1
25
5
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/117/3379/PCookKHH1601.1.jpg
14944c26aa827cd2423b233d4d2ac572
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/117/3379/ACookKHH160725.2.mp3
199eff75afa2921f7b1278169d2c5ec3
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
Cook, Kenneth
Kenneth Cook
Kenneth H Cook
Ken Cook
K H Cook
K Cook
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander Kenneth Howell Cook DFC (b. 1923, 151017 Royal Air Force). Kenneth Cook flew 45 operations with 97 Squadron, Pathfinders.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-04
2016-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cook, KHH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PJ: Right. Interviewers Peter Jones and Sandra Jones. Name of the interviewee Wing Commander, Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC. Attending with him is his son Jonathan Cook. The date is the 25th of the 7th 2016 and it’s just 5 o’clock pm. The place is Chadlington, Oxfordshire. Thank you, Ken for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Ken, tell me about what you did before the war?
KC: Okay. Well I attended grammar school at -
JC: Marling.
KC: Marling Grammar School near Stroud in Gloucestershire and I was one of the first to join the Air Training Corps Squadron that was set up in Stroud, number 1329 Squadron and that helped to focus my attention on joining the Royal Air Force and while I waited until I was old enough to apply and a couple of years later I found myself on the train going from Stroud up to Paddington with an appointment to go to Lords Cricket Ground to be a part of what turned out to be over five thousand budding air crew that were joining the RAF on the same day that I was and after a few weeks staying in local accommodation in that area I was then posted up to Scarborough to the ITW [name number?]. That was at Scarborough Grammar School. So I did my ITW and then I was posted up, back up to the north west of England to wait for a boat because I was going across to America to learn to fly in America as a pilot and going across the Atlantic we were chased by a U-boat which gave us a bit of a turn and we got away from it and got to the other side alright and then got on a train that took us three days to go along through Canada right down through the centre of America to Georgia. And so my opening days were down there in very high temperatures erm which I enjoyed very much and we were flying an aircraft called a Stearman, the biplane, and I’d gone solo but they decided that I and one or two others needed a lot more time than they could afford so they asked me to go back to Canada to carry on my training there which I did but when I got to Canada I was told the pilot training schools were all totally full so I’d have to hang around. So they then asked me if I wanted to be an air gunner and I said no. And they made me hang around a bit longer and then eventually they said, ‘We’re opening up a new air crew job called an air bomber. Would you be interested in that?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ I’d have a go at that and so I went on through a couple of courses spread over three or four months and I came out as the two guys that, I was commissioned as a young pilot officer off the course. There was two of us commissioned. I was one of them and so I came back home having gone out as an erk I came back to England as a pilot officer. Then having got back to England I found myself, believe it or not, posted to, what’s that airfield near High Wycombe, the grass over?
JC: Booker.
KC: Booker. Booker airfield, to fly Tiger Moths and so I carried on. Started my pilot training or continued my pilot training there and I’m lost now from where I go from there.
JC: Do you want to stop for a second Dad? Shall we stop for a sec? Can we just stop for a sec?
KC: Hmmn?
JC: Do you want to stop for a little break?
KC: Yeah.
JC: For a second.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So you -
[Pause]
SJ: Okay.
KC: So I was posted to the northwest England to fly. Can you stop it for a minute? I can’t think.
[Pause]
JC: Botha?
KC: Botha, yeah.
JC: Botha.
KC: Yeah. That was it.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Up there in Scotland. In the northwest. And then on to er what was I saying? Which one the -
JC?: Cottesmore.
KC: Cottesmore. That was the Wellingtons. Starting to learn night bombing and all that techniques. And from there I was posted to -
JC: Winthorpe.
KC: Winthorpe, was it? Yes.
JC: Heavy Conversation Unit.
KC: Yeah. HCU.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And then -
JC: And then Bardney after that for five [weeks?]
KC: And then to 9 Squadron at Bardney.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On Lancasters, yeah. Yeah. I did ten ops with 9 Squadron and a crew there and then we were invited to join them, they had just set up the Pathfinder force in Bomber Command and we were recommended as a crew that could join the Pathfinder force which I went on a course at Bourne in Cambridgeshire and then graduated on, as a Pathfinder crew in Lancasters [pause] and I did another thirty five ops with a Pathfinder crew. Altogether, I did forty five ops and I came out of that. Just after finishing ops I got awarded the DFC. And where did I go after ops?
JC: You went off to, where did you go then? You went off to Fiskerton didn’t you? To be the station radar nav officer. Was that right?
KC: Yes, I did. I was posted to RAF Fiskerton near Lincoln.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Having, I completed altogether forty five ops so I was now screened from any more ops but I then flew at Fiskerton. There were two Lancaster squadrons there and my job was to, as new crews came in from training I had to fly with each new crew to check them out, that they, that their navigators could operate the radar properly before they were allowed to go on ops. That was hairy because some of the pilots were new and they couldn’t land the Lancaster at night and we used to do what we called a few, what we called a few cannon balls going down the runway at night. Anyway, went through that period. The squadron then moved from, they closed the airfield and moved us to Fulbeck and so I went along although I was on the station and not with the squadrons I was instructed by Group Headquarters to go with them to Syerston on the Fosse Way and I stayed with them for about two years at Syerston flying with new crews when they came in. Checking them out on the radar and so on. Then what happened after Syerston?
JC: Okay. So you were getting ready for the Tiger Force. Is that right?
KC: Um.
JC: You went to back to the, posted back to Coningsby. Station radar nav officer.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were part of the build-up for the Tiger Force when you were due to head out to the Far East weren’t you?
KC: They were going, they were going out there. Yeah.
JC: Yes but obviously it was cancelled because the Japanese surrendered. Didn’t they?
KC: Yeah. That’s it.
JC: Okay.
KC: [?]
JC: So that took you to the end of the war. Right?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so what was your first posting post war was at HQ1 Group at Bawtry.
KC: Bawtry yes. I was the group radar nav, group navigation officer.
JC: Yeah.
KC: At headquarters of 1 Group at Bawtry.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then in 194 –
KC: I was a wingco then.
JC: That’s, okay, well you were then offered a permanent commission in, that was 1948.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You were offered permanent commission?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you went on to Thirsk. Okay.
KC: Well, ‘cause I went to Topcliffe.
JC: Yes.
KC: ‘Cause that was, had been set up to, to train all wartime people like me in to being proper peacetime navigators [laughs].
JC: That’s right.
KC: And I was one of them. How to use Astro and all that stuff and to navigate the aeroplanes.
JC: What’s Astro?
KC: Astro and also with the radar, of course. All the latest stuff.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. What happened after Topcliffe?
JC: And then you went to a conversion course on night all weather fighters and you then moved to Coltishall flying in Mosquitos.
KC: Yeah. I had to go on to learn the latest air borne radar for night fighter navigator radar people and then I was posted to Coltishall.
JC: That’s it.
KC: Where there was a night fighter squadron and I joined the squadron. I can’t remember how long. About a year or more and then I was posted – when? I took command.
JC: That squadron, that squadron converted didn’t it? To –
KC: To Javelins.
JC: That’s, no, to Meteors I think it was.
KC: Meteor night fighters. That’s right.
JC: That’s right. Yeah.
KC: Yeah. From Mosquito to Meteor night fighters.
JC: Yes.
KC: When did I take command?
JC: You, so that was, I don’t know when you took command but in 1953 you were group navigation officer at that point and in 1956/57 you went to West Malling didn’t you? And you were appointed as a flight commander. Is that right?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Which was unusual for a navigator wasn’t it?
KC: I was one of the first navigators to be a -
JC: Yes.
KC: A flight commander.
JC: Yes. Okay. And then in 1957 you went to 153 in West Malling.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were appointed commanding officer there.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And given the rank of Wing Commander at that point.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. And the aircraft you moved to then were Meteor.
KC: Meteor and, and yeah Meteor night fighters.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: They were 12s and 14s I think.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Were they?
KC: Yeah. Mark 12s and Mark 14s. Yeah.
JC: And later you converted to another aircraft.
KC: Yeah. Javelin.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: That’s right. Okay.
KC: Javelin. Night, all weather fighters.
JC: Okay. And then after that you were posted, you had an opportunity to improve your, your shocking education.
KC: Yeah. They sent me to the Staff College.
JC: That’s right.
KC: I went to the RAF Staff College for a year and they were obviously teaching me to read and write again you know.
JC: That’s right.
KC: I was at Bracknell in Berkshire.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Do you want to take another quick break? Just take a quick break dad?
KC: Yeah. Shall we do that? Yeah.
[Pause]
JC: So where did you go? You went off to the Middle East.
KC: Yeah. I went to Iran.
JC: No. No.
KC: No.
JC: That was post air force. You went to somewhere else. You went to Aden didn’t you?
KC: Oh I went to Aden, yes.
JC: That’s right.
KC: In the Middle East. Aden. And I used to have to tramp up in to the Persian Gulf from Aden.
JC: Yes.
KC: Visiting the air force bases and that all along the Gulf.
JC: Yes.
KC: And I was out there about two years wasn’t I?
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Until 1963.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you were posted back to a training command I think. Is that right? For a couple of years. And then you moved on to Signals Command at Medmenham near Marlow.
KC: Yeah, it was, it was, was it a Group Headquarters or a Command Headquarters?
JC: It was, it was HQ Signals Command it says.
KC: Oh the Command Headquarters then.
JC: Yes.
KC: As a staff officer I was there.
JC: Yeah. And what was your role there?
KC: Signals Command, Medmenham.
JC: Is it related to personnel? Wasn’t it? It says here you were a senior personnel staff officer.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. I think I was involved, yeah, in staffing matters there.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes you were. And then you took retirement in January 1968.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then started your civilian career.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah
JC: So is that as far as you want to take it? There we go. That’s that bit. Now, shall we start again and I’ll, I’ll ask you some questions around this different things that you just want to give me there as well.
SJ: Those.
JC: Okay alright. So dad, so going back to so when were you, first of all just give your birthdate, dad. When you were born.
KC: 9th of April 1923.
JC: 1923. Okay and where were you born?
KC: Randwick.
JC: Randwick in Gloucestershire.
KC: Near Stroud.
JC: Yeah. Near Stroud in Gloucestershire.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And just kind of describe what sort of a place Randwick was back in those, those days?
KC: Well, Randwick was a small Cotswold village. Everybody knew everybody.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I went to Randwick village school.
JC: How many kids were there in that school? Roughly. Can you remember?
KC: There was about a hundred and fifty altogether.
JC: Was there? Okay.
KC: There were about three or, yeah, three classes total.
JC: Yeah.
KC: In the school.
JC: Okay.
KC: And I passed the eleven plus.
JC: And you also had, did some things in the village as well didn’t you? Weren’t you sort of active in the choir as I remember? Is that right?
KC: I was in the church choir.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah. The C of E church choir.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I became the head choir boy ‘cause I was the guy that would always get pushed in the back by the choir master saying, ‘Sing up Ken.’
JC: Fantastic. Okay. Alright. And so then you went, you passed your exam and went to Randwick School and where was Randwick School?
KC: Well it -
JC: Sorry not Randwick School. You went to Marling School.
KC: Marling. Marling School.
JC: And where was Marling School?
KC: Marling School was on the outskirts of Stroud.
JC: Which was how far away from -
KC: About four miles.
JC: Right.
KC: I used to cycle there on a bike every morning.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so you stayed there for a number of years until you were what? About sixteen were you?
KC: Yeah sixteen.
JC: Yeah. And then you left the -
KC: I then, I got a job with a company called Erinoid. It was in the early days when plastics were first being made in this country.
JC: Yes.
KC: And Erinoid were one of the early companies and I was invited to join their lab, their laboratory.
JC: Right.
KC: Where all the experiments was being done on the latest type of plastics.
JC: And so -
KC: I was an office boy if you like.
JC: Right.
KC: But in fact they made me look at everything that was going on with a view to picking it up.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So you were almost like an apprentice there?
KC: An apprentice. Yes.
JC: That’s what you were kind of doing.
KC: Yes.
JC: Doing. Okay. And, and so you did that job. So we were now in 1939 so there would have, that would have been presumably you were working there at the outbreak of the war. Were you?
KC: Yes I was. Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And what was, how did you feel about the outbreak of the war? What was, you know your initial thinking?
KC: Well one of the first things I did was to join the Air Training Corps in Stroud.
JC: Right okay.
KC: And from there -
JC: And what made you join that as opposed to joining the army or the navy? What was it about the Air Training Corps?
KC: It was about flying and I wanted to learn to fly.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: It seemed like a better option. Did it? Fair enough.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Fair enough. Okay. So you got to the age, I guess, of eighteen where you could potentially signup.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So were you conscripted or did you volunteer?
KC: I volunteered.
JC: You volunteered.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where did you go to volunteer? At somewhere -
KC: I went to Weston Super Mare.
JC: Did you? Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Why did you have to go down there ‘cause that’s a bit of a way from Stroud?
KC: That was the sort of a holding centre.
JC: Right.
KC: Where you went down there and you’d find you were there with all sorts of guys and so on.
JC: Right I bet. Did any, did you go down there with anybody. Any friends go with you? Or?
KC: No.
JC: No you went off on your own did you?
KC: On my own. Yeah.
JC: And did you have to do anything before you went down there? Was there anything more local in Stroud that you had to do to -?
KC: Only that I was now an active member of the Air Training Corps in Stroud.
JC: So it was the Air Training Corps that helped you -
KC: That helped me.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Very much. Yeah.
JC: I see.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. And so what happened when you went to Weston Super Mare? What happened when you went down there?
KC: Oh crikey. What happened at Weston Super Mare? I think we were, we were every day marched out on to the top of the cliffs.
JC: Yes.
KC: And made to parade up and down doing all sorts of, learning to drill, you know -
JC: Right.
KC: All the drill stuff.
JC: That’s where your drill stuff happened?
KC: Yes.
JC: Right. Okay. Good. And, and of course you had your mum and dad were back at home.
KC: Yes.
JC: What was their reaction to your having signed up and volunteered? Do you remember?
KC: My dad was almost, sort of well, ‘I expected you to do something like that Ken.’
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing, you know.
JC: Yes.
KC: My mum said, ‘I don’t want you to go.’
JC: No. I bet.
KC: 'I don’t want you to go.’
JC: As mums do.
KC: But I did. But I used to, you know come home on breaks and -
JC: Yes.
KC: See them.
JC: And you had, you had several older brothers and a sister. What were they doing during all of this?
KC: Yeah. Harry was the eld– , well Mabel was the eldest wasn’t she?
JC: Your sister. Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: That’s right.
KC: And she’s the one who kept, if you like, the family running.
JC: Right.
KC: Although she lived a few miles away.
JC: Yeah.
KC: She kept an eye on my mum and dad.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And really kept the family running -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Smoothly. And I had brothers like Harry.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was –
JC: Did he sign up for any, any of the services?
KC: Sorry?
JC: Did he sign up for any of the services? Or was he a bit, he was a bit older wasn’t he?
KC: A bit older. Yeah. Walter. Walter did.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yes. He did.
JC: What did he sign up for? Did he sign up for, was one of them merchant navy? I can’t quite remember what he was.
KC: It was something like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I think it was. Yes.
JC: Yes.
KC: Merchant navy. Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about your nearest brother?
KC: Charlie.
JC: Charlie. What did he do?
KC: Well Charlie was in a reserved occupation ‘cause he worked for Newman Henders and he was a draughtsman.
JC: Right.
KC: And they were working on munitions and stuff.
JC: Oh right.
KC: And so he was screened. They wouldn’t let him go.
JC: Right.
KC: He had to get on with the war stuff that he was working on.
JC: Fine. Okay.
KC: On drawing boards and things.
JC: Okay. Alright. So -
KC: Yeah.
JC: So that’s what the family were doing and what they were thinking and you were off at Weston Super Mare and coming home at weekend, occasional weekends and things like that were you?
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Okay. And how, and so you did that for a bit and then you said before that you had to go up to, to Lord’s to kind of muster up there did you? Is that, is that right?
KC: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I had to report to Lord’s.
JC: Yes.
KC: ‘Cause I wanted to fly aircrew.
JC: Yes. So that was where aircrew were sent.
KC: Aircrew. We all, literally I was absolutely shattered. Walked into the Lord’s Cricket Ground ‘cause I’d never been, even to London like that in my life.
JC: Right.
KC: And walked in and there with thousands -
JC: Yes.
KC: Guys like me and -
JC: And what was -
KC: We were there. They took over the expensive housing from, I’m not anti-Jews but a certain part near there a lot of Jew families, rich Jew families.
JC: That was St John’s Wood wasn’t it? Around the St John’s Wood.
KC: St John’s Wood.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the government kicked them all out.
JC: Yes.
KC: And took over all their sumptuous houses, I mean for me as village kid coming up there, going into their bathrooms and seeing all the ornate stuff they had in their bathrooms, you know.
JC: Quite something was it?
KC: It was. It was unbelievable, you know.
JC: And were you so you were sort of put into these, these kind of houses and apartments I guess in -
KC: Yeah.
JC: In London. And you were sharing with people from your part of the country or from around the country?
KC: All over the country. There were guys that could hardly add up to five.
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing.
JC: Yes.
KC: And there was, not cockneys but they had accents that you couldn’t understand half the things they said, you know.
JC: Right. I bet, I bet there were people that you hadn’t been exposed to many of those kinds of accents, had you?
KC: No. I hadn’t. No.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Fantastic. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so okay so you did, so you did that and then from there that’s where they sent you I think to Booker wasn’t it? To start the -
KC: Yeah.
JC: The training.
KC: FTS Booker.
JC: Yes.
KC: To start pilot training.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. Yeah. That Booker was near High Wycombe.
JC: That’s it and that was for air experience wasn’t it? On, on -
KC: Yeah.
JC: What sort of aircraft? Those were on -
KC: Seeing if you were going to be airsick all the time.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which, they would chuck you out of aircrew. Yeah.
JC: And that on what sort of planes were those you were flying?
KC: That was Tiger Moths.
JC: Tiger Moths.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Gosh.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. And how did you take to the flying? What was your sort of initial memories of doing that?
KC: I felt quite comfortable about it. I think, I mean I wasn’t eliminated or anything like that.
JC: Right and could you have been eliminated at that point?
KC: You could have, yeah.
JC: Right.
KC: If you didn’t cope reasonably well they’d chuck you off the course.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay and so, so that was sort of April May 1942 and then in June 1942 they put you on board this ship the SS Leticia.
KC: Leticia.
JC: Leticia that’s right. And that was -
KC: And we went across the Atlantic -
JC: And that was from up in Scotland. You had to go up to Scotland to catch -
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: That didn’t you? From the Clyde.
KC: The Clyde.
JC: To go over to Halifax in Nova Scotia.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And –
KC: We were chased by U-boats going across the Atlantic.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then, and then from there you travelled down on the trains through to Georgia to -
KC: Albany, Georgia.
JC: Albany, Georgia. That’s right.
KC: Took about three days and nights on the train.
JC: That’s it.
KC: Thousand, hundreds of miles. It was a distance train trip.
JC: Okay. But you were flying from a place called Turner Field.
KC: Turner Field.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Albany, Georgia.
JC: That’s it. Okay. And then you were, what sort of planes were you flying down there? This was -
KC: PT17s. Stearman.
JC: Okay.
KC: A biplane.
JC: And this -
KC: The American version of the Tiger Moth sort of thing.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But it was a heavier airplane than the Tiger Moth.
JC: And why were you sent over to the States to do, to do this?
KC: Because they wanted air crew quickly.
JC: Right. But why not train them up here?
KC: The only schools we had were absolutely jam packed full.
JC: I see. Okay.
KC: And to, they needed to, they needed hundreds more.
JC: Right.
KC: So we were sent. I mean some were sent to South Africa.
JC: Yes.
KC: I was sent to Canada and America.
JC: Right. And America was still neutral at this time wasn’t it?
KC: Yes. Yeah.
JC: So, so, so but they were still happy for, for aircrew to be trained up in America on this -
KC: Yeah.
JC: There was -
KC: I don’t know how we got away with that but we did.
JC: Yeah. Okay and this was something called, there was a name for this scheme wasn’t it? What was it called?
KC: The Arnold Scheme.
JC: The Arnold Scheme. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Alright. Alright. So, so you did some training on these Stearmans and then they decided that you needed to do more flying and they sent you back up to Canada.
KC: Yeah.
JC: But the -
KC: They said they hadn’t got enough hours.
JC: Yes.
KC: To keep me down there because it was such a concentrated course down in America.
JC: Yeah.
KC: So they sent me back to Canada and they said I could carry on up there. All the lot of guys had got up there at this holding unit and I found I was there with about five hundred other guys who were also were waiting to carry on with their training.
JC: Right.
KC: And so I was there, I can’t remember how long I was there.
JC: So this was in, this was Trenton.
KC: Trenton, Ontario.
JC: Trenton, Ontario.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. So -
KC: Yeah.
JC: This was in September 1942.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And I think you were there for some months by the looks of it.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Through until about January, I think.
KC: Yeah.
JC: In 1943.
KC: In the process they’d come every so often and say, ‘would you like to become an air gunner?’ And I’d say no.
JC: Why didn’t you want to be an air gunner?
KC: Well I didn’t, I thought that was an unskilled job.
JC: Right. Okay, Fair enough. Okay. And so, so then they offered you this thing called an air bomber.
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: And what, what was that?
KC: Well, the air bomber, that was coinciding with the four engined bombers coming in to the RAF.
JC: Right.
KC: And -
JC: Like what sort of, examples of those, like what?
KC: The aircrew in the Lancaster.
JC: Yes.
KC: You had the pilot and the flight engineer.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Then you had two navigators. One was what they called the navigator plotter.
JC: Yes.
KC: His job was to work out time, course and so on and the other one was a navigator observer which was me.
JC: Right.
KC: My job was to do all the, operate the radar that we carried to drop our bomb loads using my radar. If we had to do visual bombing I had to also operate the bomb site down in the nose.
JC: Right.
KC: Of the Lancaster and I also was trained to use guns in the turrets in case we were attacked and the gunners were killed.
JC: Yes.
KC: My job was to get them out of the, out of the turret and take his place.
JC: Right.
KC: That sort of thing, you see.
JC: And wasn’t there some forward guns as well that you were supposed -
KC: Yes. In the, right in the nose.
JC: Yes.
KC: There was a turret.
JC: Yes.
KC: Right at the front and the gun protruded out the front.
JC: Yes.
KC: And down the tail end there were four guns in the tail end turret.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And the mid-upper turret -
JC: Yes.
KC: Were two guns.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Good okay. So you trained on this new job of air bomber for a period of several months. You came off and you were commissioned.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And coming out of the course. What rank was it again?
KC: I was a flight lieutenant.
JC: No. I think you were a pilot officer.
KC: Oh pilot officer, sorry.
JC: I think.
KC: Pilot officer. That’s right.
JC: That’s what you came out as didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you were sent back to the UK at that time.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you went up to Wigtown to fly these Bothas. Bothas. What sort of aircraft was that?
KC: Botha was a twin engine.
JC: Yes.
KC: Aircraft, it had been an operational aircraft but they reckoned it was underpowered so they took it off ops.
JC: Right.
KC: And used it as advanced training for people like me going on to ops.
JC: And had you formed a crew at that time or were you just randomly -
KC: No.
JC: Assigned to -
KC: I was a random guy at that time.
JC: Right.
KC: Didn’t -
JC: Okay.
KC: Didn’t, get a crew until you got to the OTU.
JC: Okay so that was the next thing. You went to the OTU.
KC: Yeah.
JC: At Cottesmore.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were flying Wellingtons.
KC: Wellingtons.
JC: So you got a crew there.
KC: There, yeah.
JC: And how did you, what was the process of choosing a crew. How did you -
KC: [Laugh] That’s a good question. We were -
JC: Were you carefully selected and matched up?
KC: We were a lump, a lump of aircrew there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: All sorts and sizes gunners and wireless operators and bomb aimers and navigators and pilots and so on and we used to wander around in a, you literally used to go up and say, ‘Have you got a crew yet mate?’ And whoever it was would say, ‘No I haven’t. Would you like to join with me? I’m a navigator.’ He’d say, ‘What are you?’ ‘I’m an air bomber.’ He’d say, ‘Yeah fine.’ And then we’d keep together and we’d go to somebody else, ‘Would you like to come in our crew.’
JC: So it was -
KC: And that’s how it was done.
JC: So obviously it was a scientific and carefully managed process so –
KC: Yeah.
JC: So that was good. So tell me a bit about the crew that you, that you ended up with. What was the skipper’s name?
KC: Jim Kermans[?] He was much older. I mean, we were, I was twenty one, twenty two and he was twenty nine. He was the dad of the crew.
JC: Right.
KC: Twenty nine.
JC: And where was he from?
KC: He was an Australian.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Very staid sort of person. Not much sense of humour.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On thinking back he must have been worried to hell on every flight he did. That sort of impression.
JC: Did he give you that impression while you were there or did you think he kind of took it in his stride quite a bit?
KC: He did it a bit when I was there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: ‘Cause I had to get very close to him.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The pilot. With some of the things I had to do -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Was directly on behalf of the pilot.
JC: Right.
KC: So I had to get to know him.
JC: Yes.
KC: I mean he had a flight engineer.
JC: Yes.
KC: But er -
JC: What was the flight engineer’s name?
KC: Ken Randall.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where was he from?
KC: The other navigator, what was called the navigator plotter was Don Bowes.
JC: Where was he -
KC: Who was an out and out Yorkshireman.
JC: Oh was he?
KC: He could hardly speak English. It was all Yorkshire stuff [laughs].
JC: Alright. What about, what about Ken Randall. Where was he from?
KC: Ken Randall, he was a Birmingham, brummy.
JC: Was he? Right Okay.
KC: Yeah. Yes.
JC: So you were meeting people from around the country that you’d probably never met people from that part of the world before.
KC: Yeah. It’s amazing how we welded into such a good crew.
JC: Yeah and what so what made a good crew do you think? What was -
KC: I think -
JC: How’d that work?
KC: You were individuals. In a crew of seven you’d find two or three of you were buddies and then suddenly a fourth one in the crew would sort of latch on to us ‘cause we’d go to a pub and he’d be there on his own.
JC: Right.
KC: And you’d say, ‘Come on. Have a drink,’ Sort of thing, you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And that helped to bring them in, you know.
JC: Right. So the pub was important then?
KC: Yeah. Oh yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The village pub.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where was the village pub? So you were -
KC: Bourne. Well when doing ops from Bourne -
JC: Yeah.
KC: We used to go down in the village pub, literally was in the village of Bourne.
JC: Right. Yeah.
KC: And we used to brews[?] in there and have a few.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And then get back and get to bed ‘cause we probably had to get up early morning to do some flying the next day.
JC: So, so on a so you obviously with Wellingtons you found your crew now.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Who else on the crew? So let’s just finish the crew off. So you’ve got your flight engineer, you’ve got your navigator, you’ve got your skipper who’s the pilot.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about the, so you’ve got two gunners haven’t you?
KC: Yeah. We had, the mid upper gunner was a Canadian.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the tail gunner was an out and out broad Scotsman.
JC: Right.
KC: He used to get excited when we were on ops and he’d talk about this thing coming in and he used to shout and scream but it was in broad Scots and none of us could understand [laughs].
JC: [laughs] Brilliant. Okay. Good. So, Okay, so you’ve got your crew and you’ve moved over to the, to Winthorpe and then on to Bardney where you started operations in Bardney.
KC: I did ten ops at Bardney, 9 Squadron.
JC: And that was on Lancasters.
KC: Yes.
JC: On number 9 Squadron.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay and, and what sort of place, what was, what was Bardney like as a place to kind of work from?
KC: Bardney was very much a new airfield with Nissen huts.
JC: Yes.
KC: Everything was Nissen hutted accommodation.
JC: Right.
KC: And it seemed that, you know, everything was sparse there but it was just about enough for human people to live and be fed.
JC: Right.
KC: And then, but you were going off on ops and that from there and you used to think coming back oh I’ve got to come back to that bloody den downstairs again sort of thing, you know.
JC: Right. Right. And what so if you had an op, when did you know when you were flying on an operation. Did you -
KC: We were all, all the aircrew had to go for the briefing which was always held on the night of ops. The briefing was at two o’clock in the afternoon.
JC: Right.
KC: So all the aircrew that were about on the station would go straight towards the briefing room which was -
JC: Yes.
KC: Quite a huge room.
JC: Right.
KC: And they had table after table in there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And they could pack a couple of hundred or three hundred aircrew -
JC: Right.
KC: In there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And you’d walk in and then the far you came always came in at the back door. You walked in and you looked straight ahead because there were the maps of Germany and the continent ahead of you and there was the route you were going to fly that night and [?] we’d say, ‘Oh not bloody Berlin again.’ This was after I’d done about eight ops to Berlin, you know.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: And so, you know, we used to talk to one another, ‘Oh bloody Berlin again,’ you know.
