been as you know I hadn’t seen civvy street a lot I stayed out the air force for a little while got fed up and went back in again I couldn’t get back on flying straight away so I was on air traffic control for a few years and then as runway controller and then I managed to get back on flying as er air load master and I finished up flying in transport command, air support command, helicopters [unclear] and then in 1970 I got grounded in Hong Kong and then I returned to England in 1971 on recruiting and then in 1973 I should have returned back on flying again on VC10’s but er didn’t [unclear] so I was grounded again and I finished up back on then recruiting then they asked for redundancies and I volunteered to come out of the Air Force in 1975.
SJ: Mmm so you did a good old time in the RAF didn’t you?
GC: Yes I did.
SJ: Yeah a good old thirty thirty odd years?
GC: Yes yes it is. Recently I’ve just been given the honour I’ll show you the paper.
SJ: Yeah.
GC: And er and I wear it.
SJ: Region DI yeah
GC: And I wore it at the Bomber Command Memorial I think I was the only one up there wearing it and a lot of people asked me what it was but er when I told them but I wear it not for myself but for the crew.
SJ: Yeah
GC: That is for our crew.
SJ: That’s it, it’s very special isn’t it yeah.
GC: [unclear]
SJ: No that’s very special.
GC: Here’s the er operations list for that raid [shuffles through some papers].
SJ: Oh I see yeah. What did you do when you left the RAF for a little while before you joined back up?
GC: Er I was I worked for a firm in Ipswich for a little while and I had a little warning I’d pack it in and then um I went on er insurance and er I had that for a little while and then I had that for a little while and then I had another little warning and I packed that in so the time I was sixty five er fifty five I was practically retired completely through ill health.
SJ: Yeah.
GC: And I ain’t worked since I’m nearly ninety odd so I wouldn’t worry.
SJ: [Laughs]. Yeah you enjoyed your time in the RAF?
GC: I enjoyed my time in the RAF and then I lost my wife in 89 and then I was on my own until 19 until 1992 when my wife now Joy she lost her husband and er she wanted some help and she managed to get hold of me and I went and helped her and of course been as we had known each other since 1942.
SJ: Gosh long time.
GC: And we used to socialise a bit with her husband and my wife and that and we got together and now we got married in 93 twenty two years ago in’t it come Friday.
SJ: Yeah.
GC: And that’s it and of course she’s never had all this trouble with her first husband Gordon he was these places sort themselves out [unclear] she’s bearing up on it and I’m proud of the way she’s taken it.
SJ: [Laughs]
GC: Ah well.
SJ: It’s good that you’ve got the history together I know you were obviously married to different people but it is nice isn’t it.
GC: Mmm oh yes we knew each other.
SJ: The memories haven’t you?
JC: Oh yes.
GC: Well she worked with my brother and everything see.
SJ: Mmm yeah.
JC: Yes I was a nurse for thirty five years.
GC: Yes.
JC: Yes.
GC: So there is not much to say really I’ve enjoyed my life and
SJ: Yes, no that’s good.
GC: I’m lucky to be alive you can say that again because we could have had that bomb on top of us and we wouldn’t be here now.
SJ: I know that was a pretty scary moment.
GC: It was yes, and er you see that was in the Canadian papers [showing a copy of the paper to SJ].
SJ: Okay yeah, you had a safe landing?
GC: Oh yeah we landed at um Horsham St. Faith in er just outside Norwich which is now Norwich Airport.
SJ: Oh okay yeah.
GC: That used to be 24 base.
SJ: So you’ve been quite all over the place in the RAF then?
GC: Mmm oh yes travelled around a bit.
SJ: Yeah you sound like you have yeah.
GC: Mmm I enjoyed it.
SJ: Yeah. What was the training like I’ve always wondered how the in war time what was your training like?
GC: Ooh I enjoyed it um especially aircraft recognition ‘cos that was one of my favourites and also pyrotechnics guns and other things.
SJ: Yes.
GC: Um I got top marks for gunnery in the Gunnery School and er as I say I always enjoyed the sort of thing I don’t know why but I never wanted to be anything else but a Warrant Office Rear Gunner I don’t know why a Warrant Officer but yes I did get Warrant Officer but that was way back after I’d finished and everything but.
SJ: Yeah that was the trade you wanted to do was it?
GC: It was during the war because I think what it was a friend of mine his brother was an air gunner was an air gunner on er Blenheims at RAF Horsham at the beginning of the war and I think this friend I don’t know why he used to talk things and maybe that’s what I want to be I didn’t want to be anything else.
SJ: No. How old was you when you joined?
GC: Well The first time I was er just seventeen I joined up and they well had the um went to Car [?] to be assessed for air crew I was okay ‘cos I put my age up six months to get there [laughs] and er somehow they found out my age and they scrubbed it all so I had to volunteer again for it again.
SJ: Oh yes.
GC: When I was it did upset me you know it wasn’t until I was nearly eighteen when I was doing it the next time and er I was on deferred service for a little while then I got called up and er I’m lucky enough to have got right through it all and I done my training and I enjoyed it always just above average and that was it.
SJ: Yes.
GC: I managed to keep above average all the time.
SJ: That’s good.
GC: Because that was the thing that I did enjoy doing.
SJ: And you were obviously good at it?
GC: I had I used to be able to strip a Browning 303 down and assemble it again blindfolded that’s how I used to really love it.
SJ: Mmm well when you find your love for it it’s interesting.
GC: Yes its something.
SJ: You do well at it don’t you yeah.
GC: Yes I was [unclear] it’s gone now and as I say everything I do anything that’s for my crew.
SJ: Is that how you feel about doing interviews and things?
GC: Well I do you see I, I met five of our crew after the war in 1946 I met the engineer in India, in 1989 at the unveiling of the Birchwood Memorial failed to return 50 and 51 Squadron I met my mid upper gunner, now John Bridger he got the DFM for that for putting the fires out in the aircraft John and I actually done our training right from the start we even flew together when we were training at Walney Island and I saw him in 89 and that’s fifty four that was fifty years fifty four years and then in er no forty four years sorry and in er 19 no in 1999 wasn’t it?
JC: 1999
GC: We went to Canada and we stayed with the navigator and the pilot came over to see me so the three of us met up at the end in 99 and yes a lovely fortnight over there with them.
SJ: Oh lovely.
GC: And then they all died after that I come back and phoned John Bridger up and told him I’d been over and met them and er he was quite thrilled and then he died of cancer then Gordon the navigator he died was that cancer he had dear I forget?
JC: Gordon died first and then Danny.
GC: Then Danny died yeah so now I’m the only one left.
JC: And you hadn’t seen each other when we went for fifty four years.
GC: Fifty four years.
JC: Fifty four years.
GC: We still recognised each other.
SJ: Yeah I bet well you don’t go through something like that and not recognise each other do you?
JC: Amazing really because when we got to the airport they’d got he’d got our names up you know so we could see him, him and his wife fifty four years is a long time.
SJ: Yes it is, I bet it took you right back though didn’t it?
GC: It did, I even went and saw the Lancaster at Hamilton and even got in the rear turret [laughs].
JC: Yes he did.
GC: I managed to get in it.
SJ: Did you see it when it came over here the Canadian?
GC: No I didn’t see it because I as I say I am handicapped now I’m I have to walk with crutches and I can’t walk very far even with them er when we went up to Lincoln to the unveiling of the Memorial my daughter my and her partner they even got hired a wheelchair to take with us and they pushed me around a bit but that was too rough to push round in the wheelchair so I didn’t see a lot of what I would have liked to see and I am hoping and praying that when it’s open I don’t know when it will be next year some time I understand I will be able to go up again and see it properly and er I have been promised on Friday Thursday night a presenter from Radio Suffolk said he’d take me up there.
SJ: Oh brilliant [laughs]. So what was the Special Recognition Award for?
GC: For the war time.
JC: For the war time.
GC: There was three of us there was this Navy chap he’d been torpedoed and then taken prisoner of war in Japanese hands, the other one was in the Army captain in the tank corp he went to Auschwitz and he was saying about he should have come home to England but been as he was single he was he stayed there because they said all married men home first and they kept him there he went there and [unclear] it was terrible and as I say the three of us were all recommended and they said right we will give you one each and we did and that’s what we got.
SJ: Lovely isn’t it.
JC: Yes it is it was nice to see the three of them together it really was.
SJ: Had you met them before?
GC: No never seen them before.
JC: No not till then.
SJ: No.
GC: In fact I don’t see anybody near where I was living ‘cos I moved around but I did form the Air Gunners Association in Ipswich when I came out of the Air Force in 1976 I formed that and um I was chairman there for quite a while until I had as I say I had me first warning and that told me I had to pack up the things that I used to but er.
SJ: Is the Association still going here In Lincolnshire.
GC: No it’s all finished.
SJ: It’s all finished.
GC: Even the National ones gone now so um we used to go round a lot one time when we went on different little holidays we went on we went and had a look at the air gunners room at um York at Elvington isn’t it.
SJ: Elvington yes.
GC: And there is a special room there for air gunners and my beloved was looking at some photographs there and she said ‘aye come here’ I said ‘what’s wrong’ she said ‘there’s a photograph of you’ [laughs] that was a photograph that was taken at Walney Island yeah at the Air Gunners School yeah but we used but we went to most of the museums don’t we dear.
JC: We have dear yes.
GC: Yes we’ve been to them all.
JC: We fitted in quite a lot while we could didn’t we.
GC: We did when I was going around.
SJ: When you were a bit more mobile?
JC: Yes.
GC: Of course now I’m lucky I can still drive but I can’t walk.
SJ: You still get about?
GC: Oh yes.
JC: We get from A to B and
GC: Get out the car.
JC: We try and get out as much as we can don’t we otherwise you.
GC: Otherwise we’d be stagnating that’s it.
JC: Like a vegetable [laughs] you’ve got to got to keep your brain ticking over.
SJ: Well hopefully you’ll get to see up to the Bomber Command Memorial next year.
GC: I hope to get there.
JC: I hope so I hope so.
GC: ‘Cos I was disappointed when the unveiled the one in London I phoned up to see if I could get some seats to see it unveiled and the woman at the Bomber Command Association who was doing this she said ‘are you a member of the Association?’ I said ‘no not now but I was on the Bomber Command list years ago’ and she said ‘oh I’m sorry there’s no seats there’s nothing available’ and I said ‘oh thank you’ there’s so many other people there who’d nothing to do with the Royal Air Force and they had everything and I couldn’t get a seat and my daughter she is one of these types she really went to town but um I was very very disappointed over that.
JC: Yes but still you went to Lincoln.
GC: Oh we went to Lincoln we went.
JC: To see that which you really wanted to do.
GC: Yes we used to go to call in at Birchwood quite often didn’t we take a wreath out there when we used to go on these coach trips to do with Bomber Command Battle of Britain Weekend and they used to take you all round and we always used to call in at Birchwood to see the memorial there and always take a wreath up there which was from the crew but and I’m sorry I can’t even do that now.
SJ: How do you feel about the Bomber Command Centre project?
GC: I thought it’s really good and er I think that um it’s long delayed and have to and people like yourselves and other people and I think the University has got something to do with it.
SJ: Yes they have yeah.
GC: They really done themselves proud and they’ve done us proud.
JC: Also we think where it is situated when you look out you can see the Cathedral.
SJ: Yes lovely.
JC: I think that is really beautiful.
SJ: It is it’s very poignant isn’t it.
JC: Oh I think it’s lovely.
SJ: Yeah.
JC: And the thing is that it had been raining the weather had been shocking and we thought well you know what’s it going to like going and that particular day it was a beautiful sunny day it was really really lovely and I mean obviously all round it was a bit muddy and whatever because they had so much rain but the actual day itself the sun was absolutely beautiful and as you stood and looked down you could see the Cathedral and I thought how beautiful where it was situated.
SJ: It is it’s lovely isn’t it.
GC: It is it’s an ideal situation because that’s the first thing we used to see was the Cathedral you see when we came back.
SJ: Yeah that’s what they said that’s why they put it up there.
GC: Mmm I know that’s the first thing, by the way get the medal over and show her.
JC: Yes
GC: Syria
JC: We were so lucky.
GC: I don’t know if you’ve see one of these have you?
SJ: I’ve seen pictures of them not one
GC: That’s the legion of honour.
SJ: Yes it is yeah I’ve seen photos of someone who received one the other day so for I’ve seen the photo the other day but they received it a while ago yeah, would you mind if I take a photo of this?
GC: I don’t mind?
SJ: To keep to keep with your archive no I will do that will be lovely. Is there any more stories and things that you want to say?
GC: Not really as I say that the only regret I have is that I never had my pint with old Baker [laughs].
SJ: Well when you get up there next year you’ll be able to see his name up there so it’s in alphabetical order so.
GC: No don’t matter really as I say I enjoyed my life in the Royal Air Force I enjoyed what we were doing I was scared yeah this was what I was saying we were all scared and if anybody said they weren’t they were bloody liars.
SJ: Yes I can imagine mmm, scary times I bet you worked hard and played hard?
GC: Yes I did I played all sorts of sports and this was what’s the result [laughs].
SJ: What was the social life like in the RAF?
GC: Very good.
SJ: Yeah I bet you’ve got loads of stories to say there haven’t you or?
GC: No I haven’t [laughs].
SJ: Not for recording?
GC: No there not [laughs].
SJ: Okay so well thank you very much.
GC: That’s all right.
JC: You’ve got to go back to Lincoln tonight?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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ACatlingG151121
Title
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Interview with Gordon Catling
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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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:26:31 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Sue Johnstone
Date
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2015-11-21
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Description
An account of the resource
Gordon Catling grew up in Ipswich and lied about his age to join the Fire Service as a despatch rider. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1943 and flew operations as a rear gunner with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe. He was posted to India after the war and left the Royal Air Force in 1947. In 1976 he formed and became Chairman of the Ipswich Air Gunners Association.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
India
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
14 OTU
50 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb struck
bombing
fear
Lancaster
Me 262
memorial
Operational Training Unit
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1224/3356/PBrownJ1721.2.jpg
841499b815a584b52bc4b555540f5b4f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1224/3356/ABrownJ170118.2.mp3
a8113fdf85b50ce4324c3cbdb34aa73f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Brown, Jeff
Jeffrey Brown
J Brown
Description
An account of the resource
35 items. One oral history interview with Flying Officer Jeff Brown (b. 1925, 2205595, Royal Air Force), his log book, service material and photographs including 16 pictures of B-29s. He flew operations as a Flight Sergeant air gunner with 576 Squadron from RAF Fiskerton towards the end of the war and took part in Operation Manna.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jeff Brown and catalogued by Peter Adams.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-18
2017-01-31
Rights
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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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Brown, J-3
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: So this is Susanne Pescott I am interviewing Jeffrey Brown today for the International Bomber Command Centres Digital Archive, we are at Jeff’s home and it’s 18th January 2017, so first of all Jeff thank you for allowing us to talk to you today and also present is Yvonne O’Rourke Jeff’s daughter. So Jeff do you want to tell me about your early life before you joined the RAF.
JB: Well after school when I was fifteen I became an apprentice electrician in the local bus depot working on buses and trolley buses and then when the, I was always interested in aircraft model aircraft my neighbour friend and I used to make and fly model aircraft er we had a good place to fly them because across the way from where we lived was the Ashton Golf Course so when nobody was playing golf it was our flying area [laughs], so when the Air Training Corps started I think it was 1941 I joined that and er got interested and of course the war was on then and er there was the possibility of later after a year or two I might be called up to go in the services so er at that time if you waited until you were called up at eighteen every tenth conscriptee was sent to work down the coal mines, it was a scheme developed by a Government Minister called Ernest Bevan because they were short of miners, and if you were unlucky enough to be caught in that you had to go and work in the coal industry now I didn’t want that I wanted to join the air force so to be sure of going in the air force at seventeen and a half you could volunteer for the air force and you went and had a medical and aptitude test and if you were accepted for training as air crew you were given an air force number, you were paid for the days you were at this centre which was at Warrington, and you were in the air force but you were then sent home on what was called deferred service until you were eighteen and at eighteen you could be called at any time to start serving properly and this ensured that when you registered at eighteen they couldn’t send you down the coal mines because you were already in the air force that was one way of avoiding coal mining [laughs]. So I was accepted initially to train as a wireless operator air gunner and at about eighteen two three months I was finally called up to serve and er in those days air crew trainees the first place you reported to was Lords Cricket Ground in London which was rather [laughs] an unusual place to start service and er there you were kitted all your equipment had medicals and so on and then after a few weeks you were sent out to start your training properly, after about three months of this er which was largely basic air force training and learning to receive and send Morse Code er we were called to a meeting by a group captain and he said ‘I’m sorry to inform you that we have so many wireless operators under training we cannot cope with the numbers so we are going to have to suspend your training may be for six months possibly indefinitely’ but he said ‘we are at the moment of short of trainee air gunners anyone wishing to change can do so by leaving a name now’ so most of us being young and daft said ‘oh yes we want to be air gunners’ so we started training again as air gunners, er the basic training was done at Bridgnorth in Shropshire er after that we were sent to an Air Gunners School at RAF Dalcross near Inverness, we trained there for about three or four months and then we qualified as air gunners er the training was done in Ansom aircraft er we flew with another aircraft pulling a target which was a long canvas sleeve and you fired ammunition which had been dipped in paint, the nose of the bullets were dipped in paint, so if you hit this white canvas sleeve besides making a hole in it it left a little colour smear this way the scores could be counted afterwards and er we did this all types of different exercises out over the sea the Moray Firth er following that I was sent on leave and then posted to Operational Training Unit which was at um a place called Westcott and there you were crewed up in a crew, um it was a rather haphazard method all the different air crew categories were put into one large hall and told ‘find yourself a crew’ and I wandered round a bit lost and I was approached a a little chap an air gunner he said ‘have you got a crew yet?’ I said ‘no’ ‘well would you like to join ours?’ and I said ‘yes I would’ and that was how I was crewed up, er my pilot was a New Zealand lad flight sergeant and the rest of the crew were all English boys, so [coughs] we were flying in Wellington aircraft we did various exercises all kinds of things for the different trades, navigation training, bombing training, gunnery training and so on and um after this we were sent to er what was it called Heavy Conversion Unit this was at RAF Bottesford in Nottinghamshire where we were introduced to the Lancaster bomber and also another member joined the crew this was the flight engineer, er in our case our flight engineer was also a pilot this had happened because they had a large surplus of pilots and to give them something to do they trained some of them er as engineers so we had two pilots in the crew which was handy, er we did this training again doing all kinds of exercises including the dreaded corkscrew evasive manoeuvre which was quite horrendous, and from there we were posted to RAF Fiskerton to join 576 Squadron this was in April 1945 towards the end of the war, we did further er what you might call squadron training for a week or two before we were considered qualified to go on operations and the big thing at that moment was called Operation Manna this was dropping food supplies in Holland because it was an area which had been cut off by the advance of the armies and in the last six months or so of the war there had been dreadful food shortages and people were dying of starvation thousands and thousands of Dutchmen died through lack of food so we and the American Air Force were tasked to drop food supplies for them and the area was still under German occupation er a rather dodgy truce was organised with the Germans a kind of er ‘don’t shoot at us we won’t shoot at you’ but it was a little bit of a flimsy thing and several aircraft were shot at ours luckily wasn’t but one American aircraft was shot down and the crew killed by the German Occupation Forces, so I did five of these trips er mainly to Rotterdam and we dropped these food supplies er they were simply bundled into the bomb bay of the aircraft and they weren’t dropped on parachutes they just opened the bomb bay doors and everything fell out in a huge cloud tins and boxes and sacks and all kinds of food which were collected by the Dutch authorities and then distributed to the people who needed it, er we did the last flight on 8th May 1945 which was VE Day, the war ended on that day. After the war we continued flying doing various exercises er one thing we did was to fly to Brussels and bring home Army personnel who had been prisoners of war, another thing we did was to fly to Naples in Italy and bring home again Army personnel who were due for early release from the forces er we continued to do this for about I think four or five months and then the big run down of Bomber Command started the squadrons were disbanded and we were all thrown on the scrap heap not really knowing what would happen to us, but um eventually much against my wishes I was sent on a course to be an equipper demanding and issuing supplies and in this role I was finally posted to a small radar unit in Germany er initially in the British zone of Germany and then er eventually in the American zone and finally in the French occupation zone and er I was there for two and a half years something like that, during that time we had on this little unit when I say little there were a total of about thirty five personnel you could tell how small it was we required an interpreter somebody who spoke German and French because we had the contact with the French Occupation Forces and a young lady called Dorothy Bush who lived nearby she was the daughter of the local school teacher became our interpreter and er many well not many years several years later Dorothy and I were married [very emotional].
SP: Do you want to stop?