JC: Yeah. Alright. So, so had the briefing room there. And who ran the briefings?
KC: The squadron commander.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And his flight commanders.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: And of course they had specialists. I mean they had the guy who looked after the wireless operator guys.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
KC: And he was the radio wireless op king sort of thing.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
KC: And I think that was about it. What other trade was there? Oh the engineer.
JC: Right.
KC: Station engineer.
JC: Yes.
KC: Was always there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And he would say something about what had happened to some of the aircraft. They had to do some modifications or.
JC: Right.
KC: And he also would cover anything wrong with the radar gear that we carried on board that had -
JC: Yes.
KC: Been modifications to it dadedadeda.
JC: Right.
KC: And all that stuff.
JC: Right. What other things came out of the briefings? I guess you would have some intelligence. There would be an intelligence officer there.
KC: They showed the route and they had a large scale map on the wall, the big wall at the end of briefing room but all they had shading areas showing where all the searchlight belts were -
JC: Yes.
KC: Over Germany.
JC: Yes.
KC: And where the night fighter air fields were -
JC: Yeah.
KC: In Germany.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And heavily populated areas. They were brought out to show you that -
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know don’t go flying over these on the way because they’ll shoot you down.
JC: Right.
KC: If you get mixed up with some of these other cities.
JC: Yes.
KC: On the way in to, in to your target in Germany.
JC: Yeah. Okay and so how long would a briefing typically take, would you say?
KC: Sorry.
JC: How long would a briefing typically take?
KC: I should say minimum of two hours.
JC: About two hours.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then would there be a break and you could go off or did you then go straight to -
KC: They would tell you what time briefing was going to be.
JC: Yeah.
KC: For the raid.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They would announce what time the night flying meal was arranged for.
JC: Right.
KC: So you had a good cooked meal before you went.
JC: What sort of things would you have before you go up?
KC: Eggs and bacon ‘cause eggs were rationed. Eggs and bacon and you know tomato and things like that.
JC: Right.
KC: Lovely.
JC: Lovely, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. There’s got to be some pros to it I suppose. So, that’s good. Okay and so you have your meal and then what happens? You go to your dispersal do you?
KC: You went back to your room in dispersal and if it –
JC: How did you travel around the base did you –?
KC: Bike.
JC: On bike.
KC: [We were drove?] or bike.
JC: Right. Okay. So you would ride out and it could be a half a mile away or that kind of distance.
KC: Yeah.
JC: To your -
KC: A couple of miles.
JC: A couple of miles.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Could be. Yeah.
JC: So it could be getting dark by this point and you’d be cycling off to –
KC: Yeah.
JC: And the plane would be there and there would be a building next to the plane that you would, you would sit in prior to -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Going off would you?
KC: Well remember we had to go back to briefing.
JC: Yes.
KC: For the raid.
JC: Yes. Okay. So that’s in addition to that. So you had a second meeting then -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Do you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay and what was, what was the purpose of that? That second meeting.
KC: Sorry?
JC: Have a drink. Have a drink, dad.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Sorry. I’m getting you to do too much talking.
[pause]
JC: And what would, what would the purpose of that second meeting be dad? The briefing. What was different from that from the first, the first briefing in the afternoon?
KC: Any changes of timing.
JC: Ah I see. Okay.
KC: Something might come through from group head or command headquarters.
JC: Yeah.
KC: That they’d found out something about Jerry tactics or something was going to happen.
JC: Yes.
KC: So that might modify the way you were going in. They may even change the route.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause they were ‘cause your original route would take you right into the middle where all the German night fighters were.
JC: I see.
KC: So they would re-route you.
JC: Right. So they’d have updates on intelligence.
KC: To try to avoid that.
JC: Okay. So they’d have updated information. Alright. So you’d have that second briefing and then you’d go off to your dispersal area. Right? Is that -
KC: Yes. Yeah.
JC: Yes. Okay and then would you go straight in to the plane or sit around in the dispersal area for a bit or how, how long a -
KC: We used to sit in our room.
JC: Yes.
KC: You know, I mean it was Nissen huts where I was. I probably had about four or five guys on beds in the same Nissen huts -
JC: Yes.
KC: That I was.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: So I we’d have a chinwag or you know you’d, you may have wanted to go and have a bath or something like that.
JC: Right.
KC: You know.
JC: What else did you do to kind of while away the time ‘cause obviously there was lots of sitting around waiting isn’t there? So -
KC: Yeah if this lady wasn’t here I’d tell you exactly what we were doing [laughs].
JC: Right okay fine I think we’ll leave that to the imagination there, dad. That’s fine. Okay. [laughs].
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about things, did you play cards or anything like that or -
KC: Some of the guys did. Yes.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And -
JC: Yeah.
KC: And card games or poker and things like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Well, you know, poker’s a card game.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Things like that.
JC: Chess and things like that?
KC: Chess, yeah.
JC: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, alright so then the time came and you had to get in, get in to the plane.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Presumably you had to suit up. Just describe what you had to wear before you -
KC: Well, you’d, you obviously would put your flying overalls on.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But we used to have odd pockets in these flying overalls and so each chap would decide whether he wanted to take a knife, bars of chocolate stuffed down the leg or something like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: In case you bailed out and -
JC: Sure.
KC: You wanted, you know. That was the idea was to take something like bars of chocolate.
JC: Didn’t you have ration packs as well?
KC: Oh yes.
JC: Did you have emergency rations?
KC: Yeah. Had a -
JC: Or something.
KC: Ration pack, yes.
JC: Yeah. Yeah that you carried with you.
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay. So you had your overalls on and what else? What other things did you have to put on before you climbed in to the plane?
KC: Well, obviously the Mae West.
JC: Yes. What’s a Mae West for those that wouldn’t know?
KC: The Mae West was, was the, if you came down in the sea you wore it. You had your flying suit on and also your underclothing and anything like that and then this Mae West went over the top and it had a system of buoyancy.
JC: Right.
KC: But also you could inflate air. The little bottle -
JC: Right.
KC: With air and you could pull a plug plunger and that would shoot air and this thing would, from being close to you would suddenly you were in the middle of a floatation -
JC: Right.
KC: Gadget.
JC: Yes.
KC: Sort of thing, you see.
JC: Yes. So like a lifejacket almost. Yes.
KC: So if your aircraft came down in the sea and you had to get out of it whatever happened ‘cause it was going down with you on board –
JC: Yes.
KC: This was how you made your thing work so at least you.
[phone ringing]
JC: Yes. Yes. Okay so we’ve got that. And then what else? You presumably have a flying jacket would you, as well? That you would need to, to wear.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: During the war they changed those quite a bit. I had one that was very woolly and fluffy.
JC: Yes.
KC: But it was also a nuisance ‘cause it was all padded in the wrong places and things like that for wear.
JC: Oh really.
KC: So it wasn’t, it wasn’t sensible.
JC: Oh right.
KC: So we chose not to wear that. We wore them in the middle of winter of course.
JC: Right. Yeah.
KC: But if we could get away without it we’d put an extra jumper on.
JC: Yes. Okay. Okay, alright so you put, put all that clothing. What about a parachute? Did you have to wear one of those?
KC: We all wore harness.
JC: Yes.
KC: What they called parachute harness.
JC: Yeah.
KC: With clips on the front and your parachute was a pack about that wide.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which was stored somewhere handy for where you sat.
JC: Right.
KC: In the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: And the idea was that if you had to get out the first thing you don’t enquire, ‘Where’s my bloody chute?’
JC: Yeah.
KC: You took it with you and as you went out of the aircraft you clipped it on.
JC: Yes.
KC: You pulled the thing so you come down alright, you know.
JC: I see. Okay.
KC: That was the drill that you were taught.
JC: That was the idea was it okay. And this was all -
KC: And I was pleased not to have to do that.
JC: Yes that’s good. Leaving a perfectly good plane. Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay so that’s how you dressed. So you climb into the plane and then presumably what happens then the kind of engines on and you’ve got sort of checks that you have to do before -
KC: Yeah and you had checks to do and you got in to the aircraft. Each of us had our pre-flight checks to do.
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know, I had to get all my equipment, bits of equipment that I carried.
JC: Yes.
KC: To do my job. And if I was using radar which I was had to set up the radar sets. [ ?]
JC: Have a drink. You’re not used to talking this much are you dad? Actually, you are used to talking this much. Yeah.
[Pause]
JC: So you’re getting your radar sets ready. Yes.
KC: Yeah. Getting it all set up and you know you’d obviously plug in your leads to make sure you were on the air with everybody else in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
KC: And just check that out.
JC: What about oxygen and stuff like that?
KC: Oxygen. Yeah.
JC: Pre-test that?
KC: You each had your oxygen point where you sat.
JC: Yes.
KC: [Excuse me] and plug that in.
JC: Yes and did you have if you needed to move around the aircraft you had presumably a kind of mobile -
KC: Yes. A portable bottle that you could -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Pick up. They were stowed in two or three places in the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So if you I mean for instance if you wanted to use the loo in the Lanc.
JC: Yes.
KC: You had to go right to the back of the bloody aircraft.
JC: Was that presumably where the rear gunner was, was it?
KC: You went right near to the rear.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Gunner.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But to get there you had to climb over what we called the main spar.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which went right through the middle of the main wing.
JC: Yes.
KC: But also went through the cockpit bit where we were.
JC: The fuselage. Yeah.
KC: So to get to that you had to literally climb over this thing.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: With all your garb on you know.
JC: Yeah. Yes. And -
KC: Not popular that.
JC: Yes and a slightly personal question but what was it like going to the loo on a Lancaster?
KC: Shall I tell you?
JC: Go on. Yes.
KC: Well on one occasion my bottom froze to the, to the pan.
JC: Did it? ‘Cause it was a metal toilet seat.
KC: We moaned about these things and then they changed this seat from metal to plastic because of that. Because not only me but some of the other guys had gone to the toilet and found they couldn’t get their bottom of the toilet. It was frozen on. It‘s absolutely true.
JC: Oh right okay. Alright.
KC: And -
JC: Yes. So -
KC: Yeah. I don’t think I’d better say any more about that.
JC: Okay dad. There’s enough detail there. Thank you dad. That’s good. Alright. So, so you’ve done your pre-flight checks, you’re in the plane and then you’re kind of taking off. Now that must have been quite a spectacle being there with lots of aircraft taking off at one time.
KC: Oh yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What was that like? ‘Cause I guess you were able to, where you were sitting, look out and see -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Other aircraft around were you?
KC: See. Yeah, all the aircraft encroaching towards the beginning of the runway.
JC: Right.
KC: So they might have come right across the other side of the airfield. The airfields were pretty big.
JC: Yes.
KC: So they were taxiing around the peri track, they were.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: And suddenly all converge and all these aircraft were coming from all directions to -
JC: Yes.
KC: That one point.
JC: Yes.
KC: To get to the end of the runway.
JC: Right.
KC: That used to be a bit nightmarish at times because -
JC: You could have crashed into each other.
KC: Some of the guys used to get too bloody close and -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Bang the tips of their wings and things like that.
JC: Right okay so alright so can you, have a drink dad.
KC: Yeah.
JC: I was just going to ask you what your memories are of your early operations because that must have been quite, quite, you know, scary as a new crew.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Relatively new crew. Can you -
KC: It was, it was horrific.
JC: Yes.
KC: Is the fair way. In terms of there were these guys on the ground shooting up and trying to get you and you were flying along and suddenly there was a bloody great explosion out to the right and somebody’s been hit by ack ack and he’s exploded with all his bombs on board. The first time you see that is quite an eye opener I can tell you.
JC: I bet.
KC: And I used to see, we used to see it on almost every raid we went on. Some poor sod would get a direct hit from -
JC: Yeah.
KC: German ground ack ack stuff and what they, of course they had their night fighters up as well.
JC: And what sort of planes were those. Those were -
KC: They were –
JC: Messerschmitts, were they? Messerschmitt 109s.
KC: Messerschmitt and they were twin engine Messerschmitts.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And they had a tactic.
KC: The ME109 was single.
JC: Right.
KC: But they had ME110s.
JC: Right.
KC: Which was a two man crew.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah. And they were deadly.
JC: Yes. On what –
KC: ‘Cause they had the latest radar as we had the latest radar.
JC: Right.
KC: So they could pick us up.
JC: Right. And what was their tactic? You said about them using to try and fly up underneath.
KC: Yeah.
JC: I remember you saying about that.
KC: Their main tactic was to get A, to get themselves into the bomber stream.
JC: Yes.
KC: Our bomber stream.
JC: Yes.
KC: And then they had to use their own radar to pick us up.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bearing in mind we were going across twenty or twenty five thousand feet across coming up from the ground.
JC: Yes.
KC: From Germany and across the North Sea and so on.
JC: Yes.
KC: So they would suddenly find they were up among us.
JC: Right.
KC: And we soon knew they were there because suddenly, you’d be going along all nice and dark and suddenly boom an aircraft blew up just in front of you.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause they, if they attacked us on the way to the target we all still had all our bombs on board.
JC: And was that the tactic that they used to try and shoot up into the bomb bays as well.
KC: Yes they used to fly. If that was me flying along with my crew along there they used to come up there.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they’d open up because they knew all your bombs were in the bomb bay.
JC: Yes.
KC: On the bottom side of the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So their idea was to explode our bombs.
JC: Yes.
KC: To blow us up.
JC: Right. Right. I see.
KC: And the nearest I ever had in my crew was when they did that ‘cause they did it several times but this particular occasion the, they were so close they were too close when they opened fire.
JC: Right.
KC: So the cannon shells came through the bottom of the aircraft, missed all our bombs but they ended up some of them in the front cockpit just missing me and the pilot and the other navigator.
JC: Right.
KC: But it was so close, bearing in mind we were wearing oxygen masks, the bomber crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But it was the cordite when the shells exploded in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
KC: Was so strong even with oxygen mask I could smell, smell the cordite.
JC: Right.
KC: From the cannon shells exploding -
JC: Right.
KC: Inside the aircraft.
JC: That’s amazing.
KC: But also of course they came through and didn’t just stop. They kept flying through and this particular case of the attack they broke our plexiglass nose.
JC: Right.
KC: It shattered.
JC: Yes.
KC: So we had a gale blowing in the front didn’t we ‘cause there was no blooming plexiglass to protect us.
JC: Right.
KC: I’ve never forgotten that one. Yeah.
JC: Because didn’t you have to go down there as well to do the bombing?
KC: Visual. If the radar didn’t work.
JC: Yes.
KC: You didn’t bring your bombs back. You went down. I had to be able to use the visual bomb sight.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Mark 14 bomb sight.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Lying prone and looking through the actual bomb site and directing the pilot verbally over the intercom telling him which, to go left, right, up or down whatever the case might be.
JC: Yes.
KC: Because I was using my bomb sight.
JC: Yes.
KC: To aim at what I thought was the target we were going for.
JC: And, and so what stopped you from just dumping the bombs and heading off home? Why, why would that, you know.
KC: Well we weren’t going to do that. Fly all that bloody way and not drop our bombs were we?
JC: Yeah I know but why, why was it so important to, to kind of, you know, get, get them on target. Would you have been required -
KC: Well -
JC: To come back again if you -
KC: Because when you operated the bomb release.
JC: Yes.
KC: You set in motion a line overlap camera.
JC: Right.
KC: There was a camera built up in the bomb bay.
JC: Yes.
KC: And when your bomb doors was open and you pressed the bomb button to release the bombs, it operated this camera.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which then took a line overlap the ground that you were flying over so when you got over that back to base the station photographic officer came in and took the camera thing out of the camera, whatever they called it, you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Part of the camera away.
JC: Yes.
KC: And developed it and could, they could plot and decide whether you’d bombed your target or you’d bombed ploughed fields or something.
JC: Yes and so if you hadn’t hit the target they’d send you back there again the next night basically.
KC: That wouldn’t have counted as an op.
JC: And wouldn’t counted it as an op. So you would have -
KC: And your crew would kill you.
JC: Yeah. Yes.
KC: ‘You didn’t do it properly Ken. You made us do another bloody op Ken.’
JC: So but I guess on the other side of that there would be occasions where you were over a target being shot at.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And searchlights going everywhere weren’t there?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were trying to make sure you hit it and they probably wanted you to leave quick sharp didn’t they?
KC: The rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They’d say, ‘Ken drop the bloody thing. Drop it.’ [laughs]
JC: Yeah. Yeah okay. Alright.
KC: And I didn’t.
JC: No. No. No.
KC: And so when we came back I knew I had a good photograph of what we’d actually, where we’d bombed.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We had bombed the proper target.
JC: Okay so you did those early, those early operations in 9 Squadron and then you were moved to 97 Squadron as part of the Pathfinder force.
KC: Yes.
JC: Why, why were you selected to go to the Pathfinder force?
KC: I think we discussed as a crew because if you went there you got a promotion.
JC: Right.
KC: You got another rank.
JC: I see.
KC: Okay.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah. And we felt that we’d done ten ops on main force.
JC: Yeah.
KC: What we called main force. We felt we were ready to upgrade ourselves.
JC: Right.
KC: And so we volunteered and went through the, of course we had to learn all the latest radar which the main force -
JC: Did you automatically get put on to Pathfinders if you volunteered or is there a selection process that you had to go through. Did they, because presumably they wanted?
KC: There was a selection process.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: But they knew your record if you’d already done ten ops on. As I had.
JC: Yes.
KC: As we had on 9 Squadron.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They knew that you knew what was going on.
JC: Yes.
KC: Sort of thing.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they still put us through this course to learn the latest radar.
JC: Right.
KC: That the Pathfinders had that the main force didn’t have.
JC: So tell, what was the role of the Pathfinder force? What was that really about?
KC: The role of the Pathfinder force was obviously to find the target and mark it with pyrotech markers or whatever –
JC: Yeah.
KC: You were, had been told to use. It was also part of our job was to put down route markers because some of the main force would lose their radar on the way.
JC: Right.
KC: So we’d put markers down which were at their briefings they would be told that route markers would be dropped and look out for a red/yellow or whatever pyrotechnic coming down. That’s the one you aim for going towards the target and things like that you know.
JC: So it was like breadcrumbs was it?
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Laid for you and you did they breadcrumbs.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay. Okay and why, why did they need you to put markers down? Why couldn’t every, every crew just - what, what was the purpose of marking?
KC: They were not highly trained like we were.
JC: Right.
KC: We had been put through these special courses when we joined the Pathfinder force. We had special courses to try to get us to work to the odd minute.
JC: Yes.
KC: Of time.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bearing in mind we were going on a twelve to fifteen hour flight and to talk about getting within the minute or two or whatever was quite a tall order.
JC: Right.
KC: But we did it.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The guys who were, like me who were Pathfinders. That’s what we had to be able to do.
JC: Okay.
KC: That’s why I got a DFC at the end of it.
JC: Good. Yeah. Your timekeeping. That’s good.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good. So you, so you did this role and you, you marked the targets. Were you also dropping live munitions as well or was it just markers that you were dropping?
KC: Oh every time we dropped bombs.
JC: Yeah. You dropped bombs as well.
KC: Well when I pressed the button to let go the markers.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On that stick of bombing that I was using.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We were getting rid of incendiaries, sometimes incendiaries.
JC: Yes.
KC: Would go down.
JC: Yeah.
KC: A shower of them or it could be incendiaries plus five hundred pound bombs were going down.
JC: Right.
KC: It could be a whole stick of all that stuff.
JC: Yes.
KC: And then in the middle of that we were dropping stuff called Window.
JC: And what is Window?
KC: Window was the code name given to stuff that we used to throw out, disperse out of the aircraft to try to muck about with the ground radar system so it would instead of just getting, picking up our aircraft this was a massive metalised thing that dropped out of our aircraft and it caused consternation to the Jerries on the ground because instead of getting one clear blip of a bomber suddenly there was a bloody great cloud of stuff and you couldn’t pick out the bombers.
JC: Right.
KC: Because of our, the stuff we dropped out of the aircraft.
JC: It sort of confused.
KC: One of the tactics we were doing things against them and they were doing things against us.
JC: Right.
KC: But this was the sort of thing that we were trained to do.
JC: Right. Right. Okay. Okay and so were the Pathfinders always ahead of the main force or did they, ‘cause they had to mark the target.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Or did they have to -
KC: They were always the primary markers.
JC: Yes.
KC: They were Pathfinder primary markers.
JC: Yes.
KC: And you did that when you were, had become very -
JC: Yes.
KC: Experienced Pathfinders.
JC: Right.
KC: But then because some of the raids we had seven or eight hundred aircraft on.
JC: Yes.
KC: There had to be marker crews coming in towards the end.
JC: Yes.
KC: To drop markers for the last lot of ordinary bomber boys that were coming in.
JC: Yes.
KC: They still needed to find and put their bombs down on the target.
JC: Right.
KC: So the Pathfinder guys, believe it or not, we used to hate that. If you were one of the unlucky sods to come at the end you know you would get everything shot out of you because -
JC: Yeah.
KC: By the time you got there the Jerries knew you were coming anyway.
JC: Right.
KC: And their night fighters were up amongst you.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But usually very experienced Pathfinder crews that came in towards the end.
JC: Right.
KC: To make sure that the rest of the main force had some markers to aim at.
JC: Right. Okay. Okay that’s good. Alright. So, any particular, so you obviously did quite a few operations. You did forty five in total didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And any, any, any of them stand out in your mind at all for any reason?
KC: Um -
JC: You mentioned Berlin as a difficult place to go to.
KC: I did ten ops to Berlin.
JC: Yes.
KC: I think what was the, there was, also we did trips to the Ruhr area.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which was full of anti-aircraft. That was a terrible lot to go over because they used to try to knock you out of the sky straight away. There were some trips. I’m trying to think. I’ll think of it in a minute.
JC: Well just while you’re thinking about that the other thing is obviously during your operational time was the, of, was preparations for D-Day wasn’t it? Going in to -
KC: Yeah.
JC: 1944.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so you started to intersperse operations over Germany with operations over France.
KC: Absolutely.
JC: And so what was your role really in the kind of run up to D-Day?
KC: We, we were given targets, German targets on the beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Normandy beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: We were given targets for about three nights in a row.
JC: Yes.
KC: To cover the Germans.
JC: Yes.
KC: They had built quite hefty defence systems behind the beaches of Normandy and we went over, and we came down lowish to do it. We didn’t do it at twenty odd thousand. I think we were dropping stuff over, over the French coast about ten thousand feet.
JC: Right.
KC: And so the idea was to make sure that you clobbered all the German ‘cause they had tanks on the beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they’d built in gun systems.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Into the rocks and so on the beaches and so we used to go and drop sticks of flares to have a look and then when we could see them we’d turn around and do a visual run over them and clobber them.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. So that was a, was a slightly different role then from what you’d been -
KC: From normal.
JC: Normal operations.
KC: The normal mass bombing.
JC: Yes. Yes.
KC: We did in places. The big cities in Germany.
JC: Yes. Okay. Alright. So you, so you did all that and that took you up to, to around the time of D-Day which is when I think you had your, your last operation. July 1944 in fact was your, no, sorry, April 1944 was your final operation I think.
KC: Where was that too?
JC: I don’t know. I haven’t got a note of that but your, certainly your latter ones you did, I think, ten or twelve operations over France.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Various parts of France.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Including the Normandy, the sort of, the immediate environment of the beaches.
KC: That’s why I got that gong.
JC: That’s right. Yeah so that was why you got the Legion d’honneur.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So yes you did that. Then you moved on to do sort of training type roles didn’t you? After -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Preparing other crews to go up.
KC: Yeah. That was one of the worrying things in my life.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Whenever I flew with people I’d say, I’d say to, when I got down I’d say that bloody Pardew[?] he can’t land it.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was doing what we called a kangaroo landing every time he landed.
JC: Oh really. Bouncing down the runway.
KC: Yeah.
JC: With inexperienced crews.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And your role with them was to prepare them on the radars and that sort of thing.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Okay and how were you feeling at this kind of time? What was the sort of, ‘cause you’d done forty five operations so an experienced hand at doing all this so what was your sort of feeling about things? Do you recall how, how that was?
KC: Yes. I felt that I was due for a rest.
JC: Right.
KC: I felt I was happy to come back again.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But I felt we’d had some real tough ops.
JC: Yes.
KC: We’d been on Pathfinders.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And I thought enough is enough for a while.
JC: Yes.
KC: And that’s the way it went.
JC: Yes and you had, I think at least one or two operations where you come back and you’d lost engines.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes and so -
KC: Yes, that’s, yeah at its believe it or not I was never terribly worried about that as long as –
JC: Yeah.
KC: We had two or three engines left.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Lanc would fly on it alright.
JC: Yes.
KC: But if you lost two engines -
JC: Yes.
KC: Particularly on one side.
JC: Yes.
KC: That could be, that meant that meant the pilot really, it was it was really critical because he had to operate the pedals to offset the fact he hadn’t have any power on one side.
JC: Yes.
KC: He’s got all the power on the left side.
JC: Yes.
KC: Or the right side.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And it needed quite a bit of physical effort to control that.
JC: Right. Right. Okay -
KC: But we had this chap Jim Kermans [?] who was a bloody good pilot.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was mature. He was twenty nine years old and we were all about twenty one.
JC: Right.
KC: The rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And he was mature, he was a trained lawyer in Australia.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And you know he was, he was a great guy really.
JC: Right.
KC: I didn’t like him too much as a man.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause he hadn’t got any sense of humour.
JC: Right.
KC: But as, as an aviator he was tops.
JC: Yes. Got you back safely all those -
KC: Yes.
JC: All those times.
KC: Yes.
JC: Yes. Yeah, so that’s good and what happened to the crew after you finished your forty five operations. Did you stay in touch with them or did you all disperse to do other things?
KC: We soon dispersed off.
JC: Yes.
KC: To do, you know, different members of the crew, whatever their job was, they were sent to training schools.
JC: Yes.
KC: To, like the wireless operator guy would go -
JC: Yeah.
KC: To help train new boys and so on and that sort of thing. Yeah.
JC: Yeah. Okay, alright. And at the end of the war you were you did this goodwill tour as well which we hadn’t spoken about so -
KC: To America.
JC: Yes. So, tell, tell us about that. That was with quite a famous squadron wasn’t it?
KC: 617.
JC: Yes with 617.
KC: The one that Guy Gibson when they did the -
JC: Yes.
KC: Eder dams and all that.
JC: Yes that’s right. The Dambusters.
KC: They were based at that time at Binbrook.
JC: Right.
KC: And the AOC asked me would I like to go along -
JC: Yes.
KC: And fly on that trip to America with 617.
JC: And what was the purpose of the trip? You said it was a goodwill tour.
KC: Goodwill.
JC: So it was to -
KC: We were going to first of all flew across the Atlantic to Washington DC.
JC: Yes.
KC: And whilst we there of course we, the public were invited to come and look at our aircraft because you know we had, we had operational bomber aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So the public were invited in, in their droves.
JC: Yeah.
KC: To see our Lancasters.
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know, and it was quite a sight.
JC: Yeah.
KC: To have the whole squadron of Lancaster lined up on their airfields.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And the crowds would come in literally in their hundreds and thousands.
JC: Right.
KC: To see them.
JC: Right.
KC: You know.
JC: And what’s your memories of America having gone from wartime Britain. You know, immediately after the war to what was your lasting memory of America?
KC: I thought they were lucky sods.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah because -
JC: I guess the food was slightly different wasn’t it?
KC: Oh yeah. Yeah, that was lovely you know ‘cause we were still on rationing back home.
JC: Yes.
KC: But there we had the best of everything.
JC: Yes.
KC: That we could lay our hands on.
JC: Yes.
KC: You know.
JC: Fantastic.
KC: Sorry that sounds awful but you know what I mean.
JC: Fantastic. Okay and, alright so, and so you toured around the States with this -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good-will tour. Okay. Right -
KC: We were on Lincolns by the way.
JC: You flew on Lincolns. Not on -
KC: Not Lancasters.
JC: Right.
KC: They’d just brought the Lincoln in and we were, we took, was it twelve or fourteen Lincolns across to America? And of course everywhere we went, the first thing we would arrive we would do a flypast.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bloody great Lancs flying over the town.
JC: Or Lincolns, yeah.
KC: Or Lincolns rather.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: Flying over their towns.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which they seemed to enjoy and we went right across. I mean we started off in Washington DC was our first port of call and then to Detroit. Across America to Detroit and from Detroit across to Kansas and Kansas to LA and from LA coming back more south. What was the place in the south? I’ve forgotten the big cities across the south.
JC: Was it Dallas or somewhere like that?
KC: Dallas, yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Dallas was one of them.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah and then back up to Washington eventually.
JC: Right.