JB: Right after some time on this small radar station in Germany I found that you could er re-engage you could sign up for regular service and that would be as air crew to be flying again so I applied for this er I was sent to London to have a medical examinations and so on and I was accepted to fly again as an air gunner but before you could start the flying training er as gunners we had to be trained with er er sort of auxiliary trade and we did this at RAF Kirkham near Preston it was a school of armament trades we learned about all the armament equipment in use at that time in the RAF guns and mines and all the er ancillary equipment, and then we had to do a course at a place called Wellesbourne Mountford on aerial photography that took another couple of months or so so we were quite highly qualified in the trades by that time and then we were posted to RAF Marham in 1950 to join 149 Squadron which was reforming it was the first squadron in the RAF to be equipped with American B29 Super Fortress Bombers the type of bombers that the Americans had used in the Pacific to bomb Japan and drop the atom bomb with so we did this course at RAF Marham and then we had to move out and make room for the next squadron to come in and do the course and we were sent to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire which at that time was shut down and we arrived there but we didn’t have any aircraft because in the meantime the war in Korea had started and the Americans stopped the supply of B29’s to the RAF because they wanted them for themselves [laughs] so we sat at Coningsby fully trained squadron, air crew and ground crew, for six weeks and the only aircraft we had was an Oxford and a Tiger Moth [laughs] had the Russians known they could have walked in [laughs]. So finally one B29 arrived and our crew had the honour of making the first B29 flight from RAF Coningsby er in I think it was November 1950 er so eventually more aircraft came and the squadron got rolling and operating as it should do and er we were there for a couple of years doing all kinds of exercises, some very very long range flights lasting fifteen sometimes as long as eighteen, nineteen hours without landing or refuelling and then of course jet aircraft began to enter service and on these aircraft no requirement for air gunners so once again facing redundancy, several of the chaps applied to retrain and were accepted as navigators, pilots, so I thought I’m going to have a go at this so I applied and after the interviews and medicals I was accepted for pilot training but by this time the RAF had decided that if you were pilot or navigator you had to be commissioned not like in the old war time days where you could have sergeant pilots etcetera so we had do to a commissioning course which lasted about five months at Jurby in the Isle of Man, having qualified for that and gained a commission I was fortunate to be chosen with a small group of chaps to go and do our flying training in Canada under a NATO training scheme so we flew to Canada in er civilian aircraft and after some time in kind of transit units we eventually landed up in Alberta a place called Claresholm which was about sixty miles south of Calgary, this was a flying training school and unlike the British trainees who started their pilot training on a light aircraft like a Tiger Moth we went on day one on Harvard aircraft which for a trainee were quite a handful they were a sturdy little aircraft with a big five hundred and fifty horsepower engine and they took a bit of handling when you were a novice but er we coped with it and we did the all the necessary exercises day and night flying and er finally after I think it would be nine or ten months er we qualified but we were caught in a rather unusual situation previously at the end of flying school training they had a big parade and celebration and you were presented with your wings the Canadian authorities had decided they were not doing this any longer they were giving our chaps their wings when they’d done a further advanced flying training so what was going to happen to us we were due to come home then and nobody could really tell us what was going to happen when are we going to get our wings, so we flew home in a civilian aircraft we arrived in London airport and were taken in buses to the Air Ministry this was about half past six seven o’clock in the evening by then going dark and we were ushered into a dismal basement room where we met by a civilian clerk, who from the smell of his breath had been out and had a few pints whilst he was waiting for us so, he then issued er instructions of where we were to be posted to and in those days we were still on rations so he issued ration cards and as we were due to leave he said ‘before you go any questions?’ and one chap piped up he said ‘when do we get our wings?’ and this half drunken clerk said ‘oh it’s okay you can put them up now if you want to’ that’s was how we were awarded our wings I thought it was the most miserable bit of service time the whole of my air force career. So we were then posted to RAF Turnhill to do a course on instrument flying to get a qualification called the white card er instrument flying this and they wanted you to fly under various weather conditions, er the grades were white, green, and master green, if you were so experienced and qualified if you got a master green you could fly in any weather conditions whatsoever so we got the white card which had limitations and when we had arrived there some of the chaps not believing what this clerk at the Air Ministry had said arrived not wearing wings odd chaps who had previously been other air crew like a engineer or air gunners were still wearing their old air force air gunner engineer wings and the first day we were introduced er by a squadron leader to tell us what the course was all about and he started his speech and then after a moment he stopped and he pointed at the lad in the front row who was wearing the single wing of a flight engineer and he said ‘who are you what are you doing here?’ so the lad said ‘well I understand sir I’ve come to do an instrument rating course’ so he said ‘well are you a pilot?’ and the lad said ‘well I’ve done a pilot’s course’ and he said ‘why aren’t you wearing pilot’s wings?’ so the lad said truthfully ’because I’ve not been awarded them’ and the squadron leader took no notice of this at all he looked around the room and he said ‘well if you want to do this course you better get some wings up damn quick and that goes for all the rest of you not wearing them’ that was our introduction to being pilots. [Pause] So this business of the wings I thought was disgraceful and thinking about it years later I feel that about that time due to the way we had been treated I really began to lose interest it destroyed my enthusiasm for the RAF, and for flying, and for the whole bloomin thing, however, we did this um instrument training course and then we were posted on to er Meteor Jet Fighters a twin engine jet fighter of that day er and we did conversion on to those and er I did I did conversion I went on solo on them they were comparatively easy to fly engine wise because you didn’t have too many points to consider with a jet engine as you did with a piston engine aircraft and er we carried on with this course till we got to the stage where we started aerobatics and then I found that due to the violent manoeuvres with aerobatics er I started blacking out so I was removed from the course and after a while I was sent to the er er the School of Aviation Medicine School at Farnborough where they have flying doctors who took me up in a Meteor equipped with G measuring device and they flew the plane around and blacked me out all over the place and declared that I had a low G tolerance and I would be grounded so that was a big disappointment after all that I’d been through before, I I was then offered the choice of one or two ground trades which I didn’t fancy doing if I wasn’t flying I didn’t want to be in the air force so the other alternative was to leave so I was then discharged having been in the air force something like eleven years altogether, and um I came home and I started applying for jobs and I went for various interviews and er people asked me what I’d done and so on as usual the case ‘oh that’s very interesting but your no use to us’ so I got a bit despondent I was out of work for may be about six weeks and I was walking along one evening I bumped into an old school chum of mine and the conversation got around to jobs ‘what are you doing?’ I said ‘I’m looking for a job’ ‘what are you doing?’ he said ‘I’m on a management training course in Manchester for the CWS the Co-opertive Society’ er he said ‘come round to my house I’ll show you what we are doing’ so I went to his house and he showed me all these books and information and I thought oh how boring after flying [laughs] doing that didn’t appeal one one little bit, all this time his father had been sitting there quietly reading a newspaper and he chipped in he said ‘have you tried our place?’ so I said ‘well where is our place?’ he said ‘A V Roe’ and he gave me the address of the employment officer so I wrote in and er they called me in for an interview and I think they had it in mind that I would fit in to some kind of position in the works so they sent me home and said we’ll notify you and then a letter came sorry we can’t do anything for you so disappointment again and then almost immediately another letter came from them would I go for an interview with the chief draughtsman ‘cos at that time the Avro factory at Chadderton was the main design office for the company, so er I went for this interview it was a Friday afternoon and er I saw this gentleman the chief draughtsman and he asked me all about my service career and so on and then he said ‘I think we could find a place for you in here’ so he said er ‘when would you like to start Monday?’ [laughs] following just a weekend away [laughs] oh rather puzzled I said ‘oh yes that’d be fine’ so on Monday morning I turned up and I was placed in the middle of the design office and due to my armament work that I had done in the forces I was put onto what was called the armament section the design office was broken up into sections groups of about a dozen men each section did a different type of work some did air frames, some would do engines, some would be radio, and I was on the armament section and quite a lot of the work they were doing was stuff I already knew that I’d seen and worked on in the air force but of course there was a lot of new stuff because at that time they were just introducing the Vulcan Bomber so I fitted in very nicely and er got going steadily working on the Vulcan and the Shackleton and later on the Nimrod and er several aircraft we did er certain parts of those and er so I worked quite steadily and happily for several years I think about twelve years in the design office on armament equipment mainly of the different aircraft and then the company decided to have a huge reorganisation, er they moved the design office to the company airfield at Woodford and of course it was practically impossible for me to get there I didn’t have a car at the time it would have meant several bus trips a train journey and er it was just impossible so I joined a bunch of rebels who said ‘we’re not going’ [laughs] so we were kept for a while at Chadderton in the design office on a sort of queries section and I thought well this will just potter along until the company get fed up with it and then you’d be given the ultimatum either get to Woodford or get out [laughs] so I left and I got a job at a local firm building er commercial vehicles again in their design office which was quite different to what I had been doing before but it was in a way quite interesting. I did this for a year or two and eventually I bumped into a chap er who I’d worked with in the design office and er we got chatting and I said ‘I’m a little bit bored with this job I’m doing’ and he said ‘well we’re looking for people at Chadderton in the publications er department’ ‘cos each aircraft has a huge set of books for servicing and maintaining them er he gave me the address to write in to and er eventually after had an interview I was accepted there and I started back again on my beloved aircraft in the publications department and I worked in there for about twenty years [laughs] until I finally retired in 1989 [laughs] so that was the end of my life with aircraft more or less right through my whole working life [laughs] it had been aircraft one way or another.
SP: So Jeff you talked about when you first joined up you went to Lords Cricket Ground do you want to tell me a little bit more about that?
JB: Yes, oh for aircrew trainees during the war the place you reported to when you were called up was Lords Cricket Ground in London, rather unusual setting to think you are going in the air force er we were billeted in blocks of flats all around Regents Park and we were kitted out you got all your uniform and equipment and er you had your introduction to things like how to march and drill and so on, and one day we were taken back to a building on the side of er Regents Park which was a medical centre we were led into the backyard amongst piles of coke and coal [laughs] taken upstairs to about er the third floor on the way up you had to take your tunic off and roll both sleeves up when you stepped inside the door there was a duty airman on each side with a basin with some sort of disinfectant fluid in and a scrubbing brush and he scrubbed both your upper arms, you moved on into the next room and there were doctors in line and you were given various injections inoculations er oh what what was it something fever they had in those days, and then you were led out down some stairs onto a road at the side by the railings of Regents Park [laughs] it looked like a scene from a battlefield there were chaps hanging over the railings vomiting, there were others lying flat out on the pavement having fainted not being used to all this injections and inoculations [laughs], luckily it didn’t affect me although I did have a rather sore arm for a little while [laughs].
SP: So Jeff you were talking about during when you were on the plane the dreaded corkscrew.
JB: Yes
SP: Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
JB: Yes er when we did the course er on er to train on the Lancaster er one of the exercises we had to do was to er learn er called an evasive tactic in case you were attacked by a fighter they had this manoeuvre called the corkscrew where the aircraft went into steep dives and turns and climbs in order to put the aim of the attacker off and you had certain drills to carry out er in order to aim your guns correctly and try and hit him whilst you were doing this, now the main people involved with this were the gunners and the pilot um you gave the instruction to the pilot when to start this manoeuvre and whilst he was doing it he told you what you were doing because you were thrown about so much you could hardly realise whether you were turning left, right, going up or down whatever it was very very violent and er you repeated back to the pilot so he understood that you knew and according to what he said you had to apply certain rules of sighting in order to hopefully hit the attacker, so the the manoeuvre would start like this, oh before I say anything more I should say that our first corkscrew was done by an instructor pilot an experienced fella, the manoeuvre went like this you as a gunner had a thing called a reflector sight you looked through a glass screen and it had a red ring with a dot in the middle you compared the size of this to the size of the attacking aircraft you had to learn the wing span of the groups of the attacking aircraft when he filled a certain amount of your ring and bead sight he was at six hundred yards that was the distance when you were to open fire ’cos it was the best range for the guns you were using, so you watched this attacker and make him he came in a curving dive which is called a curved pursuit and you raced him with your gun sight you warned the pilot he was coming in when he got to six hundred yards you said ‘corkscrew’ either port or starboard depending which side he was coming in from the pilot then we did the first one to port which is the left side he just simply stood the aircraft up on it’s port wing tip and we went down in a screaming dive after a few hundred feet he rolled and he went down on the other side the starboard side for a few more hundred feet and then he pulled up violently, on the way down you were virtually weightless you just floated up off your seat the only thing I was holding onto was the two control handles for the gun turret [laughs], all this time you were trying to apply these what we call sighting rules where you aimed your sight at the attacker you didn’t aim directly at him and then the pilot pulled up and he did the same manoeuvre going up and then the G Force came on you were slammed literally just slammed down into your seat became several times heavier than you normally are [laughs] and it was so severe you couldn’t raise your arms try as you may you couldn’t lift them and you had an oxygen mask on your face this pulled away on the straps and then you climbed up to your starting height and then you went down and started another corkscrew [laughs], all this time other members of the crew that weren’t involved with this as I said it was just the pilot and the gunner the other people such as the navigator and wireless operator were sitting there with their stomachs churning and quite a lot of them being airsick but due to the fact that you were so concentrating on what you were doing it didn’t make me airsick strangely enough so that was our introduction to the corkscrew [laughs].
SP: Jeff you also talked that you were at Fiskerton on VE Day do you want to talk me through what happened on VE Day what you did?
JB: Yes er VE Day 8th May 1945 we were scheduled to do the last Manna food drop in Holland [coughs] we got out of the aircraft and a photographer suddenly appeared and asked us the crew and the ground crew to pose in front of the aircraft and took our photographs which I still have, and then something happened that had never happened on any previous operation a car drew up and it was the station commander the group captain wishing us well [laughs] and hoping that we had a good trip of course we knew that it was the last day of the war [coughs], my pilot and two other pilots from our crew had made a secret arrangement that on the way back at one of the turning points on the route back was Cambridge that we were going to meet up formate and fly back from Cambridge to Fiskerton and beat up in the airfield in formation, so [laughs] we arrived at er at er Cambridge and [coughs] they’d arrange [coughs] not to use the radio so that it wouldn’t be identified [coughs] they arranged to fire off a coloured vary cartridges so these two planes were milling around at Cambridge when we arrived and they were shooting off these coloured vary cartridges I think they were green and we fired some off so we knew who we were and we all joined up together and headed off to Fiskerton, now we were flying a rather old Lancaster and we were slowly dropping behind these other two aircraft we couldn’t keep up with them ‘cos they were going flat out and our engineer told us he said they had er a sort of toggle which was called an emergency boost button to give the engines a little bit of extra power he said ‘I’ve pulled the emergency boost and we still can’t keep up with them’ and we were dropping more and more lagging behind them dropping away so eventually our pilot said ‘okay well we’ll forget it’ but because of all this extra power on this old aircraft was shuddering and shaking suddenly there was a loud bang and a whole sheet of metal fell off from underneath the starboard wing [laughs] we didn’t know what it was at the time [laughs] but I reported it to the pilot he said ‘well I don’t know what it is but we’re still flying okay so we carry on’ and we flew back to Fiskerton and of course this beat up had occurred by the time we got back and when we landed we found that this vibration had loosened some of the skin coverings on the outboard engine nacelle and it had ripped off with the airflow that’s what we saw some farmer would find a nice sheet of aluminium in one of his fields [laughs], so we then went to the debriefing and the station commander came up on the dais afterwards and he said ‘all pilots are to remain behind everyone else is dismissed’ he didn’t know he hadn’t identified who had done this beat up at the airfield so we scurried off to get our bacon and egg which was the meal you got after flying [laughs] whilst all the pilots got a tremendous bollocking from the station commander [laughs] that was VE Day [laughs].
SP: Jeff do you want to tell me about the time in the Wellington bomber that you were talking about?
JB: Yes um we were introduced to the Wellington at a unit called Operational Training Unit OTU this is where you joined a crew [coughs] and amongst various exercises you did of course there was quite a lot of practice bombing er you dropped small smoke bombs on er des designated targets where er how well or badly you had done there were staff there could record it and send the results back to your unit [coughs] now to do this exercise er we were based at this er place er Westcott near Aylesbury we had to fly er about thirty miles in a northerly direction to the area I think it was Northampton and back for the navigator to calculate the wind ‘cos this was a vital thing for the bomb aimer to know he set this into his equipment er the target we were to attack was on some moorland in the Oxford area, so we took off and we had to climb up to twelve thousand feet to fly this course to calculate the wind er on the way we flew through quite a few heaps of cloud it got a little bit bumpy and unknown to us behind all this cloud was a cumulus nimbus thunderstorm cloud and we flew straight into it and it was a fantastic all of sudden it went grey and then it went almost completely dark this is sort of ten o’clock in the morning and the turbulence we were thrown about up and down and in a flash then the the inside of the gun turret was painted matt black in a flash it just became white all over with hoarfrost and I made the aimless gesture of trying to scrape some of it off with my fingers [laughs] I don’t know why I did that [laughs] but we were thrown about we went up and down and the pilot said ‘we’re getting iced up I’m losing control’ he said ‘we’ll have to get out of this’ and he did the worst thing he could have done he tried to turn round to go back out of it, the rule was if you were in that position you flew straight through it, so he started this turn and he collected so much ice on the wings he lost control of it he called out ‘I can’t control it’ and he gave the order ‘fix parachutes and standby’ now you wore your parachute harness all the time in the aircraft but your parachute was in a pack in a stowage near to where you were sitting so we grabbed the er the parachute out of its stowage and it fell to the floor just at the moment we started to be lifted up at some tremendous speed and the G was so strong I couldn’t lift the parachute pack and I thought if this carries on I going to die pretty soon [laughs] ‘cos I’ve heard of stories of planes flying into thunderstorm clouds and coming out in bits in the bottom so we were flung up and down, up and down, and then eventually we came out of the clouds and we began to lose some of the ice that had got into all our and the pilot regained control so he said ‘stand down’ we didn’t need to put the parachute on to jump but we fell out of control iced up from twelve to four thousand feet totally out of control and the air speed indicator broke the the air speed indicator pointer the needle was just hanging down and swinging like a little pendulum so we’d no air speed however our pilot er was experienced enough to know that if he put certain power settings on the engine it would keep us flying [coughs], so we abandoned the exercise and flew back to Westcott where we were based told them what had happened they then divert, oh they asked how much fuel we still had so we had sufficient fuel, they then diverted to us to RAF Wittering which is in the Peterborough area and Peter and Wittering was a big pre-war airfield and across the fields from it was a smaller wartime airfield called Collyweston and there was a flat land flat fields between the two and they had laid what was called pierced steel planking between the two airfields to create an emergency landing strip was a bit longer than the normal landing strip so we were given instructions over the radio and we told them what had happened to us what power settings to set on the engine to make a faster than normal approach so there was no danger that we would stall and we all got down in what we call crash positions we were trained to do this and we landed on this pierced steel planking runway which made a hell of a noise [laughs] when you ran over it but we got down safely and then motored back to the Wittering side where we were interviewed as to what happened then we were taken for a meal whilst the aircraft was prepared and then later on that day we flew it back to Westcott, but that from that day on until we got on the Lancaster which was an all metal aircraft I was always a bit scared [laughs] when we flew into big heaped up clouds [laughs].
SP: So Jeff you talked about Operation Manna how did you feel about doing that?
JB: Well at times it was quite emotional because so many people had died twenty odd thousand in total I think in the last months of the war er and many people had suffered so greatly through this starvation and eating all sorts of weird food like the flower bulbs they used to fry flower bulbs and all kinds of stuff, they used to make from what we were told foraging trips the people in the big cities suffered the most because they could out may be on bicycle or walking ‘cos they’d no vehicles er into the country areas and barter for food with the farmers to get a few eggs or potatoes and give away their valuables and all kinds of thing and when you spoke with some of the people that had suffered with this er it’s quite er emotional, little old ladies would want to come and hug you [laughs] and that kind of thing, and er one boy I think about probably twelve years old came to me spoke very good English as most of them do and he said ‘I want to shake your hand and thank you’ so I said ‘well what do you want to thank me for you weren’t born at the time we did this’ he said no ‘you saved my grandparents lives’ and that was the kind of thing that er happened to you people come ‘thank you thank you’ and giving you gifts it was utterly amazing the gratitude that er they showed was just overwhelming at times.
SP: Okay thanks for that is there anything else at all that you feel you haven’t had a chance to say?
JB: Well one little amusing story er when we came back from Canada and we did this instrument flying course at Turnhill er the course included normal exercises besides instruments and navigation exercises and so on and er we were being briefed to do the first solo night cross country flight we we had a rather er broad spoken Yorkshire flight lieutenant flight commander who was giving this er briefing before the flight and er he told everything we were supposed to know the weather and everything and er at the end he said ‘just a word of advice before you go’ he said er ‘if’ in his broad Yorkshire accent he said ‘now if you get lost or owt bloody silly like that for god’s sake give us a call even if it’s only to say goodbye’ [laughs].
SP: [Laughs] That’s great Jeff so thanks for all the stories there [Laughs].
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ABrownJ170118
PBrownJ1721
Title
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Interview with Jeff Brown
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
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eng
Format
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01:03:08 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Holmes
Creator
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Susanne Pescott
Date
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2017-01-18
Description
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Jeff Brown worked as an electrician until he joined the Royal Air Force. He flew with 576 Squadron from RAF Fiskerton.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1945-04
1945-05
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
149 Squadron
576 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
B-29
bombing
crewing up
Harvard
Lancaster
Meteor
military service conditions
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Bottesford
RAF Dalcross
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Marham
RAF Westcott
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/622/8891/PPayneR1706.2.jpg
159404936ab96ee8ba4b3699b7729414
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/622/8891/APayneR150703.1.mp3
54749e1037180c8d268a7353bd91c58f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Payne, Reg
R Payne
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Payne, R
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Two oral history interviews with Reg Payne (1923 - 2022, 1435510 Royal Air Force), his memoirs and photographs. Reg Payne completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe. His pilot on operations was Michael Beetham. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Payne and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Fred Ball. Additional information on Fred Ball is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/100970/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/ball-fc/"></a></p>
Date
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2015-07-03
2017-08-25
Rights
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TJ: My name’s Tina James I’m here with Reg Payne at his home in Kettering Northants today is 3rd July 2015. So Reg you were with Bomber Command but let’s go back to the beginning and er where were you born and when?