KC: And from there and then we took off and flew back to England.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: It was, to me it was an absolute education ‘cause I mean we saw the states you know all the time.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Seeing places we’d read about and never been to.
JC: Yes, fantastic alright. Good. Okay so you came back and then you had your post war career and you carried on flying Mosquitos and then you converted to some of the early jets didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And what was that like? Going from a sort of a propeller-driven plane to a, to a jet.
KC: That was an education.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. So that was, that was the early Meteors and then on to Javelins wasn’t it?
KC: Javelins. Yeah.
JC: Yes. Yes, okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So, good -
KC: Super planes they were. I thought anyway.
JC: Okay and you took and you took some of these planes on overseas didn’t you? I remember seeing pictures of you in places like Cyprus.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You went on training.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Operations didn’t you? Down -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Down there.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Were you involved in any of the sort of post war, so there was obviously problems in Cyprus and then there was -
KC: Yeah, we were there.
JC: In Suez and things like that were you?
KC: What aircraft did we have to go there?
JC: It would have been either Meteors or, or Javelins I’m assuming. Was it?
KC: I think it was Javelins.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah ‘cause when we were there we were the air commander of Cyprus [billed us?] we were told quickly, ‘You are now part of my defence force.’
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing and I was going off at night in the dark. My crew and other members of the crew and so on ‘cause they were having problems with the, what are they called? The Jews. You know the -
JC: The Israelis.
KC: Israelis. Yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They were being a nuisance and coming over Cyprus and things like that.
JC: Right.
KC: And into the Cyprus airspace.
JC: Yeah.
KC: So we’d get scrambled to go and chase them off.
JC: Yeah.
KC: At night.
JC: Okay.
KC: But they were also Turkey were reinforcing their own people because there were a lot of Turks on the island of Cyprus.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the Turks were bringing in, we found out through flying -
JC: Yeah.
KC: They were bringing it, dropping in at night on parachutes.
JC: Right.
KC: Down to their own people in the villages.
JC: Yes.
KC: So we, more than once I’d been up the backside of one of these guys dropping stuff to the Turks from Turkey.
JC: What? Transport planes -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Coming over.
KC: Yeah I used to hone in on them I used to tell our control downstairs, ‘Got one, I’m locked on to him. I’ve got one.’
JC: Right.
KC: And they used to say 'Monitor him. Keep an eye on him.'
JC: Yeah.
KC: For the -
JC: Right okay fantastic. And then you say you carried on and you actually moved. Did a permanent stint out in Aden. What was going on in Aden? Why, why was there an air force base in Aden?
KC: I’m trying to think what made me, what made us go there.
JC: It was a British protectorate really wasn’t it?
KC: It was a British protectorate and I think that, I can’t remember how I ended up going there, what made me go there but that was a very interesting part of my life because you know we were the forerunner of what later was going to be problems up in the Persian Gulf.
JC: Right.
KC: From Aden I used to jump on aeroplanes and go up to some of these towns, biggish towns and so on the Persian Gulf which later became real trouble spots.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Okay so that was that and then you came back and I think you did sort of some MOD type roles until the end of your air force career in 1968. Moving around. Non-flying duties. Yes. Yeah, okay.
KC: I’d had my innings.
JC: You’d had your innings at that point. Had your innings at that point. Okay. Good.
KC: I was very lucky to get away with it, with what I did when I think when I look back at what I did and what could have gone wrong, you know things like that. Amazing.
JC: Amazing. Yeah absolutely.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good. Alright.
KC: You’ve got a history book now.
SJ: We have [laughs]. So did you have any lucky charms or superstitions?
KC: No. I honestly didn’t. I didn’t believe in it.
SJ: Yeah.
KC: No. No.
PJ: They say a lot of crews are superstitious or they were weren’t they, you know and there was always this little teddy bear in their -
KC: Yeah. I don’t think I had anything like that.
PJ: Coat or something.
KC: No. No. No.
JC: No. You didn’t believe in all of that.
KC: No.
JC: Just a good square meal.
KC: That’s right.
JC: What happened, what happened when you got back from flying, as well? Presumably you got another, there was a debriefing.
KC: No.
JC: Was it a debriefing?
KC: We got a night flying supper.
JC: You got a – did you?
KC: That’s what it was called. The night flying supper.
JC: Oh right. So you had a good meal before you went and a good meal when you came back did you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Oh right.
KC: When we came back there would be plates of eggs and bacon.
JC: Again.
KC: Beans and things like that again you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We, well we’d been flying for the last ten hours.
PJ: Yeah.
KC: Things like that and we were a bit, bit ravenous.
JC: Yeah. Did you take presumably in addition to your kit could you take things up in the plane with you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: A flask of coffee and things like that, did you?
KC: Yeah Mars bars and things like that. Stick it down there.
JC: Yes.
KC: There was a zip pocket in your trouser leg.
JC: Yes.
KC: And so on to stick a couple of Mars bars in there and things like that.
JC: Keep you going yeah?
KC: Just in case you had to bail out.
JC: Yes.
KC: People used to try and think ahead and think well at least I’ve got a couple of Mars bars I can have something to eat for the next couple of hours or so.
JC: Yes. Yeah, okay.
PJ: Did you all used to go out for a drink together? ‘Cause there was always this thing isn’t there, they say, that good crews -
JC: Well I -
PJ: All stuck together, and they all went out together like family.
KC: Well we did a lot of it. The strange thing was that some of my crew were not terribly social. Only one or two of them and we were seven in the crew of course and there was probably three or four of us that did that and there were a couple who always had a reason for not coming. Yeah. But you know we used to get on and let them do with what they wanted to do.
JC: Was there anybody out of the crew you felt particularly friendly with compared to the others?
KC: Em, Ken Randall, our flight engineer was a lovely chap. Brummy. You know, Birmingham. He was almost naïve but he was absolutely a totally professional flight engineer. He knew everything about all the engines. He could hear noises nobody else could hear coming from the engines and things like that and nice boy, nice fella.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Our tail gunner was absolutely, absolutely, absolutely broad Scotch so if we were being shot at, being chased he would shout but he was shouting in Scot and we couldn’t understand [laughs].
JC: Okay was, he was from Glasgow or somewhere wasn’t he?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, yes. Fantastic. Good. Any other questions? I think I’ve got most of the ones from here.
SJ: Yeah. How do you feel that Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
KC: Pretty grim I think. Politicians I think are absolutely shysters. They want, you know they want things their own way and, but they don’t realise how people are doing trying to please them and I always felt that some of the things I’ve read that were going on around me were absolutely terrible. Politicians, on the whole, I have no time for them. They’re just there for the moment and they get what they can at the time and that’s it. But then that’s me. I could be quite different from anybody else on that.
PJ: What about a medal? A campaign medal?
KC: Yeah.
PJ: Do you think it’s, that you should have had a medal because they never had a medal did they? They had the bomber clasp they just brought in. A campaign medal.
KC: Well, I had medals.
PJ: Yeah but a campaign medal for, you know like for actual the bombing duties and -
JC: You had, you had a war medal.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You have an Aircrew Europe Medal, you had a defence medal and a Pathfinder Eagle.
KC: Yeah. And I got a DFC.
JC: And you got your DFC as well.
KC: Yeah.
JC: But yes there was, there were campaign medals for others weren’t there but not for Bomber Command?
KC: Bomber. We didn’t get anything special campaign for the -
JC: No.
KC: All the raids we did. No.
JC: No.
KC: You know we were going off night after night in the Lancasters with a bomb load. Not just bombs. We had bloody great loads of incendiaries we were taking to cart and drop down. It was, when you think back on it was a dirty war really but we did what the Germans tried to do to us didn’t we? I think we were a bit more successful.
PJ: Well, thank you Ken for letting us interview you for the IBCC.
KC: Okay.
PJ: It’s been a pleasure to hear your stories.
KC: You’ve got some notes.
PJ: Thank you.
KC: Yeah. Good.
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACookKHH160725, PCookKHH1601
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Kenneth Cook
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:20:59 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter and Sandra Jones
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-25
Description
An account of the resource
Wing Commander Kenneth Cook was born in Randwick in Gloucestershire. At Marlings grammar school, he joined the Air Training Corps. On the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Air Force and went to America under the Arnold Scheme for pilot training. He continued training in Canada as a navigator/bomb aimer. He returned to Great Britain and continued training at RAF Cottesmore and the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe. His crew were posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney. After ten operations, they joined 97 Squadron Pathfinders. Altogether he flew 45 operations, including several to Berlin. At the end of his tours, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Thereafter, he served at 1 Group Headquarters, and then RAF Fiskerton, RAF Fulbeck and RAF Syerston, tasked with checking the readiness of new crews, specifically the navigators. For a time he engaged in preparations for Tiger force. At the end of the war, he accompanied 617 Squadron on a goodwill tour of the United States. After the war, he remained in the Royal Air Force and was stationed in Aden and Cyprus. He was awarded the Legion d’honneur and rose to be a wing commander. He retired in 1968 and thereafter pursued a civilian career.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Janet McGreevy
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Cyprus
Great Britain
United States
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Berlin
Yemen (Republic)
Germany
1 Group
617 Squadron
9 Squadron
97 Squadron
Botha
crewing up
dispersal
Distinguished Flying Cross
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Meteor
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Syerston
RAF Winthorpe
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger force
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/89/2342/ACalvertR151124.2.mp3
94d73ffc9db8c40dca7c8216a827bb55
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
Calvert, Roger
R A Calvert
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Roger Alfred Calvert (b. 1923, 1488619; 152814), his logbook, navigators training course class book and 3 photographs. Roger Calvert was a navigator with 141 Squadron at RAF West Raynham flying Mosquitos on night intruder operations. For most of his operational career his pilot was Flight Lieutenant John Thatcher.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Roger Calvert and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-04-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Calvert, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: So, my name's Chris Brockbank and I am in Leeds with Roger Calvert a Mosquito navigator and we're going to talk about his early life, what he did in the RAF and then afterwards. So what's the earliest you remember in your life?
RC: Well I was born in Ripon Yorkshire, I’ve got three brothers and two sisters. I remember very little about the beginning of the war except I remember the war being announced. Um, I was at school then Ripon Grammar School and I was in the sixth form then, more or less ready to, to leave. I'd no idea what I was going to do after I left school. Well I did quite well with High School Certificate and so on and then I was tested and, in [background noises] April 1942 I joined and went down to Padgate. Um I enjoyed being at school one or two of my friends are good footballers and cricketers and I enjoyed those being in the first team. But, it was a bit of a shock going into the forces of course, I hardly left Ripon [laugh] at that age so it was a bit of a- amazing to eventually go to Canada to train and go to Egypt and places like that. So I remember very little about London and Padgate except there was a murderer down there floating about. I don't know if you remember that chap, that murdered several women, and, then I seemed to get lost in the, the movement and the training really. Um, so eventually I went to Canada which is by boat on the Queen Mary. I got on this boat one afternoon, on this ship, sorry the Queen Mary one afternoon I thought oh we'll be off in a couple of hours it looks full to me. They were going on, coming on board all through the night 'till the next day. I think there was about eighteen or twenty thousand on board the Queen Mary. Anyway it was quite safe because evidently it, once it got out into the Atlantic, it used to, only go so long and then turn onto a new course, and then I landed at Moncton and travelled by train across Canada to London Ontario, which was a beautiful city, and there trained as a navigator on Ansons, in the middle of the Great Lakes. And I eventually qualified as a navigator and was commissioned then, I don't know, that presumably due to the results I don’t know and then came home again. Eh, and more or less after I got back to England they wanted navigators to train on two-engined aircraft, with a, lot of systems why [unclear] you picked up incoming German flights into the bomber, eh the bomber stream. So I went on this training, and with the pilot who was training also, which took quite a long time. Eventually I went to OTU [background noises] where, I was lucky because there were very few, very few navigators there, in fact a lot of pilots so it was a bit boastful to say I got the pick of the pilots [laughs] but, that’s where I met John Thatcher who was a wonderful pilot, he'd been on Training Command, he'd done a lot of hours so I got on very well with him. He was ten years older than me but he was a really wonderful chap, wasn't he Margaret. Eh, I used to see him after the war, but we just had confidence in each other somehow and got on very well, so it was a very nice association, I was very lucky to be with him and eventually we transferred to Mosquitos. And [background noise] we did this first trip to France, they give you an easy trip the first one. When I got back I was a sick in the [laughs] in the cockpit and they were a bit frightened that it was this lack of moral fibre, but what had happened was my oxygen mask had come, come off and I hadn’t noticed it and that's why I, why I was taken ill really, the last part of the trip [pause]. I can’t really say much more about John, he was a grand man, you met him Margaret didn’t you several times, he lived at Tring. Whenever we could we always called in to see him and, I remember he was rather funny once. He said 'do you remember that fourteenth trip we did?' You gave me a wrong, you gave me a wrong direction over Hamburg and he'd never forgotten this [laughs]. I'd given him a wrong, a wrong, [background noise] so we had a good laugh about that. That was about the only thing we quarrelled about really [laughs]. Yes it was nice to meet him after the war, but em. Anyway we were very pleased to get on the Mosquitos it would be shortly before the time of the invasion I think. And em we'd done thirty one flights, thirty one operations, eh when I was taken ill on leave and went to the hospital in Bath and eh when I came back to the squadron after a month or so the war was nearly over, and I only did one more flight with a Flying Officer Rhymer [?] we eh, we intruded some airfield in Denmark. I've often wondered why, whether there was some high class Nazis there. Anyway the squadron attacked this aerodrome that was my last trip, that was the thirty second and that was the tour finished I suppose well the war finished, so [pause] I had a very quiet time on operations really although, fortunately John was a very good pilot, I remember the worst trip we had was to a place called Zeiss [?]. I think it was near Leipzig, and we were over the target and one of the engines went and, he blocked it off or whatever the word is and he flew me all the way back to, to England on this one engine, how he did it I don’t know but, we came into this aerodrome in Essex, it had got about a four mile long runway so there's plenty of room there. So I've very little so say about the operations really, we were intruding once or twice aerodromes and so but mostly we were escorting the bomber, the bomber stream and trying to pick up German fighters coming into it. We only met one once [laugh] which was an ME110 which we shot down. That’s about the only thing I remember about picking some — we picked one or two up but we lost them again, so that was a bit of a failure really.
CB: So just picking up on what the activity was, you were trained to intercept other planes, German aircraft in the bomber stream, were you therefore technically night fighters yourselves or were you interdictors so you would do bombing as well. What was the actual role that you had?
RC: We were escort really, yes, only once or twice we did these intruding into enemy aerodromes. I think the last but one flight was Dresden, never forgotten that.
CB: Ok tell us more.
RC: Well the whole city had been bombed by the US and ourselves and, we could see the Russian, the Russian, flashes from the Russian forces quite near Dresden at the time [background noises] so we thought the war must be nearly over but eh, it was a shame to bomb that place but it was, that was the RAF was ordered and we, I think Churchill let us down quite frankly then after his war speech, he never mentioned the RAF, I mean they had to go and they did what they had to do.
CB: What was it about the Dresden raid that really stuck in your mind?
RC: Well it was the firestorm afterwards really, yes.
CB: What was your role then, escorting the bombers?
RC: Um, yes there, yes [pause] and that was about the end of the war wasn't it, just about.
CB: Yes, yeah ok, so what was your feeling about the bombing of Dresden?
RC: Well, we were told — they were told to do it weren’t they?
CB: But at the time, what did you think about it at the time?
RC: I didn’t think about it any more than the normal trips, you know. I mean a friend of mine went to Nuremberg on that awful trip, ninety seven were shot down, and he told me he went there and back without any trouble, which is unbelievable isn’t it? It was a moonlight night and they got in an awful mess they shouldn’t have gone really, but that was Jeff Ward, do you remember Margaret? Mm.
CB: Was he a Mosquito man as well?
RC: No he was on, Lancasters.
CB: Right, going back to the — if we just go to the training bit -
RC: Training yes
CB: So you're trained to use the equipment for detecting, were they to detect other night fighters? So just talk us through, what was the training and what was the equipment, you were on Beaufighters. So what was the equipment supposed to do, how did it work?
RC: Well there was Gee, I can’t remember a lot about it, there was Gee, you could navigate on these pulses coming from, the middle of England.
CB: It was a lattice navigation system.
RC: Erm, yes, and then there was one that would pick up the coast beautifully, I forget what that was called.
CB: You didn’t have H2S on your....
RC: H2S that's it.
CB: Did you have that, you didn’t have that on the Mosquito?
RC: Yes.
CB: Oh you did, right, in the nose?
RC: Yes.
CB: Right okay.
RC: Yes the nose was altered.
CB: Right. What else did you have [pause] how did you detect?
RC: Well I had — I was looking in this box most of the time.
CB: Right.
RC: What were they called, AI I think.
CB: So airborne interception radar, AI yeah, okay.
RC: That’s what I was trained to pick up these aircraft.
CB: So this was a scanning radar was it?
RC: Um yes I suppose so, yes.
CB: So what were you looking for?
RC: Looking for aircraft coming in.
CB: Right, how could you detect them in a way that differentiated them from the bomber stream?
RC: I can’t remember.
CB: Okay, presumably the bombers had IFF so identification friend or foe so that meant that you would know from a signal from those what you were hitting. But where were you in the bomber stream, in relation to the bomber stream, above it, beside it, below it, where were you?
RC: Well we flew out after them because we were a lot faster of course, so um well we had our own — we were given our own routes. Our own plans which tied up with the bomber stream presumably [pause].
CB: So whereabouts did you catch up with them? 'Cos you had — did you fly around a lot or, because you'd have to throttle back to be in line with them?
RC: No we just went there, um.
CB: You just wandered around did you?
RC: No we just went there to the, to the -
CB: Over the target?
RC: Operation, yes.
CB: But you didn’t drop anything.
RC: No, no.
CB: So when you got close to the target did you go above the Lancasters and Halifaxes?
RC: Yes I think so, it's a — I can’t really remember quite honestly.
CB: Or to the side is really what I meant.
RC: Mm. Yes I think we would have been above them [background noises].
CB: But over the target, was it likely that fighters would operate there because of the flak?
RC: Well I think they would try to pick them up before they, before they -
CB: [Interrupted] and after?
RC: Yes.
CB: So you had gone over the target, the bombers are turning, they are in a stream, how are you going back with them, because the fighters are trying to get them then?
RC: No we are not going back with them we are just going back, yes.
CB: Oh you didn’t go back with them?
RC: No, no I think that was impossible really.
CB: So really you're operating on the basis of trying to defend them on the way there but on the way back you're not with them.
RC: No, no.
CB: Is that partly a fuel consideration was it, or?
RC: No I don’t know it was just the way it was done.
CB: Did others come out and take over for the return trip?
RC: No I don’t think so, no.
CB: Right okay, so the one you shot down, what happened there?
RC: I wasn’t shot down, no.
CB: No, no the ME110 that you shot down.
RC: Oh right yes, well we picked this aircraft up over France and um and got right behind it as near as we could and John said 'what do you think it is?' So I thought, ‘well looks like a 110 to me', he said, 'yes so did I' and eh, so anyway we, it wasn’t, it wasn’t weaving at all it was just flying, so anyway I gave it a couple of bursts and again and it went down and that was the last saw of that. But, whether it crashed or not we don’t know.
CB: So your armament was what, so you had four 20 millimetre cannon?
RC: Yes.
CB: And how many machine guns, another four of those?
RC: I’ve forgotten, it was either four or eight, it wouldn’t be eight would it?
CB: I wouldn’t think so.
RC: No four.
CB: It might have been but fairly potent when you got going?
RC: Yes, yes.
CB: What was the effect on the plane when you fired?
RC: [sigh] Well, certainly hit it, it was a big, big, big blow up, big blow up, yes.
CB: Oh it blew up, the 110?
RC: Well it was a conflagration or whatever.
CB: Conflagration.
RC: Conflagration right.
CB: Did you fire, on other occasions did you fire at other planes?
RC: No, no that's why I've been so lucky all my life. I’m lucky as far as we didn’t shoot more down. I mean one of our chaps did about — shot, killed about — he knocked about twelve German aircraft out.
CB: Did he.
RC: I was talking to Margaret the other day, I was just reading a book, this pair shot down about twelve I think it was and eh he got the DFC and two bars. And after the war he, was killed by a lorry running over him and they thought it was suicide because this poor [indistinct] chap, his wife had left him. It was very sad, he was such a nice bloke although he had more or less gone when I — he was going, he was leaving the squadron to some other higher post I think after I joined it, it’s sad isn’t it the war?
CB: It is, yeah. So going to the end of hostilities, in Europe, you’d been in hospital, you had one more trip to Denmark, that was escorting rather than doing any ground attacks?
RC: No, it wasn’t escorting, it was just intruding on this aerodrome.
CB: Which meant what, so when you say intruder what does that mean?
RC: Well we just bombed, actually we used that stuff napalm on the place and um. [pause]
CB: What did you drop that on?
RC: On the, on the aerodrome on the build — hangers and, yes, and I suppose the ancillary buildings as well. I think I had a feeling at the time, it was a queer place to go, I was just wondering whether some high flown Germans were there at the time. I mean why pick on that place? Anyway we did that and eh [interrupt].
CB: Had you done any of those before?
RC: We had one or two, we had one in Holland [?] airfield.
CB: With the same ordnance or the same, material in other words napalm or did you use bombs?
RC: No it wasn’t napalm, no napalm had only come in later on in the war I think.
CB: So you were bombing as well?
RC: Yes.
CB: And what else did you do?
RC: I remember one of them said he hit, there was a fellow going across the aerodrome in a steam roller, one of the Huns, he gave that a quick burst, I said, 'oh well that’s rotten isn't it really' [laughs], oh dear [pause]. No I just had this one flight with another pilot in the end.
CB: So the war came to an end but you still were flying, what did you do after the end of hostilities?
RC: Well I went on various courses and things, I went to a place called Rattlesden and there was a bit of a revolt there, a revolution there by the, by the air force. I think I was, I was the station adjutant to, I was a bit worried at the time, this recruit centre. There some under eh, I think the staff had been treated badly but I, anyway fortunately it was cleared up, you know.
CB: In what way, what was that to do with?
RC: Shall I show you something?
CB: Yeah, but this place was not flying this was not a flying station?
RC: No it was a recruit centre.
CB: So who was misbehaving?
RC: Well it must have been the staff I suppose, I don’t think it would be the recruits.
CB: What were they trying to do, put them through the mill?
RC: Trying to get better, better conditions. Then they went out to [background noise] Egypt I was supposed to be in charge of the base personnel office there [indistinct] in Cairo [hesitation]. Where's my paper?
CB: I'll pause there just for a moment.
CB: Ok we are restarting now, so the war is over and Roger is doing courses, so what was the first course you did after flying?
RC: After the war you mean, yes, well my brother was a chartered accountant and he lent me some books about it. And eh, I got this book on auditing and I found it quite interesting, including the legal cases that had, taken, taken place and eh. So I went on this three year training eh to be a chartered accountant [pause].
CB: And you were an articled clerk were you, so you got paid in that time?
RC: Yes, well I got a grant yes, £170 a year I remember it very well, lived quite nicely on it, £170 a year you wouldn’t believe it would you, so I was pleased to get through that examination or the intermediate and the final, especially the taxation. I don’t know how I got through it but still I did somehow. So, then I was looking for my first position. I think that was at um a job with the National Gas and Oil Engine Company in Lancashire, Ashton-under-Lyme it was the Bush Group, do you remember the Bush Group?
CB: Yeah.
RC: And eh, I was very happy there but eventually we ran into financial troubles with the Group and I managed to get a post in Leeds with a motor distributor, through my brother and I was with them till about 1974, then they ran into financial trouble as well. Not my fault I hope [laughs] no it was, the company was with the, British Leyland and, they had, they had the troubles, that was leading to our redundancy really, very sad. But I suppose their range of motor cars wasn’t as good as some of the Japanese and so on. Then I had a multitude of funny jobs.
CB: Such as?
RC: Well I was really, sort of, I was working through an agency you know, they would find the jobs for me and, eventually I got a post at Castle Howard in Yorkshire as accountant there for, which was very interesting because of the people involved, of course the Howards were the [pause] in charge of the Castle and its various commercial opportunities.
CB: Including TV, didn’t they use it for Brideshead Revisited?
RC: Yes they did, yes, yes that’s right that was after my time though, or was it before, oh it would be before wouldn’t it.
CB: So in the end you decided to hang up your tax book and retire.
MC: Yes.
RC: Yes, yes that’s right yes.
CB: You were an FCA I take it?
RC: Yes.
CB: And when did you have the delightful pleasure of meeting Margaret, how was that?
RC: Well that was at a film at, Moortown Golf Club, I jokingly [laughs] funnily enough I had a speech about a month ago didn’t I, I jokingly said I met Margaret on the 27th of September 1953 at 7 o’clock, they used to have a film about the professional competition at Wentworth didn't they Margaret, that was it, at the club and that’s how I met Margaret at this.
CB: Never looked back.
MC: [laughs]
RC: [laughs] No, no we've had a lot of fun certainly.
CB: And you continued with golf have you, all your life?
RC: Yes, yes.
CB: Did you take it up in the RAF?
RC: Golf?
CB: Yeah.
RC: Well I played at Newcastle, when we were up there but it was just a fun weekend, day off you know, sort of business, excuse me a minute [background noises].
CB: Yes, we are just doing a retake because, Roger found that there was surplus, a, shortage of navigators and he ended up making a choice himself, tell us how that came about and what — what happened?
RC: Well I had met John Thatcher at the OTU and, we got on very well really he was, he was, senior to me he had done a lot of hours flying and eh obviously very competent and eh there were two other prospective, one was a Squadron Leader Morley, I remember him who I could have flown with and this chap Banbury was his navigator and the navigator said to me, having a meal before we went on this trip, he said 'I won’t be coming back tonight, I feel, I feel awful' and I am afraid he didn’t you know, he must have been shot down.
CB: Did he have a premonition, is that what it was?
RC: Yes that’s it, yes.
CB: So there was a choice of three pilots.
RC: Em Yes.
CB: And
RC: Well it seems a bit bombastic to say that doesn't it, but I mean, I didn’t really approach the other two anyhow, they were looking for somebody.
CB: Was John Thatcher a creamy? Is that why he had been on training earlier?
RC: A creamy?
CB: Creamies were the people who were so good at flying they were immediately put onto training new pilots.
RC: Yes, yes.
CB: Was that his route?
RC: It must have been really, I don’t, he never talked about it.
CB: And after, so you were on the raid with this chap who had the premonition, what was your reaction when you got back?
RC: Well I suppose I was only twenty wasn't I, nineteen, hits you very hard doesn’t it?
CB: What was the loss rate like on Mosquitos compared with the heavy bombers?
RC: Oh it wasn't anything like, no [indistinct] was terrible, the chances they had wasn't it in the Lancaster really. I think they only did twenty five if they got through that it was a miracle really. They had one chance in three of getting, was it, I don’t know.
CB: Well they did a, the tour was thirty.
RC: Thirty was it?
CB: What em, what experience did you have of flak because the Lancasters were the main recipients of the flak but you're in the stream so to what extent did you get flak?
RC: No, no, no we could avoid that alright [laughs]. When we were — if we were, like that Danish trip, the flak from the airport [?], choomp, choomp, choomp, it went past you, it was amazing really. You couldn’t believe you got away with it [laughs].
CB: The German Air Force, airfield defence was 20, 20, quadruple 20 millimetre canon wasn’t it, so that’s what you were up against was it? But you didn’t get hit at all.
RC: No we didn’t, no.
CB: Were you in the lead or where were you in the um?
RC: We wouldn’t be in the lead, no. But I remember I went round two or three times and Pilot Officer Rhymer[?] said 'the bombs have gone, what shall we do, shall we go back home?' I said 'yes please' [laughs].
CB: Why did you have to go round three times?
RC: Well I suppose [interrupted]
CB: Before you dropped the canisters was it?
RC: I don’t remember whether it was the first run or the second one he dropped them. One bloke came back with his bombs, he wasn’t very welcome when he got to the station [interruption]. He had some technical failure with the, with the bombing.
CB: They wouldn’t release, did you do a strafing job against the ground, guns?
RC: Yes as far as I remember yes, yes.
CB: Because your fire power was fairly devastating in itself was it?
RC: Wonderful aircraft.
CB: Ok we're stopping again for a moment [background noises].
RC: [indistinct] Line-shooting.
CB: Now we are just going back to one of Roger's experiences when he was ill in the aeroplane because his oxygen mask became detached and it leads to what?
RC: It says here 'spoken by F/O Calvert'.
CB: What's the heading of this?
RC: About line-shooting, on the squadron [?].
CB: Line-shooting, right.
RC: 'Spoken by F/O Calvert' in brackets, ‘having failed to connect his oxygen tube on ops', the only time I get to sleep is when I am on ops witness [?] Flight Lieutenant Bates [laughs], oh dear.