RP: I was born in Kettering on on the 11th March 1923 which.
TJ: So you’re back to where your home town then aren’t you.
RP: Well um.
TJ: Your back in your home town now?
RP: Oh yes where I was born yes yes I was born probably only a couple of hundred yards from here really.
TJ: Really.
RP: The other side of the town.
TJ: And your parents um was your father in the First World War?
RP: Father yes he was in the army of course in in France.
TJ: Yes
RP: In the First World War yes.
TJ: Did he have a bad time?
RP: He I don’t think he had such a bad time because I think he was a cook he did a lot of cooking and I think because of that he wasn’t in the front line quite so much as he as he would have been.
TJ: So good yeah and then you went to school in Kettering?
RP: Pardon.
TJ: You went to school in Kettering?
RP: I went to school in Kettering yeah I went to school when I was fourteen when I left school sorry sorry.
TJ: You left school you left school at fourteen.
RP: Sorry I’m getting confused with when I went to work.
TJ: Yes.
RP: I went to school until I was fourteen.
TJ: Yes.
RP: I went to the er St. Mary’s both church schools St. Mary’s Church and then the Parish Church School.
TJ: And what were you good at at school?
RP: Er if anything art I think yeah.
TJ: Okay and you’re still doing art and we’ll come to that later. So what was your first job then when you left school?
RP: Well when I left school er oddly enough er I worked for the British Legion the er the British Legion Midland Region Department they they just moved into a huge house in Kettering and er and so far they had another British Legion they didn’t have an office in Kettering at the time but they took over this big building and er and members of the staff moved from er Bristol to come to here to work and it was the British Legion Midland Region Office in in Kettering and.
TJ: And what was your job with them what did you do?
RP: I was I was in the registry office looking after all the files all the all the people writing in to the British Legion for advice and help I had to I had to once they got involved with the er British Legion we had to make a file out for them they had a file with a reference number and from them on when they wrote again they had to quote their quote their name and address and also their reference number and er and er all their files were like a big library and I used to climb up to these racks and and get the er file connected to this person that was claiming benefit.
TJ: And how long did you work for them?
RP: I worked there until I until I was called up you see by eighteen you see you had to you had to go into the forces when you were eighteen the wars on you see you you had.
TJ: And were you called up straight away for the RAF?
RP: No the er I volunteered for the RAF when I was about seventeen and a half because if you waited at the age of the eighteen if you waited until you were eighteen and you were called up during the war you could be sent down the mines if you waited until you were called up the the authorities they did what they wanted with you they they could do anything with you so if you if you wanted to join the RAF especially to fly you had to go volunteer when you were seventeen and a half.
TJ: And that’s what you did?
RP: And that’s what I did yeah.
TJ: And then you went in at eighteen then?
RP: That’s right I went in just before I was eighteen yeah they called for me yeah.
TJ: So what was your first first experience of the RAF what were you doing?
RP: Er I was training as a wireless operator wireless operator and air gunner yes.
TJ: Where where was the training?
RP: The training was in Blackpool.
TJ: How long?
RP: Er I was in Blackpool I should think for er six months six months in Blackpool most most of that was er learning Morse Code we had two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon Morse Code and that was in the and that was in the tram sheds in the winter.
TJ: Not a lot of fun then?
RP: Mmm.
TJ: Not much fun?
RP: Well it Blackpool near near the coast in bitterly cold winds and every so often a tram used to come into the tram sheds and the doors had to be opened absolutely wide to allow it to come in or to go out and we used to get the horrible cold winds coming in from the sea and we were sitting at tables there lllistening to Morse Code all the time the instructors were ex Naval er Fleet Air Arm wireless operators naval people and they all sat there with great big overcoats on and helmets [laughs] sending Morse out to us but they used to send out articles from the newspaper stories of course as we were writing it down we used to read at the same time so it made it a little bit more interesting but that but that we used to have as I say we used to have about three hours in the morning or three hours in the afternoon and then in the afternoon we had to go to Stanley Park for gymnasium lessons and running PT and that sort of thing and also we used to have to go into er the Tower Ballroom and learn how to march we had we had to wear slippers we had to wear plimsolls for that and we were taught to march about turn, right turn you know about turn saluting to the front saluting to the left we had all that you see at Blackpool.
TJ: So at the end of that time you could do Morse and you could march and you could salute so where did they send you next?
RP: Well that that only took us until probably about ten or eleven words a minute in Morse we we had to in increase our speed quite a bit after but after that after that we er went we went down into oh gosh it’s it’s in that list somewhere in it er Yatesbury Yatesbury and that was a radio school.
TJ: Where’s Yatesbury?
RP: Yatesbury is in Wiltshire it was a big school that taught you all about radio about the the valves the different grids and elements you know the different er the way a valve worked and and how radio worked and and we were taught there to assemble our own radio sets and er and then get in touch with people in the next room once you got your radio all connected and working in working condition you could then call up you know to er the call sign and and people would hear you perhaps two or three rooms away and they were sending messages back again just to just to the valves there’s there’s tetrodes, pentodes, diodes you know all all different grids on valves and so forth we had to learn all about chokes and resistances and and er and er electricity and er.
TJ: Did it come easy to you?
RP: It was it wasn’t it was complicated really you know but the thing is we used to study at night school a bit you know ‘cos in the in the base itself there was no entertainment much there at all so er so at nights you’d probably go through what you were taught in the day time but I was lucky really because er er er one of the men one of the men who he did my training with he was a Kettering man and he worked for the he worked for the Evening Telegraph and he knew shorthand he was very good at shorthand and he could he could when the instructor was explaining things to us he could he could jot a lot of stuff down with shorthand so at nights when we got back into the billet at night we would get together in the bedroom and go through what we’d been taught in the day and I perhaps explain that I couldn’t understand what they were saying about the chokes and the different grids and things and the anodes the tetrodes and pentodes and er and er what he would do he would he would explain it all to me again you know he was quite quite good.
TJ: Great, so how long did that last?
RP: That that would be about four months about four months.
TJ: And then take us through what happened next after that?
RP: Well after that after that I went to Northcotes and and actually I think this was mainly this was mainly a break I think to get away from school room work and I actually started doing some er listening out there was a coastal command aerodrome in in use on the on the on the er on the er it be on the Lincolnshire coast up near Grimsby and and it was the coastal command aircraft going out and I used to have to sit and er listen out on frequencies and pick up any messages that came through I had to I had to write them down and take them into the flying control tower like I was like a contact between the aeroplanes that were flying over the North Sea and the base at Northcotes and and so being able to read the Morse I could I could take messages down and put them through to the operations room and they could er and they could go through with that but then later I had to go back to London then and and to the Albert Hall and I and we had er by that time the RAF had im improved all their radio equipment being used in the aircraft and and the stuff I was taught on was all obsolete so I had to go down to London to the Albert Hall there the Albert Hall was a training centre during the war for RAF and and we had to go through it all again all the different up to date radio it was.
TJ: How long were you in London?
RP: I was there for about four months.
TJ: So what so about when was that then?
RP: It was from September probably till till after Christmas.
TJ: Of Thirty Nine?
RP: Er no er you know it could be Forty I think.
TJ: Probably yes.
RP: Yes yes.
TJ: So while you were in London what was going on there in London?
RP: Well it we were lucky really because there there was there were one or two alerts but we never had any bombs never had any bombs at all there we were we were quite lucky that way.
TJ: Indeed in fact when you think what went on in London you were very lucky weren’t you?
RP: Yes yes it was all it was all it was all training you know we did a lot of PT, square bashing and er PT and er in er er is it Stanley not Stanley Park that’s Blackpool isn’t it well where are the big parks in London?
TJ: Regents Park.
RP: Regents Park yes and
TJ: Hyde Park?
RP: Hyde Park yeah that’s it yeah used to play football in there quite a lot as well in there.
TJ: Did you ever venture out in the evenings on the town in London?
RP: We we were we were living we were living in in Albert Court they were luxury luxurious flats just next to the Albert Hall when when at nights when we were in our bedrooms about five storeys high and there was queues waiting to go into the Albert Hall for concerts at night and we used to make little aeroplanes and fly them through the windows and the people down below used to watch them gliding down and that that we used to but we had to be in we had to be in every night at ten o’clock we weren’t allowed out after ten o’clock at night that was the same at Blackpool and when we were at Blackpool if er if your landlady she’d lock the doors at ten o’clock and if if and the RAF Police you see used to be patrolling the streets and if you were caught out there after ten o’clock you were on a charge you were punished on there yeah it was very strict.
TJ: So you finished in London you’ve got you were up to date with the new machinery new wirelesses um what was next?
RP: Next was gunnery we had to go to a gunnery course down on the South Coast to learn about Browning machine guns and er and we had to start flying then and shoot shooting at air at aircraft towing drones we had to learn how to strip a Browning machine gun and er put it together again and fire it and we had er we had a firing range on the sea on the seashore and it was where a lot of sand dunes were on the seashore and they had er an aeroplane they had an aeroplane on a little trolley a little electric trolley and this this er trolley used to go in and and out in and out these sand dunes and you were you were in a gun turret and RAF gun turret aircraft gun turret you’d be watching and all of sudden you’d see this aeroplane it come from behind as it come from behind a a sand dune and go across a short distance you had to get in there quick and fire a burst of machine gun fire and then it would go behind another sand dune and you wouldn’t see it so you’d be scanning round with with your turret like this all the time and then all of sudden you’d see it again and fire another burst at it it gave you a good idea of what it was like to be shooting in an aircraft yes that was part of the gunnery course.
TJ: Did you enjoy that bit?
RP: It was well it was much better [laughs] than just listening learning Morse Code all the time yeah.
TJ: So take us on to what happened next?
RP: Mmm?
TJ: Take us on to what happened after that?
RP: Well the next after that after that I had to go up to er er well [shuffling through papers] log book.
TJ: Good idea get out the log book.
RP: [Looking through log book] I think the first part the first part of my flying it was with we didn’t had it recorded we hadn’t got log books at the time er.
TJ: So can you remember where the airfield was your first experiences?
RP: Yeah its even that’s not in here no.
TJ: Well never mind just go from your memory then. Which planes were you on first?
RP: Mmm?
TJ: Which aircraft were you on first?
RP: We were on on Proctors Proctors they were really tiny little tiny aircraft er.
TJ: How many.
RP: Oh here we are yes I was I was flying in Dominies Dominies and Proctors and and er and all it was is learning how to transfer messages you know back to base and also DF routes using direction finding routes there’s a whole page of it there look on there [pointing out in log book].
TJ: Oh yes.
RP: On there on there I mean even even they put on they filled this in for us and they’ve put one hour, one hour, one hour ten, one hour ten, one hour, one hour, one hour, one hour, one twenty, one ten, I mean they’re not the correct times I mean obviously there’d be odd minutes wouldn’t they yes this is er the using the direction finding aerials loop aerials they were circular aerials and you by turning them round you can get you can get the direction of that of that er transmission that they sent to you so you could plot a position from that you see using the direction finder aerial ‘cos that was all very handy when we were flying in Germany there er yes checheering [?] codes, frequenty changes, calibration codes its all to do with direction finding you know with er using your aerials and that was that was flying in er in Proctors you had just like a little two seater aircraft and it wasn’t very and the Dominies that was like a classroom with about with an instructor in it and about five pupils in it and so that he used to he used to let you have ten minutes at a time on the radio and then another one he’d have ten minutes and then somebody else but when we went in the Proctors we went for about an hour with just the pilot and one wireless operator and then everything we did then you had to do on your own you see and we even had to he used to er fly somewhere over in Wales over the hills you know and er and and he you you had to bring him back to the aerodrome again using your your direction finding experiences that that was all part of the training er you’d two signals there back tuning er frequency changes and bearings it’s all look you see look one hour, one hour, one hour, one hour, one hour, one hour but I mean obviously they filled that in you see but I mean with your flights it could be one hour twenty five minutes or one hour thirty minutes the real times.
TJ: So when was it that you things started to get serious and you went out on actual missions?
RP: Well to start with you see we had to um I had to go where was the place here [looking through papers] this is this this an operational training unit here I was here there and this is where I started flying on Ansoms Ansoms they were twin engine aircraft you know bigger aircraft and er and and I I flew with different different pilots I mean I was with Sergeant Hamilton, PO Bess, Flight Lieutenant Mugridge, Flight Sergeant Gray, Sergeant Parker, Sergeant mm nn Carrow or something, Sergeant Briggs, Sergeant Hollingworth, Sergeant Farrow, they were all and and er I was doing QVM’s, loops, and frequency changes, loops, fixes, QVM’s, MTB’s that’s messages to base you see, yeah, ten loops, two QVM’s the QVM is a course to steer you know so if they pilot if the pilot in an aircraft and er and er and the pilot wanted to go to Lincoln he say to me ‘Reg get me a QVM get me a QVM yeah to Lincoln’ and I would call them up you see and ask for a QVM ‘da da di da da da da da da’ you see QVM [laughs] and er and they would give me a K you know K carry on and I would simply press my key then keep pressing my key then press me key there pressing it and the go ‘ddddddddddd’ that’s enough and I’d say QVM ‘da di da la la da la da dd da’ you know that’s one two five you know and I’d give that to the pilot you know course one two five and then and then er after a while he’d say ‘get me another QVM Reg just in case’ so I’d call them up again and ask for another QVM ‘da da di da da da da’ [laughs] and er and then perhaps this time perhaps be one two eight something like that.
TJ: So when was your first encounter with the enemy?
RP: Well that’s when you see that er that was er this was when I was flying on Ansoms and then and then I got to er to operational training unit OTU that is and that’s where that’s where I joined up with a pilot then you see on there not this one this is er this is an OTU but but I wasn’t actually crewed up I wasn’t actually crewed up ooh I was I was crewed up here with my pilot PO Beetham yeah PO Beetham yeah.
TJ: Oh yes.
RP: When we got to an OTU an operational training unit er er the pilots the pilots and the navigators they all had to go in a hangar there’d perhaps be twenty pilots and twenty navigators and they all had to go in a hangar and then got to sort themselves out into pairs they used to go round looking at each other and say ‘oh excuse me you know I’m a navigator are you a pilot? Have you got a navigator yet?’ you know and the pilot would say ‘no I haven’t got one’ and he said ‘would you like to fly with me’ you see and they’d say ‘yes yes I would you know I’d like to fly with you’ fair enough and as I say that’s the pilot and navigator and in another hangar they’d have wireless operators, and and air gunners and bomb aimers and the and the pilot the pilot and navigator they’d perhaps say look at the wireless operators they’d come up to you and say ‘excuse me but but your’e a wireless operator? Have you been are you in anyone’s crew yet?’ you see and you’d say ‘no not yet’’ so ‘would you like to fly with us?’ and you’d look at them you know two officers and you’d think er well they looked all right you know and I’d say ‘oh yes I’d love to’ and that’s how fair enough and that’s you with them then they’d be looking for a bomb aimer then you see and and that’s that’s how the crews got together they never they never sort of er er wrote them all down on paper like you know pilot so so Tom Jones, Alfred Smith and all that sort of thing you know it’s er it was all so I mean you went more or less by the looks of people whether you fancied you know when these two pilots came to me two officers came to me you know they looked they looked two smart friendly sort of smiles on their faces while they talked to you and er I was pleased to join them like and that’s er operational training unit er see I mean we only did er twelve hours fifty five minutes flying in the daytime here but once we got to er once we got to operational training unit there we er we were on Wellington bombers then you see and that’s when the crew the pilot and navigator and the bomb aimer and the wireless operator and the rear gunner that’s a crew of five then that’s when we really started training then you know doing two and three hour flights and.
TJ: And how long was it then before you went onto a unit where you were actually.
RP: What what?
TJ: You were actually dropping bombs?
RP: Oh yeah well that was er that Saltby Saltby that was one OTU we were at then there’s another one the big one er the big one was at Cottesmore at Cottesmore and and Market Harborough, Market Harborough is quite close to here you see look all this flying look here you can see on here look that’s all flights er er one here Beetham a cross country flight you see in Nineteen Forty Three cross cross country er on frequent change base, three QVM’s base, a fix from M group [?] a fix a fix is er is er what they call a group you call you call this group up and you request a fix and er and er you call a central station up and ask for a fix but there’s two more stations and they they can here you as well and when they when they tell you to press your key down you press your key down and this person he takes a he takes a er er bearing on you there that one takes a bearing on you and that one takes a bearing on you and where the three of you join in the map that’s that’s nine degrees forty five something east and so many degrees so and so west and they’d send that to me lllatitude and longitude so I can give that I can give that to the navigator so he can plot it so he can plot it and he gets his position exactly where he is that’s that’s what a fix.
TJ: So when did you go operational then about what?
RP: Operational?
TJ: Yes when was that then?
RP: Yeah see there was loads of training about two years of training you see.
TJ: Yes.
RP: Yes yes. You see even at heavy conversion unit at Wigsley that’s when we trained to go from a two engine aircraft to four engine aircraft you see and that’s that’s all flying you see learning to fly the four engine aircraft the bombers the big bombers you see yeah [showing picture] that was they were all Lancasters look there you see Lancasters.
TJ: Bearing in mind the people who are going to listen to this Reg can’t see you book.
RP: Yes but er but here we are look 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe now now these were the operations look in red.
TJ: In the red yes.
RP: Now look at the flying we had to do look before even we were on operations.
TJ: Lots of.
RP: Yes.
TJ: Lots of outings?
RP: Yes yes cross country, base, Thetford, return, cross country, base, Deb Deb Denham, return, and then cross country as briefed, air sea flying, cross country as briefed, formation bombing, yeah, cross country, base, Thetford, return, cross country, base, Debden return wherever that is, cross country as briefed.
TJ: Yes but it’s the one’s in red we are interested in so when you actually flew?
RP: On the first raid?
TJ: Yes.
RP: Well it surprised me because the very first the very first raid we did we expected something a bit simple but there’s the first raid look on the twenty.
TJ: What’s the date?
RP: On the Twenty Second of November Forty Three Flying Officer Beetham, wireless op, operations Berlin the first raid we did Berlin yeah, also as well look the second the second raid we did look there that was the next night.
TJ: The very next day?
RP: Twenty Third yeah Beetham twenty seven missing ops Berlin again landed at Wittering flaps US the flaps they wouldn’t let us land because the flaps were frozen and they were afraid if we crashed if we crashed on the runway there would be another twenty odd aircraft that wouldn’t be able to land you see so they divert us then you see divert us to Wittering you see then that’s on the Twenty Third on the Twenty Six again you see there operation Berlin again that’s three Berlin raids diverted to Melbourne Melbourne there’s fifty five missing on that raid fifty five aircraft missing on that that third raid we went on you see there’s thirty two missing on the first raid there’s twenty seven missing on the second raid so fifty five on that so that’s fifty five and thirty two that’s seventy seven that’s seventy seven in it seventy seven that’s ninety seven ninety seven that’s hundred and four aircraft lost in the first three raids we went on.
TJ: How many planes would go out at one time?
RP: Um well about five hundred six hundred yeah [laughs] oh yeah yeah yeah six hundred, seven hundred even eight hundred.
TJ: So were most of your missions over Berlin?
RP: I did ten.
TJ: Ten over Berlin?
RP: Ten ten altogether yes yes.
TJ: Anywhere else?
RP: Er
TJ: Any missions anywhere else?
RP: Oh yeah er [looking through log book]I did er I did er Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin incendiary through starboard outboard tank that’s with another bomb dropped from another aircraft that went straight through our wing coming back.
TJ: That must have been a hairy moment?
RP: Mmm?
TJ: It must have been frightening?
RP: Well it was in a way because because er if it had gone through it went through it went through the wing and but it also went through the petrol tank but the petrol tank was empty if it gone if it there’s three tanks I one wing and there’s three tanks in the other if it had gone through the one next to it that was full of petrol well even if even if it didn’t burn we wouldn’t get home ‘cos it that was the petrol and that we were going to use to fly us back to England you see yeah so.
TJ: Did you get back okay with that hole in the wing?
RP: Not not we got back alright with it yeah because because it just tore a whole straight through the wing.
TJ: It was still flyable?
RP: It was still flyable yeah on there yeah it it yeah incendiary through starboard outboard tank there and then it was Berlin, Berlin, that was on the First January we went to Stettin, Brunswick, went to Berlin again and then Berlin we did a spoof attack on Berlin that was er just a few aircraft there you know to let them think it was a Berlin raid then I suppose the main force went somewhere else, then Berlin, Berlin again we did ten Berlin raids altogether and they were all about eight hours you see the yeah you see take off here take off here look on the Twenty Eighth is was 00.21 so that’s twenty minutes after midnight take off and we didn’t er [unclear] yeah and we didn’t land until five minutes to eight the next morning so we were flying we were flying from midnight to five minutes to eight on that raid you see and and the Berlin raid before that er we took off at er 17.17 that’s round about five o’clock in it?
TJ: Yes.
RP: Five o’clock there and er and that we were flying for eight hours fifty five minutes so that’s nine hours in it pretty well eight hours fifty five minutes and er vyou see some of them Stettin you see that was a long journey Brunswick.