CB: What other ones have you got, so you were branded for life, what others have you got there, line-shoots?
RC: Jock Barriman [?], wonder if there are any other pilots of my vintage still flying [laugh ]. It’s funny here, Willy Rhymer[?], that’s the chap I was flying with, the last one. You could almost hear the tracer sizzling as it went past [laughs].
CB: This is the ground attack job.
RC: Yes, they are listed there [background noises].
CB: Thanks, and just going back again um we are in a situation where operations have finished because the war in Europe has finished, you are then put on some training courses, what were those. Nothing to do with flying?
RC: No, well one was an admin course at eh, Hereford, Credenhill. Then I went on one of them on moral leadership in the Isle of Wight of all places. Then I went on another admin course, I think they were just waiting 'till they were able to get, get, get us moved on out of the forces really. One was at some HQ, I don’t remember that but.
CB: And then you went out to Cairo, why was that and what did you do?
RC: Oh, we went out by rail over France and then across the Mediterranean, in a ship. And I was in Cairo and I was in charge of the base personnel office, which was a bit much at my age, 21 or whatever it was. Anyway we were in charge of moving the RAF personnel round Africa, if they were short of cooks or something like that, we moved a cook across from Cairo when they came in, down there you see.
CB: Whereabouts in Africa would you send people?
RC: Well they were more or less in Kenya and places like that [pause].
CB: So it was a, you were doing postings?
RC: Postings, yes.
CB: What else?
RC: That’s about it really, it was a funny job because you were only working about four or five hours a day.
CB: So did you start early in the morning or how did that work?
RC: Well you worked about eight until two, something like that and then the day was free which was very good because you could go down to Gazera [?] Sporting Club and....
CB: Play golf?
RC: Well you could play golf if you had any clubs but used to, nice to watch the cricket and that sort of thing. It was a lovely place.
CB: Swimming?
RC: Yes um, um.
CB: How long were you there [pause] roughly?
RC: I should think about a couple of months [pause] April to July.
CB: ‘40?
RC: ‘46 [indistinct] year before I left, yes.
CB: So how did you know that you were going to be demobbed?
RC: Well um, I think there was a circular around about it and, [pause] I can’t really remember to be honest.
CB: That’s ok, so where, you were demobbed as soon as you got back to the UK.
RC: Yes.
CB: And that's when you took up your accountancy training?
RC: Well my parents lived in Bath and I was demobbed to Bath and then when the, eh that period was over I had a week or two to find some work. I came up to Leeds, to work with my brother in Leeds, articled.
CB: What had he done in the war?
RC: He was in the Royal Ordnance Company.
CB: He got out quicker, he got out of the army quicker than you.
RC: He was in the south of England and he got about fifteen embarkation leaves before he went on the invasion. And, he was in charge of a beach detachment in — in France, he was lucky too.
CB: OK. We're going to pause for a moment [background noises].
CB: We're talking about LMF because jokingly people had referred to it earlier. Roger what was your understanding and experience of people in that category?
RC: Well I think there was only one fellow as far as I remember who got to such a stage he just couldn’t carry on and um it was difficult for the forces to have sympathy with him in a way but you know he just broke down and, and I don’t know what happened to him, he left the force I think, for medical treatment, but that’s very rare really.
CB: What was his role and rank?
RC: Oh I don’t know, I think he'd be a, I think he'd be a navigator but I'm not sure.
CB: Was he commissioned or was he?
RC: I think he was a sergeant.
CB: Right, and do you know how they dealt with it?
RC: No I don’t, no.
CB: But there was a perception of how it was dealt with what was that?
RC: Well they were probably a bit hard at the time I suppose, I suppose they had to be really, hadn’t they? No, they more or less um nothing [background noises] like being in a Lancaster is it, that must have been awful.
CB: So you got on extremely well with your pilot.
RC: Yes.
CB: John Thatcher, in the squadron what was the general, what was the general [background noises] em attitude?
RC: Can we -
CB: I'll stop. We're restarting now because we've been talking about a lot of things and in this case we're just going back to the kill that Roger did with John, his pilot, um on that particular evening. So is it a summer time event.
RC: Well, I've got the minutes.
CB: Oh ok.
RC: I’ve got the, turn it off.
CB: So what we're talking about is how this particular combat mission worked, so you're in the bomber stream and then what?
RC: I just picked up this AI —
CB: On your radar —
RC: Yes and we turned and followed, followed it behind, underneath, for a while until we'd identified the aircraft, John said it was an M110 and I thought it was too, so he gave it a burst or two bursts —
CB: At what range would you normally expect to be opening fire?
RC: I don’t know but it'd be a few hundred, couple of hundred yards was it, I don’t know, I can’t remember, probably says in the record there.
CB: Yeah, ok, and um so, why were there two bursts were they fairly quick succession or was it that the first one didn’t work.
RC: No I, I think they both worked yes, yes.
CB: And what happened to the aircraft?
RC: It just went down, it disappeared, we didn’t see it crash so we couldn’t really claim it as a, had to claim it as, damaged, yes.
CB: Did it blow up?
RC: No not that I, no it was just burning as it went down.
CB: Right, and then what did you do, keep going or turn away, or what did you do?
RC: We turned away presumably, yes. It’s so long ago I can’t remember.
CB: Yeah, of course, that’s okay, now going back to your original training, how did the training work when you were in Canada? So you come out as a raw navigator, trainee. What did they do there was ground school and flying so how did that work?
RC: Well we were in the middle of the big lakes and we went out on these daily trips as far as I remember, probably two of us went, two trainees but we gave the more or less directions obviously in training for the round trip and we would [voice fades away] [interrupted].
CB: So you would have ground school before you started flying would you?
RC: Yes, yes.
CB: What did that entail?
RC: Sigh [long pause] I suppose we had to plan the trip [laugh] and, now I am lost.
CB: What I meant was that they teach you how to navigate so how do they teach you how to navigate, because it's more than just drawing a line isn’t it?
RC: Em, well of course I picked up a lot at Torquay at the initial training wing at Torquay really about navigation [interruption].
CB: OK, so how did that work?
RC: It was just putting it into action wasn’t it.
CB: Oh I see right.
RC: You know, in flight mm, mm.
CB: So how often did you, 'cause you were there for several months, so there must have been a lot to do?
RC: Yes, daily, it'd be daily I suppose.
CB: How long were the flights?
RC: [long pause] Looks as if it was about three hours, up to three hours.
CB: Would they, yeah?
RC: Yes, yes.
CB: Shared between the two of you on the same aeroplane?
RC: Pin pointing, astro-compass fixes and WV’s, what’s that? [pause]
CB: That’s using the sextant.
RC: Yes.
CB: How did you get on with that?
RC: We never used it with Gee [interruption].
CB: Ah.
RC: Never used it. Familiarisation flights, then we got onto nights eventually after a couple of months we started flying at night, [long pause].
CB: Ok, so shall we just go back to when you did the initial training so the ground school is what you were saying was at Torquay is that right?
RC: Yes, yes.
CB: So that's where you learned the rudiments of navigation.
RC: That’s right, yes.
CB: How did they do that?
RC: [long pause] I can’t remember, I know it’s terrible isn’t it.
CB: That’s okay, it doesn’t matter.
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
Interview with Roger Calvert
Description
An account of the resource
Roger Calvert grew up in Ripon. He joined the Royal Air Force in April 1942 and completed navigation training in Canada. On return to Great Britain, he met up with his pilot, John Thatcher and they completed 31 operations in Mosquitos with 141 Squadron. He discusses use of Gee and H2S, operations including Dresden, escorting the bomber stream, shooting down a Messerschmitt Bf 110 and lack of moral fibre. He became the adjutant at RAF Rattlesden and served briefly in Cairo before being demobilised. After the war, he became an accountant.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-24
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hugh Donnelly
Janet McGreevy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:52:06 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACalvertR151124
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Canada
Germany
England--Suffolk
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
141 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Gee
H2S
lack of moral fibre
Me 110
Mosquito
navigator
Pathfinders
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/178/2341/PBriggsR1613.2.jpg
21d447364bbb0c33d44abf36914a71a4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/178/2341/ABriggsR160128.1.mp3
03beb9ecd0a2c80b649bf4291792a9a5
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
Briggs, Roy
R Briggs
Description
An account of the resource
24 items. One oral history interview with Roy Briggs (1893726 Royal Air Force), his logbook, service material, training material, official documents and 12 photographs. Roy Briggs trained as a wireless operator and flew four operations with 576 Squadron from RAF Fiskerton. He also took took part in Operation Manna and Operation Exodus as well as Cook’s tours over Germany.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Roy Briggs and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-28
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Briggs, R
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and I am in Hemel Hempstead with Roy Briggs who was a wireless operator in the war and we’re going to start talking about his earliest days and right through to his working life as a civilian. So, Roy, where did it all start?
RB: In Battersea. I was lucky but we lived in a London terrace which was by the side of Clapham Junction Station, and Mac in number 3, my dad in number 5 married two girls from 17. There was still a girl and a boy left there. One, one aunt was married and one of the sons was married but they only lived locally so when I was born we moved to Balmoral [?] Street opposite Price’s Candle Factory alongside the Thames. We lived in a downstairs flat. This, what I’m saying now I’ve got vague remembrance but it’s mainly from the family talking. When the Thames got high the water come up the manholes and come down in the basement where we were and the police knocked us up and we, we went upstairs. We weren’t there long. My grandmother on my father’s side had diabetes and lost both her legs so mum, dad and me moved back to help grandad with nan so from then on I saw my two grandfathers and my grandmother every day. My grandad, who had come from the country, had rabbits, chickens and racing pigeons and I was very involved with him with the racing pigeons from an early age. He died by the time I was ten and I used to put rings on the, on the young birds. They used, he also got fairly bed ridden and he instructed me from the bed on what to do. I matched them up, pairing them up for mating and so I rung them. I took them up to Clapham Common and released them. We had a friend who used to race our pigeons so I was down there most days. My aunts, on Saturday afternoon, used to go to Battersea High Street and Northrop Road shopping and they used to come in to see grandad and grandad so on a Saturday afternoon it was, in the summer, it was the men playing darts in the garden and the girls chatting with nan and drinking tea indoors. [mild laughter] The only time that I went away I think I went to Westward Ho! I think it was only for a week, what they called in those days school journeys. We had an undertaker’s opposite us on the corner and horses. The Chapel of Rest was opposite us and the horses used to be there in those days when they went I went and picked up the manure and put it in buckets of water for grandad for watering his flowers and stuff. And in Battersea in those days that was sort of the life. My father worked at South Kensington Museum. The highlights in the summer used to be when he used to cycle home and come in to Battersea Park and mum used to take us down and we met in the park and had a picnic and played games before we came home. When I got bigger we used to go as far as Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common during the summer holidays but that was about it. I went to Shillington Street School at first until I was, till I was ten and then I went to Latchmere, Latchmere Road. I broke me thigh when I was ten, I didn’t realise it, playing football. On a Sunday morning going down to get the chicken food and the pigeon food I took the dog with me and on the way home I collapsed and got up and didn’t realise at the time but when I got up I shot the bones up. Somebody come to help me and that they hopped home and told me dad and he came down and got an ambulance and took me in to Battersea General Hospital where I was, where I was put on traction for weeks, for some weeks to pull me leg down and then when they took me down to plaster me they measured both my legs and the one that they hadn’t pulled down had grown so they put me up again to pull the other, the leg that had broken down to get it to the same length. My uncle worked for Battersea Borough Council, driving. Used to come and look over the wall, get on the back of the van and wave to me [laughs]. My grandad looked after the horses for Battersea Borough Council and he used to go in early of a morning and feed them and clean them, get them ready to take the dustcarts and that out so he used to come home about half past nine to have his breakfast. So, he, he was around during the day. He used to then go back in the evening to feed them and look after them in the evening. [pause] Yeah. That —
CB: What about school?
RB: Pardon?
CB: What about school? So, when did you leave school?
RB: 1939. I was, I’d put in for going to the, be a telegraph boy but went and had tests and that but there was people at sixteen who’d left Grammar School going for the same job because it was thought to be a fairly good job [laughs] in those days and I did not get accepted so I then started at Quickflows [?] it was supposed to be a good little engineering firm. So the Labour Exchange told me. They did Spitfire cockpits and also the sliding windows on London Transport buses. I got the job of cleaning the Bostik off round the glass that went in the frames to slide and as there was somebody there about nineteen and had been there since he was fourteen and he was still cleaning Bostik off the glass I did not [laughs] think it was a very good job. Luckily my mum had worked with somebody in the 14/18 war and her son worked for Benham and Sons, a catering company, and she had a word and he’d just finished his apprenticeship and he had a word and got me a job there. I think, I think it was somewhere about May ’45, er ‘39 I started there. They were starting to expand because they were getting contracts for the Ministry for cooking equipment and that because they’d started re-arming with cooking equipment if not the aircraft [laughs]. They were in, in Garratt Lane and they went over the River Wandle and they were having an extension built. They, they dug down and took half the Wandle up and built an air raid shelter in level with, in the Wandle [laughs] really and then built on top of it more workshops which were finished probably late, late ’39. Yeah. ‘39/’40. Yeah. I, first of all, started building dish washers and then I got in with Jimmy Thurgood who was a good all-rounder in his, in his thirties and he was the odd job man and with him I got a lot of experience and when I did sinks and drainers and boiling pans with him but, yeah he, if there was maintenance trouble quite often he used to get involved in it. Getting on in to, in to 1940 and Dunkirk our first Ministry contract was for hold fasts. It was one about half inch six steel plate and one about three quarters and they were somewhere about four foot square and they had, I believe, thirteen holes in them with thirteen tie rods about three foot long I believe. We made the tie rods and the nuts and one went either side. Being a catering firm we didn’t really have big lifting gear and somehow or other we got permission to use the Wandsworth Greyhound Stadium car park and Jimmy Thurgood and me went down there and we met a low loader with sixteen foot by eight foot sheets of steel. We took some crowbars with us and we crowbarred these sheets off the low loader on to the ground and at the same time, all very organised the [laughs] British Oxygen Lead [?] came with Oxy Acetylene boards which they unloaded there for us. We went back I suppose about a quarter of a mile away to the works and we picked up gauges and hoses and cutting equipment and went back down there and connected up and we cut these sheets into eight pieces, four foot square which was still not really handable [?] but a lot better. We, we put these on a trolley and pulled them along Garratt Lane to the works. They went in and they, they flame cut them to the shapes on the outside and then they went to the machine shop where there was only one machine. It cut, it drilled the thirteen holes which I think were somewhere about three quarters. As soon as they were done they were assembled and taken to Clapham Junction Railway Station and put on, in the guards van and they went straight down to the south coast but they were set in concrete for coastal guns to be connected to. The first contract was done in about seventeen days. A manager or director of the firm afterwards said to me said to me when I said about this ‘oh it didn’t matter what it cost’, but cost wasn’t in it. People just worked on it. They drilled the holes. If somebody went for a break then somebody else stepped in. The drills. There was a stock of them. When they needed re-sharpening they went to the tool room and re-sharpened and it it it just kept going all the time. After the first contract we got lots more and then we started, which was something very new, rocket [emphasis] launchers and Jimmy Thurgood and me were on, on the first of the rocket launchers. They, we had the sheets come in and there was lots of holes punched in them so that the heat could go through and, but they were made in to a half round with rolled edges either side and the rockets were just placed on them and fired. Fired. There was the back of it rested on the ground and there was two, like a tripod, fixed half way up. After the first ones other people started getting involved and Jimmy Thurgood and me we got involved in the firing gear, because the heat that came out of the end of the rocket melted [emphasis] the first firing gears [laughs] and [background laugh] we, we devised a, a nose which we did an [abrasion?] at the end which touched the contacts and it went back down on to a spindle with a, with a, a spring on it, and, I worked or we worked till about 1 o’clock the first time we were on this and there was a despatch rider waiting there and he took it down, I believe, to Aldershot where the rest was already down there and they fixed it on to try it out. The night superintendent came along and said, ‘What are doing here?’ We said, ‘We’ve been working here.’ Well he said, ‘Are you Roy Briggs?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Your dad’s been on wanting to know if you were still working and I told him no.’ Of course there’d been an air raid and I wasn’t home [laughs]. So he said, ‘You’d better go.’ So, [laughing] as we’d finished I went home and dad was on the doorstep waiting for me. Yeah. We went in about 10 o’clock in the morning and by then we’d found out that it had been partly successful but not successful. We made a little bit of alteration to the shape but the main trouble was the springs. Anyway, we got, we’d, they’d got on to the spring manufacturers and we, we made two of these contacts during the day with the U shaped and in the evening the springs came and we fitted them and once again it went down to Aldershot. I think this lasted three or four days, three or four nights by which time we had a successful job and it went in to mass production. Yeah. But in ‘39 in the summer they had started calling people up and, to do I think it was six months National Service but because the war started before they got out and they were still in the services but after Dunkirk these people came back out of the forces because as they’d all sort of finished their apprenticeships it was easier to train soldiers to fire a gun than it did to make engineers which took much longer. Yeah, what, in fact one of them he come out and he got the chief, he was the chief Ministry inspector. A couple of others. We then started building rocket, anti-aircraft rocket launchers. I don’t know whether they have a name. When they were, they went into parks they were known as Z batteries. There was, they started off as singles and then there was four, doubles. The doubles were long tubes with about five holes drilled in them which had studs go through them and they were welded and cleaned off on the top and those studs held them on the framework. The base was, was round and went down and then these went on and we, we took over a printing works at Colliers Wood and they were made, all made over there. They went into the parks. Wormwood Scrubs there was no and I think, I think it was about sixty odd in a battery which fired about a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty rockets. They weren’t very accurate but they put a barrage up [background ‘Hmm’]. They carried on until 1943, when the army was getting short of people they took the people off these guns and ATS went on there and the Home Guard which were not really needed, they thought, then. There wasn’t much chance of invasion. They, they took over at nights as well. I do know one or two of the Home Guards who, who fired them. This, this time probably because I could, I could make simple tool jobs and we had half a dozen fly presses with ladies on them and I was more or less looking after them. It was, it was of a range. We had everybody from an actress to a lady whose father was a doctor and had never been out to work. Quite a shock for her to see what life was like. We had a prostitute. We had Kath whose husband had been killed at Dunkirk and yeah I more or less looked after them. Made sure the parts that they were putting through the fly presses were there and cleared away afterwards and if anything went wrong sorted it out. When I went to, yeah, the same time we’d taken over cheaper garages at northside, Wandsworth Common which we were, we were producing cooking equipment in. At Clapham Junction the milk depot closed down just before the war and we took over the milk depot at Clapham Junction and there ovens and stuff was made. There was, round Wandsworth High Street there was a dump or you could call it [laughs] you had a bit of a shelter, and not much but people worked in there doing sinks and drainers and by that time we were involved with the City and Guilds and their training rooms and that, professors and that were actually producing for us mass produced parts and that. Well there was one of the theatres. They took that over and that. It was a general office for getting war work done and we had gone from somewhere about five hundred people to, I think, about sixteen hundred people in that time. Colin. Colin Benham was quite well educated in engineering. His cousin, who was a commander in the navy, came out to help with us in the war work. There again, thought he had, with his, he had an engineering background I think, but, it was more useful. Miss Benham came and she, she looked after people who, who’d been bombed out and that and did things what she could for them and generally did work for them. Yeah. They had, they did their own ventilation stuff and sterilising. Big sterilisers. When it come to register I can’t remember which it was now. If you registered as a sheet metal worker you weren’t, you weren’t reserved occupation. If you were registered as a sheet arm worker you were. Or it was the other way around. Anyway, as I wanted to go in the air force, I’d been in the ATC, I registered as the one that went. I didn’t tell them that I’d put it down. And yeah while I was in the ATC we were attached to the Home Guard. We went down to Bisley throwing hand grenades and firing. We actually, in the ATC we actually had 1914/18 Lewis guns which they’d got out the dungeons from somewhere. I started off as number three but by the time I was going in the air force I got up to number one. Number three was, as they fired up to six hundred rounds or more a minute you know, you had to have a supply going. One fired and the other one fed it through I think and I, I got it up and then gradually we went up. Yeah. There was talk at the time that if we were invaded there was holes in the ground on Wimbledon common and that and some of us would go up there and come out to try and kill Germans. I thought afterwards that when, after Dunkirk, a little while afterwards there used to be reports come in that in villages in France somebody had come out and killed a German and they had killed all the, all the men and that over fourteen and things like that and then there were reports that they’d killed everybody in the villages, you know, I thought if I’d have come out and killed somebody how many of English and Londoners might have been wiped out by it. I had that in my mind all my life and glad it never happened. Yeah. We, we, we had a stick of bombs dropped around our road in October ’45. We’d had brick air raid shelters built in our back gardens. We had one and next door had one and there was just a three foot square hole which we could have got in to them or them in to us. I think there was about nine bombs came down. One of them had blown up and dad and me ran out and we went down the road and as I passed the house with somebody I used to go to school with he said, ‘Roy we’ve got a great big hole in our passage’ and I said, possibly a bomb by the side of it, probably a bomb had gone down so I said, ‘You’d better, better grab some clothes and get out in case it goes up.’ Before the war I used to help a green grocer setting up his stall before, before I went to school and on the way back home to get washed I used to take the vegetables into the fire station, Este [?] Road fire station which was in the next road to us. It was only half a dozen houses down so I did know the firemen in there. The fire engine from there came, came around and somebody I knew said, ‘Roy we’re here now. You go back home.’ So dad and me went back home, I was in the shelter and dad was in the doorway. We were talking to mum and there was a big bang and the bomb which was in this house had gone off. Dad and me raced down there. The fire engine was more or less wrecked and I couldn’t see the firemen I knew but anyway the other, other people were coming then. As we walked back home the moon was out and we saw a hole in the Flatt’s house. Jean, my sister was friendly with Jean, the daughter, and dad and me went and started banging on the door and couldn’t get any reply and next door come and said, ‘What are you banging on there for?’ We said, ‘The Flatt’s have got a hole in it, in their roof. Probably a bomb’s gone through it.’ So she said, ‘Oh. We’ll, we’ll go and tell them.’ They were in the shelter at the back and they went and told them and they came out and they grabbed some stuff and we helped them take it over outside in the car park at Clapham Station. They’d built an air raid shelter and we took it over but they went in the shelter and then we went back home. The, what we didn’t know that one of the bombs was on the shelter at the other end and later on it went off and killed, I think it killed two people in the shelter but [unclear] Jean and that. Yeah this must have been on the Friday night. On the Saturday morning I cycled over to the Beverly at North Cheam and my mum had had a friend over there who she’d worked with during the war and I said, said to ‘em, ‘Any chance of mum and my sister and me coming over?’ And they said, ‘Yeah come over.’ Her son was in the marines. ‘We got a four foot bed.’ So mum, me and my sister went over there and we slept together in the four foot bed [mild laughter] but dad stopped at home more or less. Dad patched up the windows and that that had gone, to look after the house really during the night. We had some old [unclear] but they didn’t bother to put, they didn’t bother to replace the windows. They put like a muslin over it, there was just the downstairs in the front that had a window in because people could have broken the, got through the muslin quite easy. The glass was a bit more difficult. Yeah and I cycled from North Cheam to Wandsworth in the morning. The raids were still on sometimes and the guns on Cannon Common were blazing away, shrapnel was coming down and when we went home of a night it was still, they were still firing and the shrapnel was still coming down. I’ve got a feeling that I did that for three or four months before we went back home. Yeah. March ‘43 I went for the first medical at North Cheam. I think some, early April, went to Euston House for the aircrew medical and selection board which I passed and got me number and the, and the King’s shillin’ and got deferred for two or three months but there was a great demand to get in as pilots but I think some of them were deferred for about a year there was, they had that many. Yeah. And in fact I was called up for going to Lord’s Cricket Ground on the 21st of June 1943. As I, as I went there I met Len Spratt who I spent the day with at, at Euston House and we went in and we, we got our injections at the same time in the long room. We dropped our trousers in the long room. W G Grace was on the, a picture of him was on the wall. [phone rings in background] I don’t remember but they, they said that they used to turn W G Grace’s around.
[phone ringing and then phone conversation]
CB: So we —
RB: It’s a bit —
CB: We’re just on W G Grace and when you were at um when —
RB: Yeah.
CB: You went to Lords and he was looking down on you.
RB: Yeah but they do say that they used to, used to turn him around when we dropped our trousers but in all of it I don’t remember that [laughs]. Yeah. We, we were in flats opposite Regents Park Zoo. Len and me were in the same room and, in fact, I can cut it short, we were always in the same room or the same hut for the next year. We, we went in to the zoo four times a day to eat. In the restaurants not in, not in the cages. Along by our flats were Stockleigh Hall and another posh one. I must be getting old I can’t remember their names. Yeah, and they had a garage underneath and they did put a canteen in there but we still we were talking to people afterwards who were at Lords they that they were still using the zoo for quite some time. We went to Seymour Hall for lectures and swimming. You could march down there and have a lecture in the morning and go in the afternoon and they’d removed the flooring and you were in, in for swimming. There was a garage at the roundabout at St Johns Wood and they took that over and that’s where we got kitted out. In, in the park was [pause] anyway I can’t remember at the moment. They used that as the hospital. The normal run was to stop at Lords for nineteen days. Some, some things were, activities took place in Lords. They had the gas mask room built there and you went in and tested your gas mask. You got paid there, sat on the seats in Lords till you got called out for your pay. We did our first marching in Regents Park and in the back streets there. First four, three nights were spent putting your names on all your clothes and that. After that you were allowed out where most of the Londoners took their civvy kit home and sort of saw their parents. Unless you were on guard most evenings were free. Yeah, after the nineteen days we went to the railway at Olympia. I think it was called Olympia and there was another name for it where there was a troop train in there and it was just the one train and all the different trades went on and they dropped off a couple of carriages every, every here and there going along. We used to then, got taken to, either pilots or navigators, where they were going. We went to Bridgenorth which was up on the high level. There was a lift to go down to get on the street level down by the river. Yeah. Yeah. We went out to, there was 18 and 19 ITWs which was mainly wireless operators and air gunners. I, I had actually gone in as wireless operator/air gunner and at that stage I was still a wireless operator/air gunner. Probably jumping the gun a bit. Early in oh probably the decision had already been made and hadn’t got through that to stop training wireless operators as WOPAGS for Bomber Command. The, the thought was that if your gunner got killed or anything and you had to go back, by the time you got back, operated the dead man’s handle which lined the turret up with the fuselage, opened the doors at the back, disconnected his oxygen, his intercom and got that out of the way. Got hold of him and pulled him in and if he needed first aid badly to stop it and then we’d have got in to the turret we would probably have been shot down anyway so after that ruling come out we stopped doing the full air gunner’s course although we did enough that we could have got in and fired them. If the wireless operators were going to Coastal Command they then went on and did the air gunner’s course because all the gunners I believe and wireless operators operated air gunners and they did a swap around on sixteen hour flights that they all had a break from whatever they were doing. Yeah. I, I stopped with Len for all that time and then they said he had webbed feet and got to go to Coastal Command. We don’t believe it [laughs] and I’ve still kept in touch till today. Yeah. We, at, at Madley after ITW we went to Madley where we flew on Dominies where you could have an instructor and a number of you went in there and you had the one set and went through it, after that you went into Percival Proctors which is just well, [?] you and the pilot in the main although there were some three seaters if anybody was having trouble and they needed an instructor up with them. Most of the, most of the flights were about fifty five minutes but the most dangerous part was coming back to land because they used to see the NAAFI van leaving the site and they had Lyons fruit pies which were delicious but there was a very limited number and they all wanted to get in to get their pies. There were one or two collisions when the airfield controller fired Very cartridges to tell people not to land. They always thought he was firing at somebody else I think. Yeah. It was, it was pretty hard work on, on training. You, we had Morse. At the same time we did things which health and safety and things because I suppose they thought we were all going to end up as officers and NCOs. We did things like setting up camps by a river and taking the water for cooking from the top and washing and using the ablutions down the way the water was lying. [laughs] Yes. We had to do fault finding on, on the radios, coding and things and you used to get a test on these. Some were about every fortnight or so. If you did not do very well then you went to evening classes and I believe a week was eight days so that the schools were used every day. You had a different day off every week. If you went on evening school and then on the next time you hadn’t picked up or perhaps it was a couple of times you then went to FT which was Further Training and you didn’t want to do that ‘cause you lost all your mates. You went back a few courses. I, I was nearly always on extra training but I never went to FT. The people who went to FT if they went back a few courses and then didn’t succeed they were then ceased training and well the only place for them really was to go as air gunners. We had people who, who joined us at Madley who had been to America and failed as pilots and then go on the training as navigators and had failed at, failed as navigators. I believe some of them after that went, went as bomb aimers. Yeah, in fact we had one chap who reckoned he’d worked it that he’d fail his pilot’s and failed as a navigator. I don’t know whether the air force had caught, caught on to him but when he took his wireless operator’s exams he just scraped through and I don’t know whether the air force had done that deliberately and he was the first one that had to bale out [laughs]. Yes, well I got me, got my sergeant’s stripes about a fortnight before I was nineteen, went on leave and then we went back and then we still did another about three months wireless operator’s training. After that we went to Llandwrog, North Wales. Number 9 OAFU I think it was. They were flying Ansons and we got bearings for the navigators who were really having more, more experience of flying and training where they were going but I believe sometimes we used to fly two or three times a day with different crews. I think we were only there about a month. After that we went to 30 OTU at Hixon and we got crewed up. We, we got Reg, Reg Featherstone as a pilot, Johnny Smale as the navigator, Roy Briggs as wireless operator, Benny Benson as a rear gunner and me and the navigator disagreed afterwards about whether we got Taffy Jones as a mid-upper. He seems to think that we didn’t get a mid-upper until we went to Heavy Conversion Unit but I’m sure he’s wrong. Oh and we got a bomb aimer. This is bad [laughs]. He was an Indian civil servant. I can’t, I can’t believe I can’t remember his name. [laughs].
[pause]
Right. We’ll have to come back to that. After doing ground training we started flying. Reg was struggling rather and he, we soon sort of always had another pilot in with us and I think it was probably only after a couple of weeks we had the chief flying instructor in with us for a couple of times and Reg got grounded. Unfit for heavy aircraft. So, we become a headless crew. Robbie Roberts had, had joined the air force before the war. He had been seconded to the Royal Navy and had spent some time on the Ark Royal. He then re-mustered for pilot training and went to South Africa, and I believe South Africa and Rhodesia for pilot training and ended up, I can’t remember what the, what aircraft he flew but he did a tour in the Middle East before coming back to England. He was then at Hixon as a headless crew and we got together and luckily because he’d got this mass experience it didn’t lose us too much time because he had twin engine experience. So we, we swapped between Hixon and Seighford. Spent some of the time over at Seighford for OTU. When we were at Hixon they were a rotten lot. They said as we got in the plane, we were on circuits and bumps at Seighford and they said, ‘Roy take us back to Hixon will you?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ full of confidence and I got in and we took off and I worked like mad to get Hixon to recognise my call sign amongst the other three hundred who were trying to get it. Eventually I got through and I got a bearing and all proud I said fly so, so and so and so and they were all looking at me and laughing and they went like that and we were about two foot off the ground [laughs]. Yeah talking about like that when we were on Lancs the navigator used to call the sign out for the, to get the speed out for the pilot. Of course the pilots didn’t do anything. Only drive. I mean the engineer used to push the throttles up with him. He used to do what I told him. He used to do what the navigator told him and the gunners if they wanted him to do something he had to do what they told him. Yeah and Johnny was calling out the speeds and I, it was getting slower and slower and I was looking at him and he looked at me with panic in his eyes because we shouldn’t be up in the air and we weren’t. Rob had made that good a landing we were on the ground. We were all looking at the, on the other hand Rob did a rotten landing and we bounced and Len said, ‘Oxygen going on skipper.’ [laughs, including background laugh] They were a few of the, yeah, from, we were, we were actually in a field at Hixon by the side of the railway. I don’t know whether you remember but in the, in the ‘40s after Hixon packed up English Electrics took over the hangers and they were taking one of their big transformers and it got stuck on the level crossing and a train hit it. There was a loss of life but that was actually at that level crossing in the field that we used to stop in. Yeah.
[pause]
Yes. We then went on to a holding unit I think, for a couple of weeks before going to Swinderby. We started heavy conversion on, on Stirlings. After Stirlings and when you were used to four engines you used to then go to Lancaster Finishing School if you were going on Lancasters but a couple of weeks into our course there was enough Lancs available and they phased, the courses in front of us carried on on the Stirlings but we were the first at Lancaster course to go right through on, on Lancasters. Yeah, we picked up Len Piddington as the, he was a pilot flight engineer. In 1944 they had trained that many pilots they didn’t know what to do with them so they sent a complete courses of flight engineers from St Athans to the army ‘cause the army was shorter, short of people and these pilots went to St Athans and did an engineer’s course on the promise that if they completed a tour on Lancs on Bomber Command they could then go back and re-muster and finish and carry on as a pilot for Lancs then but of course the war finished and none of them had finished a course by the time, I don’t think, a tour by then. I have met one person who carried on flying on Lancasters and finished his tour and went back and then trained as a pilot and he went into Lancs. We then, I think we went to a holding unit, Balderton I believe, because there wasn’t all that much flying. There was a lot of snow around in Lincolnshire but it wasn’t, it wasn’t too long because we went to Fiskerton. The pilot and I think the navigator, some of the crews went second [?] dicky on tour with an experienced crew, they never entrusted me with anybody [laughs]. They, on the day after me twentieth, yeah my twentieth birthday because I was the only teenager in the crew by this time, Benny who was a teenager when we first crewed up had had his twentieth birthday. I, [pause] we, I don’t think I went out drinking because we were on an air test of N-Nan which had completed a hundred ops so we flew around N for Nan. I think it was an air test. Afterwards we flew, N-Nan did a hundred and thirteen ops and we took it on its hundred and tenth and the hundred and eleventh. Yeah. We then had a week’s leave to, which they used to say to go and say goodbye to your family and before starting ops and went back. We got called for an op which I think they called us about midnight which got cancelled and then we, we got called back to the briefing room for an attack at Plauen on the German Czech border. This was one of the targets that the, Churchill and Stalin had agreed needed bombing. It was er, we took off just after 6 o’clock and got back something like I think it was nine hours. Nine hours trip, which seeing we’d been up for an op the day before and we then had to go in for the debriefing and a meal. Carried on for quite a while and I think it was four days later we got called to do a daylight on Potsdam on the outskirts of Berlin. We were all briefed and ready to go and the Met Flight said that the weather was too bad over there so it got cancelled. We got called back to the briefing room later on and the stream was told us it was still Potsdam but there was still one going around Germany. They told us that the Potsdam raid was still on. This was the first time Berlin had been bombed for about a year. The last time by Lancasters. The last time they’d lost about forty two I think. Mosquitos had carried on bombing Berlin of the night, light night bomber force. They used to bomb regular with their one four thousand pounder. In fact in the darkest days Mosquitos used to do two flights a night. A crew would take off in light over here, bomb Berlin, come back, a new crew, new bomb and another crew would take off and it would be light by the time they got back. Anyway, we were told we weren’t going to Potsdam. We were going on a daylight training aircraft were going to have OTUs and heavy conversions were going to fly towards Germany to pick up the fighters like this was just going to be our squadron. I’m not sure if we had one or two Mosquitos and we were going to fly around Germany and bomb Cuxhaven on the way back and I don’t know whether it was because we had an experienced captain we could then go back in and see what we could see on fires and that and then I could send a message which I didn’t want to do because the German fighters could pick up on your radio. But they, we felt that they were risking our lives unnecessarily because if there had have been fires we were going to be home in an hour and a half. We could have told them. [laughs] Anyway, we went back in, didn’t really see anything. I mean we didn’t have enough aircraft really to get any fires going and I did code a message up and send it, send it back. Oh yes and on the nine hours to Plauen it was an extra long night because somebody had a puncture in front of us and we couldn’t get back to, to our dispersal and had to stop and wait there until they organised somebody to come and pick us up and a ground crew to come and take over the aircraft because we had to sign to say that any faults and that was on it. Yeah so yes so that was it. After that we had, yeah on the 18th of April we, we were briefed to bomb Heligoland. The main reason for this was that the Royal Navy were going along the North German coast supporting the army and Heligoland had U-boats and E-boats and submarines which they felt could come back and attack the navy by the rear. Yeah. There was approximately eight hundred Lancasters and two hundred Halifaxes on the raid. We, I think we bombed Sylt. It was an island by the side of, with a little airfield on it or an airfield on it. I don’t think they’d been using the aircraft from there for some time. Somebody hit the oil storage tanks and the master bomber didn’t have much, a chance of directing bomber. I think he said, ‘Bomb the smoke, under bomb the smoke as you get in and then over bomb the centre of the smoke and port and starboard of the smoke’ you know so yeah there was only a couple of Halifaxes lost I think. It’s probably the only time I saw the thousand aircraft ‘cause we bombed and we went over we turned around to come back and we either saw the aircraft that bombed in front of us or those that were still going in to bomb you know because normally on nights you didn’t see them anyway and on other daylights if they went and bombed and carried on you didn’t see them. After that we started, mixed up with a briefing for the 20th for Hitler’s birthday to bomb Berchtesgaden, we were also being briefed and I believe we had something like twenty briefings for Bremen. Bremen, the army was having trouble in some places to advance and in other places were going easy and we kept going back to the briefing room and eventually we got, we got briefed for Berchtesgaden and we, I think we got out to the aircraft and the Met Flight said the weather over the Alps was too bad so it got cancelled. I’m not sure if the next day or the day after, yeah, the 22nd I think we went to Bremen. Yeah, in the end we went to the briefing room and they said that they were gonna withdraw troops to a certain line for, in the evening and they were ordered to come back to that line and we were going to bomb in front of it. As it was I think when we got there and we were going in as we got along there, there was some cloud and the master bomber said, ‘Apple Tart,’ which was don’t bomb. So we went there and we didn’t bomb. I think whether some aircraft earlier or after went and bombed but we didn’t bomb. The, a couple of days afterwards I think it was about eleven thousand garrison surrendered. [pause] And, oh yeah and then the squadron, we didn’t go, I think about the 25th they bombed Berchtesgaden but as we bombed, as we’d done four or five we were on a stand down and the Berchtesgaden one, that was the last one on the squadron. We, we somewhere amongst then we got a cross country looking for [pause] windmills [laughs] sorry. Sorry I had a job to remember the word. Yeah. We went around Norfolk looking for windmills not knowing what it was but on the 29th we got called to the briefing room to say that we weren’t going to drop bombs. We were going to drop food over Holland. And that was the first of our six trips over, over Holland. When we come they said that we, they hadn’t got permission for us to drop the food and they weren’t sure how the Germans were going to take it. They were going to tell them we were going to go and were hoping they were going to get away with it. Nobody got fired on although there were reports that some of the Germans were still with their guns and that but so we, so we came back and we got called to the briefing room on the 30th and were told that as we had got away with it the day before they were going to do it again and send some more aircraft in the hopes that the Germans wouldn’t think that we would do that and then they would open fire. We did it on the second and then the next, the next, the next day we got called and were more or less told the same although I believe later on that day that the, they did agree that we could go over and do it so, yeah. So we did another three we did six drops to I think, the Hague, Rotterdam, Delft and Valkenburg airfield. Amongst the children there was a girl who now works in our charity shop up the shops and we’ve got chatting and I’ve, I’ve taken her to an aircrew buffet and told her that I was feeding her sixty nine years ago. I didn’t still think I’d be feeding her sixty nine years afterwards. We’re great, we’re great friends.
CB: What height were you flying when you dropped —
RB: Oh I should think about two fifty foot or something like that wasn’t it? About two hundred miles an hour I think.
CB: And was the food in the bomb bay or how was it released?
RB: It was in the bomb bay. It was in nets. Yeah.
CB: So how did they, how were they released?
RB: By the bomb aimer on, as though he was dropping —
CB: In a sequence was it?
RB: He just dropped the lot you know and they, but they, you know, you could see the targets anyway but they had pathfinders had put targets, targets down. Yeah,
CB: Could you see the locals?
RB: Pardon?
CB: Could you see the local?
RB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah you could see, you were close enough to see them. Yeah.
CB: What were they doing?
RB: Pardon?
CB: What were they doing?
RB: Waving and, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and they by the end they had put in flowers “Thank you RAF” Yeah. Because they, it was about nineteen thousand extra people died during that winter which they take it was you know the starvation and that. They were eating bulbs and things. The, the Germans weren’t really feeding them and the Dutch had gone on strike to help for their bit for the war effort. Yeah. I think this lady I talked to I think she was fairly well off and they had a maid and they, they, they took some of their valuables. They got her to take them in a pram out in to the country where people were a bit well off to try and sell it, you know.
CB: What’s her name?
RB: Ellen, Ellen.
[pause]
CB: I think we’ll take a break there.
RB: Right.
CB: Thank you.
[pause]
CB: We’ve just had a break for one or two things. By the way this is the 28th of January and we’re now going to carry on with Roy. We’re close to the end of the war, right at the end of the war but we’re talking about Operation Manna. So Roy how did you get briefed about this and what were your reactions as a crew?
RB: Well we went to the briefing room and were told that we weren’t going to drop bombs we were going to drop food. I don’t, I think it was a shock really that there was, they’d said that they’d tried to get permission from the Germans but they weren’t playing you know and that the Dutch were in such a state that they’d offered to let a ship go in but the, I believe but the Germans had said no. Yeah, it was a bit of shock yeah that I, I know that I’ve read that a CO wasn’t pleased that he was telling his crews to go in at about two hundred miles an hour and two hundred and fifty feet or something like that and there was no, no agreement and that they were going to tell the Germans that we were coming, you know, over the radio yeah. But as, I mean I could never really have imagined myself dropping bombs over Germany. In fact, as a little titbit, you know when we got, I think it was over Bremen or somewhere. I thought, is this me? A boy from Battersea doing this, you know. There wasn’t much flying before the war. It was a different world. And everything it’s just when it all starts it’s all far away and it just goes one step at a time, you know and then all of a sudden you’re on a squadron and then all of a sudden your skipper goes on a second dicky and that and it’s getting nearer and you’ve been trained for it for twenty one months you know and it’s, it is all, it is all a case of doing one step and somehow thinking that what, if anything bad is going to happen it’s going to happen to somebody else. Not you. Yeah. No. I mean even the second day there was a thought of oh when they said they were going to send more we thought are they going to let us build up you know, to, before they fired at us. They just, I think when we got over there glad that those in front of us if they, well if they’d have been firing on them we’d have no doubt turned around and come back. Yeah. Because you know I mean they could have virtually fired at you with rifles couldn’t they, I mean. Because the Dutch people had been good to aircrew that had come down over their land. They were good ‘cause the Manna Association went over there for years after the war and took part in their, I think it’s their Freedom Day or something isn’t it?
CB: And when you got back from the sorties what discussions did you have as a crew?
RB: Well, we, we’d got away, you know. They hadn’t fired on us, you know and we sort of accepted it. That we had got away with it. But there was, there was that thought that the next day was, was going to be a build up but no. That was—
CB: So you’d done two. Now you get to number three. What are you feeling now?
RB: Yeah well after that we did, I think it was after the third that we were told when we come back from our third that they had agreed that we could —
CB: No.
RB: Go on dropping there. Yeah.
CB: So you stopped at six.
RB: Yeah.
CB: So what was the reason for that?
RB: VE day I think.
CB: Right. OK
RB: Yeah.
CB: Ok. So in the beginning you’ got the apprehension. What was the briefing about? If the Germans did fire on any of the aircraft ahead what were you going to do?
RB: I don’t know that there was much, you know, that they were just hoping that they wouldn’t.
CB: Just go in —
RB: I think we were about the third squadron in you know so we were in the early stages of it.
CB: Right.
RB: Yeah.
CB: Ok. So fast forward now to the last raid and we’ve got the end of the war. So can we carry on the narrative there? What happened then?
RB: We, Bomber Command brought, I think, something like seventy two thousand released prisoners of war back in twenty seven days. We took Uncle over to B58 at Rotterdam. No. Was it Rotter?
CB: Melsbroek?
RB: What?
CB: Melsboek?
RB: No, B58 at, Holland anyway. We took a service aircraft over. We had a spare wheel and a ground crew and we went over and landed there. It was no air traffic control. I think from, from, from H hour to twenty five past aircraft landed. From H30 to 55, aircraft took off and that’s how it was. You know, there was discipline and it went, and they they came in and they landed and loaded them up with troops and away they went.
CB: So this was Operation Exodus. Where did you fly into with these POWs?
[pause]
CB: Because Westcott here —
RB: Pardon?
CB: Westcott up the road here?
RB: No. No, we didn’t bring any back. Although they say we did we didn’t bring anybody back, in my actual log I’ve got them asking me whether flight sergeant somebody of, did we have him on board.
CB: Ah.
RB: He was on compassionate leave.
CB: Oh right.
RB: And we brought him home but the squadron records say that we didn’t bring anybody home.
CB: Right.
RB: We one of the other aircraft brought some Red Cross.
CB: So as such you weren’t part of Operation Exodus.
RB: Pardon?
CB: As such —
RB: No. No.
CB: The squadron wasn’t part of Operation Exodus.
RB: No. No. No.
CB: Ok. Well don’t worry about that. So we’ve got to the end of the war. Then what?
RB: We took, I think we took some people around Germany. Some ground crew. To see. And then we went to Bari and Naples bringing troops home.
CB: Oh you did.
RB: Yeah. We, yeah.
CB: So just on the round robins, the Cooks tours they called them. What height did you fly over the cities? Cause that’s what you were doing.
RB: Not very high so people could see. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: And what was your relationship with your ground crew during the, during hostilities anyway.
RB: Yeah we got on alright with them all but seeing as we flew a number of different aircraft you know you didn’t get the same ground crew all the time.
CB: Oh right.
RB: I mean some, some people seemed to do twenty, twenty trips in the same aircraft.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and more.
RB: No. All I got here is Exodus. Service aircraft to B58
CB: Right. Anyway, on the Cooks tours where did you fly then?
RB: Essen, Cologne, Aachen and Antwerp.
CB: Right.
RB: I think that might have been the only one we did. Yeah ‘cause in, in May ‘45 by the end of the month all Australians, Canadians and foreign people had gone out of the, out the crews, you know.
CB: Oh right.
CB: They went home immediately.
RB: Yeah they yeah they got out. So, I mean, I know a pilot, he was the only Englishman. He was on leave and went back and they’d all gone. [laughs]
CB: Didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.
RB: No. No. No. No.
CB: I bet he, yeah, what was the relationship in your crew like?
RB: Yeah alright there was only one snag was the mid upper gunner.
CB: Oh go on. What about him.
RB: He had a girlfriend in Leicester.
CB: Taffy Jones.
RB: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So he went there a lot.
RB: Yeah and you know we covered for him when we were more or less in briefings and he didn’t get back till the last minute and things. Yeah.
CB: So what, so did the crew socialise a lot.
RB: Yeah well you really had to because other crews were doing things at the time.
CB: Yeah.
RB: We basically knew our crew and then I knew wireless operators, the navigator knew navigators because they had —
CB: Yeah.
RB: Sessions together, you know. I might, if you got friendly with another wireless operator there was a, chances are that you might get sort of a bit friendly with the other crew but they would be flying other times so you know other than being in the mess —
CB: So how did the crew feel about Taffy Jones going off all the time?
RB: Yeah [laughs] We’d know that there was, there was —
CB: What did the crew say to him?
RB: Well at times we felt as we should dump him, you know.
CB: Did you?
RB: Yeah. Yeah. The rest of us were, were alright you know.
CB: Commonly known as pee’d off.
RB: Yeah.
CB: Because the flight engineers didn’t join till after OTU how was Len Piddington selected? Or did he just appear?
RB: I think, I think he just appeared. I can’t remember now, you know but yeah.
CB: Yeah and how, how did he get on?
RB: Yeah he was a Londoner you know and we had, yeah.
CB: So now we are at the end of the war what happened then?
RB: We went down to Wyton. No we went down to Upwood. Upwood was due for a clean up after the war so we went, we got transferred to Wyton. By the end of August 576 and 156 were being disbanded. Alan Craig was CO of 35 err 156. He was ex- Halton he’d done a number of master bomber trips and they, they did six Lancasters with Lincoln engines in to try them out and he did master bomber trips on them trying them out. I suppose because he had an engineering background because of Halton.
CB: What was his name?
RB: Alan Craig.
CB: Oh Alan Craig. Ok.
RB: He was well known and he got picked to take 35 Squadron around America in 1946. He, as the squadron was being disbanded he went over there to Graveley. He grounded some of their crews and they not very, they weren’t very pleased with him and he sent over to 156. My skipper was in line for going but he, his, he got married in ‘44. Joan who lived in Stratford on Avon and I take it there were a lot pilots around there she had been engaged twice and both got killed and when they got married she thought flying was dangerous and when the war finished he was to give up flying. As he’d been in before the war he was due for demob by the time they were going to America so he would have had to sign on and he wouldn’t sign on so that wiped our crew out. Flight Lieutenant Jenkinson DFM he, I don’t know how, he didn’t have a wireless operator and I’d kept me nose clean. Nothing special but you know just did as I should do. The signals officer, we got on alright but he got on alright with lots of them you know and him and Jenkinson asked whether I would like to go with them so I said yes because my crew had well I think a couple of them had already been posted to other places. Me navigator was on his way out to the Middle East. He was an accountant and he was going on ground crew in the accounts somewhere. The bomb aimer’s going. Len they sent over to, to another squadron. I mean why they, why they took him and put on another squadron. Benny, the rear gunner he went to another squadron. Yeah. So I went over to Graveley. We got our white Lancs and started flying and we were going to be Alan Craig’s crew. We spent hours in the crew room waiting for him to take us up to fly but he never did because he had other things to do and then a signal came through from High Wycombe that it was all pathfinder crews and it had got, been remade with crews from each of the bomber groups so you’ve heard of Sir Mike Beetham have you?
CB: Absolutely.
RB: He come from East Kirkby down to Graveley and swapped with a crew. We swapped with a crew from 138 at Tuddenham and, I was, I was torn. When he come he didn’t have a wireless operator and I said did I [?] want to stop with him and you know I didn’t want to lose my crew so I said no. It was the worst thing I ever did really because when they got us over there to Tuddenham we were a new crew and they were grounding crews left, right and centre. They sent. They us on leave. I got recalled the next day and got posted so I never saw any of Jenks crew. The day after I left the two gunners come back and got posted. So I found out. By the time the pilot come back he didn’t have a crew. They’d all gone, you know [laughs]. So yeah at Tuddenham we were doing photographic work for town and country planning. We didn’t do much because we were making maps over bombed areas but quite often you know with cloud and that we didn’t get all that much photographic work done. And anyway I don’t know whether I would have gone because Flight Lieutenant Koreen [?] had a mid-air crash. He had a nose and he went into somebody’s tail and the wireless operator had frostbite and I never did find out whether he went around America.
CB: So they took their Lancasters with them did they?
RB: Yeah they did.
CB: To America.
RB: Yeah they went around. Sixteen —
CB: Good Lord.
RB: Sixteen went around America. Yeah. Yeah. I did, I did have all the cuttings and that.
CB: Yeah.
RB: And um —
CB: But you never went.
RB: No. I didn’t go but I knew the people, a lot of the people, and I thought of, and when I saw Mark Beetham up at Hendon once I said ‘I got them’ and he said ‘I didn’t ‘ave it cause I was there’ so I handed over to him all the photos and that that I had. Yeah. Yeah it’s like. How far are we going to go on?
CB: No, we’re just, it’s just a question of what you did at the end of the war.
RB: Yeah.
CB: ‘Cause you came out in ’47.
RB: Yeah.
CB: So what did you do between the end of the war and when you were demobbed?
RB: I went to Cranwell on a, on a course for VHF Homer. Do you know?
CB: Yeah.
RB: VHF Homers? I operated a VHF Homer at Wyton. Only for a day or two. I was on air traffic control as an RT operator giving aircraft permission to take off and land. I, I was on duty now, now, now I’m going to do a bit of a shine [?] I was on darkie watch. Darkie watch. Anybody know darkie watch?
CB: That’s, no. No
Other: No. No.
RB: It was on channel 4. The transmission was I think was ten to twelve miles maximum so if you were in trouble during the war you could use plain language.
CB: Yeah.
RB: And you could say —
CB: Oh it could only go twelve miles.
RB: Eh?
CB: Yeah.
RB: You could say Lancaster of 576 squadron I’m lost.
CB: Right.
RB: They could put searchlights up and things like that.
CB: Oh right.
RB: If you had trouble they could get somebody to talk if he was injured or in trouble and things like that. Anyway, I was the only one, there was no flying so I was the only one on air traffic control for the night. I took a —
[pause]
CB: We’re just pausing to look at documents.
RB: I took a call from Group in the night that the Americans had lost a Dakota in the Alps. Oh I’ve already told you every, every three weeks we were duty Air Sea Rescue [?] Squadron and had to have an aircraft standing by all the time. I think we had airborne life boats which had come in. We had one of those. We never used it as far as I know and I switched on the tannoy and said, ‘Emergency air sea rescue. Emergency air sea rescue. Emergency air sea rescue. All air and ground crews report immediately. All duty air and ground crew should report immediately.’ I rung up the crash crew to make sure they’d heard me. The Met girl had come up before she’d gone off. I knew the winds. I’d put the runway lights on, I’d put the perimeter lights on and by the time the, I can’t believe it now but I believe it only took somewhere, something about just over a quarter of an hour for a crew to come ready to take off and by that time ‘cause I wasn’t supposed to give the aircraft permission the flying control officer was supposed to be there. I mean when I was on an airfield by meself overnight I wondered whether if it had ever happened you know if someone had said, ‘I’m in trouble.’ I had to [?] switch the lights on for them to land. What would have happened —
CB: Yeah.
RB: You know, but officially?
CB: What rank —
RB: So —
CB: What rank are you now for authority?
RB: I’m warrant officer.
CB: You are. Right.
RB: Yeah. Yeah the, anyway we got them off and they went to the Alps and they did find the Lanc but I think they —
CB: The Dakota.
RB: Pardon?
CB: The Dakota.
RB: Yeah, they found the Dakota. They saw it a number of times. In fact I can probably tell you how many times they found it. [pause] Anyway, in the Alps, flying, they’d saw it a number of times and there was a crash crew from Milan sent to find them and I think they went across to Castel Benito for the night and then went back the next day.
CB: Right.
RB: I suppose being the nearest —
CB: Yeah.
RB: Anyway they went over and —
CB: This was a daylight operation?
RB: This is looking for daylight in the Alps, yeah. I have got the cuttings here.
CB: So why didn’t the Americans send a plane to search?
RB: I don’t know. I don’t know. In fact, in fact I think afterwards they did sort of say that —
CB: Can we look at those in a minute?
RB: Yeah. Yeah well yeah well that —
CB: Yeah.
RB: That is the paper reports.
CB: Yeah.
RB: And it’s in focus and we diverted the Lanc to what is now London Airport to be interviewed by the BBC.
CB: Right. Amazing.
RB: And I’ve here got the signal from the American air force. Message received as follows from the USA Air Force in Europe, ‘Please convey our deep appreciation for the efforts in finding our aircraft and the hard work put in.’
CB: Brilliant.
RB: And when we were clearing up they said, ‘Roy you did most of it. You’d better take that with you.’
CB: Very gratifying.
RB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RB: Yeah.
CB: So when are we talking about? 1946 is this?
RB: This is ‘46.
CB: Ok. And you were at Cranwell.
RB: No. No, I’d come from Cranwell. I’d done the course at Cranwell.
CB: Oh right.
RB: I’m back at Upwood.
CB: Back at Upwood. Ok.
RB: Yeah.
CB: So you’ve done, you’re still flying intermittently.
RB: No. No.
CB: Not at all.
RB: No. No.
CB: Ok so how did you come so we’re in ‘46 but you didn’t leave till ‘47 so what did you do in the rest of the time?
RB: RT at Upwood.
CB: Ok and how did your demob come about?
RB: You got a demob number. Your age and when you went in and mine was 45 and that was due out but it varied on trades because believe it or not in some trades they were short. Trades which had been built up at the beginning of the war were due for demobbing and if they hadn’t, if they didn’t need more along the line yeah and I did while I was at Upwood the only other highlight was I went over to Wyton because they were short of an RT operator over there and somebody on the VHF Homer and I did, I did a day or two on the VHF Homer over there. Yeah.
CB: So your demob date was actually 1945 but you didn’t take it till ’46?
RB: No, no, no that was 45 was the number.
CB: Oh sorry.
RB: But it came up —
CB: Beg your pardon.
RB: It came up. Wireless operators. It was due March ’47.
CB: Right.
RB: Yeah.
CB: Ok so then you knew that in advance.
RB: Yeah.
CB: Where did you go for demob?
RB: Lytham St Anne’s at Blackpool.
CB: Ok and what happened then?
RB: They said did I want to go back in? [laughs]
CB: Yeah. And you said —
RB: No. Well those, at that time well pre-war the air force spent a lot of time overseas. In actual fact about that time squadrons of Lancs used to go to the Middle East and that for a month and come back, you know so it would have been a whole different ball game then if, from the —
CB: So when did you meet your wife Joyce? What was she doing?
RB: 1943.
CB: Right. Where was she?
RB: Um she was in Battersea. Yeah, she worked for the Red Cross and St Johns Joint Organisation [?]
CB: And so you saw her intermittently or how did you —
RB: It was intermittently, yeah. Yeah, yeah I mean I was only coming home once every three months for leave sort of thing or —
CB: Yeah.
RB: An odd weekend.
CB: So that was another motivation for leaving the RAF was it?
RB: Yeah and to really I suppose to start doing something for, for me life you know.
CB: Yeah. So what had you chosen to do when leaving the RAF?
RB: I didn’t choose it. I got a job in engineering didn’t I?
CB: And you went back to it.
RB: I went back to it yeah.
CB: Ok. And they had to, it was a reserved —
RB: Pardon?
CB: Place? They had to take you back.
RB: Well yeah when I went back in there he said, ‘I’m not taking you back. I didn’t want you to go and you went.’ He was joking he was. [laughs]
CB: Oh right.
RB: Yeah. I I didn’t really have any young life, you know, even social life ‘cause I went to evening school for three years and evening school was evening school. There was no day release in those days you know. I used to work till 6 o’clock and race home and drink a cup of tea and race to be at Wandsworth Tech by quarter to seven, you know.
CB: And what was the course?
RB: Sheet metal plate work.
CB: Right.
RB: And after I passed it I went back in to work and said I passed my course and they said, ‘Right, Roy, we will give you a rise. We will put you up from one and seven pence farthing to one and seven pence three [emphasis] farthings.’
CB: Fantastic.
RB: And a little while later they said we’ve got a contract for Kirkup [?] Oil Pipeline and their cooking equipment as they’ve got so much oil they want it oil [?] fired so the boiling pans if we give you a half a dozen people to work with you you control it [laughs] ‘cause you’re getting the extra money. I’m getting the extra ha’penny an hour. So you know thinking back on it that probably they’d charge on [?] it got ten bob a week extra so you know yeah so I I organised it that the iron framework had to be, go and be hot dipped and galvanised so I sort of got that organised. The outer panels were going to be vitreous enamelled but we didn’t have a plant in those days we had to send it out to get it vitreoused [?] so the bits that had to go you got done in the hopes that when they come back all the in-house bits, the pans in stainless steel and the tops and that and the bits and pieces you were making you kept it going and it all ended up, yeah.
CB: So you spent the rest of your working life with that company did you?
RB: No. No I well we couldn’t get a house, you know. We were, we were in the mother in laws front room and then we managed to get two rooms and there was no chance of getting a place in London, I mean and Bartlett’s were in the same line but they, they were moving from Bell Steet because they thought they were going to be pulled down for the Harrow Road Flyover and they were having a place built out here so I applied for a job there and got it.
CB: In Aylesbury.
RB: No Hemel.
CB: In Hemel.
RB: Hemel, yeah, yeah and in fact we got a house and were down here before the factory. We had to travel up every day you know to, the next job I got when I was at Benham’s they got the contract for the ventilation for the House of Lords and the Commons what had been bombed during the war and they were used to galvanised and aluminium but underneath the fancy plasterwork they wanted stainless steel because they didn’t want it to rot and after all the cost of all the plasterwork so I got the job of the stainless steel because it all had to be welded and I could weld stainless steel when it was all curves and that. Yeah.
CB: So you know the House of Commons backwards.
RB: No. No, I didn’t, I didn’t go up there at all. I just made it and it all fitted so I didn’t have to go up there. Yeah. I got, I got in with the, the gang that places in London, the restaurants and that hadn’t been, hadn’t had any building work done on them during the war and we went to places like Derry and Toms to, to update their service counters. We used to, at this time we were working eight to eight because we were busy and we used to go up there Friday dinnertime and the counters were red hot. The counters in the pre-war used to be galvanised pipes going back with steam going through them and they would be red hot and we’d start stripping down from as soon as they’d finished serving dinnertime and we’d carry on stripping down and the stainless steel tops and that in the early days there wasn’t welding on stainless steel. It was riveting and various means and er but we used to put that on the lorry which used to go back to the works. We used to go home and then go in at 8 o’clock on Saturday morning. Our outside fitters used to be pulling out the pipes because at this time copper pipes were going in to replace the galvanised which were some had like rusted and that you know so we used to go in to the works and replace the tops and anything that needed to be. Sometime during Saturday night we’d load it on to the wagon and we’d go back and we’d go straight in and we’d start putting it up but there was no break because you didn’t know what snags you were going to come. Until it was finished you just kept so you worked from Saturday morning all the way through Saturday night round and it usually used to be sometime Sunday afternoon that used to get finished and you’d say ‘right we think we’re there’ you know, we ‘ave to, we used to have to make sure there were no leaks or nothing so there wasn’t too many of them but there was one. Barclays bank had a terrific long counter and it was decided that it was hopeless to try and do it all in one weekend so we did it in three weekends all running on so for four weekends I didn’t have a weekend off. I was out working eight till eight. Luckily it was, it was during the summer so I wasn’t at evening school. My son was born and I daren’t, my wife went into hospital. I daren’t say I’m not going because you were in that gang and if you didn’t go you were frightened that they wouldn’t have you next time you know but er
CB: When were you married?
RB: 1950.
CB: And how old are, well who are your children?
RB: Roger.
CB: Yeah and how old is he?
RB: He’s about sixty —
CB: No. He was born when?
RB: Er ’52.
CB: 19, and the next one?
RB: Peter ’53.
CB: Yep.
RB: Trevor ’56.
CB: Yeah.
RB: Andrew about ’59, I think.
CB: And then you adopted.
RB: Yeah.
CB: Who? What’s her name?
RB: Elizabeth.
CB: And how old is she? When was she born?
RB: About ‘69 I think.
CB: Right. So you needed to get over the others a bit before you took her on [laughs]
RB: Yeah. Well [laughs] Roger was working, you know.
CB: Oh was he?
RB: Bringing money in.
CB: Yeah. Right. Ok. We’ve done amazingly well. Thank you.
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
Interview with Roy Briggs
Description
An account of the resource
Roy Briggs was born in Battersea, London. After leaving school he undertook an engineering apprenticeship with Benham and Sons, producing equipment for the war. He describes his life during the Blitz. When he joined the Royal Air Force he trained as a wireless operator and served at RAF Fiskerton. He was on operations to Plauen, Cuxhaven and Potsdam. He also took part in Operation Manna and Operation Exodus as well as Cook’s tours over Germany. Until he was demobilised in 1947, he served at RAF Upwood. After the war he returned to a career in engineering.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-28
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Janet McGreevy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:58:03 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABriggsR160128
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Germany
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Plauen
Germany--Cuxhaven
Germany--Berlin
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
30 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
air sea rescue
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
demobilisation
Dominie
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Initial Training Wing
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Hixon
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Madley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Upwood
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/177/2340/ABattyPH161014.1.mp3
5c4ac0fc187b4591d3ca4948980d7baf
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
Batty, Philip
Phil Batty
P Batty
Description
An account of the resource
19 Items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with Philip Batty (b. 1925). He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis early in the Second World War, his wartime service with 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner, and his long post war career. The collection also includes a number of group photographs of airmen after training, photographs of aircraft in southern Africa, his log book and propaganda material.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-14
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Batty, P
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CH: Right, this interview is taking place at Phil Batty’s home in Wellingore, Lincolnshire on the 14th of October 2016, it’s being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. The interviewer is Cathie Hewitt, also present are Guilia Sanzone, Ann Batty and Chris Aram. Okay Phil, if you’d like to give me this information of your date and place of birth and your early childhood.
PB: Right, well, I was born on the 7th of March 1925, at a small village in Yorkshire. Er, my parents, my father was, actually in the Flying Corps in World War One, and he, he stayed in after the war and married my mother in 1918, but mother didn’t care for the Air Force, they were stationed at Castle Bromwich, and father decided that they would leave and he got himself a job as a draughtsman at Rolls Royce in Derby, but unfortunately came the depression and he was laid off, the only job that he could find was in the mines up in Yorkshire, which is where we went, but mother hated that even more, she was determined that we were not going to stay there [laughs] and er, we emigrated back to the West Midlands where father got a job with Walsall Town Council as a roads foreman, and, that’s where I was brought up and educated, at Elmore Green Central School. Mother didn’t care for that either [laughs] I went to sit the entrance examination for I think it was the King Edward Grammar School in Birmingham, I passed it but unfortunately Walsall refused to pay the fees. So, I was stuck in Walsall and went to Elmore Green for my secondary education. I was quite happy there, and, I stayed there until of course war broke out in 1939 when I was fourteen, I was just about to leave school anyway, I’d got a job at the town council myself in the transport department as a clerk, and, there I sat, waiting for things to happen. My brother Dennis, of course was a fully qualified wireless operator air gunner [indistinct], he was with 226 Squadron and once the army got themselves organised they all deployed over to France as the advanced air striking force with the British Expeditionary Force. They were equipped with Fairey Battles, a single engine light bomber, utterly unequipped to face the Luftwaffe, but there they are, and there we sat and waited. Dug a big hole in the back garden, built ourselves an Anderson shelter [laughs] and that sort of thing and waited for the real war to start, which eventually, it did, with a bang, crash, wallop, and, er, Dennis came home when the army retreated, they suffered horrendous losses. He kept a little diary while he was in France of his — of his friends who didn’t come back, because the Messerschmitts knocked them out of the sky like fly swatting really, er, but he came home eventually with his kit bag full of champagne and [laughs] and stayed with us for about a week and then went back, and his squadron reformed with Blenheims and were based at Wattisham, and there they started to bomb the Channel ports where the Germans were then assembling an invasion fleet. It was on bombing, there was bombing raids they went in, inland to bomb an airfield, and they were attacked by some Messerschmitts, the pilot was hit, in the neck, but Dennis shot one Messerschmitt down and that put them off, they left them alone and they got back to base safely and that's where all three of them were awarded the DFM. And, Dennis came home to celebrate. Unfortunately he was posted up to Scotland, I think he was going on the gunnery leaders’ course, but this is a week later and he was killed in a flying accident [pause]. This was my first [pause] real [pause] [cries].
CH: Would you like to take a break?
[interview paused]
CH: Okay?
PB: And er, of course, that’s the last thing my mother wanted [laughs] she said, ‘No, no way, you’ll never pass the medical’, ‘cause I’d had an ear operation, she said, ‘You won’t pass’, [interference] anyway, she said, ‘You’re not going until you’re called up’, and of course eventually I was [laughs]. Passed the medical, went for aircrew, went to Birmingham to the attestation centre, er, which was where they gave you a little exam to make sure you could read and write a little essay and that sort of thing, and, then they did [indistinct] a little test with a little machine keeping a dot in the centre, and they said, ‘Oh, what do you want to be?’, and I said, 'Well I want to be a wireless operator air gunner’, they said, ‘Oh you, no we’re, what about pilot, navigator, you know?'. I said er, ‘Well, how long’s that take?’. He said, ‘Well, you’ll be put on a list and we’ll call you when we want you’, but I said, ‘Will I be quicker being a WOP AG’, he said ‘Yeah a bit’, I said, ‘I’ll have it’ [laughs] and er, that was it then, er, course mother was dead against it, but I said, ‘I’ll be alright’, [emphasis] you know it’s, I hadn’t the faintest idea of course that the losses were mounting for bomber crews at the time but, anyway eventually I got this paper asking me to report to Lords cricket ground, I thought, whatever, funny place for the Air Force, but off I go and they were playing at the time, I think it was the West Indies, I’m not sure, but that’s where you got issued with uniform, numbers, 2220759, ha, ha [laughs] you never forget it [laughs] and er, all the stuff you needed, and put your civilian clothes in a suitcase and send ‘em home, and, we were accommodated in London, in flats at the time being, for a little while, and then put on a train to Bridlington. Bridlington by the sea, yes, and there we were taught to march, yes, and I thought oh God, if this is aircrew, you know, I thought we were going to fly [emphasis] but no, we were marching up and down the promenade and [laughs] and er, learning the Morse code and that sort of thing, signalling by lamp and all the rest of it, and er, we were there for about , I suppose about four to six weeks and then I was posted down to the radio school at Madley to be taught the real skills of being a wireless operator air gunner and, there started the real training really. Er, I was there, I suppose about eight months, passed out, but that was the real jump [indistinct] because when you got your brevet, you got immediate promotion to sergeant, and now this is a big lump, a big jump really, er, and I was posted at the same time over to a place called Staverton, just outside Gloucester. They had a sergeants’ mess, we had sheets [emphasis] on the bed [emphasis] [laughs] fantastic, and we had knives and forks set out in the mess, we thought, you know, we’ve started to live, yeh. Er, the other funny thing was that we were briefed secrecy, you will see an aeroplane here, which you’ve never seen in all your life because it hadn’t got a propeller, it just whistles, and of course it was the jet, the very first, and it did seem very odd I must admit. Er, and we were there for six weeks flying an Anson and that’s where I first met up with my navigator, John, and we flew together for some time, and I think it was when we finished at, there, we went off up north to Dumfries and by God it was cold, [emphasis] we were living in Nissen huts and they were freezing [emphasis] oh, one stove in the middle that everyone tried to huddle round and how it is, but, once again it was just about six weeks, and then we went to, down to the OTU, that was just outside Leicester, where we upgraded to Wellingtons and that’s where we got that leaflet, the operational crews were diverted in one night, and I must admit they all looked clapped out [laughs] very tired, but er, I think that, we went, OTU was where we first started to fly as a crew, we picked up a pilot, a co-pilot, er, I still flew with John Tidmarsh, we’d been flying together then for six, seven months or so, so we de-, decided we’d stick together and the rest of the crew could join us [laughs] which is what we did, as you do, a little band of men. And, we did, I think it was a couple of months on Wellingtons, flying round the countryside practising navigation, bombing, and waiting to march onwards which we did eventually. We were posted to a Lancaster conversion unit, and I think I went to the one just outside Newark, er, it’s in my log book somewhere, and that was the, yes [pause]. Chris’ll find it in there [pause].
CA: Winthorpe.
CH: Winthorpe.
PB: After I, after we’d finished at the, I remember looking at the, where we were, 'cause it had big chimneys at the end of the runway, and I said to the pilot, he's a bloke called Ford, Henry, I said, ‘I hope you can manage to get a Lancaster over the top of those chimneys’, Henry [laughs] ‘they look pretty ominous to me’, he said, ‘Don’t you worry Phil’ [laughs]. Anyway, we passed and eventually 'cause we are coming to right to the end of the war now, and I didn’t, didn’t think we were going to make it before VE Day, we just about did it, we would have done, but not quite. We were posted to a squadron, posted to 50 Squadron at Sturgate and, off we went, and we’d just done the, squadron commander flew with us and pronounced us fit to join his squadron and, but I think it was a week later that we had VE Day, that was it, the war was over. So, we came into the briefing room one morning and saw [unclear] the squadron commander and said ‘Well fellas, well done’, he said, ‘It’s over’, he said, ‘We are now part of the Northern Striking Force', he said, 'Who we’re going to strike I don’t know but that's who we are’, he said, ‘5 Group are going out with Tiger Force to the Far East to fight the Japanese, but we’re staying here, but I’ve got some good news for you’, he said, ‘You can draw some khaki drill’, he said, ‘'Cause we are off to Italy on Monday’, [laughs] he said, ‘What we’re going to do’, he said, he said, ‘We’re going to pick up some prisoners of war up and bring 'em home’, he said, ‘Everyone, yes’, he said, ‘Our [emphasis] prisoners of war [laughs] not theirs’, he says 'We’ll paint twenty circles on the floor’, he said, ‘You put twenty passengers each and off you go’. 'And it’s like an operation, there’ll be sixty or so aeroplanes and some are going to Pomigliano and some to Bari, but we’re going to [unclear]’, he says, ‘Now there’s three things, one, do not try and change your money on the black market, none of that, don’t go down to Naples and get drunk on the local vino, right, and make sure you look after the soldiers [laughs] 'cause they won’t have flown’ [laughs]. But of course they hadn’t, but they were very pleased to jump on board the Lanc, er of course it took a long time, I think it was seven or eight hours trip each way but they didn’t care. Is that what you’re looking at Chris? Yes, they called it Operation Dodge, yes and we did one or two of those and, that was how the — the war virtually ended for me.
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back with you?
PB: Yeah.
CA: I don't think he heard you.
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back on the trips in the Lancasters?
PB: Pardon?
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back from Italy?
PB: Yes, yes, yes, and we landed in the UK at, Polebrook, yes, I don’t know how many times oh, er, eight was it, I don't know. Chris, I think is looking now [unclear]?
CA: Yes, at least eighty.
PB: I did several trips, anyway, yes, I remember that we went to see the ruins of Pompeii, John Tid — Tidmarsh and I, yes. While we were there we thought we might as well, yeah, yes, but, very interesting actually, yes, we did behave ourselves and we did realise that the best things to take out were cigarettes and coffee for trading, and er, we could hand those in and bring back jewellery and that sort of stuff, yes, from the Italians, yes, er, quite enjoyable. Chris is looking now in my logbook, which will be scanned presumably? Yes. The length of the time that the trips took, yeah, quite long, yeah, okay.
CH: What happened after you finished doing these trips bringing the prisoners back?
PB: That was it for the time being, erm, I was posted then to, out to Transport Command for a little while, and then the air force [background noises] in their wisdom thought [?], in their wisdom, sent me out to Southern Rhodesia for two and a half years, er, onto [?] the navigation training school, flying Ansons, where I had a marvellous time [laughs] I really did, I thoroughly enjoyed it, you know, there were no tourists, the game was wonderful, it really was, marvellous place. We went to Victoria Falls and that sort of thing, er, saw the whole of the country at low level 'cause we were flying Ansons, and the navigators for their passing out trip, we took 'em down to Cape Town and back again, and after two and a half years I came home, and I decided to stay in the Air Force and rejoin Bomber Command, and, they’d got Lincolns then, so I was back on the old Lincolns and posted to Wyton and I was waiting there when of course the atom bomb came in, and the old Lincoln, I’m afraid, wasn’t big enough. So we borrowed some B29s from the Americans, the air force called them the Washington, and er, we converted from the Lincoln to the Washington, and that’s where we ended up at, Coningsby er, on the B29 or the Lincoln, and that’s where I was for quite a while until I think that I moved around a bit, on coastal, I think that, I spent a —a little time converting, then I was posted out to Malta and did a tour out there, with my good lady [laughs]. The Cyprus problem blew up — [interruption]
CH: That's —
AB: And, we were doing trips from Malta to Cyprus, once round the island and back, sixteen hours [laughs] rather tiring, so they decided to send us out to Cyprus and, camp on the edge of the airfield instead, so we could do shorter trips. So, we ended up camping on Cyprus for a bit until it was [laughs], time for us to come home, which we did in nineteen, ooh, was that sixty we came home?
AB: I think so.
PB: Yes, something like that, and I was [pause] posted back up to, Coningsby I think.
AB: Topcliffe.
PB: Yeah, oh, Topcliffe one or the other, yes, and er, after that they sent me back to, Bomber, where I converted on to the Vulcan eventually, that’s where we stayed did we not? Yes, I think so. Yes, they, the Cypriots had taken the [background noises] the explosives in a sandwich — in a sandwich tin, just in it, just in between two pieces of bread and they put 'em on the hinges of the aeroplane and blew the wing off, yes, the pilots didn’t like it, no, weren’t too keen on that. So, they put closer guards on the aeroplanes, that’s the only thing they could do [background noises].
CH: What year was this?
PB: Yes.
CH: What year?
PB: Erm, gosh, what year was Cyprus Chris? It’s in there, when we're doing the Cypriot runs. Five, yeah, it’ll be listed there. [pause] 'Cause they were gun running as well, that’s what we were doing there [?] just trying to pick up the gun runners at night [background noises].
[inaudible]
CH: I'll pause that. What were you saying about the Cypriots?
PB: They were very clever in the way they smuggled their weapons and stuff in, that’s why we were doing these orbits around Cyprus at night to try and catch the boats, the little boats they used to get weapons over, and explosives and that sort of stuff, yeah.
CH: Was this the time of EOKA?
PB: Yes, exactly, yes, yes. [pause] I think it was eighty something, yes.
CH: That would have been in the fifties, nineteen fifties.
PB: Yes, that’s it [indistinct]. But I moved over onto the Vulcan, 'cause we went off to Finningley for our conversion and I’d only flown on piston aircraft, piston air, and I sat in this, monster and he said, er, ‘opening the throttles, full throttle’, whump, and I found myself up over my seat and I thought, good grief, [laughs], and I, I got the instruments in front of me 'cause we’d got an altimeter and an airspeed indicator, and he shot down the runway and I watched the altimeter go like that [laughs], winding upwards [laughs]. I’m not in a fighter but a fantastic performance, it really was, but I did get used to it of course, in the end, but, one or two of the blokes I flew with like Dave Thomas and, and Andy, could really handle a Vulcan well. Dave Thomas, when we’d, we'd done a display, we were coming home one Sunday and he said, ‘Do you mind if I try and roll it?’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t Dave’, and he did a roll and my desk lid lifted about half an inch and went down again, that’s all I knew, but somebody on the ground saw him, reported it to 1 Group Headquarters, and we were all summoned to see the AOC [laughs] 'cause we were both squadron leaders and he gave us both a right rollicking, and he said, ‘Don’t ever do that again’, [emphasis] well he said, ‘If you do don’t let anybody see you’, [laughs] ‘And would you like to stay for lunch’, [laughter] so he wasn’t really annoyed [laughs], but. Ah, ha, but, we did have some fun in the Vulcan one way and another [pause]. Ah. When we were training we were given a weekend off and, mother was always very pleased because we got a special, ration for aircrew and it added to her points, I think it doubled them just about and of course we got a free railway warrant, so I used to always, um, ask for a one to Birmingham and I used to exit at New Street station which was open and then catch the bus home, and that way I ended up with a few free tickets, you see, that I, I could use later on, which I did and during the war, yes it was very handy, but , yes every six weeks we were sent, to, to clear off and have a rest, eh, because we never knew but the sky over Britain was, must have been full of aeroplanes at night, that we didn’t know about, there was no radar cover, nothing like that, you just flew and fingers crossed, hope for the best that you saw everybody else, eh, fortunately we survived, no problems [laughs].
CH: Did you keep in contact with any of your crew that you flew with in the war?
PB: Yes, yes, eh, I haven’t contacted Henry, I did John Tidmarsh for a little while, I’ve lost contact with him.
AB: Johnny, Johnny King.
PB: Yes, but , Johnny King that, flew with since the war, yes, still in contact with him, he's in Canada but, we're in regular contact, yes, we flew together on, on Lincolns, yes, in fact he was a flight engineer and then, changed to pilot, trained to be a pilot, yeah.
AB: Lorenzo, Lorenzo.
PB: Yes, eh, anything else I’ve forgotten?
AB: Lorenzo.
PB: Oh yes, I kept in contact with Keith but he’s dead now of course, passed away.
AB: The Canadian ones, we’ve been over to Canada and stayed with them.
PB: But, [interrupted].
CH: Were there Canadians in your crew?
PB: Er, no, no there was, one Irish and the other one was a Londoner, the two gunners, yeah, one London, one Irish and one London. Paddy Mack [?], he was the rear gunner and there’s a little London fella, I can’t remember his name is the mid upper gunner, and I was the reserve gunner if necessary [laughs] but, I was never used [pause]. I think that’s about all I can remember, apart from the fact that flying was always cold, very, very cold [emphasis]. The only warm place in the Lancaster was in my position in fact, er, that wasn’t too bad, but the rest of them the Anson and the Wellington were perishing [laughs]. You used to wear as much clothing as we could to keep warm and you could hear the gunner in the back cracking the ice in his oxygen mask [laughs], crunching away [laughs], [coughs] but eh, you learn to live with these things [pause]. On Vulcans, Andy Milne and er, the rest of them [interrupted]
AB: Dave Thomas.
PB: Yes, but I think Andy Milne [interrupted]
AB: Jerry Strange.
PB: Was the best, 'cause we, we went on the bombing competition twice so we must have been pretty good [interrupted]
AB: And won, each time.
PB: But eh, yes, we beat the Americans at one stage but er, out in Barksdale, they didn’t like that very much [laughs], poor old, but they’ve been very good to us the Yanks I must admit, yes, um, but yes that was, that was a very good crew I must admit and we, we're still in touch, all of us. Yes, Andy's down in Devon with his own small holding, and, but our co-pilot settled in the Far East, built himself a house [unclear]
[inaudible]
PB: And er, my navigator’s still around, he comes, still comes to the meetings occasionally [pause] but, trying to think that’s, that’s about the limit of -. 'Course, there was our, my crash in the Vulcan, that was quite interesting [laughs]. Well we got to — went out to fly one day, Flight Lieutenant Galway was the captain at the time and, I was the AEO, Stan Grierson was the co-pilot, and we had, Alan Bowman and, was the radar. Anyway we got, this, almost brand-new Vulcan, it had got about ten hours on the air frame. Anyway, climbed on board, and set off and we were flying about an hour, when Ivor said, ‘The hydraulic pressure's reading zero’, I said, ‘Well tap the gauge Ivor, you know, use the old knuckle’, [laughs] he tapped it, wouldn’t come back you know, I said oh, ‘Hang on then I’ll see if it’ll move my,’ got a little scoop on the rover gas turbine in the wing, a little motor, I put my switch on and off, didn’t move, I said, ‘This looks ominous Ivor, it looks to me as if we’ve lost all our hydraulic pressure’, ‘But we’ve got air, we’ve got air, yes, have no fear, we’ll go back and use the air,’ he says, 'Okay, right', so we, we came back to base and um, burnt off a bit of fuel, you know as much as we could and then he said, ‘Right selecting emergency air, undercarriage down,’ down it went, bang’ [emphasis]. Two greens, one red. Oh dear, [sigh] ‘Which is the one?’ he said, ‘It’s the starboard wing, port undercarriage has not gone down and locked’. Now that’s bad, you can’t do anything about that at all. ‘I’ll check the electrics just to make sure that it’s not a fuse’, it wasn’t. So, he said, ‘Well , what about bailing out?’ I said, ‘Bailing out!, the nose wheels down', I said, 'I’ll go sliding out and the first thing I’m going to hit is the nose wheel,’ I said, I’m not too keen on that Ivor, if you don’t mind,’ I said, ‘The navigator and the radar might want to have a go?’ but, he looked at me and said, ‘No sir, I said, ‘What are you going to do Ivor?’, he said, ‘Well, I’m going to land her’, he said, ‘I’m going to try and land’, I said, ‘Well I'm, you are going to have two, three passengers on board as well, so to make sure you don’t clear off we’ll keep the safety pins in the seats all right, if you don’t mind, so you don’t accidently pull those handles and disappear,’ [laughs] he said, ‘Right oh,’ he said, I said, ‘Well, shall we prepare for a crash landing,’ he said, ‘That’s a good idea,’ so, we went through the drill, he said, ‘What we’ll do, we’ll pull the handle, get rid of the canopy, so that we can get out of the top at the front if anything happens,’ you know, that, and he said, ‘We'll, we’ll try.’ So he, he did a roller and it held up, but eh, and we went round again, came in, he said, ‘Well, here we go, hang on fellas.’ And eh, as he lowered the wing, bump [emphasis] down it went, straight onto the ground [laughs]. Round we went, twice [laughs]. We came to a halt about twenty yards from another Vulcan [laughs]. The bottom, our exit was okay, it was clear, actually, we could get out and the aero, the aeroplane was still upright, there was enough room for us to get out and clear off, which we did, as quickly as possible [laughs]. The aeroplanes left there with its wing on the ground, eh, yeh, a complete failure of the down leg had cracked [whispering], split, and all the hydraulic fluid had vented [?] to air. Nothing you could do about it [background noises].
CH: Let’s just pause this.
[interview paused]
PB: Crash landed twice in Rhodesia, [laughs] flying along and the pilot [background noises] said to me, ‘The controls have jammed,’ he said, ‘I can’t move the control column Phil, [background noises] can you come and give me a hand up here?’ I did, we couldn’t shift it at all, we were in a steady slow climb, so he said, ‘[unclear] I'm going to wind full nose trim on, we’ll go down and look for somewhere flat’ [laughs]. Which is what he did, [laughs] we did a very slow descent, we got two nav- cadets on board and I said, ‘Get in your crash landing position, it might be a bit bumpy when we land,’ but they [unclear] were very good you know, straight in, bent the props back and all the rest of it, chopped the ground up a bit, but er, opened the back door and the two lads jumped out, not even a bruise, yeah, yes. A clapped out old Anson you see, the control cables had dropped through the guides and jammed, you couldn’t move 'em, but there we are [laughs]. These are little things you’ve got to be ready for [laughs]. Yes, I had a time when I had to fly the aeroplane back when the pilot fell asleep, as well, poor [unclear] Freddy [laughs]. I said, ‘Fred, [laughs] we need to go back to base Fred’, [laughs] Fred Holloway, ‘What you say Phil?’ [laughs]. I said, ‘One eighty and head for Thornhill Freddy,’ [emphasis] [laughs] ‘oh, you’ll have to do it Phil’, I said, ‘Oh, crikey, I’ve not done this before Freddy,’ [laughs] ‘Nothing to it,’ he said, ‘Just keep it steady,’ he was right, you know I just [laughs], half an hour we were back over the top and he was awake by this stage. I said, ‘Do you think you could land it Freddy?’ oh, got the goose necks out there they are, I could see them, oh, he managed it. Ah, he’d been flying continually for, I think it was a week we’d been doing night flying and without any rest, or something like that, he’d overdone it [pause] yes, right oh, [pause] yes. Well the, the trips to the Congo were, well the Russians packed it in, they wouldn’t go, they, they’d got their aircraft out there, but , they said it was too dangerous, apparently. The weather was always icy [unclear], you know, going through the front but, we just, filled the old Hastings up with their soldiers and off we went and did it, but , we managed to get there and back okay.
CH: What was it that you were doing in the Congo?
PB: Ferrying the United Nations troops from, Nigeria and Ghana into the Congo to, as a peacekeeping — peacekeeping force really, because there were, having a, a dreadful war out there, Katanga, and political as well. They were slaughtering each other left, right and centre, as they do, out there, and so that’s what we were doing, ferrying the troops back and forth [pause]. RAF Transport Command, the black people saw 'em and thought they were commandos, that we were ferrying commandos in to attack them. And eh, we had to go through Leopoldville, which every time we went through, this chap in his ragged [unclear] came out with his hand, wanting so many thousand dollars so that we could go through and get into the Congo proper, where we wanted to be, and, I've forgotten how many thousand dollars we had to hand over, and if you didn’t they set up a light machine gun and trained it on the aeroplane, [laughs] so we paid [laughs]. Yes, we had to put on our United Nations hats, be part of the United Nations force, as opposed to the Royal Air Force [pause].
AB: I don’t know I didn’t hear what she said either Phil.
PB: Eh [unclear] yes, but , yes, yes, you never know — know when you were going to get through or not, that was the trouble, they tried to pull us back once because they thought we’d got the Prime Minister on board, they thought he was, the, the Prime Minister that had been giving them all the trouble, they thought we’d kidnapped him and we were taking him away [laughs] and they said, you must return to Leopoldville immediately, but er oh, it was old Bill Corker[?] who was flying, he says, ‘Tell 'em not bloody likely,’ [laughs] he said, ‘We’re going back to Accra as fast as we can [laughs] and we're not going back to Leopoldville, thank you’ [laughs]. Yes, that was their, the, the biggest problems were handling these people properly, so they could be very tricky these, black politicians. I’ve forgotten what his name was now but he was, [background noises] he caused a lot of trouble out there [pause], 'cause they’re all starving, and, we gave them all our food, all of us [unclear], as much as we could [pause].
AB: And this is one of the letters from the one he's talking about.
PB: Yes [unclear].
AB: Because they used to write regularly to us, letting us know what was going on in the other, the half and I just thought there might be something in here, erm, well there is about killing two Europeans before they got off, before we let you go we are going to kill two Europeans. I’d have to go through the whole of the letter for. I think they're the only two letters we kept, we had piles of them, didn’t we? [pause]. Yes, why I brought that out that was to show you that that’s how we used to communicate.
PB: I remember that, that’s the first time I saw Dennis’s name in, in print after he was , in the chapter called, “Men Like These”, yeah.
AB: Yes, it is only a small part of it, but I just thought that you would be interested, you know, because a lot of it happened in the era that you don’t remember. But, I think maybe David’s got the book.
PB: Oh yes, possibly yes, the one with the red cover, yeah, yes, bit tatty but , yes, yes it was a good book, yes.
AB: Any book that’s got a bit about the family in it, is good [laughs].
PB: I’m sixty, four, forty, KCs, but, as I say the aircrew of course, treat these things with er, well I, I can’t say it really, because its racist but er, [laughter] ‘Hello, hello darkies speak to me you black’ [laughs] and such like, as aircrew a lot, but, bit like that I’m afraid [laughs]. But, er, he’d never heard of it he said, but I said, 'Oh I can assure you it was an emergency [unclear] system during World War Two'.
AB: I know this has only got to do with [unclear].
CA: Not to mention the high jinks you got up to after a dining in night, and you decided to drive down to London to see the Queen, in a sports car, four of you, do you remember that?
AB: I remember them going, yeah. I remember them coming home [laughs] yeah, but that, is that the sort of thing you also want to know about?
PB: What's that?
AB: When you and, erm, what’s his name, all climbed into his sports car to go to visit his auntie, in London.
PB: In Mayfair.
AB: You and?
PB: Stan Grierson.
AB: And Ivor Galway.
PB: And Ivor Galway.
AB: All in their mess kit.
PB: Yes, not, not the best thing to do.
CA: Not having [?] imbibed a certain amount of alcohol?
PB: Weren’t in our right senses, no. ‘We’ll go and see my aunt, she lives in Mayfair [interrupted].
AB: This is from Cottesmore [unclear].
PB: 'She’s got a very nice flat’. ‘Okay Stan, yes, let’s go’. We get the car [laughs] oh dear.
AB: Carry on love.
PB: Yes, then all the wives panic, ‘Where’s my husband gone?’ [laughs]. ‘Don’t know, haven’t the faintest idea?’ We were on our way home, safe and sound.
AB: Yes, all of us were ringing each other up, the wives, to find out, is he home yet, to [unclear], Ivor’s wife, ‘No he’s not home yet, haven’t heard from him’, 'Haven’t you heard from them?’ ‘No.’ They were in London, in their mess kit, all in one sports car, they'd stayed the night, had their breakfast with auntie and then set off to come home. Arrived home at, oh I don’t know, maybe eleven o’clock, eleven am, to irate wives as you can well imagine, having been, been one [laughs]. Go on carry on, what happened then?
PB: Well, that was it wasn’t it, young and irresponsible, absolutely, totally irresponsible.
CA: As children, we were told you’d gone to see the Queen.
AB: Yes [laughs].
PB: Especially for a mature gentleman like you, yes.
AB: Well, you were the oldest member of the crew, you were the responsible one, all the others were young.
PB: Yes exactly, yes, I was the leader, yeah, yeah.
AB: I mean what a thing to do after a dining in night, you'll know about the dining in nights and how they, raucous they can get. Let’s go to London and see the Queen.
PB: It seemed a good idea at the time, yes, yes [laughs].
AB: You can imagine them arriving in London can’t you, all in their mess kit [pause]. Auntie didn’t turn a hair, did she?
PB: No.
AB: Gave them breakfast and sent them on their way [laughs].
PB: Yes, she did have a very nice flat, in Mayfair.
AB: It’s a pity those sort of things can’t come in the thing, 'cause they are hilarious, you know, but erm, what else did you do?
PB: Oh well, I’ve always been a good fellow you know that, I haven’t done anything.
AB: What about the ones in Nottingham? Auntie, in Nottingham, and Fosco?
PB: [laughs] Yes.
AB: I think we wives could write a book.
PB: Yes, come home, all is forgiven, Mother Vallance [laughs].
AB: This was, shall I carry on with it? This was one, one of the young men was, was violently sick when they went to stay in this house in Nottingham where they all used to go if they couldn’t get home 'cause the last bus went at seven o’clock at night, I mean, ridiculous really, so they used to go and stay, and he was very sick in the bedroom and he didn’t tell any of the crew, 'til he got home, and of course, she, the landlady went up and found all this, and she, she eh, was furious obviously. They all sent her a bunch of flowers and a letter saying, you know, we are sorry about this, and she wrote a letter back saying, all is forgiven, come home, love Mother Vallance [laughter]. 'Cause, this is when they were all at Coningsby.
PB: [laughs].
AB: But there’s lots of little stories like that, you know, that don’t come under the terms of flying, you know, but I think we should do a book on what the wives remember [laughs].
PB: Yes.
AB: Anymore?
PB: No, he’s still going strong, isn’t he Fosco?
AB: Yes, the one who was sick, he must be about, they were, they were all probably five or six years younger than Phil, he was the oldest member of the crew, erm, so he will probably be in his early eighties.
PB: Yes.
AB: Still lives at Coningsby. It's funny thinking about them all now, you know, it —
PB: Yes.
AB: 'Cause, Ivor Galway, the pilot of the plane that crashed, he used to live at Woodhall Spa.
PB: Yes ah.
AB: She had an unhappy end didn't she, committed suicide, a lot of the wives couldn’t take the pressures, as they were in those days, you know, the bomb and what not, you know. You, you never knew when they were called out on a QRA, does your husband, still do, is he still in the air force?
CH: No, it’s my son.
AB: Pardon?
CH: My son.
AB: Oh son. So, he would still do QRAs, rushed out in the middle of the night.
PB: Yes, that’s right.
AB: A lot of funny stories about QRAs and being called out.
PB: We used to wait for the call, ‘Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller for Waddington QRA only, readiness zero two is now in force’, and jumped in the car and straight out to the aeroplane and fire it up and get ready. That’s what they used to do [pause].
AB: It’s alright, that’s just a little passage, from the book. They arrived at the door in their flying kit having been brought home by bus because they were all, you know, a bit shaken.
PB: The MO thought we were all shook up, he said 'Go home', yes, I said 'I’m not shook up'.
AB: And we didn’t care less anyway we were, we were too busy with our sherry [laughs].
PB: Yes.
[laughter]
PB: Yes, QRA was a bit of, bit of a, bit of a bind but eh — [interrupted].
AB: And your son will know all about that if he, do they still do QRAs?
PB: Yes, well I suppose they do really eh, sleep in your kit and er, be ready to go eh, at a moment’s notice and it was eh, sort of broken sleep, that sort of thing, mind you at the same time, the food in the aircrew feeder was excellent eh, 'cause we had our own little restaurant, yes, but , [coughs] and of course, you could probably go a couple of nights without being called at all, and then suddenly, you know ‘Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller,’ and eh, and off you’d go, but, but you took your turn, you weren’t on it all the time [pause].
AB: Can I speak [whispered]. 'Cause that’s how a lot of the wives couldn’t cope because they never knew when they were called out on QRA, where they were going and what they were going to do. They could have been called to Russia and when they've passed a certain boundary time, place, they can’t turn round and come home again, they have to keep going, and a lot of the wives, lot of the wives could not cope with this, not knowing when their husbands went out on a QRA call, whether they were coming home or not.
PB: Yes.
AB: Especially the ones who were called out on the, the last, the Falkland do.
PB: Yes.
AB: They actually all wrote letters to their wives because once they got out they wouldn't have been able to turn round and come back.
PB: I think the really serious one was the missile crisis with Russia, you know, with the ships eh, going to Cuba, and J F Kennedy was the really serious one [pause]. That’s where — where we were on full alert, ready, ready to go, actually. Not that anyone wants to 'cause you know well that, there'd be nothing to come back to, if it ever happens, that’s why we want to stop these missiles spreading, it’s very difficult to do but we must try our best.
[laughter]
CH: I shall end that there. Thank you very, very, much Phil.
PB: Yes [laughs].
CH: Thank you.
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
Interview with Philip Batty
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Batty grew up in Walsall. He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis, a wireless operator with 226 Squadron, early in the Second World War. Philip volunteered for aircrew. After training, he was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner in May 1945. He was involved in Operation Dodge and United Nations peacekeeping in the Congo. He worked in Rhodesia and Cyprus and survived crash landings in a Vulcan and an Anson. He reminiscences about work colleagues and tells some humorous stories relating to his career in the Royal Air Force, which spanned 40 years.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cathie Hewitt
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-14
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Cathie Hewitt
Janet McGreevy
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:02:22 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABattyPH161014
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Congo (Democratic Republic)
Zimbabwe
Cyprus
Cuba
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
226 Squadron
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-29
Battle
Blenheim
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
Lancaster
Lincoln
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bridlington
RAF Coningsby
RAF Madley
RAF Sturgate
RAF Wattisham
RAF Wyton
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/2248/Howard, Irene.2.jpg
a7acc4013a5e27bd1419f63178ef6036
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/169/2248/AHowardI170112.2.mp3
e4839f9f85a4947dedbaf8db9f5ca660
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
Howard, Irene
I Howard
Description
An account of the resource
31 Items. An oral history interview with Irene Howard née Green (1925 - 2018), Civil Defence Warden Service and war damage compensation documents, identity cards and ration books as well as various Christmas greetings and photographs of family. She worked in a factory in Manchester during the war and as an Air Raid Precaution Warden. Her house was bombed in December 1940.
The collection was donated by Irene Howard and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Howard, I
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-12
2017-03-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Cathie Hewitt. The interviewee is Mrs Irene Howard. The interview is taking place at Mrs Howard’s home in Coleby, Lincolnshire on the 12th of January 2017. Also present is Michelle Nunn. Okay. Thank you Irene for agreeing to be interviewed. Perhaps you could give me some background information of when and where you were born and carry on from there?
IH: Right. My name was Irene Green when I was born. I was born on 26th of September in 1925 and we lived in 10 Tarbuck Street, Salford 5, we lived and I was the youngest of quite a large family. My mother, she didn’t work ‘cause she had a lot to look after but my father did. He worked for the Salford Corporation. He had a barge drawn by horse that he used to bring home if he was near us at dinnertime. He’d [start?] the farmers to, you know to pick the produce up for Salford Corporation where the horse and carts used to be waiting for them to take them into towns you see. That’s what me dad did and of course you see I had all the, about four or five sisters altogether and of course I’d been a bridesmaid quite a few times for each one or the other you know. The thing was that when I was born our Lily, that’s the one that passed away at thirty two, she was twenty one so she was quite disgusted with mother, having a baby when I’m twenty one, but mum said, ‘She spoiled you’ she said ‘She dressed you up like a doll.' So I always had decent clothes and I got quite, I think that’s why I’m a bit snooty you know because of it ‘cause you’re really in the streets, you see, you know these side streets, you see they were small streets that had twelve houses, six either side. They came off a long street, you know called Regent Street. They all had different names, these streets and they had black walls at the bottom. That sort of streets they were. We had a wide back entries so they could come down to empty the dustbins, the men, you see, so therefore what’s the name, we lived in this house and it had gas mantles. That’s all you were had to see. Nothing else. And we used to have a radio what had a accumulator attached to it, you see and you used to have to take it to go and get it charged. Be careful not to get any acid on yourself. This is what they used to say, me mam and dad and of course me dad was very strict. We all had to sit properly at the table for meals. You weren’t allowed to have them anywhere else and if you didn’t get on with your meal instead of messing about with it you got told off to eat it. You’d better eat it up because you’ll get it again and he wouldn’t but that’s what he used to threaten with. And anyway he was a very good father because at weekends when he was not on the barge he took over the meals. He cooked all the meals for mam. He said mam cooked ‘em all week she needed a rest so with whatsisname he used to get up and cook and he knew every step on the stairs ready for your breakfast. He’d have the bacon cooked, hanging on a toasting thing what he made, the tongue and he hung it on the thing against the fire so the toast was made. He used to put the bacon, put your plate, you know, these thick plates we had on them days on the thing that was holding it and put the egg on and the bacon used to drip on to the egg to cook. Oh it was beautiful. Never tasted it since. But he always knew which step was coming downstairs but you was always made to go to the sink even though it was cold water. Get your hands and face washed and your hair done. Then you were allowed to come to the table for your breakfast. That was me dad. That’s what he did. And then he used to cook all the dinner. Roast beef and all that we had, and Yorkshire pudding but we always had us Yorkshire pudding first, on its own, and a bit of salt on, a bit of sugar on it. Yeah. That’s how we had our Yorkshire pudding and then you had your main meal you know and then, dad would bake. He used to make apple, always a plate pies. There was apple pie, there was custard pie, there was a current pie and a jam pie. Jam tart as they call them now and so he did all that and we used to have the apple pie with custard for the sweet after. But he did all the cooking and our girls had to you know take turns to you know do all the washing up. That was mam’s time off ‘cause he said 'She’s looked after you all week, and cooked your, and everything.' He said 'Her time to have a rest.' Yeah. He always did that. Yeah, he was a marvellous father and I was spoilt by him even though he had the others. He used to take me to see my Aunt Ada on bank holidays. I had to be all dressed up. Me dad used to put his suit on and have a white stiff front you know underneath like they used to have years ago and his whatsit this like hat he had. Not trilbies, they were called something else. Anyway, we used to go on the tram ‘cause it was trams then. We’d go all the way to Brant Broughton[?]. That’s what it was called in that there. This aunt of mine, well it was me dad’s, one of me dad’s sisters, she had a shop on the corner opposite Strangeways prison, she did. It was fruit side one and all groceries the other and of course we used to, we used to go there and stay with Aunt Ada for a few days, well for a few hours rather, with Uncle Herbert and I think, I always thought she gave me dad a bit of money to have a drink [laughs]. I’m sure she did because when we came home we used to always stop before we come on the tram. He used to call in on this pub to go and have a pint and it was funny really. And I had to stand outside with a lemonade and, ‘If any man spoke to you, shout me.' You know, that was it then, them days. Which you did and I used to wear, always wore a hat. Like a straw bonnet affair and you see when I was a bit older it was like a boater we had. Velour hat. And of course this day it rained and it was a white hat and it blew off my head [laughs] and I was crying with my hat wet so me dad played hell with me mam when he got home ‘cause she didn’t put my elastic underneath it, not that I liked the elastic but that was it, you see and the couple that was over, the governor and that over Strangeways prison then, their daughter was the same age as me and she had some beautiful clothes. I mean she used to give them to my Aunt Ada to send for me, you know, and that sort of thing. That’s how we used to do, well you know until me dad passed away in 1936. He was only sixty one. He had a stroke but they didn’t, able to do things like they are today. He had it at work and so of course me dad was you know going about with a walking stick and that and so we had to manage ‘cause we had to pay doctors’ bills then ‘cause I used to go and pay it for me mam. A shilling a week. Go to the receptionist at the doctors and give her a card and she signed it and took the shilling and that’s how she paid for the doctor, me mam. And I’ll tell you what’s the name used to sit near the door because he made stools. Big stools to sit on. We had four and they used to stand in a recess ‘cause there were too many chairs, couldn’t get around the table. So he made these stools and two of them sat on them and I had to stand between me mam and dad at the table because I was the youngest and that you see and that’s how they did. They both had their rocking chair. Me mam’s was a black one and it was like low and she used to sit in that and me dad sat in one with arms and it was that side and me mam was this side of the table and so of course with what’s ‘is name that’s how I lived and as I say the front room was the posh room. You weren’t allowed in it unless there was a wedding and then of course we had a gate-leg table in the middle and you wound an handle and it opened and you put a piece inside it you know then mam used to bring out a white chenille cloth and all that sort of thing and then a neighbour, somebody she was friendly with would come and get the meal ready if it was a wedding you see and then all the neighbours would come in to wish the couple with a drink, you know, sherry or whatever. And that’s how we did in the front room. And our Lily wanted a sewing machine so mam bought, you know saved up money and they got it. It was a Singer sewing machine that had the lid and [?] that’s how it was and that was under the window and of course you see when me dad died the sons stayed up all night you know while he was laid in his coffin. Yeah. I don’t know what law that was but that’s how they always did ‘cause they’d put white blinds down your windows, upstairs and down, and then put curtain, like white sheets they were round and the coffin used to sit in the front room you see so you could see him and then they’d put the lid on when it was time for the funeral. When it was the funeral he had a horse and coaches in them days. There were four black horses for the hearse and then there was four coaches after, you know. And the neighbours used to collect, somebody’d died in the street and they’d get, buy a cross and it would hang up at the end of the street on the wall for our neighbours all to see it and that used to hang at the back of the hearse, you know, where it was whatsit, it was all glass you see and they used to hang it at the back. The other wreaths would sit on the top of the coffin, you know on top of the roof of the hearse and that was his funeral. I’ve got, the bill’s in there. I could show it you because it was only about five pounds summat, you know. That’s where it is today. Yeah I found it. I meant to tell you. Yeah.
Of course as I grew up to go to school in them days. You didn’t have nursery schools or things like that you just went straight to school. The school was in the next street sort of thing because it became a warden centre you see, in the war and that’s where I used to go to school. Just around the corner, you see. I went there 'til I was eleven and then I went to Tatton Road School to finish until I was fourteen and as I say I was fourteen one day and then on the Monday I went to work at Goldsworthy’s you see. It was an emery place. ‘Cause my brother worked there. My eldest brother, our Bill and he what’s the name, he was the maintenance man at this place and so of course he had got me a job there. That’s how I come to work and I worked from Monday morning to Saturday dinnertime for ten shilling a week. That’s what you got and as I say school was very nice. The little, what they called Saint er no, Regent Street School where I first went the headmistress was very kind and if a child couldn’t come to school ‘cause they’d got no shoes she would take them up the road and buy them a pair of shoes and threaten them if their mother dared to pawn them. That’s what it was and the shoes was only about a shilling or something. They were cheap little black shoes she bought them to make sure they came to school. Yeah ‘cause people used to help them out ‘cause the father probably couldn’t get a job and the mother didn’t work in them days. No mothers went to work when I was young. They were all at home, you see and that’s how it used to be and they used to be, down our back entry there used to be a bookies where they had a [?] who stood outside and if someone saw the Ds, as they called them, coming down Regent Street they’d warn him and you see the bookie would disappear, shut all up and sometimes they’d end up in our house. Me mam said, she used to tell me about this. One day he managed to run across to my Aunt Lena ‘cause me mam’s sister lived opposite and of course she put my Uncle Jess’s dinner on the table and he ran and sat there and sat there with it and the Ds were running wondering where he’d gone and went through our house, of course there weren’t anybody there, they went across the road and my Aunt Lena said, ‘What are you doing in here? Here’s my husband’s having his dinner,’ she said. She started on him. Anyway, he said, ‘I’m very sorry Mrs,’ and off they went and that was the bookie sat there, you know, making out he was eating Uncle Jess’s dinner. Honestly, some of the things they did, you know you have to laugh about it really, you know. Things that, you know, you won’t see today anymore and that was how it used to be you know [laugh] and that and as I say we had a good laugh because my sisters were all good. I had one birthday I had a new dress for every day because they were only about a shilling. They were cotton dresses, you know and then I used to have little white socks and black patent ankle straps. That’s what we had and that and as I said our Lily was always dressing me up you know and that and I used to have a posh, a coat on with a little velvet collar but I never like velvet dresses ‘cause me mam used to have a lady that used to make dresses you see and me Aunt Lena living opposite she had a daughter. She was a little bit older than me our Elsie and she whats the name she used to, we used to have to both had to walk up to see this lady to get measured for a dress, a special dress but I never liked velvet. Oh I hated velvet. Didn’t like touching it, you know, so I never got a velvet dress because I refused to have one you see ‘cause I used to say to me mam I don’t like and our Lily used to say if she doesn’t like one mother let it be you see as if she was my mother and yet she created when I was born ‘cause she gave me my name because we had, well she was me mam’s cousin, not mine. She used to be always at our house ‘cause her mother was me mam’s aunt. She was a little old lady used to come with her shawl on every day from up where Salford station was. She lived up there and she used to walk down to our house and she always sat in a chair behind the back door ‘cause we had to, we used the back door more than any and she used to sit there in between that door and the sink. She never sat anywhere else and she had, you know, her hair done up in a bun. And she must have been old. Her name was Aunt Charlotte we called which was her name. Well her daughter used to be always be at our house, you see. She had a son and a daughter. And I tell you, well her son came because he used to be a coal, had a coal lorry bringing us coal and I’ll tell you our Alice said when I was born she said, ‘Oh what do you think mother if our Sal,’ that was me mam’s name, they always called her Sal, ‘Gives the baby your name?’ Well she hit the roof. Yeah. I’d never heard her go on before so much till mam was telling me how she shouted and went on. She said, ‘You’ll not call that girl that name,’ she said. Now our Alice said, ‘She could be called Lottie.’ ‘No way,' she said, ‘is she being called that terrible name.’ She said, ‘So there.’ She said, ‘You can forget it.’ So then our Lily comes home from service ‘cause she used to come at weekends. She was at an hotel and she come in and she, she said, ‘Oh mam,’ she said, ‘We’ll call her Irene.’ She said, ‘Oh, I’ve never heard that name.’ She said, ‘Well no, it’s all the rage now. It’s for peace.’ And that’s how I got my name [laughs]. Yeah. Yeah I was nearly called that you know. Yeah when the war broke out as you know 1939, September 3rd and what’s ‘is name you see our Bett lived opposite then. She got Aunt Lena’s house opposite and Aunt Lena had passed on and anyway you see she got married in 1935 our Bett did and he paid for us to have the electric in you see and then our Nellie came up with this here beautiful flakestone bowl for mam you know and that and of course you see then I had to go to work and I went to work at Goldsworthy’s where they made sandpaper and emery paper and it had a square roof, it did, at the top. Well, when we were there we had to do fire service at weekends so we always had it on a Sunday and the men used to do it on a Monday all day er Saturday all day. That’s how we did and we had to go up on that roof and if any incendiaries, if there was an air raid on or incendiaries were dropping we had to go and race and damp ‘em down you see with sandbags or get the stirrup pump and that’s how it came about and of course you see when I got my papers, calling up papers, me mam was in a right state. She’d never heard of women getting called up. I said, ‘Well it’s different today mam.’ So I had to go to the recruiting centre with my letter to prove and so he said, ‘What had you thought about?’ And I said, ‘Well I don’t mind the army, or the RAF,’ I said, ‘But I won’t go in the navy because,’ I said, ‘I can’t swim.' You know, I said not that I’d be wanting to go to swim but I just don’t want it you see. So he said, ‘That’s fair enough.' He said, ‘Have you got any independent relatives that you have to look after?’ And I said, ‘Me mother.' ‘Oh well you can’t go in one of the forces,’ he said. I looked at him. I said, ‘Why?' He said, ‘Well, we don’t take, we don’t like to take people away from any parent that’s left,' he said, ‘And I assume your mam must be getting on.’ I said, ‘She is.’ So he said, ‘Well you’ll have to go in to the civil defence.' So he said, ‘What would you like to do?’ So I said 'Alright then. I’ll go in as a warden.' You know, an ARP Warden and that’s one of the letters thanking me, you know, for being in it and having to be out when an air raid was on but I was fortunate because living in Old Trafford then you see with what’s ‘is name I could look at staying in my own street to keep my eye on me mam and that’s how it came about then and so of course I was an ARP Warden. We had a uniform and everything of navy blue. A blue shirt and a tie and everything you know because we had parades you see and that were the Home Guard and that you know and so we used to have to be there with the sandbags at the corner of the street and the stirrup pump and then whatsit but the men were very good to me. I was the only woman in it and the men were very good. They taught me how to play darts in my spare time and that’s how I come to play darts. Through these men. And one of them used to always come around to see if I was alright when there was a raid on. I was managing you know to get down the street and put a sandbag on it or if it got to be a bit more to get the stirrup pump and that and do in the night.
CH: It was quite dangerous what you were doing then?
IH: Yeah. It, well it says there about danger you know and all that but you don’t think of that when you’re young. All you think of you’re doing a job for your country. Standing up for your country against flaming Hitler, you see but the other story’s better when I, when we got the Blitz ’cause no what’s its went. No sirens went on that Sunday night.
CH: Were you still working as an ARP Warden then?
IH: Oh yes you still had to go to work oh yeah. And that’s how you come to have to help over the factory to go up on the roof to put fires out. We did you know ‘cause you were that and that that was your job instead of racing off to my depot when it come on in the daytime I had to attend to the factory and do, you know. Do that you see, we did. When I think I can’t climb up one step now and I used to have to be up on the roof [laughs] but you could see for miles all around Manchester and everywhere you see and that and as I say on the night that the Blitz came it was near Christmas, 21st of December and we’d just finished us tea of a Sunday. Well I was just clearing the table ‘cause as I say we always had to sit at a table. Me mam was just washing up the few pots and all of a sudden I thought that sounds like a plane. So I thought I’d carry on. Anyway, all of a sudden bump. Oh I thought, ‘Oh my God.' I said to me mam, I said, ‘Here’s the enemy.' She said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘I know the sirens haven’t gone' I said 'But they’re we are. They’re on us,’ which they did. We got no siren so we couldn’t get to the shelter ‘cause we had to come out of there to get right up to the top road you see ‘cause they were going to build flats and when the war started they turned them into underground shelters. This is what it was and so therefore I said, ‘there’s no good us going out mam,’ ‘cause we used to go most nights ‘cause they were very good the council ‘cause they gave us bunks to sleep on you see you know they’d fasten them together because the first time they put them in people turned them over [laughs] turned over so we used to have a laugh in the shelters you know and so of course what’s the name they fastened them together then. It was alright. Mam used to get on the bottom one and I used to climb on the top one you see and our neighbour lived across the road, Nora. She had two little boys. Her husband worked away a lot you see and she always called me mam Granny Green which of course was our name and she had Tony and John you see, so of course on the night of the Blitz I said to me mam, ‘Well I’ll go under the table. It might be safe there,’ and I said, ‘You sit in the coal house,’ which was under the stairs, on the chair. I said, ‘At least it might help.’ Well we sat there and the bombs was coming down oh it was terrible. Really, really terrible. I kept thinking, ‘Oh God has it got my name on it?’ You know. You did all these things. I said to me mam, ‘I can’t stop under here mam,’ I said, ‘I can smell burning.' So she said, ‘You can? I said, ‘Yeah. Come on,‘ I said, ‘We’ll sit on the stairs.’ Well when I sat on the stairs I smelt it more so I crept up the stairs and looked and I thought, ‘Oh my God. The roof’s on fire.’ It was incendiaries all on the roofs and then of course you see as we sat there all of a sudden the flipping house shook as if it was coming on top of us and it was an oil bomb been thrown out of a plane and it dropped next door it did and of course it shook the house. It was terrible. All the windows shot out. I said to me mam, ‘Oh God.’ We prayed, I’ll tell you. Ever so hard. We thought this is our end. We did. Me mam said, ‘You climb up that machine, sewing machine on the window and you try and get out of that window and don’t cut yourself.’ I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ She said, ‘Stop here, I’ve had my life.’ I said, ‘No,’ I said, ‘If you’re stopping here I stop here.' I said, ‘If we go,’ [tearful] sorry. I said, ‘We go together,’ and that so anyway we’re there and then we could hear the others shouting in the street, ‘Please help us. Help us,’ you know and we heard some men and I thought, ‘Oh God shall I get this door open,’ So I got the axe and was banging on the door because with the bomb it had lodged the door and it wouldn’t open and that so of course I kept banging and somebody shouted, ‘Is somebody there?’ So I said, ‘Yes it’s me and me mother,’ I said, ‘And we can’t get the door open to get out,’ I said, ‘And we’re on fire upstairs.’ He said, ‘Yes, we know lass’ he said, 'Anyway, we’ll try this side hammering and you bang your side with that hammer,’ and that was how I got the door open you see. Well, we come out and there was Nora standing there with the two children shouting, ‘Granny Green. Where are you Granny Green?’ ’Cause we used to go to the shelter together so of course I said, ‘We’re here Nora, we’re alright.’ So of course when we got outside I thought, ‘Oh God this must be hell,’ you know, when you saw the blazing and all the smell and that from the bombs that was coming down so I picked up little’en, her little boy Johnny and put him under my coat. Me mam has her shawl on you see. They wore shawls then and she had, Nora had Tony, the one a bit bigger and so we set off to get up to the shelters while it was bombing you see ‘cause we didn’t know any other and the smell was terrible you know what they put in the bombs and all we could hear was the fella saying, different fellas shouting, wardens, ‘Keep against the wall.’ You had to come out of our street, go over Regent Street and up another little street to get to the main road so of course we kept against the wall. We couldn’t go fast anyway because I had got Johnny, me mam wasn’t very good on her legs and she, Nora had got Tony so I crept along the walls like that till we got to the main road and I thought oh God look at it. All the blazing you know so we tried to keep the kids away from it. We crossed the road finally and there was like a wooden board, you know where they put the wood up to stop people going in and there was so much gravel on the floor and then the pavement come so of course when we just got that side and we stopped for a breath to get me breath, well me mam did anyway and all of a sudden Nora fainted. I thought, ‘Oh my God what am I going to do?’ So I grabbed Tony, pushed him under me mam’s shawl and she kept him under her shawl and I thought well I can’t pick her up. I can’t help her and all of a sudden a fella, it must have been God. This fella come running up in a uniform I think he must have been a bus driver or something he said, ‘Don’t worry lass,’ he said, ‘I’ll take her to sick bay,’ and he picked her up and he said, ‘Whatever you do don’t move.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Don’t move?’ ‘No. No, don’t move and keep them children close to you. Don’t let ‘em say anything. Just stay there like statues,’ he said, ‘Else they’ll shoot ya’ I said. ‘You what?’ I said, ‘We haven’t been invaded have we?’ And then the fella went running off with Nora you see and I thought, ‘My God, they must have come down in parachutes.’ You know, you didn’t know what to think. So I said to mam, ‘Don’t say anything mam. Just let us stand here like statues and keep Tony hidden and I’ll keep Johnny hidden.’ Well, all of a sudden I looked up the road and I thought what on earth’s this coming ‘cause I’d never seen a plane as low as that and it was one of their planes and it had been hit and it was on fire you know near the, in between it must have been because the pilot was trying to get it off the floor. This was what he was trying to do. Of course the one who was shooting was a rear gunner. He was going berserk with the machine gun. He was spinning it one way and then another. Well bullets were falling on the pavement in front of us and I thought oh my god we’re going to be, you know, shot. That we’ve got out of the house. We’ve come all this way up here. Now it’s going to be our end against this barrier. Anyway, we kept still and of course the fella kept trying to get his plane up. Mind you he didn’t because it ended up in the cotton mill that was blazing what they’d bombed it got so far and of course it dived in there and that was it. But oh, so of course then we’re still stood there and the fella come running back. He said, ‘You’re alright?’ And I said, ‘Yes, thank you.’ I said, ‘How did you know?’ ‘Well I was further up the road,' he said, ‘Duck, I left my bus up there blazing,’ he said and, ‘Therefore' he said 'I came running down to get to the shelter myself when I saw the predicament you were in.’ I never knew the man. I never knew his name even to thank him. I kept saying, ‘Oh thanks ever so much. You saved us,’ which he did really because we could have all been shot and then of course he said, ‘Come on, I’ll take the kiddies to their mother in the sick bay.’ So he took the two kids, two little boys to their mam and then me and me mam, got round and as we got down into the shelter this other sister Emily that lived near us she fainted ‘cause she thought we’d been killed ‘cause somebody had said our street had gone up which of course it did and that was how it went and then of course then they brought us a cup of tea. The WRVS, they were in there and that so of course when we came out when the all clear went I came out to devastation. Yeah. When the all clear went we came out the shelter to devastation. Houses and probably looked like, I don’t know. You thought they’d all been knocked over like dominoes and so of course we got to our street, we got to our door and of course it had blown open and all that. The windows was all out and it was still burning. They couldn’t get enough water in Salford you see to get them out and anyway me mam burst in to tears and I was hugging her, kissing her ‘cause I was in tears ‘cause when you see your home gone that like and the beautiful furniture you had and that you see and then Mrs Leatherbarrow that lived next door she come up and then she saw hers and her and mum clung on together ‘cause they’ve been there all these years together and they were crying so I said shall we go around the back and see if we can get in any way there? So me mam and Mrs Leatherbarrow walked together and I walked behind and when we got in to the entry I looked. I said, ‘Oh we’re not going to get in,’ I said, '‘cause it looks like the ceilings already come down in the kitchen,’ ‘cause the kitchens was at the back. Well opposite, the street opposite weren’t too bad. Yes, it had a coal thing in it [Johnny Perrin’s] old coal place. You’d have thought it would have gone up with that you know next door but it didn’t and of course these two ladies, they were catholic ladies, they were very nice, really ladies. Two Miss Quigley’s they were and they had this beautiful house there and our [Ida?] got their house you see and they come out and they were saying how sorry they were to mam and Mrs Leatherbarrow. ‘We’re going to make you a cup of tea and you’re coming in to have a drop of brandy,’ which I thought was lovely of them. So I just said, you know, ‘I’ll be alright.’ She said, ‘You can come in my dear,’ she said, ‘As well, if you like,’ she said, ‘And we’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Anyway, they were talking and all of a sudden Mrs Leatherbarrow, you didn’t hear women swear, she started off and I thought, ‘Who’s she shouting at?’ and it was Hitler she was going on about and I looked at her and she said 'If I get so and so I’ll wring his neck with my bare hands.' I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ She said, ‘Look,’ and when I looked her Christmas puddings were stuck to the wall outside [laughs] and they were just there stuck like that. I think it was three or four. The plate, the basin was smashed on the floor. The blast of the bomb had shot 'em out the bloody kitchen and they’d stuck on the wall in the entry. Well I started laughing. I couldn’t help it but then of course, we all laughed then. It seemed [it was coming up] through the tears but oh it was funny. I’ll never forget seeing them Christmas puddings. It was if they’d been thrown 'em at the wall and it stuck there, you know well she did and surely if she’d spotted him she’d have gone for him and wrung his neck. She would honest to God, when she turned around, I never noticed the puddings when I first went down the entry in our house and hers and I tell you we were busy looking if we could get in the back way, you know, like you do, thinking well I might rescue something and so of course that’s what happened, she’d spun around and spotted 'em. Well she, of course it broke it then. We was all laughing ‘cause it did, they did look funny and that’s what our Michelle meant, because you know, it was so funny seeing Christmas puddings pinned to a wall you know and of course [laugh] we started laughing and that helped them all to laugh. Well me mam and Mrs Leatherbarrow and the two Quigley ladies and that. We tried to get in at the back but the ceiling upstairs had come down on the, you know on to the bottom and that so we could have got in but you’d be stood on a lot of rubble. You’d have to be careful. And well we did get in me and our Emily and our Emily stood on one side and she passed me some pots and things to save but I wish we’d gone and tried to get in the front. Anyway, I thought when we went home I thought I’ve got to get me mam something else you know I’m saying to myself. I thought I’ll get in. I’ll go around the front so of course I went around the front. People were saying, ‘You can’t go there.’ I said, ‘I can,’ I said, ‘It’s our house,’ I said to this fella ’cause it was our house after all whether it was on fire or not. He said, ‘You’ll get burned.' I said, ‘I won’t. Clear off,’ I said. I was that mad. I was only, I know mam would have said I was rude and played hell but anyway, I ran in, got myself on the table in the middle and I thought, ‘Oh I’ll have to get her that flakestone bowl,’ so I got it, I hooked it off the thing but I didn’t dare take the rose down because I didn’t know if the ceiling would come down on me you see so I thought I’ve got a flakestone bowl with the chains in it and that mirror and that mirror was in the front room yes yeah ever since I was a little girl. Must be a hundred years old or more. And I know that the flakestone bowl was bought in 1935 but I don’t know whether I can get it out for you. It’s in the what’s the name to show you. If you come with me in my bedroom.
[recorder paused]
So therefore after I got these things for me mam she come around you see at the front, her and Mrs [Leatherbarrow] and I said, 'Look mam, I’ve got you these,’ and she said, ‘Oh bless you.’ I said, ‘Well you’ve got to have some 'at, mam,’ I said, ‘Out of it.’ Anyway then my sister who lived in Old Trafford she came all the way from Old Trafford ‘cause she’d been told that Salford had caught it, you know. They hadn’t. So our Bett came and she’d got a baby ‘cause our Valerie was born on the Friday as the war broke out on the Sunday so she’d got our Valerie see. She’s still living, our Valerie. I’ve been to see her this last year. Our Simon took me. I’d never been before so I’ve not seen them for, getting on for over seventy years and ‘cause her brother had turned up one day on a motorbike, our Jamie and he went over to number 8 where I lived when we first moved in you see as a family then and I moved in number 8 you see and he was at number 8 looking all around and Ann next door, she said, ‘Can I help you?’ And he said ‘Yes, I’m looking for my Auntie Irene.’ She said, ‘Oh she don’t live here now,’ she said, ‘Since your Uncle Stan died,’ she said, ‘She lives over there at number 4.’ Well Ann, it was a bank holiday and Ann shouted over the road, ‘Rene you’ve got a visitor.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Have I?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘It’s your Jamie.’ Well for a minute I couldn’t think who. I thought, ‘Who’s our Jamie?’ You know and of course when he put his head around the corner he said, ‘Oh Auntie Irene' and we were both there daft as anything but you can’t help it can you when you haven’t seen anybody for all them years and it was like when our Simon took me to see our Valerie ‘cause he wanted to go to Bolton about a bike, ‘cause he’s bike mad our Simon, and anyway he took us and our [Anita?] was with us ‘cause she’d lost Keith you see[?] and so of course when we found our Valerie’s you know at Hyde and it was up a slope so he left the car down and he said, ‘I’ll go and knock on the door and see if she’s in.’ 'Cause she didn’t know we was coming. So he went and knocked on the door and she come out and she said, ‘Yes,’ ‘cause she didn’t know our Simon you see. So he said, ‘I’ve brought your Auntie Irene to see you.’ ‘What? Where is she? Where is she?’ And he said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said, ‘She can’t walk up here,’ he said, ‘She’s had an accident.’ ‘What sort of?’ He said, ‘Well it’s her leg’ he said. So he said, ‘I’ll bring her up in the car.’ ‘Well I’ll get my shoes on.’ She’d been in the house without her shoes you see and so of course she had some steps. Anyway, they helped me up the steps so we had a lovely afternoon you see of course. And that’s when we told her that our Anita’s husband had died, that’s when [unclear] I said it was lovely to see you and she writes to me now, our Valerie and I mean she’s getting on because she was born in ’39 you know when the war, well it came two days after. Yeah. She did ‘cause our Bett [interrupted].
CH: You were saying that she turned up at the house when it had been bombed.
IH: No.
CH: Your sister.
IH: Oh yes. Our Bett. Yeah. She came from Old Trafford where she lived and she turned up. She said, ‘Where are you mam?’ I said, ‘We’re here.’ She said, ‘Come on, you’re coming to stay with us.’ She said, ‘You’ve got nowhere to go, you’ll have to go back to the shelter to sleep,’ which we would have had to have done ‘cause nobody, we had nowhere to go. The other people didn’t and so we went to live at our Betts at number 14 Hamilton Street. It’s one [unclear] of these, on one of mam’s papers, that was it 'cause that’s where we went to stay you see ‘cause she’d got our Valerie as a baby and her husband in a three bedroom so we went and stayed there. Well, I had another sister that lived in Little Hamilton Street. Our Edie. She was the eldest one. Well a landmine came down, ‘cause we was in our Bett’s shelters, and it was dressed like a man, this landmine. And our Jim, our Bett’s husband thought it was and he said, ‘I’ll have that,’ so and so and he ran out the shelter and as he did do it landed on where our Edie lived just in the next little street what was called Little Hamilton Street. The one we were in was big Hamilton Street. And it tied itself around a chimney and blew up. So their street had had it you see and Jim felt the vibration but they had thought it was a fella, a German coming down, you see, with a parachute and it was dressed as a fella. It was a landmine. Yeah.
[recorder paused]
CH: Okay.
IH: Yeah. So of course therefore you see with what’sit we went to live with our Bett in Hamilton Street and then our Edie and her husband and sister and all their, they had to come and live with us as well ‘cause when that landmine hit it cleared their street. A small street called, small, Little Hamilton Street and therefore we’re what’s its name you see so we all had to live together in our Bett’s which was good that she had room for us and that you see. Anyway, then our Nellie came because she’d been her husband was the one that sent them Christmas cards to us, Robert and she’d I can’t think where she’d been staying. She’d been staying with somebody. She had a little boy, Harold. He was born the day after my birthday in September as the war was broke out and anyway she what’s the name so of course she managed to get this house in Old Trafford not far from our Bett’s it was, you know, and it was 2 Barrett Street and the street that Laurie[?] was born in you see and because what’s the name we lived there and she was on shift work our Nellie did, working for the force, I can’t remember what she did, it was something to do with the forces anyway. That’s what she did. Well her husband was called up the day war broke because he was in the territorials so he went. He went before Harold was born and he never saw that child. When he came back he was five years old, Harold was ‘cause I used to look after him when our Nellie was on shifts. My hours were different than hers so when I was at work she had him and then me mam had him for the short period ‘cause we lived together you see. So of course when Robert came back home he wouldn’t have anything to do with him. ‘Send that man away mam. Send that man away. We don’t want him here.’ So our, poor Albert had a job to get, Robert rather, to get little Harold to accept him but that’s it, you see that’s what would have happened with a lot of little kiddies wouldn’t it because you see the parents, the father would be away and that would be it, you know. When you think about it. So of course we weren’t so bad then. We got, went to live in 2 Barrett Street, you see and that and that is just a field today. Our Simon had to go to Bolton. He wanted to see a bike. He’s nearly fifty you know, me grandson. Like Michelle. And he what’s the name, there that’s Michelle’s wedding up there. And he comes and looks after me and everything you know. Takes us out and all that and I’ve got into to all the bi-cycling things that he does on telly. Yeah. So that’s what we did and I tell you then we were put in for, my sister did it for her to get the money for her house and then she rang me up from Old Trafford when they come to live in here and she said, ‘Oh they’re paying out. You’d better send mam’s papers in and also put your own in to prove who you are,’ and I did and they all come back and it said sorry but you’re not the next of kin. Well who the hell was the next of kin? I mean there was only me and I put down you know my marriage licence I sent, and my birth certificate so we never got a penny of it.
CH: Your mother didn’t get anything either.
IH: No. Nothing. Because it was her papers I sent in ‘cause she’d passed away, me mam had, by the time they paid out. She’d passed away in 1948 and it was getting on to fifty something when they paid out so me mam never got a penny for a three bedroom beautiful house that she had. Yeah. And I mean if you look at it, it tells you how much she would have got. Eighty eight pound for a three bed house but we didn’t have any money you see with the war you see. So, and I think we got five pounds to buy clothes for me and her ‘cause all we had was what we stood up in. We got one or two clothes from the Red Cross that was really very nice and that ‘cause I always wore Deanna Durbin hats. I loved 'em. Oh I did. And I got a lovely three quarter coat off them and that and I had a, like a maroon dress I’d bought, I managed to get and I washed this coat and it come up beautiful. Well I was queen, I’ll tell you [laughs]. I used to put this coat on and me Deanna Durbin hat, me handbag and it was lovely.
Because you see my first boyfriend was killed in the war. He was a messenger boy when it started. Biking from where he lived up at the Crescent at er, near Salford Royal Hospital they lived ‘cause that nurses place there that was bombed you know, they was all killed. All the nurses in it and they got a plaque on the hospital wall with all the names on it and Jimmy lived up there. I never met his family ’cause we didn’t in them days. You didn’t go, you know. And I tell you from being, you know, what, I must have been fourteen and he was about sixteen. Course he was going from post to post with messages in the war when, you know, when the sirens went and so of course he got his calling up papers and he went into the Royal Wiltshire[?] Fusiliers, Jimmy did and we used to write letters to each other and of course then he came home on embarkation leave. Me mam left us in, mam never met him. She used to see him on the bike because Nora did. Nora used to say when Jimmy Splinters and her get married we shall have a great big do in this street. Always called him Jimmy Splinters and of course he came home on embarkation when we were living in Old Trafford at 2 Barrett Street and we went to see Honky Tonk at the Gaumont cemetery, cinema rather in what’sit, in Manchester we did and he said, ‘Oh I wish I could stay with you all the time.’ I said, ‘Like everything else lad,’ I said, ‘You’ve got to do, you’ve got to go.’ And he said, ‘I’ll write soon as I best know where I’m going.’ Well of course he ended up at Burma didn’t he? And then of course he got killed. So our Bett, er, our Michelle does a lot and she said, I said I wish I knew if he was buried ‘cause I always felt he might have been killed in the jungle and left there, you know. And I thought if I know he’s buried I’ll feel better about it ‘cause I still to this day go down to our church on Remembrance Day and put a cross for him you see but I let our little Georgia ‘cause the school comes as well. We have it in our church on the proper day, the 11th, and so of course our Jenny used to take it off me and go up when, you know when they used to put the cross, you know, put the wreath up and now our Georgia does it for me. Took it up, you see. So Christmas, not this Christmas gone but Christmas before, our Michelle said, ‘Oh nan,’ she said, ‘I can’t take you to Japan,’ she said, ‘I haven’t the money,’ she said, ‘But I’ve got this for you’ and she brought me the photograph of the cemetery where Jimmy is in. Would you like to see it? Just switch that off then.
[recorder pause]
I met my husband because he was stationed at Manchester you see at the time. On the Kings Road Barracks, that’s right, Kings Road Barracks and that’s how I met him you see ‘cause I met him through our Elsie, you see. My cousin. That was our [Nita’s?] godmother. She died at twenty five, you know, of rheumatic fever, our Elsie did. She never married. She was engaged. And then he died not long after. Her boyfriend. He didn’t want to live without her. He laid across the coffin. He didn’t want them to bury her in it. He really was in a state he was. Anyway, as I was saying that em, she introduced me to Stan and of course I didn’t take him home or anything and one night our Nellie came home and said, ‘there’s a good film on at the picture house.’ I can’t remember what they called it in Old Trafford. So I said, ‘oh.’ She said, ‘Shall we go?’ And so I said, ‘Oh I can do,’ ‘cause it was a night I told Stan I didn’t come out you see. You get found out you see and so therefore I go in with her to the pictures and I never saw him near the barracks ‘cause it was next, near to the pictures and of course we went in to see this picture and came walking out with our Nellie and he spotted me and he shouted so of course I looked around and our Nellie looked at me, ‘Who’s that?’ I said, ‘Just a soldier.’ I didn’t know what to say to her you see. And so she said, ‘Well you’d best go talk to him [unclear].’ You know what mam would be like.' So I said, ‘Alright, I’ll go and have a word with him.’ He said, ‘I thought you said you didn’t come out on this night.’ I said, ‘We don’t reckon to do,’ I said, ‘We reckon to do the washing,’ I said, ‘but it was our Nellie wanted us to go.’ So he said, ‘Oh alright then.’ So I said, ‘I’ll see you another night.’ So that was it. Of course you get a lecture then from an older sister don’t you? Honest to God. ‘You’re too young to be having boyfriends.’ I thought, well what wrong, harm is there, I said, ‘We’re not doing anything wrong.' I mean we only went to the pictures or something like that because we didn’t have any money hardly in them days. I mean I only got ten shillings a week and me mam used to take it and give you a shilling back and that’s all I had there. I used to give her that back sometimes and that but when you think about sometimes these things you know if you’ve got a bigger sister they want to boss you about and that, you know. And that’s how I met Stan. And then of course later on he used to come and see me mam and that, you know but me mam never wanted me to marry him. She’d have let me marry Jimmy because he lived where we did, Salford but she didn’t think it was right to come all this way out here to another place, another country, well it wasn’t another country but you know the older generation looked at it like that. Anyway, she did ‘cause she came for a weekend to see his mam and family near Waddington. Of course his mother was a, what was it, how do I say it? That’s not being recorded is it? Oh Christ I’d better not say it.
Other: You can say it mum.
IH: No, she used to go out with some of the airmen. Dad was there. His dad. Oh yeah because when they went out for a drink me mam was there with them you see and me mam was talking to the old, the old man was talking to her and anyway he said, ‘She thinks I’m bloody daft.’ He said, ‘She thinks I’m blind but I know what she’s up to,’ you see. Because she had two that didn’t belong to him but he accepted them [unclear]. Yeah. You know, that’s how it was. So of course that was awful in mam’s eyes so she didn’t want me to marry Stan and, ‘And if you go to live in Lincolnshire,’ she said, ‘Don’t you get like that.’ I said, ‘Mam I wouldn’t dream of it.’ She played hell because of that and that’s why she did. It was nothing against him himself. It was because of his mother and how she carried on, you know. Yeah. I mean I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe it you know that the old fella accepted it. I don’t think my father would have. Christ I don’t think so. Oh I couldn’t’ see me mam anyway. Because me Aunt Lena was a bit like her, me mam and there was another lady called Mrs Delaney. The three of them used to go out on a Sunday to the Regatta for a drink Sunday dinnertime ‘cause dad had done dinner and all that you see and they used to call them the three merry widows. Well they wasn’t really you see [laugh] ‘cause there was only Aunt Lena who hadn’t got Uncle Jess and that, you know, for year’s ‘cause she had about nine children me Aunt Lena and they’ve all gone, well they must have done. Must have all gone the same. Yeah. But you know when I think about it you know, you know she was quite alright with Stanley but I did tell her, I said no way will I go to Lincolnshire while my mother lives and that and of course Anita was born when mam was there at 2 Barrett Street, you see ‘cause I had her at home ‘cause I’ve got, I paid two guineas for the midwife, you know, in them days. Oh yeah. I’ve got the receipt in that box. Yeah. Two guineas. Paid the midwife for our Anita ‘cause that’s what you did in them days you see ‘cause if you went in hospital you hadn't the money to pay so you had them at home and you had a midwife come. Yeah. She was born on the Sunday. There’d been a thunderstorm the night before and mam said that’s what did it [laugh] ‘cause you see when I first started they said oh you’ll have it about the 12th of September. So anyway as time went on she kept popping down and seeing if, ‘What are you playing at? Are you keeping it?’ I said, ‘Yeah [laugh].’ Anyway, I didn’t. They got the dates wrong and she was born on the 29th and it was a Sunday and the night before you see, our Thomas, that was one of my sister’s sons ‘cause they used to come and stay with gran you see and he was all excited ‘cause he thought I would have it on his birthday the day before but it didn’t. She come on the day after. They used to pull her about on this stool and all sorts they did, our Margaret and our Thomas. Yeah. They were harmless [unclear] those two. Mam used to, when they were at Salford me mam used to give them their dinners you see while our Emily went to work ‘cause her husband was a brickie. I had two brother in laws that were bricklayers, our Betts husband and Tommy, our Emily’s and they didn’t work in the winter you know in them days when it was bad weather. They were off, out of work, you see. And so Jim went to Carborundum then down at Trafford Park and that and he was alright then, you see, but Tommy stayed as a brickie you see but they used to go and do what they called foreigners[?]. You know, they used to go in furnaces and things. They used to be emptied out and done. They’d have to go inside sweltering, sweltered they were when they let the fires out to repair them inside, you see. It was the only way they could do them. So I thought my God they used to have to take clean shirts with them because the shirts and things would be that wet you could have wrung them out, you know, when they were inside these things, furnaces sort of thing what they had to repair.
CH: Did you say your husband was in the forces?
IH: Oh yes. Yeah.
CH: Can you tell us a little about your life together when he was in the forces.
IH: Yeah well you see after we got married he, they got moved which is of course happens, you see and then of course he used, we used to have to write to each other then and he was up at the top of Scotland, Stan was, looking after the bombing they had to get these bombs on planes and all sorts ‘cause as I say it was called Mossban[?]. Well there’s no such place as Mossban so you see they must cut out all the names up there right in the top of Scotland. He said it was bitter. Bitter. The weather. And they used to sometimes have to sleep in tents up in Scotland. Yeah. Oh he said it was freezing and of course sometimes a bloody bomb would go off and kill soldiers and they had to go around picking the pieces up and he only told me it once he said, and I knew it was something because he didn’t sleep. He was tossing and turning and I knew there was something going on and I said to him next morning, I said, ‘What was the matter with you?’ ‘Oh nothing.’ ‘Yes there was,’ I said, ‘Because,’ I said, ‘You couldn’t sleep.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was never going to tell you but,’ he said, ‘That’s, these things happen up there,’ he said. ‘Many times the bombs go off. One of us is always blown to pieces,’ and they used to have to pick the pieces up to you know for them to bury them then you see. If the parents wanted them at home it was alright. They used to go home in a coffin. They never saw them. Otherwise they were buried up there. Right at the top of Scotland it was, you know. And I thought, God, it must have been terrible having to go picking up pieces mustn't it? When you think about it and that. Of course he was in civilians when we went to whatsit to live here. We went to live with his sister in law at Waddington and his brother was the baker there at Waddington. Henry was lucky. Henry went in the air force but he was stationed, he went straight to Canada in a cookhouse there. He never saw the bloody war because he never did no firing, no bombing, nothing and he was there all the years so he was very lucky and that, you know and when I think about it. It was Ethel’s fault. Ethel was sick of him not coming home so she went and complained to the commanding officer at Waddington camp and anyway Henry ended up coming home. He wasn’t very pleased. I think myself he had a woman there to be honest the way he went off. You know he really was mad ‘cause he was enjoying himself in Canada you see. Yeah. Yeah.
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
Interview with Irene Howard
Description
An account of the resource
Irene Howard grew up in Salford and describes her life there before the war. During the war she worked in a factory and as a fire-watcher before being called up. She served as an Air Raid Precaution Warden. She describes being bombed at home, trapped and rescued, during the Manchester Blitz in December 1940. She describes the death of her first boyfriend, how she met her husband, the birth of their first child and their eventual move to Lincolnshire.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cathie Hewitt
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-12
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Janet McGreevy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:55:59 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHowardI170112
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Salford (Greater Manchester)
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-12-22
1940-12-23
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
civil defence
firefighting
home front
love and romance
memorial