TJ: And all this time you were based at Skellingthorpe right?
RP: We were based at Skellingthorpe all the time yeah yeah we did a lot of operations at Skellingthorpe yeah you see this month look February look we only did two operations in February it must have been terrible weather I’ve got the er on the on the Eighth February here we we did a searchlight searchlight cooperation and fighter affiliation exercises all training all the time er and this was here of course er on the Twelfth of February it was a fighter affiliation exercise it’s got aircraft aircraft caught fire baled out at six thousand feet that’s when I had that’s when I had to bale out yeah and er.
TJ: What about the rest of the crew?
RP: Well there was ten of us in the aircraft there was six of us managed to bale out alright but four were killed four went down with the aircraft yeah they were all killed.
TJ: Where did you come down on your parachute where did you land?
RP: We we landed we landed we landed luckily er er we were we er we were going to fly up to up to Yorkshire fly up the Humber Estuary and and go up into Yorkshire and we were going to pick a Spitfire a Spitfire was waiting for us up there and the Spitfire the Spitfire was going to er attack us it it was going to dive on us and attack us you see but we but our full crew of seven Norman[?] Beetham and his full crew then we had another pilot he was an Australian pilot and we had his two gunners with us as well so there was ten of us ten of us in the aircraft altogether and er.
TJ: So that was nothing to do with enemy fire?
RP: Oh no no.
TJ: A misadventure.
RP: No no no and er we had er we had er we flew up into Yorkshire and we saw this Spitfire the pilots could talk to each other you see they called the Spitfire up and said you know ‘were already for you you can start attacking us anytime’ and my pilot you see he was flying the aircraft and my two gunners they were in the turrets you see they were in the turrets and er and the Spitfire as it came in they had cine camera guns as well they had cameras in there so so while they were while the guns were supposedly firing they were turning a film over so they were filming they were filiming the Spitfire so when they got back oh sorry yeah yeah yeah when they got back when they got back they could show the films they could show the films and they could say to the to the gunners you know your not not allowing enough deflection ‘cos when a planes coming on like that it’s no good firing at it because by the time the bullets get there the the planes gone you got to aim in front of you all the time that’s the way that’s the way it was and er our two gunners they did they did their operation first with my pilot and then after about after about quart fifteen minutes twenty minutes something like that we called the Spitfire up and told him to hold on we told him to hold on we were changing pilots and changing the gunners and er and then of course when er when er you know that’s right its when this other pilot he went in next you see and his two gunners and they called the Spitfire up and they told the Spitfire that he could come in and commence the er the attacking like but the thing is while we were flying while we were flying er we’d been up to Yorkshire and we were coming back again and er it was lovely sunny weather but the cloud was solid solid three thousand feet below us we were at six thousand feet and all you could see was cloud all the way over there at six at three thousand feet and you see we didn’t know whether we were still over the North Sea or not because you couldn’t see it you see there so when so when er you know when this other pilot was ready he called the Spitfire okay you can carry on now commence attacking and er and the Spitfire came in to attack us and the gunner shouted out a warning you know that’s what they do they have to say ‘fighter fighter port er port stream port stream go [unclear] ‘ and the pilot put the plane in such a dive such a steep dive I’ve I’ve never been in a Lancaster that dived as steep as that and I think the strain on the wings there it must have severed one of the coolant pipes for the Rolls Royce Engines and it must have spewed like spewed petrol all over the wing and the whole wing caught fire and the wing was a mass of flames and they the levelled plane out you see and Mike Beetham like he was the senior he was the senior officer like on board and he said ‘the whole wings on fire’ he said ‘right everybody out everybody bale out’ you see well I knew my flight engineer he hadn’t even got a parachute he hadn’t brought his parachute I said ‘Don where’s your chute?’ he said ‘oh he said it’s only a training flight I’m not bothered it’s only a training flight’ he said ‘I’m not gonna I’m not bothered’ you see he was a married man as well with a little little lad as well yeah and of course we er all started baling out well when I when I got in the rear door you had to sit on the side like that and the doors only a little thing you had you had to get your head down and you had to get your head right down otherwise you’d hit the tale and I crouched down and and I I when out and the wind pushed me back in I was trying to get but I think somebody just went just went like that.
TJ: Booted you out.
RP: Booted me out I’m sure they did ‘cos it was either that or once I got outside the slipstream you know a two hundred mile an hour wind hitting you you know it’s like a but the I went out I went out slipping out all I could see all I coul see was cloud that’s all and I didn’t know I didn’t know whether the sea was there or not it was February and we hadn’t got Mae West’s we hadn’t got Mae West’s on so it meant that if I went through the clouds and came down in the in the North Sea and I was even a mile from the coast with the sea would be bitterly cold wouldn’t it in February and er I doubt I doubt that I would have survived but I went I went I was [laughs] I was pulling I was pulling the wrong handle I was pulling one of the carry handles there’s four parachute handles on the parachute one, two, three, four then there’s the that metal one that’s in the middle and I didn’t get hold of that metal one I got one of the canvas ones and I was pulling that course my chute my chute wouldn’t open and I went through the clouds and my chute still hadn’t opened and I certainly thought good god Reg and I got this metal one and gave it a pull and it’s in there isn’t it.
TJ: It’s hanging outside in the hallway yes.
RP: And of course me chute opened me chute opened and I and I looked and I thought ooh good gracious and I and I looked about a mile away from me I could see the coast I could see the coast and I was quite a height you know still and er the wing from the aircraft that came down like a big leaf and I thought I thought it was going to hit my parachute as it came down but it was coming down like a big scythe like a big leaf but that went that went by me and I and I drifted luck luckily I drifted towards the coast and I landed about three or four miles inside the coast there.
TJ: In open countryside where you?
RP: Yeah in in a lovely big field yeah and I no sooner I no sooner landed like you know and sort of picked meself up and I looked and I saw another parachute coming down but he was going a little bit farther than me and there was a spinney with trees and I saw him go through these trees and all these branches going crickle crackle crickle crackle like as he went through these branches and that was that was the other pilot [laughs] but he his memory was er he lost his memory because ‘cos when I picked myself up er an airforce van was coming across the fields towards and and they said to me ‘are you alright?’ I said ‘yes officer I’m quite alright’ I said but I said ‘but another chap here he’s just come down in that spinney down there’ and they said ‘yes we saw him come down we’re going to see how he is’ well when they brought him out his mind had gone he was saying ‘Where are we? What happened? Where’s everybody? you know ‘Where have they all gone to?’ you know and he was talking like that and we realised that it had played his memory up and er so they but luckily we landed quite near to East Kirkby Airfield I’ll show you it East Kirkby Airfield [looking through book] yeah.
TJ: So you baled out so when did you next did you have a few days off to recover?
RP: Er well I don’t think so with a thing like that I I they never sent you on leave or anything like that you didn’t you didn’t get a leave no because I think the next night the next night ooh you know what messed us up as well you see I should have been seeing Ena er.
TJ: This is your wife?
RP: Yeah.
TJ: Were you married at the time?
RP: Oh no we we hadn’t known one another that long these two ATS girls they had to be in by ten o’clock at night you see every night so when we there’s no hanky panky like by the time we came out the er pub we used to walk them back to their billets.
TJ: In Skellingthorpe?
RP: Yes then we used to get on our bikes luckily luckily their quarters were in the er were in the Lincoln City Council they they took the Lincoln City Council Offices over the RAF took those over.
TJ: What in Lincoln?
RP: In Lincoln yeah and they had they had these rooms there you know where they used to supply all the food in the Royal Army Service Corps and they used to supply all the food to the aerodrome you know Scampton, Waddington, Bardney, Fiskerton you know all the all different places there.
TJ: Yes and you went on to marry Ena what year did you get married?
RP: Er it it was it was whilst I was still in the air force yeah.
TJ: Was it after the war?
RP: No no yeah the war had finished yeah ’cos I said I said we wouldn’t get married whilst he war was on yeah yeah and I was due to come off flying and take a ground job and I went oh that’s right they when I was at er er when I was at er Silverstone I was instructor there at Silverstone and when the war was more or less coming to an end we had a chance er the people that had done tour of operations and a tour of instructional duties ‘cos I’d had a year at Silverstone training wireless operators you know flying with them there and the one’s that had done a tour of operations and a tour of instructional duties could come off flying altogether and take a ground job they they advertised it to say that er you know if you take a ground job and they said and you’d be given you’d be given a choice of posting to where you would go and when you chosen the job you wanted to do you know a ground service job you could er er er you were given a posting and I put I put Desborough the first choice that’s that’s only about four miles from Kettering, Market Harborough which is about eleven miles from Kettering and I put that second choice and I think I put Cottesmore I think as the third choice so that’s like three choices of er posting if I if I was If I came off flying and took a ground job and I I chose I chose this job er er well it was a stores job it’s to do with er to do with RAF equipment that you know that a surplus of RAF equipment as the aerodromes started to close down the re was all of the equipment left behind and it was disposing of it and and er ascertaining whether it’s whether it’s in serviceable condition or whether it can be repaired or whether whether it got to be scrapped like what to do with it it’s all the paperwork you know attached to like vans and things and tractors you know aircraft and so forth it was all the official paperwork because in the RAF er if a thing if a thing is going to be repaired there’s always a form goes in an official form to allow it you know to allow it to take place you know everything had to be done with a form official notification like you know and er this was the course this was the course that I did I chose to do because as they said ere r you know I was given a choice of posting either three miles from home or seven miles from home or perhaps twelve miles from home and I did this course it was up near Blackpool the course I had to do and er and after that after that we got married we got married you see in fact we spent our honeymoon in Blackpool because I’d spent so much time in Blackpool and I knew one or two people up in Blackpool and we spent our honeymoon in there and so when I went back there again after you know you know after that er we were told we were going to go on the North Pier at night on that particular night and we would be told we would be told where our postings were going to be where we going to be posted to you see and I thought oh crickey you know let’s hope its somewhere close near to Kettering like you know now I’ve married Freda, Ena.
TJ: Ena.
RP: Ena [laughs] Ena yeah.
TJ: For the record Freda was wife number two.
RP: Anyhow on the pier they started reading these names out it was getting dark actually as well at the time about October time and they called my name out warrant officer Payne and they looked at the list and said warrant officer Payne posted to 56 FRU FRU and I thought to myself FRU and I thought to myself that’s nothing like they said I In fully expected them to say you know one of these aerodromes so I went up after they finished I went up to the people there calling them out I said ‘this 56 FRU’ I said ‘that’s not where they said they were going to post’ I said ‘where’s that?’ they said ‘we’ve got no idea’ they’d got no idea they’d got no idea where it is you see and er so I asked they said ‘somebody one officer there when he comes he’ll know’ so I went up to him and said ‘been posted to 56 FRU’ and they said ‘FRU that’s the forward repair unit’ and I said ‘where will that be then forward repair unit?’ he said he had a look he said ‘well it’s in SEAC SEAC’ I said I said ‘what do you mean by SEAC?’ he said ‘South East Asia Command’ so I said ‘well where are they?’ he said ‘well we don’t really know we’ll send you to Karachi’ he said ‘and they’ll know when you get to Karachi’ you can’t understand it can you terrible in it.
TJ: So what happened?
RP: Mmm?
TJ: What happened?
RP: Well when I got to Karachi they said well they said it’s near Rangoon in Burma and they said ‘they’ll tell you when you get to Rangoon they’ll they’ll take you there’.
TJ: And what was your role there what job did you do?
RP: I was I was investigating all of the equipment left behind in these aerodromes you know vans, tractors, aeroplanes, typewriters, and er you know radio sets and things and and ascertaining whether they whether there fit for reply or whether they’re going to be struck off charge because with the with the RAF every piece of equipment was on paper and you couldn’t and it was and it was er like in an office work they’d perhaps have seventeen typewriters or thirteen machine guns like and they’d all have numbers and er if if one was er and they were all located in filing cabinets like you see and if you wanted to er if say one was a motorbike and it got smashed in a in a crash er the paperwork a form had to be filled in stating that it had been destroyed and that form would go into the office where there was a filing cabinet and there’d be a card in the filing cabinet connected to that to that motorbike or whatever it was and and then that form that form would be responsible for deleting that item like you know nothing could be thrown away until a form was made out and filled in you know authorising you to throw it away.
TJ: Very different weather in Burma to Skellingthorpe?
RP: Oh good gracious yes.
TJ: Was it hot and steamy?
RP: It used to be a hundred hundred degrees yeah yeah.
TJ: How long were you out there?
RP: I was out there from er before Christmas until August yes I was there for about ten months altogether yeah er they flew me to start with er I flew from Tempsford that’s in Bedfordshire somewhere there and we flew to Cairo to start with we flew to Cairo and then from Cairo we flew then to Tripoli that was lovely there I slept in a tent in the desert that night in Tripoli and I was only there for about three nights but there was a lovely big harbour there and there was no end of Italian warships you know in the harbour but all they were all sunk and all you could see was their masts sticking out the water you know there, there, there, all these warships Italian warships that had been sunk but anyhow from there they flew us then to Cairo and we stayed in the Heliopolis Palace Hotel lovely place there and er and er the next morning I got up and I looked out on the on the balcony and I could see The Pyramids.
TJ: Wow.
RP: Yeah the Heliopolis Palace Hotel yeah and and er I hadn’t had a bath for ages and there was a lovely bath there and I was just enjoying this bath and a lady came in she started cleaning the taps [laughs] when I was in the bath she didn’t take a bit of notice of me [laughs] it’s terrible in it [laughs] yeah amazing isn’t it and then of course we went out then to see Cairo and er I didn’t fancy that at all I’d never ever want to go there the kids the kids because we were in RAF uniform and the kids had got a a jam jar a pound jam jar and it was half full of er black black shoe polish liquid shoe polish black and they’d and they’d come on you saying ‘shoeshine pal shoeshine boy’ you know and in other words if they didn’t give them something they’d throw this pot of black shoe polish over you over your uniform yeah but luckily we were armed we had revolvers yeah and we just we just fetched the revolver out and just cocked it and said ‘you throw that and your dead we’ll shoot you’ we said that to them and I think we would have done [laughs] yeah for you to get a revolver out and point it revolvr ‘we’ll shoot you if you throw it’ yeah yeah amazing [laughs].
TJ: So at the end of your time in Burma you came back to where?
RP: Er well I came back to er a place near near Blackpool a demob centre and er and er I was I was issued with a demob suit and paid you know owed me a lot of money ‘cos I was a month on the boat coming back I was thirty days on the boat coming back from Rangoon and that’s a month’s pay you see there yeah and I think I was still paid for about another month or two months.
TJ: Did you choose to come out or would you have liked to have stayed in?
RP: If if er if I hadn’t have been married I think I wouldn’t have minded staying in ‘cos Mike Beetham you see he stayed in.
TJ: Yes he’s still in.
RP: Yeah yeah he wanted me he wanted me to stay with him because er er after after the end of the war he took a squadron of Lancasters to America on a goodwill tour and er and I’ve seen I’ve seen some of the film that er I can’t think where I’ve seen it I’ve seen some of the film that was shown that was taken like when they were in there they even went to places like Hollywood and he sent me a photograph of himself in I think in Hollywood and he’d got his arm round I think Bette Davis I think [laughs] something like that you know I saw this photograph of him with his arm round her so he I mean you know he did well that way he er but he’s er at the squadron reunions we used to see him regularly you know and also at the Bomber Command reunions we used to see him there.
TJ: How did you feel after the war about the way that the Bomber Command wasn’t recognised?
RP: Er
TJ: Did it were you upset about it were you really aware of it?
RP: What leaving it do you mean leaving?
TJ: No the way that the Bomber Command wasn’t recognised in any speeches.
RP: Oh that yeah.
TJ: And Bomber Harris wasn’t knighted with everybody else did that really strike a chord with you.
RP: Well I we all thought it was a disgust you know and not allowing us this not allowing us that you know we thought you know but the thing is you know you see in the forces your under strict your under strict rules all the time and I think you got so used to er not being able to do this not being able to do that you know I mean you weren’t allowed on an RAF aerodrome to walk about without a hat on you know and I mean if you if you walked across at an airfield where there was huts and things and you hadn’t got a hat on an RAF policeman would put you on a charge straight away you’d be improperly dressed you see.
TJ: So this centre they hope to build just outside Lincoln I mean it’s been a long time coming hasn’t it and it seems a shame it wasn’t done a long time ago why do you feel have you got any theories about why Bomber Command wasn’t recognised as Fighter Command was and all the other services have you got any thoughts on why?
RP: Well not really because because for about for about ten years I was I was saddled with the fifty and sixty one squadron memorial at Birchwood at Skellingthorpe I mean for about two or three years we were collecting money for that you see and we were having to go having to go to Lincoln about ooh at least once a month and er and meet up with the Lincoln City Council people because they helped us a lot with it you know with the er we we used to have a meeting ourselves in the morning just the about four us but mostly the people responsible for raising the money for it we had to raise twenty seven thousand pound for that you see.
TJ: So what was your first job were you out of work for very long after you had demobbed?
RP: Er well after the no no not I I er er when I got when I got demobbed and came home you see I I had about two months leave due to me you see because being in Burma being in Burma we didn’t get any leave at all there I mean I I think I spent six months there without any leave so I think when when I got when I actually got demobbed and you know and given a demob suit and all that sort of thing I was given you know about a month’s backpay and then probably then probably another month’s you perhaps wasn’t going to be demobbed for another month so therefore I was given another month’s backpay.
TJ: So you had time to look around for some work?
RP: Oh yeah when I when I came back home yeah.
TJ: What did you do?
RP: I went I went in er engineering engineering factory and took up engineering.
TJ: Did you stay in that field for the rest of your working life?
RP: Pretty well yeah because er er I it was my my brother he worked he got to work in this engineering factory it was called Timpsons and they made er they made swings and roundabouts and things for parks and so forth and jazzes[?] and all that sort of thing there but er but er I went I went to work there for a short while and learning a bit about engineering learning to work on drilling machines and lathes but er then the pair of us we were offered a better job at a firm only about two streets away from it and they made shoe shoe machinery you know er stitching machine and er sewing machines you know and presses and all that for boot and shoe manufacture and we both went to work there because they said they would pay us more money than what we were given at this other place you see.
TJ: Did you find it easy to readjust to civilian life did you have any dark days after the war you know where you know thought a lot about things?
RP: Yeah er well not really I suppose I mean in the forces you had such a variation of different jobs to do you know that er.
TJ: So you settled back down quite well?
RP: Oh yeah.
TJ: And you got married after you were demobbed did you?
RP: No I I got I got married because they because they said you know er
TJ: So you got married before you went to Burma?
RP: Oh yeah because you see they said that er you get you get you’ll be given a ground job that you wanted to do and you’d be given a posting as near home as you require and they gave you a choice of three different choices.
TJ: So there’s poor Ena married and you were off in Burma?
RP: That’s right yes she was still in the ATS.
TJ: Yeah so you had you went on how many children did you have?
RP: Mmm?
TJ: How many children children?
RP: Me I only had David David one son that’s all.
TJ: When was he born?
RP: Well about Eighty Eight no wait a minute no wait a minute.
TJ: How old is he?
RP: Do you know he’s he’s about seventy now he was born he was born about Forty Four about Forty Six only about two years you see after we were married yes.
TJ: Yes.
RP: Yes but that’s just only one son that’s all yes.
TJ: Okay so.
RP: Oh he he he’s never been never been really interested in my RAF flying days till this last two or three years but now now he loves to come up to our reunions with us you know at Skellingthorpe yeah he loves to come up there.
TJ: You’re a great artist Reg you’ve shown me a lot of pictures here today that you’ve done some of them are buildings or landscapes and quite a few of them are of planes and such like is this something you have been doing all your adult life or something fairly recent?
RP: I was I was I did quite well at school with art I never had any trouble with passing exams and things at school with art I did a lot of artwork at school yeah.
TJ: Yes and have you when did the painting start?
RP: When?
TJ: When did you start painting these wonderful pictures?
RP: Oh right it it it must be twenty years ago.
TJ: Oh so that’s fairly recent actually in the scheme of things.
RP: I did a lot of watercolours.
TJ: So well look you’ve just handed me a great lot of watercolours well I’ll certainly have a look at those but I’d just like to say thank you very much for sharing your memories.
RP: Yes.
TJ: With us today and it’s been an honour and privilege to meet you thank you very much.
RP: Yes.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Reg Payne. One
Creator
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Tina James
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-03
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APayneR150703
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Pending review
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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.
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
Description
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Reg Payne was born in Kettering, he left school at fourteen and worked for the British Legion. He volunteered for the RAF when he was seventeen and a half and trained as a wireless operator and air gunner. He describes his training learning Morse Code, gunnery practice, and how the crew were chosen, before taking part in operations over Germany where on one occasion a bomb dropped from another aircraft straight through his aircraft's wing. On another occasion whilst on a training exercise his aircraft caught fire and the crew had to bale out sadly four crew were killed. He met his first wife Ena whilst at RAF Skellingthorpe and they married shortly before the end of the war prior to him being posted to 56 Forward Repair Unit in South East Asia Command and sent to Burma. After the war he worked in an engineering factory and still resides in Kettering where he enjoys painting watercolours.
Format
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01:15:18 audio recording
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bomb struck
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
Dominie
Lancaster
love and romance
memorial
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
physical training
Proctor
RAF North Coates
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Yatesbury
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner