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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1209/11782/AWyldeHJ161218.2.mp3
f24a911d8c9139bd4de5d9aac516a9f5
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Title
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Wylde, Herbert James
H J Wylde
Description
An account of the resource
49 items. An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Herbert James Wylde (1922 - 2021, Royal Air Force) his log books, maps, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 90 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-18
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Wylde, HJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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BJ: So, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Brenda Jones. The interviewee is Jimmy Wylde. The interview is taking place at Mr Wylde’s home in Glasgow on the 18th of December 2016. Thank you, Mr Wylde for agreeing to talk to me today. So, could you tell me about your life before you joined the RAF?
JW: Well I went to, went to local schools. Shawlands School. Five years. Took my Highers. What they called, in the old days, the Highers. Then I had a temporary job. And then I sat examinations to go into local government. I went into local government within about three or four months of leaving school. And then I went. I was called up. Went to Edinburgh for a test. I wanted to go to aircrew and they give you a test. I sat a test there and they told me to wait. And I think I waited about eighteen months on deferred service until I was called up about, in 1942 I think it was.
BJ: And what were your parent’s occupations?
JW: My father was a lino typer. He was in the newspaper business. A lino type operator. My mother died before the war started.
BJ: Right. So, why did you choose the RAF?
JW: I don’t know. It’s the way they talk. I don’t know. I just fancied it.
BJ: And what did your training involve?
JW: When? Where? Training where? In the RAF?
BJ: The RAF. Yes.
JW: Oh dear, dear, dear. I went to, as you know all the RAF crew went down to the big centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground. And from there I think I went down to Paignton. Yes, Paignton. Did navigation, wireless operation, keep fit. And then from there — oh good grief you’re asking a lot here. Shall we — went to, is it called, a place called Fairoaks? Went to, well went to a centre. Went to, I think the pilot’s course started there and we started training and I went solo inside about seven hours flying. And I passed my solo and then went on a waiting list to go to Canada. We messed about at different places. Holding in Manchester. Heaton Park was a big place. There was about twenty thousand aircrew there. All waiting too. And then from there I went to Canada. Eventually we went to Alberta. A place called, oh was it Penhold? Started training. Started training anyway. And I passed on my first set after about, I can’t, twenty hours. Then from there we went to another place in Alberta. We trained in Oxfords. Twin-engined aircraft. I can’t, oh be in the air, I can’t remember how many hours in that. Maybe, I don’t know, fifty. I don’t know. I got two thirds through that and they decided that I wasn’t all that bright. I wasn’t all that good at it. Funnily enough I knew myself I wasn’t all that clever. So they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ Well I said to [unclear] that got tossed off earlier and he said, ‘It’s a piece of cake this. I’m going to be a bomb aimer.’ Of course, we’d done a lot of the navigation. A lot of the work. And then I went on through Canada. I went from there to Manitoba. Different places. Training. Then dropping bombs ding ding ding. Practice bombs. And at the end of that for some reason they decided I was to go on Coastal Command or something. A bomb aimer, Coastal Command. They sent me to Jarvis in Hamilton, Ontario and we did about a month there. I can check it up. And we dropped bombs on moving targets on the water of Lake Ontario, you know. That was instead of still ones. And then there was one instructor, there was a machine gun thing and of course they had a Lysander used to fly with this windsock covered and you had to fire at it to see if you could hit it. It was a barn door [laughs] Couldn’t hit a barn door. Anyway, it was all part of the training. We left there and came back to Britain and I think we did a lot of, you’re still on the [unclear] holding it all together. The memory is not so clever. I went to, well a few transits. Killing time to get on to the Training Command. Even went on a keep fit course. I’ve got some pictures of it. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I waited to go on to training for Bomber Command. The first place we went to on Bomber Command was a place called Millom in Cumberland. And there we practiced dropping bombs on, I think it was Ansons we were on. And then where did we go? Oh dear dear. Where did we go after that? I’m trying to remember where we went to get crewed-up. We’re coming up to the stage we’re at units. Where did we go to get crewed-up? I can’t remember offhand. Anyway, we went to this big RAF station. Everyone was milling around. They said, ‘Pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless ops. Talk amongst yourselves and see if you can crew up.’ So we all talked to one another and I found Johnny Wade, and there was Norman Wade, the wireless op. Now, his wife, I think, Norman Wade down in London, she said he’s away. He’s away with the fairies. And so we got the crew together. That’s how we crewed-up. Just, we just talked for a while. ‘Yes I’ll, — ' Eventually, we didn’t pick up the engineer at that stage, he came later. And then went on to flying. Practiced on Wellingtons. If you want the places it’s in the book. You can find out. And then from there we went on to Stirlings. And then we went to the squadron. And then we were, we did some daylight trips and navigation trips. And then the big day for our first trip. I always tell people this. This story. Our first trip was a daylight trip. We were all geared up. We thought we were the greatest of course. We were on Bomber Command. And we went to bomb. The dams at Holland were a bit bogged. Went there. Not a drop of flak. A piece of cake. We’d done it. Bees knees. Backed out. Two or three days later up again. Cologne this time. Oh well. I’ll tell you. We got the shock of our life going to Cologne. The flak. You’ve never seen like of it in your life. We were all, we came back different people. It was quite frightening.
BJ: What happened?
JW: Well, nothing happened to us though. But the flak. Oh. I mean, you see at night, the bomb aimers are at the front, quite often you could see the aircraft all at different heights. Lancasters and a lot of Lancasters. We bombed them you know. When the bombs were dropped quite often. If you’re that’s why you always thought hold on to your shed you’ll be bombing from twenty thousand feet. The next week we were bombing from fifteen. We were down at the bottom. There were guys above you and they just opened the doors. But I mean, but the Cologne, from then on it was quite frightening. Oh, but it didn’t bother us an awful lot. That’s, that’s what it was. That’s it
BJ: What was it like being in the bomb compartment?
JW: Well, as a matter of fact all you got was abuse from the crew because as you know you took a picture actually when you dropped your bomb. You had a camera. And the pilot would be saying, ‘Go on.’ I was at the bombsight, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady. Steady.’ Quite a run up to the target and then I would get, I won’t tell you the language you heard from back as they dropped so and so bombs. On and on and on. And as a bomb aimer you concentrate on the bombsight. I think you are removed from the rest of the crew who are sitting. I’m working through all this muck that is getting thrown up. And then the bombs away and just got to hold for about a minute steady and then you broke away. That was. That’s it. You got the story.
BJ: What other missions did you fly?
JW: I did, I did the Dresden one.
BJ: Right.
JW: That was towards, that was in February. February ’44.
BJ: What was that like?
JW: Oh, a piece of cake. Oh no flak at all. The next day we went back to [pause] dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. Oh, I’m sorry. That’s the pilot talking that one. Chemnitz. Which is all, Dresden was quite hard — about seven hours. We went to Chemnitz was just up the coast and we dropped them there. There’s one thing, you know. The RAF are bitterly criticized over Dresden. No. I don’t believe in this. If you’re at war you’re at war. I know that you get children and all the rest of it but you chose it and that was it. The Americans went there the next day in daylight. You never hear them talking about it. I mean at the time the opposition, there was no opposition of course at the time, you know. I think it was, I think it was October, or it felt like. [pause, pages turning] Oh come on [pause] A lot of this tells you the story in here. That was, that was after the war was over. Wait a minute. That’s Dresden there. I used to, I wrote some comments at the side. Have you seen one of these?
BJ: Yes. I have. Yeah.
JW: Flying inside the flak was heavy. We came home quite often with maybe an engine short or something. But the one thing about it was that I always said we had a good crew. I would say that you always said you were lucky. Well you had to have a bit of luck. But I was very fortunate. The pilot and the navigator — I would say they were the best. The rest of us were quite good but I thought these two were exceptional. The navigator was a Sergeant Bayne. He came from Falkirk. Was it? We never, we never missed a target. Got there. And Johnny Wade, the skipper it was — somebody had to be above the normal. You could be lucky. I mean your luck. I think if you’ve got a good crew your luck’s increased. And particularly it’s the pilot and the navigator. They were the key people. We were just doing a job but they were the key as far as I was concerned. Johnny Wade particularly. He was terrific. And Alan Bayne, the navigator, we were always there dead on. Never, never lost. He was terrific. Anyway, what else? I can’t think of anything else.
BJ: So, what did you do when you weren’t in the air?
JW: Drank. I’ve got a picture of the pub. It’s at Barton Mills. You may not know. There’s a pub at Barton Mills. It’s quite up near. We used to, I would say we spent more time there then we did in the, in the air I would have said we spent our time training. The fittest we’ve ever been in our life. By the time we finished the squadron you could have swept us aside. You couldn’t have existed if you didn’t. There was a [pause] we had some great nights there boozing. It kept you going. I mean it’s, you were a wee bit, the crew stuck together. We did. We met and mixed. You were a unit. Quite a unit. And I’ll tell you, tell you one episode that took — we came back on time. We’d had this fighter fly to our starboard quarter [unclear] at night time you know. All the guns were chattering and I was down the front. We came back. We landed on there. The rear gunner at the time, no, the rear turret, you wouldn’t have believed he hadn’t been shot dead. The turret was full of holes. Not a scratch. I wouldn’t have believed it till I saw it. You saw the holes in the turret and he was holding his hand, not a scratch. Quite extraordinary.
BJ: What was, how was he after that?
JW: Pardon?
BJ: How was the, how was the gunner?
JW: Och, he was fine. We never thought about things, about what happened. We just lived. We had a good life. The good things were good. Quite solemn and everything when you came down. Coffee. Drinks. Bacon and egg. Eggs were a rarity. No one got them. We got them. But I don’t [pause] it’s difficult. You see you never got close to any other crews. You know what I mean? Our own crew, we stuck quite close together. We were all sergeants. The rank meant nothing. I don’t know why they made different ranks. You got commissions and all that. Suppose you felt a wee bit clever or something. I didn’t agree with it but I just thought. I was saying that actually after the war the reunions were quite nice too. They were quite good at [unclear]. Trying to think of anything else I can really tell you.
BJ: What else do you remember about the missions you flew?
JW: Well, I remember vividly one. It’s a war story. When I tell a war [laughting] story, we went on a mining mission to Sweden. It was in December ’44. I don’t know if you remember, you wouldn’t remember 1944 when the Battle of the Bulge was on and the army. The wind, the snow and the time the weather was terrible. Well, we took off from Tuddenham to lay mines in this, up at Skagerrak in Sweden. We took off [unclear] we got word to say aerodrome closed. Ice. Fog. They diverted us to Lossiemouth. So we went to land there at Lossiemouth. They’d never seen a Lancaster there. They were quite tops you know. We played, I don’t know, we played hard to get. Anyway, we landed at Lossiemouth. We were there two days. Clear to take off. We headed out to go to Tuddenham. We got down as far as Yorkshire. The ice and the fog clamped in. Tuddenham was closed. And they had, have you ever heard of FIDO? FIDO is a, some aerodromes had it for landing in fog. They had burners giving out hot air. We had it but it wasn’t enough. The story starts now. We got diverted to an aerodrome called Pocklington which is in Yorkshire. The United States Flying Fortresses. Lancaster lands, you see. They looked at it you see. The photos were, you must understand about the Yanks. If the Yanks had something they always had to be better. If you had two, they had three. You know. That’s the way it was. Well, on a Lancaster, I don’t know if you know the Lancaster. All your Bomber Command, every mission the aircraft did they put a wee bomb there. A wee bomb was written there. So if that aircraft had done forty missions there were forty wee shells. We landed. The Yanks were, ‘What’s all that?’ Forty missions. We didn’t tell them the plane had done it. We’d only done about fourteen. They treated us like gods. We didn’t tell them because we knew the Yanks. They’d have said they had been a hundred and forty four. But the aeroplane had done forty. We’d done about twenty or so. Didn’t tell them. Isn’t that terrible [laughs] We looked at one another. And they treated us like gods. The next morning the weather cleared and I don’t know whether you’ve seen American pictures of a Flying Fortress taking off. Typical. The Yanks took a terrible hammering in the air. In daylights. More than we did. Do you know the skip cap? All went down. The Yanks, their big cigars. We were up and down in flying control and there was a daylight raid and they all took off one after the other. And then we, then went back down and came back home. But the Yanks. I don’t think people are aware the Yanks took a terrible hiding. But I guess the war, the losses were all that heavy. We lost sometimes one in twenty. At one time there were four in twenty. But the losses at one time they were fifty percent. Terrible. It was about two years earlier. Oh dear, dear, dear, dear. Because two years earlier they didn’t have the radar. You could almost get to the target. But the time they got the radar when I was there you got there. You couldn’t miss it. In the olden days it was very very difficult. Very difficult. And one days, I think it was only about five percent got to the target. If you had twenty aircraft only five got to it. And even then they got within thirty miles. Terrible. Terrible results.
BJ: So, what happened at the end of the war? After victory in Europe?
JW: Victory in Europe was, after the war, after the war, after we’d done our tour we all got siphoned on to doing different things, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I got siphoned first of all to a place called [pause] Where was it? Near Shakespeare’s place.
BJ: Stratford.
JW: Stratford. And there they were trying first to bring in aircraft from the ground. ‘You are now approaching,’ it’s like radar control today. Your plane. I don’t know if it’s true but three in the aircraft and the pilot was carrying. He wasn’t allowed to do anything. He had to follow instructions from the ground. It was hair raising. It was a nightmare. ‘Now, you’re clear to land. Do you see it? It’s over there’ [laughs] After about three I’d had enough. I was in the front. That’s it, I’ve had enough of this. The war was bad enough. This is worse. But from then on, that was on Training Command and then I was in, you wouldn’t believe this, on VE day I was in [pause] oh dear, dear, dear. I was training bomb aimers on Lancasters, flying. And the war ended of course. There was a, oh London was the big place to go for the celebrations. There was about seventy of us in hospital with diarrhoea. Severe. And I spent it in hospital. Not, not, really ill. Couldn’t move. It was what we’d eaten. Instead of being in London enjoying the [pause] we were flat on our backs. That was it. Great celebration. Anything else you want to know?
BJ: So, what did you do after you left the RAF?
JW: I went back to local government because I was in there beforehand. And I spent all my life in local government. I retired when I was sixty. Been retired thirty four years now. And that’s it.
BJ: And how do you think being in Bomber Command affected the rest of your life?
JW: I would have said its, bar getting married you know and all the rest of it it’s the main thing in my life. My main memories. It’s [pause] I was, I don’t know if you know that after sixty years they gave Bomber Command a medal. Winston Churchill. At one time Winston Churchill was, Bomber Command was saving Britain and saving this, when it came to the end of the war. But Dresden did it of course. The world criticised us for Dresden and he wanted, he wanted out. We got no medals. Sixty years later we got one.
BJ: How did you feel about that?
JW: Terrible. And Arthur Harris was criticised left, right and centre. Got no recognition at all. Kicked out. It was Dresden that did it. It was a defenceless city I must admit. It was a defenceless city. But you do as you’re told. And the Russians wanted help, the Russian front. There was a lot of politics in it, you know. A lot of politics in it. But I don’t know. In many ways it was, I’m not going to say good time but it was, I’ll not forget it. I’ll not forget it. That’s about, that’s how I won the war as you’ve got it down there.
BJ: What became of the rest of the crew you were with?
JW: We lost touch. Norman Wade, I think, I spoke to his wife, I still keep in touch with her. Norman Wade, the engineer and the wireless op and myself. We never — we lost contact. After the war we didn’t do much. Afterwards, it must have been twenty years, Norman — I don’t know how I got in contact with Norman Wade. And we started trying to find the other members of the crew. We only found the engineer. Only three of us. I don’t know what happened to them all.
BJ: What was the engineers name?
JW: Jack. It’ll come soon enough. I can’t remember. I have a funny feeling he might not be alive because I haven’t had a Christmas card for two or three years. That’s a sign. We’ve only had a Christmas card that kept us. Norman Wade, I’ve kept in touch by phone with his wife. You haven’t met her, have you? No?
BJ: No. No.
JW: Well she —
BJ: And did you, have you been in touch with the, through the Bomber Command Association?
JW: I tried. They’re very reluctant to divulge information. I think, I don’t know, Norman was, he said he had tried to get into contact with the rest of the crew and didn’t make it. Although, mind you he did say that one of the crew had been in jail or something [laughs] I don’t know. But I lost, although I kept in touch with Bomber Command and that I didn’t, I was a member of the local Bomber Command here but I never got involved because I went to the meetings at the beginning. They were always the same ding ding ding. I never, I never really [pause] I said I’ve had enough of that. My memories were better than that. My memories. I mean Tuddenham itself is, and that says it. That’s it. It must have been about the middle 90s. The local village. We used to go and have a church service at our actual memorial. We had a church service. Then we all went out. We had a dinner dance. And the next morning they walk us to the one in the village memorial to 90 Squadron. It’s still in the village today and that was taken then. I think that’s the only one I’ve got of that. That’s, I think you’ve got all this silly nonsense from me.
BJ: Jimmy, thank you very much for taking the time to show me this.
JW: Is there anything. I don’t think there’s anything. Is that enough for you?
BJ: That’s fine. Yes. That absolutely —
JW: Because I feel that [pause] And, you know, I remember names. There was a Wing Commander Dunham. He was on his third tour. Imagine surviving two and going for a third. I don’t think he made it. I’m not sure. I think he bought it in the end. And then there was Canadians. Canadian casualties. There were a few Canadians. Never really got to know them well but Barton Mills is still there. A hotel and pub. And it’s quite upmarket now. But it’s a drinking den. I would have said that, oh hard to visualise what, if we weren’t on the battle order that was us down there. Did I tell you we bought an Austin 7? Have you heard of an Austin 7?
BJ: Yes. Yeah.
JW: You know that was an old car then and Johnny Wade. He said he could drive. Now I think we, I can’t remember how he picked it up because bicycles even to go down to the village was three or four miles. It was a hell of a pedal. He says, ‘There’s a guy selling an Austin 7 for thirty five pounds.’ Thirty five pounds was a lot of money in those days. So, I think we all put some to it. but Johnny, it was Johnny’s car. He got it. it was a wreck of a thing. Top speed thirty miles an hour. Got us down to the pub and back. And petrol, you couldn’t get. Now we got an arrangement with a local farmer who used to drink in the pub. He had what they called, it was called red, it was red petrol so that the ordinary people if you were using red petrol you shouldn’t. That’s only for farmers. Well we got to the farmer. We paid the farmer his money. We went down there and he let us go out and siphon the petrol. And that’s how we, so we never bought any petrol. We got it from the farmer. That’s so, life was different in those days. It was. I can’t [pause] I can’t remember anything else generally to tell you. You probably hear different stories from different people. Different. They tell you in sepia. They’ve all got different. I would take with a pinch of salt even what I say, everyone says. Memory enhances the view a wee bit. You know. It does, it does change the view a wee bit. I just feel that it’s the sort of thing [pause] Oh Jones. Jones. We came over a daylight raid. We did a few daylight raids and we got back and Jones we knew occasionally. He came down and joined us down at the pub occasionally and his crew. They’d gone down in The Channel. That was it. Oh terrible. But three days later in The Bull, boy walks. They’d been picked up in The Channel. They were straight down the boozer [laughs] and we had drunk to his death already. Jones has gone down. Oh. That’s it. It was a daylight raid but in the daylight you had a chance of getting picked up. He was picked up but funnily enough I can’t remember him flying. He must have gone on sick leave. I can’t remember him flying again. We didn’t see a lot of him. I remember Jones. Why do I remember that? Extraordinary. And I can’t remember my next door neighbour’s name. It’s terrible. I’m trying to think if there’s [pause] no. We got leave. We used to get leave every, we used to get a lot of leave, every what three or four weeks. It depends how the battle order was, how the casualties were, whether you’d be boosted up the list or not. And I was, folk I know, you’re home on leave and a lot of them had sons in the army. They never saw them for years and I was home every four weeks. But I mean —
BJ: What was it like coming home?
JW: Oh, you got a good reception going home. Oh yes. But dear, dear dear [unclear] a friend of mine, he was an accountant. He stayed on to finish his accountancy degree. He wasn’t called up. And he went into the army and into the Tank Corps. Made lieutenant in the Tank Corps. He was down near Ballantrae, Ayrshire. Big tank training people. And he spent the war, the rest of the war there. Never went to Europe. Training. In Glasgow, Gordon Street’s one of the main streets in Glasgow. Gerald [unclear] and we were walking along there and this army boy comes along. Gerald, he’s a bit of snob Gerald, he stopped. Salute. The RAF. [unclear] He dressed this boy down. I said, ‘Gerald, if you do that again you’re on your own.’ He dressed this boy down for not saluting. I never saluted anyone in my life [laughs] You know. He was, I would say he was a bit of a snob. He was a wee bit that way. But he saw out the war in the Tank Corps. He was never, he never left the country. It was the luck of the game. You could be lucky in your postings. I mean some people got posted maybe to the Pacific and that. Different things. A friend of mine got posted to South Africa and he used to spend, his great thing was when they went on leave he used to pinch hotel towels. He had a list of all the towels from all the hotels he stayed in. The RAF do terrible things so they do. Now, I don’t think there’s anything else. You don’t want to see, do you want to see the picture?
BJ: Yes.
JW: That’s all the crew there. You’ll see in that.
BJ: Yeah.
JW: If you want to look underneath there.
BJ: Ok. Right. Ok. This, this your —
JW: That’s the crew there. The engineer’s not there. They’re all there. That’s our Lancaster there. That’s a better picture of the crew there.
BJ: What was your plane?
JW: That’s the Lancaster there.
BJ: Yeah. Do you remember what the, what the symbol was?
JW: No.
BJ: No.
JW: No idea. No. That’s Johnny Wade, the skipper, there. That’s the engineer. But that’s more or less it. What’s that one? That’s yours. I had a few things to look through. I can’t remember. Anyway, that’s my life in the RAF.
BJ: Right.
JW: I don’t think I’ve missed anything. Do you think I’ve covered everything?
BJ: Yes. That’s fine. Yes. Just want to hear what you’ve got, you know. What you remember and what you —
JW: Yes.
BJ: Think about it.
JW: Let’s see. I’m trying to [pause] it might be a bit hard. I can’t remember how many trips we did. [pause] No. It’s over the target I think you get a better, if you manage to get a pilot could tell you because I, he would be concentrating but some of the aircrew like a wireless operator was sitting next to the navigator. I mean you’re always doing something. You’re not aware of the problems. You know.
BJ: Did you have problems in getting the bombs out ever?
JW: No. no. Sometimes, well sometimes different Lancasters. We used to, more or less get the same Lancaster. There was, I think during the war there was a Packard Rolls Royce engine in the Lancaster. Some of them were made in Canada. And one of the aircraft there was a Canadian aircraft that had the engine in, and I always remember that we got this one day with a full load and we had to drag it off the runway. I mean, I feel you could drag it off. Once we got up and got airflow it was alright. I thought it wasn’t going to come up. But that was, I mean I didn’t sit in the front. I sat at the back and once we were airborne I went down to the front but, no. It’s [pause] are you making any more calls today? Are you?
BJ: No. That’s it for today. Yeah.
JW: And you’re going to, when’s the next call?
BJ: I don’t know yet.
JW: You don’t know yet.
BJ: No. No. I don’t know.
JW: How long are you going to be in up Glasgow then?
BJ: Oh, I live in Glasgow.
JW: You live in Glasgow.
BJ: Yes.
JW: Oh, I didn’t know.
BJ: In Partick.
JW: Partick.
BJ: Yeah. Not far.
JW: I used to, I used to stay in Gibson Street. The top of Gibson Street.
BJ: Oh yeah.
JW: In my younger days.
BJ: Nice. Yeah.
JW: And I went to, over the Banks, you wouldn’t know that. It’s at Charing Cross. Woodside School.
BJ: Yes. Yeah.
JW: Well there was several. I didn’t go to Woodside because I was going, I went to Shawlands. I know the West End quite well. The Botanic Gardens. And something else. I’m trying to remember. It’s [pause] no. It’s gone. Did you, have you lived all your life in Glasgow? No.
BJ: About sixteen years. My mum’s from Glasgow.
JW: Oh, I see.
BJ: Yeah. Yeah.
JW: Oh, I mean we’ve been in this house over forty years. It’s, I’m now on my back. Everything’s here because I’ve got, they come in to make my tea tonight about 5 o’clock. I mean I could make it but I’m not allowed to bend. I’ve got to watch what I do.
BJ: Yeah.
JW: I gave up driving last year. So I thought better safe than sorry. I’ve got a wee electric buggy if I want to go down to [pause] trying to think of anything else. Bomber Command. Come on. There must be something else. I can dig up some fairy story. Surely I must have another story. Oh I can’t remember another story. The one thing. It was a black marker. We were flying in the Lake District. Cumberland. In Cumberland Milom was the place. And you wouldn’t believe it. It was night exercises from Bomber Command you know. I think it were Ansons we were on. The casualties through the bad weather were quite heavy. As I said, quite, there wasn’t a night when another Anson didn’t, it was very mountainous around there and I would have said that it wasn’t very clever. There was one night I think. I wasn’t involved in it. Four of the crews went to the thing and said they weren’t going to fly. The wind. The weather was terrible and somebody’s got to make a decision. You have to train. We’ve got to do it. I’m sure they went out nights they shouldn’t have done. Training. And I didn’t fancy it at all you know. But I’m trying to think of something of interest to your point of view. You put it all together. Is this, is actually is it the Association you are with?
BJ: It’s a project so it’s —
JW: By Bomber Command?
BJ: Yes. It’s a project that’s come to just record the history and, you know what was involved in Bomber Command and the memories of the people.
JW: You see the trouble is there’s not many of us left because remember I was a member of the Association here with Flight Lieutenant Reid. The Victoria Cross. He was The President. He died about two or three years ago. He was a most interesting man. He got a Victoria Cross for bringing his aircraft back. His aircraft was nearly destroyed going there and he carried on and came back. But I didn’t know him terribly well. I just remember the Association. I’m still a member but [pause] you can understand there’s a sameness about it. You’re talking the same things. After a while I’d had enough. I mean they are very personal to yourself rather than [pause] I don’t know. It will be interesting. Are you, is this, is that a book that’s going to come about this? You don’t know?
BJ: No. It’s, it’ll be available for anyone who wants to listen to the interviews or read.
JW: Listen to all that rubbish I talked about. Oh, for goodness sake.
BJ: It’s very important to record what it was like for people that were there because we don’t know. We can’t imagine it.
JW: Well you can. Is that still recording?
BJ: Yes.
JW: Well I can say this. Looking back, they were good. It’s hard to say they were good times. And you know they talk about fear and what have you. I can’t remember it but there must have been. There must have been. When you’re twenty-one. Well, you know, you don’t care much, do you? When you’re eighty-one you don’t think like twenty-one. I just feel that we didn’t even question it. The one thing [unclear] Dresden raid really annoyed me because I know it was a defenceless city. I know. But in war there was women and children in London. Germany wanted a war. You got it. You say, well you can’t say Glasgow doesn’t want to be in the war because I’m very sorry. I mean. As I say when you come to it it was the easiest trip we ever did. Because we got there and at that time Mosquitoes were down laying the flares. I don’t know whether you knew we used to bomb on flares. Reds and greens. When you got there you didn’t sort of pinpoint, a shot up. You saw the red and you bombed the area. Your green this time. This time the master bomber was down there and you dropped the reds here. You bombed reds. Bombed reds and whatever it was you know. But as I say these Pathfinders must have had quite a difficult time down. They went down low you know. I’ll tell you what was quite frightening. While the bombs doors open I was going ,when you’re bombing at night time, one Lancaster, I tell you it wasn’t more than about a hundred feet below us. When you’re talking about all these, maybe what, maybe sometimes there might be about eight or nine hundred aircraft over the target about maybe ten minutes. There was a lot of aircraft in the air. There was a lot of crashes you know because you can’t just, anyway. I can’t think of anything else to tell you. That’s it.
BJ: Alright. Thank you very much, Jimmy.
JW: No. No problem.
BJ: Cheers.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Herbert James Wylde
Creator
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Brenda Jones
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-18
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWyldeHJ161218
Conforms To
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Pending review
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00:42:18 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Herbert James Wylde was working in local government in Glasgow before he volunteered for aircrew training with the RAF. He started pilot training and had gone solo when he was sent to Canada to continue training. While there he began training as a bomb aimer. He was posted to 90 Squadron at RAF Tuddenham. The first operation the crew did was relatively simple and raised their operation confidence. However, a couple of days later their target was the heavily defended Cologne which was completely different and he says the came back different people. He said although luck played a part in operation that was backed by a good crew and he had complete confidence in his. He missed out on the VE Day celebrations because he was in hospital. After the war he returned to his job in local government at Glasgow.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Jean Massie
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Sweden
Atlantic Ocean--Skagerrak
Alberta
Manitoba
Ontario
England--Cumbria
England--Devon
England--London
England--Stratford-upon-Avon
England--Manchester
England--Suffolk
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dresden
Ontario--Hamilton
Ontario--Toronto
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Lancashire
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1944
1945
90 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
FIDO
Lancaster
military living conditions
mine laying
Oxford
perception of bombing war
RAF Millom
RAF Pocklington
RAF Tuddenham
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1722/28904/AYeandleBA181229.2.mp3
2ab0b8438e291265ab84c6488aa0d64c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Yeandle, Bertram Arthur
B A Yeandle
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
2018-12-29
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.
Identifier
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Yeandle, BA
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Bertram Arthur Yeandle (b.1921, 573365 Royal Air Force) and photographs. He served as an engine / airframe fitter with 179 and 23 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Professor Susan Yeandle and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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 today is the 29th of December 2018, and we’re in Filton, Bristol talking to Bert Yeandle about his life and times. Bert, what are your earliest recollections of life?
BY: Well, I went to school, junior school in North Petherton, and one of the interesting things about the school, I- In those days the 11+ was rather limited. There were almost forty children in my class, it were one girl and one boy, passed the scholarship and taken to the local, to the local secondary school, you know the high school sort of thing. One was, one was the postmaster's son, the other one was the local labour exchange’s daughter, so that- I- You can put that how you want it but I fancied there was a little bit of a twist somewhere.
CB: And what did you parents do?
BY: My, my mother left- Was born in 19- 1880 in about- She went to school in- She was born in Woodstock, or a place called Glympton near Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and she, she- I don’t quite know much about her schooldays but I remember she told me that she had to pay to go to school, even council school, I think they paid six pence a week they had to pay, had to take this sort of little silver sixpence to school. Anyway, eventually she left home and became a cook, and I suppose her training was through her mother, who had been that sort of thing, and she went to work at Puriton just outside Bridgewater, to the home of a reverend doctor, who had five boys, and she cooked in those days and that must’ve been about, about 1893 or something around- I think she’d be about- Well say she was about sixteen from, yeah ninety-six or seven. She was born in 19-1880 that’s be nineteen, sixteen sort of thing, about twenty-six, maybe a bit younger but that’s immaterial, and then she stayed there and my father, he was a tailor, a bespoke tailor, and he followed the trade until, it was- Until the tailoring trade was swamped by the, by the, the Jewish sort of tailors that came the Montague Burtons and the, fifty-shilling tailors and all these sorts of things, and they swamped the bespoke tailors, and there was a lot of unemployment. Anyways, father managed on, things were rather tough in the thirties for me, because father only had three, three weeks- Three days of employment by a firm of tailors in Bridgewater, three days a week and he used to do jobbing, you know, people knock at the door and say, ‘Shorten my trousers’ or, ‘Lengthen the sleeves,’ all that sort of thing, and that’s how he survived until, about 1935, he became a relieving officer- a temporary relieving officer and registrar in Bridgewater and North Petherton district, and he did- He stayed with that situation until he, until he died. He did join up in 1918, in a tailor division, I don’t know a lot about that but he, he, he didn’t- He wasn’t called up before that because there was a lot of uniforms that had to be made in the fourteen, eighteen war, they were knocked up very quickly and, so he was employed in that and eventually called him up in early parts of 1918, I think or something like that. So, he didn’t, he didn’t- he didn’t know much about it. I had one brother, my brother, he joined the RAF soon after me and he went to the, overseas, the force in France straight away. What did they call them, the?
CB: The BEF.
BY: BEF, British Ex- Yep.
CB: Expeditionary.
BY: And he stayed with them till evacuation.
CB: Right.
BY: Evacuation in May, and he didn’t come across with the boats with the masses, he travelled on a petrol bowser with a few other fellows, south of Dunkirk and came across by some boat further down Brest, or somewhere down that end, he got safely home that was that. He was- While he was there in, with the BEF he was a despatch rider and a part-time policemen sort of thing. I can tell you more about him.
CB: Ok, so-
BY: And he, he demobbed just when ’45, you know, sort of.
CB: Right, so back to your early days at school
BY: Yep
CB: Did you enjoy school? What were your-
BY: I think I did yes.
CB: - particular interests?
BY: One important thing was, half way through my school, my junior school, when I was about nine or ten, our headmaster was seriously ill, and he was taken off teaching and a temporary master came to us, who lived in Cleveland, he came down from Cleveland to take over the management, and he brought with him an Oxford University graduate, who taught his boys to play rugby, and he, he took us out and trained us, and of course North Petherton was a hot bed of rugby from 182- 1875, I think. So, they’ve had a history right through the war, all the time and still operating now, and not the same strength but there we are. So, that’s one of my earliest things, and then as father’s financial position got a little better, being in a better job, you know, more- as an assistant registrar and all that sort of thing, he sent me to a commercial school in Bridgewater, at which I, I- As you know, it specialised in bookkeeping, short-hand and I had the option of either learning French or learning Euclid and as it was, I thought Euclid sounded, well a useful sort of thing and I studied Euclid. You know what that is? A sort of offset, the sort of explanation of why something happened, why two parallel lines never meet, you know, all this sort of thing. So that went on, until I left school and, as I said, went to, work as a junior clerk in the Bristol- Bridgewater gas company. All the towns had their own private sort of organisation in those days right, and then from there on I- My, my cousin introduced me to the, to the strong points of being an apprentice, and how good it would be, and he felt certain, even though I went to a commercial school and one of the papers that we had to, we had to take to assess at Halton. You know that do you? There was three papers, English, science and, and general studies. Well, science was a problem and when I got the exam, temporary exam papers and then applied to be an apprentice, I got the temporary redundant sort of thing to see what it was, and I thought what have we here. So, I got tuition privately from a scout-master who was a teacher and he managed to struggle me through, and I passed and I was four-hundred-and-seventy-fourth out of nine-hundred-and-ten so. So, in those days, it- The pecking order was such that as you- The higher you were up the more first chance you had for the trade you turned in. So, a lot of the- you know the top ten, they went for wireless operator, mechanic, or fitter armourer or fitter two or wireless and electronic, that was the four trades of work and it worked out according to your pecking order. So, I, I was more or less, got what I wanted, and I was trained. I went to Halton and after a while, I think eighteen months they decided that they would- It was getting rather over bodied by more apprentices than they could cope with, all of us the same situation was such in Cosford, and we transferred to Cosford, and I finished my apprenticeship at Cosford, and passed out of Cosford. In about the first or second of April- March- January rather, joined Bomber Command at Harwell, that’s roughly, any more questions?
CB: Harwell in Oxfordshire?
BY: Berkshire.
CB: Berkshire it was then, now in Oxfordshire, yes.
BY: It had no, it had no runway, all the air- All the Wellingtons took off, and we, we had about, about eighteen Wellingtons and an Anson and an Oxford. These other two were for local commute, you know, flitting from one station to the other, passing a sort of good word between each station, and- Where are we now? And then
CB: So what sort of date-
BY: I started to work straight away.
CB: Yep, on what?
BY: On Wellingtons.
CB: Yes, but what-
BY: The first job I got- In those days it was- You got the normal sort of daily routine inspection, you got the thirty-hour, you got the sixty-hour and you got the a hundred-and-twenty hour inspection of aircraft, and being a fitter2 E, engines were my speciality, so I was put with another experienced young man, and we had to take an engine out of, out of the Wellington and put a new one in, that was my first job, and then it went on from there and then, you know, various- But I must say at this stage that it was quite interesting, as we came to the hangar every morning, in the middle distance were the Berkshire Downs and invariably every day you’d see a white patch in there, which is a crashed aircraft. Burnt up by the cadmin[?], you know, what the structure was made out, you know, ‘cause they were flying at twenty-hours and twenty-five hours, no experience at all, and then in 19- They had to get airmen in the air, in ’40, some survived that were better than others but- And that was- But, as time ran on there as normal daily work and we obviously, that the RAF, or Bomber Command as every other command, very conscious of the, of the sabotage which was occurring out in airfields and things like that, and there was guards placed in the insert and outs of the hangar in the first six months of 1940, you know, for- We just didn’t know what was happening, or they didn’t know, and eventually we run up to, to Dunkirk. Now as soon as Dunkirk was sort of settled, within about- When all the ones that were able, were home to their homes or their units and such like, there was that fear of paratroopers. So, we had set up in various teams of about twenty, and we had to man the airfield at an hour before dawn, till two hours after dawn armed with fifty rounds of ammunition, waiting for the parachutes to come. Fortunately, they never came. So- But we’re there waiting and being a lad of nineteen, you know, you had that fear of- You’re out- ‘Cause differing at nineteen, and one of us twenty-five and thirty and go on doesn’t it, and you know, I thought it would be a good job have a shot at these people dangling down with a canopy above ‘em, but it never happened, and then that eased off and we’re on Wellingtons, carrying on ‘cause I think we had about seventeen or eighteen there, and as I told you before we- Our job was in the early stages of March, April, May, May sort of thing was bombing, was nickel bombing or leaflets, propaganda, you know, distribute all over Berlin and all other places like that, and I wish I’d salvaged a couple and got them now, they were interesting to see but we just flung them in the dustbin as it was, you know, you’re- And that was it until, until it came- Now where are we now? I’ve lost my self a little bit.
CB: Just stop a minute.
BY: In, I’d never heard of it before, the Flight Sergeant Warrant Officer in charge of the hangar, who was the boss and you know, you know that sort of, the power they had, you know, they’d do this that and other, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you must do this, you know, that sort of business, and he was, he was a West Indian, and in those days, you know, when you met a coloured man, you- It was unusual, and he was a boss there, and he was the boss all the time I was there. I don’t- What it- Where he ended up, I don’t know, but he was very efficient. There’s no doubt about that. So that’s-
CB: How did he get on with the-
BY: I think he got on very well, we, we respected him, you didn’t- You respected authority in those days but we were, we were sort of brought up at Halton to sort of respect authority, you know, and-
CB: So, you arrived at the airfield, what did they do as soon as you arrived?
BY: Well I mean we’d already gone through the fundamentals of- Medicals and all that sort at Halton, you know, we’d had a very good briefing there, we’d learnt a lot about air force law, and drill ‘cause we- Friday afternoons was the drill, Monday- Wednesday afternoons was sports afternoon, Friday afternoons was ceremonial drill, and in between we were taken to a study room to read- to study, or be read the air force law to us, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do, and of course we got the King’s Shilling at the time.
CB: At Harwell?
BY: At Harwell, yeah.
CB: So, you arrive, it’s one of the expansion period air fields-
BY: Oh, it was yeah
CB: -so it’s well set up-
BY: Well, I don’t know whether you- You’re aware of this but Lord Trenchard in 19- When he was the head of the metropolitan police, he looks at the Air Force and he said, ‘We’re all behind, we’re backward,’ compared to the Germans and all- ‘We’ve got to get a force of grammar school boys,’ and especially grammar, ‘who’ll take an examination, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and fit them and train them to be the ground force of the RAF regardless’.
CB: Yep.
BY: Regardless at the time, you know, what- But there was quite a few people that applied for aircrew at that time and then after about- And I applied but I was, I was a bit late in applying, and at that time the Air Ministry said, ‘Right no more ground crew, we’re not going to spend money training you people for two-and-a-half, three years, and send you off flying and lose you in, in no time’. So, they focused- I don’t quite know what they- How they focussed their attacks on getting more aircrew into Bomber Command and Fighter Command and all the communication and, you know, air sea rescue and all this sort of thing. Not air sea rescue, command control they called it, not air sea rescue, command control.
CB: Coastal Command?
BY: Yeah, Coastal Command, yes.
CB: Well, it was expanding fast.
BY: Yeah, and so he, he emphasised that we gotta get- We’re having an entry of every two months- Every two year, every May- Twice a year.
CB: Yes
BY: Twice a year.
CB: Into Halton?
BY: Into Halton, and Halton was getting a bit overloaded it was four big squadrons there then and we- Then they formed us into five squadron, and we- Then they took us to Cosford, but we had the same standard of education and we all had to go and get the same trade test as well. We had to go to- In those days we had to get a trade test as well so, before you passed out into your squadrons or whatever, and a good job- A good majority of us, you know, had to what they called the warning of going overseas, and I went overseas on the 1st of January- Well I, I left home, left my father and mother on the 1st of January 1941.
CB: Right. Can we just go back to the Halton bit?
BY: Yep
CB: Because it’s quite important here, I think. What was the routine? You’re young, you’re sixteen, you join the air force and you’re in a barrack block-
BY: Yes, indeed.
CB: -with a dormitory, so how many people in the dormitory?
BY: About thirty, and being a clerk before I joined up, most had come straight from school.
CB: Yes
BY: I was the, room clerk so I had to take a name, address and next of kin and all that. So that was my job which in a way was a better job than doing the ablutions or, you know, dust under the bed and, you know, that sort of thing, centre floor. So that was my job and that was the first thing we did at when we got- We had be registered and then what information, detail went to the office and all that sort of thing. Of course, we- All letters home had to be censored, and it started on from there.
CB: Was there censorship before the war?
BY: No, no, not to my knowledge.
CB: Right. When you, when you got up in the morning, what time of day was that?
BY: Six-thirty.
CB: Ok, then what?
BY: Six-thirty, and breakfast was half-past seven to half-past eight all properly dressed, no nonsense. Three mornings a week, we had to get up at six and that was for PT. Not very strenuous but get some fresh air and running out, loosening your limbs from lying in bed. Our bed time, for the first year, was nine-thirty, we had to be in bed by nine-thirty and lights out at ten o’ clock. It was no smoking until you were eighteen, and then you only smoked in certain parts. Lights out, as I say and as the next year went on until we left, you carried on the same routine. I think the- I think we could, light’s out was at ten o’ clock, but we still carried on a routine of breakfast, to the hangar, orderly dressed, if you didn’t- If you weren't orderly dressed- I mean I was caught once wearing a pair of red socks, somebody saw me, took my name and I was jankers, you know what that is?
CB: Yes, so you, well you’d better explain- What are jankers?
BY: [Laughs] Well jankers, first of all you had to report to the guard room, with your best blue on at six o’ clock, at night, and a nine o’ clock. You were inspected by the, by the orderly officer or the sergeant, and which then were detailed to the severity of your crime, into the cookhouse to scrub the floor or, do any duties that were necessary there, and that’s really what it worked out to be. So you were punished, you either got three days or seven days. If you were a really naughty boy and done something really serious you might be sent out to a, a sort of home where they vetted you and gave you a suitable punishment. I remember one situation, I can recall where we took an engine out of- Took a pega- ‘Cause the Pegasus and in-lines used in the Wellington at that time, as a sort of spare. What they could get hold of really, suitable, and this fellow, he had to drain the oil obviously, and he disconnected the oil and the engine, under the coupling to the and shot it out, and shot off the, oil of the tank which was remaining in the petrol tank, I think it was about thirty gallons of oil in this petrol tank and the-
CB: Oil tank, yeah.
BY: And instead of just screwing the thing up, he poked a bit of rag in first of all and screwed it up, eventually the aircraft crashed because the next person undid the union, connected up to the engine, are you with me?
CB: He didn’t know that there was a rag in there.
BY: He didn’t know that there was a rag in there, and that obstructed the flow, and the aircraft crashed because there was a seizure on the engine and he was sent up to field punishment camp.
CB: What happened to the crew?
BY: The crew, I believe were killed. I wouldn’t like to say for definite on that, the aircraft definitely crashed.
CB: A thing like that’s very serious, so to what extent would the- At what point would a court-martial be convened for that sort of thing?
BY: Well, you’d go there- I expect- I don’t know whether, whether it was tantamount to a court-martial, I think it is. If you were sent to the- What is it, what was I, called the name? The home?
CB: The punishment.
BY: The punishment home, if you were sent there the odds are that you would take a service court-martial.
CB: Right.
BY: And every time you were a minor punishment, like I just mentioned what I did with my socks or, you know, I- You had to go in front the CO, and wait in a corridor ten minutes and let him get his breath and you’d get your breath back, and you march in and salute him and all that sort of thing and, the charge was there, with the corporal and sergeant that had found you, that sort of thing, you know, that sort of thing. But, you know, it taught us discipline, and it taught us how to- You know, you got to draw the line sometime, you can’t do what you like, you were treated well, the food was very good in wartime and right up to- Food was very good. Our education, we had twenty-five hours at workshop and fifteen hours in schools, and I always remember the first, the first day at school- We were presented with, the unification of- The one before, oh I don’t, I can’t think of the name, but it was quite severe. I was out of touch really, and I- We sat in, in a order in the schools, alphabetically, so the fellow sat beside me was a brighter boy than I was and he was a good lad and he used to help me a little bit with my sort of, you know, sneaking across a piece of paper and the answer to one of the things. Unification of something, what is it? What is that, a receive before, before algebra? Anyway, it was quite severe and, our history was about the air force, how it was formed, what the blue means and all that sort of thing and the various stations around the company and the general studies was about the various historical, which would affect the air force. We had a good sort of grounding there.
CB: So when did you actually join the apprentice scheme at Halton? It was ’37 entry, when was that?
BY: January ’38.
CB: Right.
BY: I had to report in January ’38. I took the examination in Weston-Super-Mare, in I suppose about- I think it was about September, something like that.
CB: Yeah, and then the course finished after how many years?
BY: Well, the course finished just under two years, we didn’t do the three years because the situation was such that they wanted to cram as much in as they possibly could, you know, we used a few more hours and with a little bit more private study and all that sort of thing. So-But on balance the boys that stayed at Halton, or the ones at Cosford finished at the same time, with the same ability.
CB: Yeah
BY: Group one, we were group one tradesmen, a Fitter2. At this stage, after the war, I with about, about seven or eight-hundred other ones, got converted. You see I was qualified at that time- When I passed out, I was qualified to do any job, to do with the engines, aircraft engines, take the prop off, all that sort of thing, hydraulics and various numatics, and such like. The other tradesmen had their sort of- We never touched any armaments or that was their job, and the wires, nothing to do with that sort of thing.
CB: So you were technically an engine fitter?
BY: And then after the war, I did one year's course to convert me to the air frame side of it, so consequently when I left- We had this course at Locking, RAF Locking in Weston-Super-Mare and when I left that one, I was qualified to do anything on any aircraft you see. That was very handy for the airport because during my time at Halton- At Harwell, there were always visiting aircraft coming in, and if you were a duty flight you had to see to them and deal to them, see what they wanted and see them off. Usually, the crew stayed in the mess or the officers mess or the sergeants mess, that night and off they went for somewhere else. So that was our responsibility, to deal with any visiting aircraft.
CB: And what extra training did you get while you were at Harwell on modern aircraft? Was the Wellington-
BY: We studied, we studied the in-line engine and we studied the radial engine at Halton.
CB: Yes.
BY: In fact we started off studying Morris motors engine.
CB: Did you?
BY: That was our first job, you know, when they introduced us to the internal combustion engines. So, they started off that and we learnt what, you know, what- How tappets worked and the valves and- I mean I didn’t have a clue when I, when I came, sort of thing, but you soon pick it up don’t you?
CB: Well, it was good training wasn’t it?
BY: Oh absolutely, ‘cause I would- And even Geoff will tell you the same thing, the best time of his life was at- In the boy’s service, you know, the apprentice service.
CB: Now talking about that, we talked about you being in a room in the barrack block, thirty people. Was there a corporal in a room at the end in his own?
BY: Oh yes, yes.
CB: So how did that work, there’s a single room at the end with a corporal in it?
BY: Yes, I can remember his name, Corporal Ratcliffe his name was, he was our corporal in boy’s service. He was a very nice chap, he was a sergeant apprentice.
CB: Oh
BY: And he- In one of the earlier entries obviously.
CB: Yes, yeah.
BY: And he was- Well he just kept order, you know, if we lost anything it was up to him to sort it out, and any real complaints we went to him and he would carry the complaint on to, you know, his senior sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, so he controlled the room.
BY: He did control it, but, every morning the orderly sergeant came in at half-past six and shouted, if anyone was in bed, they didn’t stay in bed very long.
CB: So, you get up and you wash, what do you do about the beds?
BY: Oh, it’s most important, folded up your blanket, two blankets and a sheet, a pair of sheets, folded up neatly, stacked up- Our beds were Macdonald[?] beds, sort of-
CB: Two billows deep?
BY: Yeah, close them up to a sort of a sitting distance, sort of thing, from that, from that distance down to there, and you had to pack your, your blankets and your alternate levels and make it look tidy, and your pyjamas on there. The-
CB: Then there was a-
BY: Then the laundry business. We had two avenues for our laundry, the laundry was our boiler suits, ‘cause we all wore boiler- And do you know, we had to wear a tie then, in the hangar room all the time, collar and tie, it's crazy isn’t it? But we had to wear it, if you see anything on the pictures, you see- So we had a [unclear] avenue, a special bag with our names, that was most important, you had to get your names on all your equipment, and then for the other bag, for your- What you called you domestic, was your towels, I think we had two lots, two towels a week and shirts, collars and detachable-
CB: Detachable collar, yes.
BY: Socks, and basic things in that thing, and your sheets. Oh, the sheets went in another basket that’s right, they went into another basket.
CB: How many pairs of sheets did you get a week?
BY: Oh we used to get- I think we got clean sheets, real clean sheets every fortnight.
CB: Right, yeah.
BY: I think that’s what we had to do. So, that was an alternative sort of, pack your bag with washing.
CB: So, there was an inspection of the beds, and the blankets every morning?
BY: The orderly officer came round every morning, while we were on parade. We- And to go to the hangar we paraded at half-past eight in our lines, you had to answer your call- Answer, it was a roll call, and then we- In the boys service we had to march to our schools or our workshop but when we got to the squadron, to 148 Squadron I was on, we just more or less- We just walked to the hangar, and the Warrant Officer he knew who was who sort of thing, he knew who was missing and then, and then in those days we had a restroom, we’d a break and restroom in which we had a chap who wasn’t an apprentice and he was responsible for making the tea and, he had an avenue of going out and getting tea- What we called tea and wads for us, and he made us feel- And we had to pay him, I don’t know, pay a tuppence a week or something like that, he made a living out of that, sort of thing, subsidises his letter income, and the money we got, in the boys service, was a shilling a day. Right, and we could allocate four shillings of that to the post office, to the post office or any other form that your parents wish you. So that’s the sort of- When we went on holiday, our end of term, which was about twelve or fourteen weeks, we would get instead of picking up three shillings at the pay table, we would pick up about ten, eleven pounds just, you know, to satisfy, to go and-
CB: A lot of money in those days.
BY: It was a lot of money, but didn’t seem to last for long ‘cause we had to find our own soap, our own toothpaste, our own chocolate and toothbrushes to [unclear], but the [unclear], hairbrushes, combs you had to find ‘cause they were always being lost, or, you know, that sort of thing, so we made this- And then there quite a little bit of trading going on, you know, if you got broke say you’ll borrow a shilling for one sixpence to return, sort of thing [chuckles] it’s funny really. Mind you, all this is- I’m trying to talk- Remember eighty years ago, you know.
CB: Exactly. Now on that, because this is so different from today-
BY: Oh I don’t- I-
CB: When you went to eat, where did you eat? This is at Halton, where did you eat?
BY: In the cookhouse, what we called the cookhouse.
CB: Right, how big was that?
BY: Oh quite a big place, but it had to, to accommodate sort of each squadron.
CB: And the squadron was how many people?
BY: Hundred-and-twenty, hundred-and-fifty, that sort of thing. I might be inaccurate by that, these numbers, my mind might forget little-
CB: And the menu was-
BY: The menu was very good
CB: - was fixed or, choice?
BY: We had a good breakfast, a good lunch and at tea-time we had cake, and bread and butter and jam, and syrup was always on the table. It- When I got to the squadron, I’d been put on night flying, the night flying duties were as such, you did a day- We’ll say night flying was on Monday night, you got to the hangar Monday morning, you would do your job, you’d be working on the aircraft which is flying that night, and every aircraft that fly that night had to have night flying test. So aircraft had to fly in the afternoon, late afternoon and the pilot would check it and do- He didn’t- They only did a sort of large circuit and all that sort of thing, and if it's come back it was all right, if it’s a small item, it was put right and then you were called according to the time of day, I mean night flying would start- This time of year it would start about 7 o’ clock, and [unclear] the pilots would do- Or the air [unclear] would do two sorties. Three hours, come back, refuel and another three hours, maybe two hours, it depends on what the circumstances were. So, I mean, you know, that was a night flying programme. I know I'm a bit disjointed but you can all sort this, when you read it I'm sure. And then on occasion- This is interesting, when you were on night flying duty, or in duty crew, you had to see any aircraft in and sometimes they came in at night and they would land in between two rows of flare paths, and the flare path, no electrics, it was like a paraffin watering can with wick coming out the spout [chuckles] yes, you’re smiling, this is true though, and the line I think was about twenty
CB: This is paraffin?
BY: Paraffin, and the aircraft would land in between that, and it was a tedious job you had to go, you know, you might- We didn’t have a vehicle to do everything, mostly the vehicles were for driving the petrol bowsers about, so you couldn’t do that, but to go to one end of the airfield to the other you had to walk, or bicycle, or whatever, and- So we had to put these flare paths out then, when it was daylight, they all had to come in, it would be twiched[?] and checked- Make sure they’re serviceable for the next night, it was everything. But, it’s a bit hazardous sometimes, if one had blown over or something like that, and you were told by the flying control to go out and see to that, take another one out, and, you know the RT wasn’t all that clever, and if you had to land with something, you know at that time- Pretty precarious.
CB: So how was the communication on the airport- field? Was it- ‘Cause there was no radio so was it done by flash light?
BY: Yep
CB: Or morse code?
BY: Aldis lamp
CB: Yeah, aldis lamp?
BY: It- The aircraft would come in and flash the green light if it’s ok, and you would reply with that. If, wasn’t- If you weren’t ready, it was a red light and they’d have to go round and come again, sort of thing like- That was the basic sort of thing. Where are we now?
CB: So as you’re onto that, what communication did you actually have with the aircrew themselves?
BY: Very good. They were, you know, more or less you were- Your aircraft was his aircraft and his aircraft were yours and, you know, you saw him off, he knew you and that sort of thing.
CB: Were you normally in communication, ‘cause there are five or six people on the Wellington, so were you talking to the pilot?
BY: Oh yes, well mainly- We talked to the pilot and the navigator and they would come up, but mainly the pilot because he’d know the condition of the engine, if there was anything wrong or if there was a mag drop or no oil pressure or, or the heating was not, not good, it was overheating sort of thing, and-The armourers, if it was, if it was- Had to be armed they, they trolleyed in with their weapons and opened the bomb doors and, did that sort of thing, so it- We all had- It was very organised and there was the petrol bowsers- for starting up, you’d plug in, you know, and make sure the battery was charged there, that sort of thing. The trolley acc’s, we used to call pushed them out there.
CB: Yeah, so the trolley acc is a trolley accumulator to start the engine isn’t it?
BY: Yeah, and at night-time you got into a routine and when you saw the aircraft come in you had two lights sort of thing, you’d wave them in sort of thing. In those days the connection between the ground crew and aircrew was very good, extremely good- Well they- You were responsible for their safety and they were responsible, you know, for the safety in flying, you know.
CB: You had responsibility for certain aircraft only, not all of them?
BY: Well, it depended Chris, you know, how long we, you know- What the situation was, every day is different.
CB: Yep.
BY: So that takes us up to- And then our first bombing on this aircraft- On this airfield. I was in the cockpit and I remember quite vividly what I was doing. I was adjusting the controls to the elevators from the cockpit, and I was- And suddenly there was a- The air warden siren went and I could just see bombers going down the, sort of runway line dropping sort of bombs, not very big, they didn’t do much damage. But after that they decided this was dangerous, we’re gonna- One of these days it’s gonna hit the hangar, they’re either going to bomb the hangar or they’re going to bomb headquarters. So every night at the end of the day we were bussed out to a village called East Hendred, which was the home of the race horse stables, ‘cause that was a hot race- Newbury and all that areas, and we lived in stables there for quite a long while. Right until the end, until I went overseas, and all we had in these stables- But we, we were fed by bus to the, to the unit, come- You know, we had our meal in the evening before we left, and we were taken down for our breakfast in the morning, sort of thing. But, the heating in the- All we had in the stables was two beds and blankets, as I told you, two blankets and sheets- No we didn’t have sheets, we had blankets, just blankets, and in the corner was a sort of shelf which they used to put the hay, stack the hay in and we used to put our bits and pieces in there or, and we had no heating except valor heating, valor stoves do you remember the valor stoves? You remember them Chris, don’t you?
CB: Oh yes, yeah.
BY: And that would heat our water to have a good wash and shave at night.
CB: You just put it on top?
BY: Yeah, and it was only two of us to a stable, so it was enough on a big bowl to wipe our, and then we wandered off in the evening to the village- East Hendred is a place, you’ll see it on a map now, it was a very-
CB: I know it well.
BY: You know it well?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
BY: And it was a stables, the owner was a man called Bell, Dr Bell I think, he owned a string- And another thing, we used to see the horses go across in the very early hours of the morning being led off in the downs, you know, in the distance. Nowhere near the airport, but it was a good country to live in really.
CB: What about the social life?
BY: The social life wasn’t very much, really, well we had a NAAFI, and we used to go in there and we could- There was a couple billiard tables and that sort of thing, we played billiards quite often. You just took your turn with it, dartboards, crib boards and table skittles, all that sort of thing, and we were after a while allowed to go out in the village and have a drink and all that sort of thing. It, you know- All blackout mind, severe blackout, it was quite fun at times but you know where you are, you know.
CB: But the local towns were not exactly on the doorstep, so the nearest one was Abingdon really, so did you get to Abingdon?
BY: No, it was good, you know, looking back now. I can think quite a lot about it now. But this carried on more or less, you know, until we were called for- What were they called? Advanced order for overseas, and they told us, it was about November that we were going overseas. So we had some warning to tell our parents and all that sort of thing.
CB: Is this 1940, ’40?
BY: This is the end of 1940, December 1940.
CB: Right.
BY: And then we set off, and when we went off there, we went to Hednesford, and we assembled at Hednesford. When we, when we had our date to ride- Mine was the 25th of January, and it was at the other entry, or the other group was 18th of January, so they took it in two- There was too many to- It was eight-hundred, to many to manage straight away so that's how we worked it out. We had assembly at Hednesford, and then we were entrained to Didcot, and when we got to Didcot we sort of- There was a coach to take us to Halton.
CB: What was your most memorable recollection, would you say, of being in Bomber Command at Harwell?
BY: Well, my servicing of aircraft there, the general tidying up of the- After an aircraft came back from their sorties, they were tidied up, got a lot of these pamphlets, these nickel sort of things hanging around-
CB: Yes, it was called nickelling wasn’t it?
BY: Yeah, and they were dated, you know, each- I think they were re-written every- Or printed about every fortnight or something like that.
CB: In your recollection how did the crew react to dropping leaflets instead of bombs?
BY: Well, I don’t know, most of them were not all that experienced, because after a while a bomber got introduced to the fifteen- It became the fifteen OTU Operational Training Unit, and that sort of combined, the activity of Bomber Command and Training Command under the umbrella of Bomber Command.
CB: Yeah, to increase their effectiveness they formed the Operational Training Unit.
BY: That’s right yeah. Well, they were so concerned, the Air Ministry were so concerned about the number of pilots they were losing and crews in respect of Bomber Command and every other aircraft, they were losing aircraft very quickly. Thank goodness there was such thing as University Air Force Squadrons, you know, all the squadrons and they supplied, and the pilots that were trained mostly through gliding before the war, they were very much, they filled the gap.
CB: They were so desperate for aircrew but they couldn’t fill the gaps.
BY: Absolutely, and of course- And then when, then- We’ll go on now- Shall we leave now and go onto the-
CB: Yes, let’s just go back to Halton, let’s just go back to the Halton bit because this actually is fundamental to your whole career isn’t it?
BY: Oh it is, it was. It was the making of me.
CB: Yes, so we talked about the, the mechanics of getting up in the morning and the disciplined aspects but you had breakfast which was until eight-thirty.
BY: Well, we had to be on parade at eight-thirty.
CB: Eight-thirty parade, so how long was the parade?
BY: And you had to be buttons cleaned, hat badge clean, you know, and, sort of thing, I mean a lot of that was done the night before, if you’re not careful.
CB: Yeah, yeah, and were you good at spit and polish on your toecaps?
BY: Oh yeah, well, well they were clean, they- We didn’t come up to the army guards, that sort of thing, but they had to be clean, you know, and haircuts, short-haircut. I mean there’s one story about- I don’t know how true this is, a Warrant Officer used to walk around the bill with a pair of clippers in his hand and if he saw a chap with long hair, he’d just run a little avenue at the back of his head, and he’d have to go-
CB: On one side only.
BY: And there was the camp barber, of course.
CB: Yep.
BY: He was a civilian. There was also a place where you could get your shoes [unclear], but didn’t very often get your shoes ‘cause they were good quality boots. We had boots first of all.
CB: Did you have to-
BY: Hurt my feet first of all, but you soldiered on sort of thing.
CB: So, the parade would last how long in the morning?
BY: Oh now, very quickly. The order was, the orderly officer and the orderly sergeant would be posted at the end of the square, with the [unclear] and reveille would be sounded there and then, and then the flag would be hoisted to its position, and then (I was telling the boys about this the other night) the orderly officer would call the parade to attention, that was a whole wing parade that was, quite a lot of boys there, apprentices, and then they would say ‘Fall out the Roman Catholics and Jews,’ and they had- And we all had to go, or whoever it was, in that denomination and get on with this- We had to go to the back of the square and face the opposite direction, while the padre appeared, said a prayer and that was it, sort of thing, and then this would last for a few minutes and then we were called back, and we’d have to sort of about turn, march back sensibly and take our position in the ranks and- And at any time, if you weren’t on the parade and when- At night-time, I think it was about an hour before dark, the last post was sounded, and you had to stand still if you were in sight of it. You didn’t have to salute or did you have to? No, you didn’t- Had to stand still. I mean this is the sort of thing- Can you imagine a sixteen-year-old now wanting to do that sort of thing? They’d laugh you all the way down the road, wouldn’t they? I mean we did it normally.
CB: Yeah, part of the discipline
BY: And felt proud, you know, we all did it together. We’d talk, you know- There was an awful lot of gossip, and we’d play cards, and things like that in the barrack room, but we didn’t play- But in the NAAFI, it was quite a- There was a games room in which there was plenty of, you know-
CB: Quite a hum?
BY: Oh yeah.
CB: And what could you drink in the NAAFI?
BY: Ah, now, only tea and coffee, tea and cocoa, tea and cocoa and, and-
CB: No beers?
BY: No beers, not to my knowledge, not in the boys service.
CB: ‘Cause of the age we’re talking about?
BY: Yeah, the boys service-
CB: Under eighteen.
BY: Or no smoking, you might nip away to the drying room, have a crafty cigarette, but if you were caught you were in, you were-
CB: In for jankers really?
BY: Jankers, with a yellow band round your arm.
CB: Clear identity.
BY: Clear identity.
CB: What about Sunday’s then? Church parade?
BY: Sunday’s, yes, church parade and we all had to- Every Sunday was church parade and we went to ours- Sometimes they had to march to Albrighton when we were at Cosford or, I don’t know where we went at Halton, oh I think there was a, there was two churches at Halton and we had the services there, but it was a quiet day sort of thing. The rest of the day you could do what you like, go back to your billet, go to bed or- And look, you had to attend your meals at a certain time or you didn’t get any. It was usually I think from twelve to half-past-one or something like that, and I always remember at tea time we always had a nice slice of beef and a slice of ham, and there was cakes on the table and there was bread and butter and there was jam, you know, not marmite, I don’t think things like that, but there was syrup, treacle we used to call it, sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, and would you have a dinner later?
BY: No, no. That- not on a Sunday that was the end, but we had a dinner at six o’ clock, so that was our last thing.
CB: So you had tea time and then dinner?
BY: Yes, yeah.
CB: In the weekday.
BY: Yep, weekday yeah. Sunday’s was exception really but we didn’t, you know, I suppose that depended on the, sort of, the manpower of the cooks and people there. They had to have time off and-
CB: And how did you get on with the local population when you went out of the camp?
BY: Oh very well, we had to- When you went out you had to wear a uniform, so you knew who you were and it was a long time before you could go out in mufti sort of thing. I think on the whole, it was, really seemed good. They knew, they knew- I mean the local population they knew what had gone on sort of thing. In Didcot, you know, in the shops they knew who you were and all this sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, so when you’re on station then, so when you were in Harwell, going out then that wasn’t the same sort of restriction ‘cause a) you are adult and b) you are part of the RAF?
BY: That’s right, that’s right, yeah. You had- You could smoke then if you wanted to, and- I can’t remember. Yes, I think we could go into a pub, I think. I don’t- I’m not certain about that, I won’t say one thing or the other.
CB: But you had to be in uniform whatever?
BY: Yes, yeah. In those days.
CB: Yeah, so what was the competition for social events with aircrew?
BY: Oh, there was inter-squadron football, rugby, hockey, cross-country, you know, all that sort of thing, on a Wednesday afternoon, and on Friday afternoons, ceremonial drill, and the bagpipes had their ribbons, they were all dressed up and a band drummer and there was a separate barrack room for the band. If you were in the band, you lived there. You were still in the [unclear] squadron but, domestically you lived there mainly for practicing for- The noise, trumpets and all the various instruments they had, it would be enclosed in that barrack, you wouldn’t disturb the others, and we had rooms for private sort of study, where you could go if you were- Hadn’t done very well in your subjects and you were- Had to smarten up and all that sort of thing.
CB: So at Hal-
BY: We had a very good library and-
CB: That’s at Har- At Halton?
BY: Yeah.
CB: At Harwell-
BY: I can’t remember much about- It was a working town there. You had to get down to it you know-
CB: Harwell is twenty-four-seven isn’t it?
BY: Absolutely.
CB: Because it’s wartime, every day is the working day. So how did you get a day off, was it sometimes- Was it on a rota or what?
BY: I think we get a weekend now and again on a rota sort of thing.
CB: Because flying would carry on at the weekend as well as daytime, weekday.
BY: That’s right yeah, and it was easy- And in those days you could go outside the camp and somebody would pick you up, I mean you would hitch hike from Harwell down to, down to Bridgewater and- Quite easily. You might have eight or nine [unclear] and people would- Who were driving they- It was the exception if you had a vehicle, a trade vehicle, it would stop and pick you up, there was no compulsory, all that sort of thing.
CB: So what we’re talking about, you were nineteen when you- At Harwell, and then-
BY: Well, I was twenty-one, I had my twentieth birthday I think when I was at Harwell.
CB: Still at Harwell?
BY: Yeah
CB: Yeah.
BY: So in the time when we to field the- load our rifles with fifty rounds of ammunition hoping to shoot a parachutist down, you know, somewhere round my birthday sort of thing.
CB: So what sort of training had you had for shooting?
BY: Oh, we used to go- We had to- You had a training place where you got- You could practice two-hundred-yards and five-hundred-yards. But that was well-managed and you had to be very careful-
CB: That was off the airfield?
BY: Oh yes, yeah, and of course, all the guns at the time were kept in the armoury, we never had any guns in the billets or anything, firearms and all that sort of thing, it were all in the armoury and that was pretty well guarded, you had to go in and sign for the gun or whatever, the number and-
CB: When the war started, often aircraft were put away in the hangars at night, what happened at Harwell?
BY: Well, in most places, in Halton- Well mainly talking about Harwell, places we had a sort of open-ended sort of shelter, built of sandbags for the aircraft to go in just in case there was a- [unclear] shrapnel or whatever, damage and, but one or two was damaged and we lost one or two at Harwell, obviously, aircraft. But latter on in my- After the war days I mean, we lost very few planes, most of the pilots were very, very accomplished and very [unclear] because they survived the war and a lot of them had got glider training.
CB: Oh, glider training. Let’s just pause there for a bit. So, Air Force Law, how much did you get of that? At Halton?
BY: Well, you had confidentiality of any activities that were on the camp, like bombing raids, or things like that, never, I suppose it was violated so many times but that was the rule. Air Force Law, what to wear, the history- It was a book about that thick, it was the air force bible sort of thing, and it went right through from the early days of the amalgamation of the-
CB: The Royal Flying Corps
BY: -the army, the naval and-
CB: The Naval Air Service-
BY: - and the Air Force as in those- 1918 when it was started properly and it was a book and all that- It was read to us and we could ask questions and, it’s a difficult question being asked of law. There were rules and regulations which, kept the service as a service sort of thing. I can’t stipulate exactly what they were but I mean, they were rules such as that.
CB: Well, we had the original Official Secrets Act?
BY: Yes, that’s right.
CB: How was that described to you?
BY: Well, that was read to us.
CB: Right.
BY: And there was a notice up on every barrack room entry and all that sort of thing, and beside that was a fire bucket, two fire buckets, one was sand- Or two with sand, ready to put out any fire and a sort of a fire extinguisher on a hook beside in the barrack rooms. So that was, that was one of the laws of things about safety. The laws of safety, the laws of sort of discipline, there was laws of confidentiality, cleanliness and, you know- And of course the other thing that we had quite frequently was VD inspections. You had to stand in a line, drop your trousers and they would- The Medical Officer would come round and check all that sort of thing, you know, and that- I don’t think that mattered too much when we were in the boys service but when we got into Bomber Command that was in- Well that was the natural because, I don’t know if you read any of the book of Bomber Command, they- A lot of them were terribly-
CB: Infected?
BY: Well, I’ve got a book in there it’s, I’ve forgotten what his name is but it’s one of the most in-depth sorts of stories that you can read about what happened in Bomber Command, the crews- The couldn’t care less once they, you know, they focused on their job at question. Their lives at- Anything else was-
CB: Life expectancy was so short.
BY: Yeah. They didn’t know whether they were coming back or not, they were coming back it was jolly good but if they didn’t, you know- And of course they were all young men a lot of them were all, twenty-two, my cousin was only twenty-two.
CB: And the term station bicycle, was running in those days?
BY: Is that- Yes oh yes, well sort of thing, I know what you mean, I know exactly what you mean.
CB: What about security, where-
BY: Oh security, you got in trouble if you broke out. You had to be in at all levels, in the boys service you had to be in by, I think it was ten o’ clock at night. You had to be in your billet by ten o’ clock.
CB: Well, part of the legal aspect, was also related to a comment you made earlier about sabotage, so what was the issue with sabotage and who were these saboteurs, potentially?
BY: Well, the German aircraft, the German prisoner of wars that were already captured and were in camps in England and wherever, and they all wore a special uniform, of big yellow patch on their elbow and something. They would recognise them quite easily, sort of thing, but- And they did a lot of good work because they were put to work you see, building walls and things like that, and all sorts of things. But I think the main worry about the whole service aspect was, the shortage of food because you see, I haven’t spoken to you about this but my trip on the troop ship was- I can tell you quite a bit about that but the, the U-boats- that were shot down, or sunk rather in the North Atlantic in February, March was amazing, and they were carrying food from Canada, from America, from South Africa, from anywhere, the West Indies, wherever they could get food to England, and, you know, that’s why the drive for dig for victory, you know that slogan? You know, that- Everybody had- I mean sports field, stadiums were ripped up and turned into allotments-
CB: And on the airfield itself, there was a vegetable growing patch was there? And also-
BY: No I can’t remember one really, the only thing I remember was a tremendous sort of- On every camp was petrol dump and that was guarded and surrounded and, you know, all- Every security was made to maintain that, sort of thing.
CB: And the coal dump?
BY: Oh yeah, yeah. I’ll get the boys get another cup-
CB: Ok we’ll stop there. When we were talking about law earlier, there’s Civil Law and Air Force Law but the concentration was really on Air Force Law, to what extent did you learn about Civil Law as well?
BY: Well, I feel that, if you committed a crime and the crime reached a certain level it would have to be tried by Civil Law as well, and- Does that help?
CB: Yeah. It was just putting things into context wasn’t it?
BY: Yes, I mean- May I put it another way, that the Air Force, or the services are not solely responsible for the law of the land.
CB: No
BY: It assists obviously, and they guide and the sort of, you know, they do all the speed work for it, but at the end of the day it’s the same as all laws- I mean it seems that, that [unclear] does, all goes through but they don’t always take note of stuff ‘cause they don’t know, they don’t understand it, I mean she’s been at that game for- What is she now? Sixty-nine, she’s been on it thirty years.
CB: Your daughter?
BY: Yes.
CB: But in the air force context, then it's always stressed is it not that the ultimate sanction they have is the courts-martial?
BY: Correct, yes that’s right.
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo.
BY: The war, only as- When they were in captive, not how they were kept, and what conditions they met led up to them being captive for what they were doing, sort of thing, I can’t say any more than that.
CB: Where were they housed? When you were at Harwell, where were they housed?
BY: To be quite honest I can’t tell you, I didn’t see- I saw more of them later on in the service life.
CB: Yeah.
BY: When I came back from overseas, I was- Because they didn’t get out- They didn’t get home straight away, sort of thing, they, on their own.
CB: No, but in the early stages then we’ve got aircrew who’d been shot down and that sort of thing.
BY: I think the majority of the prisoner of wars didn’t want anything- They were quite happy, they were fed well, they, you know, they had communication to- That’s another thing, we didn’t have any communications you see, nothing at all it was no- There was no- Or might be how today, I mean, things happen so quickly now.
CB: Yeah.
BY: Don’t they and I mean-
CB: Were your parents allowed to know where you were serving in the RAF?
BY: Oh yes, oh yeah, they knew where I was staying but they didn’t know anything about- ‘Cause the only information that I had with them was by- We used, what they called aerograph[?], it was a sort of a, I don’t know how it worked but I presume it was telephone- By telephone to some paper company in England and sort of transgressed that way.
CB: This is when you were abroad?
BY: Oh yeah.
CB: But when you were at home, that is to say at Harwell-
BY: Well at Harwell, I came home quite- Several days- Several weekends, that was several weekend- I suppose I came home- I was there best part of a year and I suppose I came home about three times that year. So I had some idea- Did we have our tea? Fair minded answer he could’ve given me.
CB: Yes, the parents supported you but they- Indirectly.
BY: Yeah, at Halton they- I think they wrote to the padre and found out how I was getting on, so- But mind you, on the first day when we went to Halton there was quite a few went back by train the next morning. I don’t want to live in-
CB: I can believe it, yeah.
BY: I don’t want to live in a situation like this.
CB: Yeah, even though it’s- Well in peacetime they had the choice.
BY: Oh yeah, yeah.
CB: Yeah, when I joined a man left after one night ‘cause he couldn’t stand being in a dormitory. When the war started-
BY: I wonder what he would’ve been like in the stable?
CB: Oh, nightmare.
BY: Oswald Bell, that’s the man, Oswald Bell he was the owner of a fleet of horses in that part, East Hendred and-
CB: When the war started in September ’39 you were still at Cosford, when did the control of letters start?
BY: Oh when I went overseas.
CB: Right. Not when you were in the UK?
BY: No, I don’t think so, I can’t remember so. But, I mean, I had the- In those days you could ring up home I think, but once you got abroad that was it sort of thing.
CB: Yeah.
BY: Do you want me to tell you a little bit about troop ship life?
CB: We do, so where did you embark?
BY: From Liverpool, and we went- I told you we assembled at Hednesford and we all marched to- ‘Cause in those days there was a railway station right on the quayside at Liverpool. I think well, I don’t know where the dock was, or, well it doesn’t matter what the name of the dock was, but we all assembled there and we all looked up and we said (there was about fifteen-hundred of us) ‘Are we sailing that thing?’. It was an eight or nine-thousand pound boat, used to be hauling before the war, before the Air Ministry got hold of it, was hauling sort of meat from south of- Argentina to Britain ‘cause we had a lot of meat from Argentina before the war, you know, and anyway, we looked at that thing and we turned round, then were down at the gangplank an’ we were marched up there, and there was not- It was amazing, well it beggars belief, that to house twelve to fifteen-hundred men, there was about five toilets, there was no proper mess decks where we could sit down and have our meals. It was a shambles, and, fortunately we had one officer- We had beside tradesmen, this fifteen-hundred tradesmen we had three balloon squadrons there, it was- There were not very many in the squadron but the leader of the balloon squadron was a, was an officer called Garry Marsh, he was a film star, he made several films if you go through the film industry you’ll see his name and he was Bill [unclear] and all these sort of things, and he stood by us and he said, ‘This is not on,’ he said, and he allowed us, or encouraged us to walk down the gangplank and walk of the ship, and we all walked off the ship down the- Nearly everybody walked off, and there was a crowd on the quayside and here and there, there was an embarkation officer who’s duty was to, to deal with the shipping of troops onto the boats and they were prancing around with their revolvers hanging round their neck. There was a- This lasted for about three or four hours and they decided, the Air Ministry in their wisdom (and I do say wisdom) decided- So they sent us back on the train again to a place called- I can’t think of the name of it- In, not very far, about twenty miles away in Lancashire and they kept us there for a fortnight while the people, carpenters, you know, various people, sorted out the mess. The boat was left to be expected, to sail around the world in, sort of thing, and eventually we, we were housed- Next time we were marshalled up, and we were- I think there were soldiers there, so making sure that we didn’t start running. Now go up the gangplank, went up the gangplank, we’d been to- No Hednesford, was it Macclesfield, anyway we’ll say it was Macclesfield, it doesn’t matter the name of the place. We were there a fortnight, and the air force law was tramped down to us, what we should’ve done, it was, it was, you know, to mutiny- It was a mutinous act and all that, without, you know, despite what the circumstances were. I mean it was a non-starter right from the go of it, the- Anyway, when we went back the second time, we were made certain we went up the gangplank, and the gangplank was pulled up very quickly and it parked out about three-hundred yards off the shore, so we couldn’t get back, and this was in first week in January- First week of February, I think. But before the Captain of the boat had orders to move off and join the convoy the other side of- We went over the top of Ireland into the Atlantic, North Atlantic. When the Captain of the- I mean a small sort of powered lighter / launcher came on with an MP, the local MP, and a Minister of Health or something like that to see it was fit for us to go, and he must’ve said ‘Yes,’ and off we went. Anyway, we got clear and went to the high seas on the North Atlantic, cold, windy, wet, oh miserable it was. I can always remember it, and there were four ships there, four troop ships waiting to go, ranked on the horizon by three or four capital naval ships, HMS- I forget- Three- Two of them were dreadnought and other one was cruisers, you know, that sort of thing, and they- And once we got away from the shore every day the controller of the naval boats would indicate to the Captain of each troop ship where we had to sail, how we had to- And we were sailing, one day we were going east, one day we were going west, it was like a [unclear]. They knew where the submarines were, they knew where the activity of the U-boats were, especially at night, and it took us fifteen days to get from Liverpool to Sierra Leone, Freetown in Sierra Leone. It’s not called Sierra Leone now is it, what’s it called now?
CB: It is called Sierra Leone.
BY: Is it?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
BY: And, and during that time we were- We all slept in hammocks, shoulder to shoulder, [unclear] you know, and of course when the boat rolled, you were- You can, well I don’t need to explain, you can imagine can’t you? People close to- head high. And that’s how we carried on. But as soon as we- And we weren’t allowed ashore, I suppose they thought, ‘This is a [unclear] lot, we’re not gonna let these people get ashore,’ they- We were anchored off about half-a-mile away from shore at Freetown, and- While some sort of, operation or conference carried on, we don’t know what, but what we do know is what we saw, was little boats coming out, young lads about fifteen or sixteen kind of boys, local boys- Boats were full of oranges, lemons, bananas, grapes and- What their technique was, you see, they came up to the boat, they were allowed to come up to the boat and they had, they had another basket which they would attach to a rope, they’d fling the basket up to somebody leaning over the taffrail, catch onto it, put their money in, sixpence or a shilling, and what you got for a shilling was amazing, sort of thing, and then you’d send the empty basket down carefully, with the money in, and then they would put the goods in it, up it’d come again and- And that carried on for best part of a couple of days. So we were getting stuff from these people unofficially, but we were happy to pay for it. I think, I think the most you paid was a shilling or half a crown or- I think some people who had money- But that was the end of- But then we carried on then, it was all peaceful then to go down to the Cape, there were massive boats, there was bunting flying off the ships all- There was no restriction of the- You weren’t allowed to smoke in the North Atlantic in the first fifteen days, I think it was a little bit more then fifteen- It was fifteen days we didn’t see land, and through the zig-zagging sort of direction which we came from to avoid the enemy, and at night you see we used to hear the depth charges going.
CB: Oh did you?
BY: Yeah, every night there were depth charges and submarine gunning for, you know, all that sort of thing, and fortunately we were lucky but a boat before us, in- Was sunk down and about thee-hundred went down, you know, you didn’t hear much about it, well the public didn’t know much about it. But- And the waves were cold, and the waves and the boats were going up like that, you see pictures of it now but- They were up to twenty feet sometimes-
CB: Were they really? Yeah.
BY: You know and-
CB: Not comfortable.
BY: That wasn’t comfortable that, but I think most of us were frightened, we were really frightened because we were there- We were defenceless, we didn’t have any armours, arms, we were just on that boat, and we had the handicap of what was flung at us by the, by the German naval people. But-
CB: So what did you do all day on the ship?
BY: Well we had- There was lots of little, all the- They made certain that we- There was quite a few people and the cookhouse was on a wire cage on the deck, open deck. This is hard to believe, you wouldn’t think- but- and I might be able to show you some of the information on- And then there was guards for spotting periscopes, or spotting any enemy ship which might’ve drifted into that way or any happening on the [unclear], on conditions of weather and if there was a- So we were occupied by doing sort of duties all the time, not all the time because there was a lot of- We could sit down in the mess decks down under and play cards or play games or draughts or whatever, chess or whatever. We passed the time away like that, and then eventually we got to Durban and we were allowed ashore there. We were there for a week, so we could leave the boat from twelve o’ clock mid-day to twelve o’ clock in the morning, to twelve o’clock at night, have to go back to the ship, back to our hammocks and all that sort of thing. But, in the meantime there was a scheme in Durban, and I think this applied to a lot of the South African sides, course the apartheid was very strong at that time, very much strong, and these English people or, we’ll call them white South African, they sort of encouraged- And I was going along with two fellows, two RAF fellows and two army chaps and they said, ‘Can we take you somewhere to give you a meal?’ and oh, you know, yes we could see there was some, you know- No, no restrictions there so were went with them, then we went to their house for the day, for the evening and they took us back to the boat at night and that sort of scheme, and that carried on for about five or six days, and they contacted to our parents, they wrote to our parents as civilians-to-civilians. So our parents knew roughly that we were all right as far as Durban was concerned, and then it was all back up through the Mozambique Channel, to the Suez Canal and we alighted at Port Suez, and then all stand- Hang around there for days and days, we didn’t get any money for a while, you know how it is. Everything was done alphabetically, and I was a ‘Y’ so I had to wait for my money till the second day or something, something like that, and then eventually it all- They already- There was some former thingy gone on, they had some workshops built there, they didn’t have the equipment all together or they, they- Some other boats must’ve brought in- But we had machine tools and things, and very soon after about a fortnight, three weeks, we started servicing Allison engines, twelve cylinder American engines which were fitted to-
CB: To Kittyhawk's?
BY: Kittyhawk's, Tomahawks. Tomahawks were the first one, then the Kittyhawk's, and also there were three sections, there was the Allison section which was the inline section, there was the Cyclone section which was a radial and the Pratt & Whitney section was also, Pratt & Whitney. So these three sorts of lines working at top speed, twelve-hour shifts to service them. A lot of them were coming in, in packages- The Americans sent them over to Takoradi somehow and they used to come through Deversoir back to where we were in Kasfareet just couple of miles outside the Suez Canal so, and there was plenty of workers, plenty of things to assemble and fit, and they all had to be tested as well so. Some were assembled by- If an aircraft came in with an engine to be changed, well the engine would be taken out and a new one would be put in and that sort of thing, and- So there was plenty of activity there, and this activity went on at the height of the war in the desert war, and they had several sort of Commander-in-Chief, who weren’t very good until Montgomery came along, he sorted all that out. He was a queer man really, I mean he would- He lived by himself in a tent with his batman and didn’t associate with anyone else but he was, he was a very keen operator, he knew and- Nearest we get to- Got to the line was about ten miles away at [unclear], they came down to us. So, it could’ve been a, a nasty episode and then that carried on, carried on and things got easier, lots of activity in the desert, sometimes some of us had to go into the desert to do a job and back again sort of thing, and then eventually we, we landed, or we’d driven by truck in a convoy of about hundred vehicles along to coast road of North Africa to Tripoli. Now a lot of people say there’s only- There’s two Tripoli’s, there’s Tripoli in Palestine or that part of the world, there’s another Tripoli in North Africa, and we went to the one in North Africa, which was quite well equipped because Mussolini spent a lot of time and he, his- He had some good thing about him, Mussolini, he colonised a lot of North Africa and he got work for the tribesman there and he got their, he got their side [unclear]- Anyway, it come to the point- It was three factories there, there was a Alfa Romeo factory, there was a- What was the other one? Well-known name, car factory, and we took over one of the car factories, and that was well equipped with everything we wanted and then we eventually transferred to Centaurus engines assembly centre- Which we then had cooperation with Bomber Command because they were flying and a lot of our work was down to 87 Squadron, I think it was, Beaufighters. You know, we- And then I was there a little while and then they flew us back again to Naples, and then come across again in a troop ship, another open ship over there, or a smaller ship and we carried on and then by that time, the British Army had conquered North Africa and then we’re talking about now 1942, ‘43 sort of thing, and then they moved across to Naples then, basically, and we settled in Naples and we did the same work there in Naples and- I was there at Naples for about eighteen months doing the same sort of work, you know, and- Enjoyed life ‘cause it was a bit easier and we had, we had better sort of living conditions in Italy, and I stayed there till Easter ‘45. So, I left my mother and father at the 1st of January 1941, and I never saw them again, I never spoke to them again till Easter ‘45. That’s a long time, now if you were married, you only stayed three years but I stayed four years and- Four years plus, and of course I should’ve come home on a bit- I got injured playing sport sort of thing, so I had to take- It was one troop used to go back in the 1940s to England every year, every month see, one troop out a month, so I had to stay back another month, not that I worried really ‘cause I was quite happy there and I had a nice little house, room overlooking the bay of Naples and could see Sorrento in- Sorrento were in far away and Capri were in high- You could see- It was a wonderful place to stay, so these are the plus sides of things, you know.
CB: How much work did you get done?
BY: Oh a lot of work, we had to work hard there. I mean ‘cause of continuous work coming in from the western desert-
CB: Is this damage, or servicing?
BY: Oh yes, damage some damage and some, quite ridiculous. I remember one case an aircraft was flown in, and the people that dealt it did very well, it was a piece of shrapnel, or bullet or something, gone through one side of the, one of the cylinders, and it went right through outside and out the other side and some clever fellow, he sort of made the two holes, rounded them either side, he poked a piece of tube in right the way through and then he drove two wooden spits into either side, and that aircraft flew back.
CB: Did it really?
BY: Yeah, it’s amazing that, I mean the pilot took a chance but he succeeded because the circulation of fluid in the twelve engines. But they were they were cheaper and easier to assemble then the Rolls Royce were, they weren’t so complicated. But- Where do we go from here?
CB: Right, so how long did you stay out there? So, we’re talking about getting into Naples then the Italian surrender-
BY: I got into Naples on October ’43, and I stayed there to Easter ’45, and we stayed in a vacated- What do they call them? Where people go mad. An asylum, it was quite a big hospital and we turned that into a proper workshop, where we could service aircraft and send them out, and all that sort of thing, any small items had to be done and- I think spares were the problem ‘cause they had to come from the UK. But they eventually did get because-
CB: Which of the aircraft-
BY: At that time, I think just about- I’m not quite certain what the date was when it- When the Mediterranean was cleared for English shipping to come through. I think it was ’44, I think. Or would it be, sometime when they were- When the invasion of Europe was, sometime-
CB: Well, they invaded Southern France after D-Day, so that meant that the Mediterranean was reasonably-
BY: I’m not certain about those facts Chris, but-
CB: What aircraft are you servicing now?
BY: For Beaufighters.
CB: Right, still Beaufighters.
BY: Yep, Beaufighters. They were the main things, ‘cause we were in sections so all our work was done- I was working on Allisons all the time see.
CB: And are these Coastal Command by now or are they Bomber Command- Middle East Air Force?
BY: They were Bomber Command, they were Bomber Command, well-
CB: Middle East Air Force?
BY: I’m not certain about that ‘cause they policed the Mediterranean for a long time.
CB: Were they rocket firing or, were they bomb dropping?
BY: They were bomb dropping and rocket firing yeah, but some of the, some of the very well-known pilots were killed in that, in that place because when the Mediterranean came under the control of the allies, parts of southern, the southern side of that below Israelia, Heliopolis[?] and all these places were still sort of under the jurisdiction of the Germans really, but that was soon cleared up and-
CB: The Vichy French?
BY: Yeah, that’s right yeah. But eventually it sorted itself out and-
CB: But in Italy, you were in the Naples area, but how far north did you go from Naples?
BY: Not very far.
CB: Right, and then where did you go from Naples?
BY: Naples, I went back to North Africa for a while, when the Centaurus came in because a team of Bristol aeroplane specialists came over to give us indication of the servicing, the stripping and the, you know, general of the Centaurus, which was a sleeve valve engine, and-
CB: Though, retro fitted to the Beaufighters were they?
BY: I don’t know are they? Yes, I think there were and I don’t know what other aircraft the fitted to, Buccaneers or something like that.
CB: No, no that’s a post-war-
BY: But while we were at sea coming or going out or- We would often see these pre-war, sort of aircraft flying around, you know. It’s quite amazing.
CB: So then, when did you return to the UK?
BY: As I said, April, Easter ‘45. I then went there to St Eval in Cornwall and 179 Squadron and they had, what’s the name- But their job was- And as we were at St Eval, war ended, European war ended.
CB: Ok.
BY: And the job was for- Our job was to go to every, every- The Atlantic or any of the waterways and direct the, any German vessels or whatever to enter English ports, and that was our job and, I was only there about two months and then, I was posted to Accrington in North of England, Northumberland on 213 Squadron then we went- That was a night fighter squadron, then- From then on my last four years in the Air Force was in night fighters, and that was-
CB: Were these nights fighter or were they interdictors who went in the bomber stream?
BY: They were all Mosquitos, latterly we had the Jet Age came in just as I was leaving, and that was an Armstrong Whitley fighter. You don’t hear much of ‘em but that’s what we had first of all, I’ve got a picture of them somewhere but-
Other: A jet plane?
BY: Hm?
Other: A jet plane?
BY: Oh yes.
CB: I’ll just stop there a bit.
BY: -14 Squadron-
CB: Which was at Accrington was it?
BY: No, no, this is at Coltishall.
CB: Oh Coltishall, ok.
BY: Which is now closed, near Norwich.
CB: Yep.
BY: I had a call to go the officers mess, and when I got there, it was the Squadron Leader there, a VR, volunteer reserve on- He’d come to visit the CO, it was a- Well they were doing a sort of volunteer’s activity on the weekends in those days, and I- And he called me and he said to me, he said, ‘I understand you’re,’ this is what he said to me, ‘I understand you’re leaving the Air Force in the next month or so.’ I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m now married and I want to raise a family and I feel that if I raise a family in, you know, civilian life it might be more advantageous.’ Anyway, I said, ‘My wife is a school-teacher in Bristol and, good school and, I don’t want to upset her sort of way of life’. ‘Oh that’s fair enough,’ he said, he said and he said, any-rate, he asked me a few questions then he said, ‘I you like-,’ he gave me a card, he said, ‘You come and see so and so on such and such a date, we’ll find something for you,’ so I said, ‘Oh what have you got in mind?’ ‘Oh,” he said, ‘We’re building up our sales unit.’ So I said to him straight away, ‘Well I don’t want to go on selling things,’ I said, ‘That’s not me,’ I said, ‘I’d rather, I joined the Air Force to learn about mechanics and sort of how to use my hands and how to use machine tools and, all the other things that go with that sort of life.’
CB: Yeah.
BY: So he said, ‘Well I tell you what,’ he said, ‘If you were still wanting to carry on and be turner, or slotter or,’ you know, all these sorts of things, he said, ‘We’re starting a small shop.’ And there was seven of us, not a very big shop it was, but we were there on our own, just the seven of us and we had quite a few machine tools in there, everything from presses to sort of, everything which was needed to do anything in the engineering, more or less, on a small scale [unclear], and, ‘Would you like to join that?’ I said, ‘Well that sounds, that sounds more my line.’ So I started there, I stayed there with them till I retired. But the beautiful thing about- Everyday- Now what we were doing, basically, the technicians in those days, I mean, in the drawing office, people were drawing, they were tracing and all that sort of- Well nowadays they don’t do that at all it’s all done electronic as you well know. What they were doing, the drawers would come to us with an idea to make something, to design something ‘cause this is unguided weapons ‘cause there was a lot of hard work in the early days of weapons to make certain everything was, you know, spot on and weight and all that sort of thing. So we used to get [unclear] of drawings come in to do that, some on ordinary paper, some on blueprints, mostly in blueprints and then you would, you know, study them, or and that was it. Some jobs would take a day, some days two days, sometimes a fortnight sort of thing, and every job was different, and some of this work it was the pre, what’s the word, before something goes into designing?
Other: Prototype?
BY: Hm?
Other: Prototype?
BY: Prototype, that’s the name. Before the prototype, we were getting everything before the prototype. Now in that case it was a lot of, well that’s not what we want or, that didn’t sort of suit us or that didn’t work out when it was tested, and we had a big cellar underneath and we’d just drop it underneath and wait for the next idea to come from them. So it was- I stayed with them because I found it interesting.
CB: What was the company?
BY: Bristol Air, Guided Weapons Department, and I stayed doing that, people say, ’Well you should’ve gone, you should apply for this and apply for that and gone or.’ I’m a believer in job satisfaction rather than job achievement, maybe I'm old fashioned, maybe I'm wrong, but here I am.
CB: Didn’t do you any harm did it?
BY: No.
CB: And you enjoyed the work?
BY: I enjoyed the work and I found it interesting.
CB: And you rose up in the-
BY: Well, I mean, I mean, your ability, and what is more you see, people are always coming down to us and saying, ‘Something’s wrong with my motorbike, I want a new bush or something,’ you know, and we would turn out a new bush for him or that sort of thing and he would give us half a crown or whatever. You know, I miss all that, and to make things for myself you know, odd times but my- But really and truly, all the time I was with them I was occupied all the day long.
CB: And you enjoyed it?
BY: Yeah.
CB: Now you’ve got three children, where did you meet your wife?
BY: I met my wife, first of all, her father’s a farmer and mother- She’s the youngest of seven children so, how can I put it? She was- She used to come home from Bristol to a place called Othery, which is not very far away, near Langport, you’ve heard of Langport, near Langport, to the farm, and help her mother every Friday or Saturday. She’d come round Friday evening and stay to Sunday night, go back to school on Monday morning, and at the same time I was at Locking, on this one year's course, fitter one's course.
CB: Yep, Weston-Super-Mare
BY: And we used to go up by train, she went back by train and we met on the station, I happened- In the old days the corridor trains, you know, you sort of meet and talk to people and- I used to see her several Sunday nights and then I wrote to her, she wrote to me I don’t quite know and it all started from there, and we got married this was 1948 sometime, ‘cause that was the year I was at Locking and then 1949 September we were married, and she was still teaching and then we bought this house, how much do you think I gave for this house?
CB: When?
BY: 19- I was what? 19- In 1951, I was thirty, it must’ve been about 1956 I bought it.
CB: Crikey
BY: 1956.
CB: Well less than-
Other: Thousand?
BY: Hmm?
Other: Thousand?
BY: Two-thousand- No.
CB: Was it?
BY: I bought it for two-thousand-and-fifty, it’s now worth-
CB: A bit more?
BY: A bit more, a lot more.
CB: Yeah, what do you reckon it’s worth now?
BY: Well, the house next door is empty, my neighbour next door she died not very long ago, couple of months ago and she’d lived there for sixty years.
CB: Gosh.
BY: And her house sold I think for three-eighty, three-hundred-and-eighty-thousand.
Other: [Chuckles]
CB: Amazing.
BY: I mean it’s ridiculous really.
CB: Yeah.
BY: And maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I'll tell you this. I came out of the Air Force with a thousand quid in my pocket. My wife, I used to send to my wife my Marriage Allowance ‘cause I was married for eighteen months. So she had about over a thousand. I was about five-hundred pounds short for buying the house so I went to the bank manager and he lent it to me and about three months we cleared our loan, I never had a mortgage on this house other than-
CB: Amazing.
BY: And I, you know, I think of my young boys there- Two of them living in London, well you know what it’s like.
CB: Yeah,
BY: It’s frightening
CB: Absolutely, nothing for a million.
BY: Nothing at all, and I tell them what they’re going to do I think, ‘cause one, John, that’s the one that his wife, or his partner really, she’s an Executive, she’s a bright girl, she’s in the Save The Children organisation. Good job with them earning good money, I don’t know what she’s earning but they’re thinking about- At the present moment they’re living in London and paying rent and I said to them, you know, ‘It’s better to buy somewhere, and pay your mortgage, because you have got something at the end of it, whereas you paying rent is just money down the drain’.
CB: That’s right, yeah.
BY: And John is working in London, he works for England’s Rugby Union
CB: Oh, does he?
BY: That’s John, so they’re all- But they’ve all got jobs and they’re coping alright and David’s retired but he’s got his own business he goes, ‘course he was well known in a lot of the people in London, reporters and the Editor of the Financial Times quite well, you know, ‘cause he was a spokesman for Engineer Employers Federation-
CB: Oh yeah, got around a bit.
BY: And he said to me, when he found out David retired ‘cause David he’s got MS as well.
CB: Yes, nasty.
BY: Doesn’t walk very well, and this chap said, you know, he said ‘You want to start a business on your own, just going round chairing meetings’ and that’s what he does.
CB: Oh does he really?
BY: He chairs meetings, goes round- So he must be good at it.
CB: Yeah, how intriguing.
BY: You gotta be firm when you’re a Chairman, not let them, let the sort of syllabus wander on and wander on, you’ll be there all night otherwise, but that’s what he’s doing now, and he does- He’s his own boss he can go when he likes and he lives in, in Southampton, goes up to London quite frequently and most of these businesses down in London ‘cause he said to me, ‘I know more people in London then I do in Southhampton,’ but-
CB: We’ve covered a lot of things and early one you mentioned a passion for rugby? So what’s happened to your rugby life?
BY: Well, my rugby life, first of all started off learning- I come from a rugby village but, and I played quite a bit in the services, I was always in the station team and then I played in that- I tell you what, I’ve got a cap in there with a tassel on it, because there was a competition between the eight Commands; Fighter, Bomber, Tech Training, Flying Training, [unclear], what’s the [unclear].
CB: And Coastal?
BY: Coastal Command, it was quite- And they all have got a big command, there were a lot of men in the Air Force in those days in- This is 19- 1942 I think- No, no 1950 something and, so I- We had- They saw I was capable so they selected me out from Coltishall and I went with others and we assembled at Uxbridge as a Command side, and we played this competition against all the other Commands and we won it outright you see, and we had a hell of a time when we won ‘cause we were invited to Bentley Priory, and had a big- I think there was about, eight or nine officers and there was one All-Black was a player, there was one current in National playing in the side- So there, you know- They all knew what it’s all about sort of thing and we had a wonderful time and I’ve got a few photographs, you’ve seen one or two there and I’ve got a cap, they sent me a cap with the excuse, ‘We’re short of money, normally our caps are made of velvet but I’m sorry,’ but they got it printed on there, I’ll show you in a minute before you go.
CB: So when-
BY: And in between I played for Bridgewater and Albion, and I’ve played for Weston-Super-Mare, I’ve played for Devonport Services, I guested for Norwich and Lowestoft when I was over at Coltishall and so, you know, I’ve been around a little bit. Fortunately, I’m still here Chris, to tell the tale.
CB: Really good, yeah. Well Bert Yeandle, thank you very much for a most interesting conversation-
BY: Well I hope I’ve been- I hope it makes sense for your-
CB: I think it will fit really well, thank you.
BY: Do you? Really?
CB: We do, absolutely, thank you.
BY: Mostly-
CB: Your engines?
BY: Well the first engine I worked was a trainee engine, was a Morris Motors car, yep, that was in training, but then we came out I worked on Centaur, Pegasus, Merlins, Griffins, what’s the other ones?
CB: Derwent?
BY: Derwent, yes.
CB: Jet?
BY: I’m not very, I haven’t seen a lot of Jet engines because when I came out of the Air Force, I went into guided weapons you see, so that was the slight-
CB: So you were really a rockets man as well?
BY: Yeah.
Other: In terms of beauty, which would you say was the most beautiful engine you’ve worked on?
BY: Oh, the Rolls Royce, no doubt about it. It’s the most efficient, yeah, and I’ve worked- A lot of aircraft I’ve worked on, all sort of aircraft you know, Spitfires and Hurricanes, a little bit of Hurricanes, and Mosquitos are the aircraft I spent a lot of time on, and Wellingtons early on. They were not very good, you know, Wellingtons. Well in hindsight they’re not very- They were at the time, I mean, industry moves on, technicians move on and development moves on but I mean, an awful lot of aircraft that were built that were rubbish really and now when you compare with what there is at the latter part of the prop jets. See I came over, I flew over from Belfast to East Midlands just now, came over on a prop jet.
CB: Oh, did you?
BY: Hundred people on it, so they still use them, not that I- Fleebye-
CB: Flybe.
BY: Flybe, but I like to fly with [unclear] the one, yeah. Well-
CB: Thank you.
BY: I should’ve liked to of given you a cooked meal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bertram Arthur Yeandle
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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01:53:57 Audio Recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AYeandleBA181229
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Egypt
Great Britain
Italy
Libya
North Africa
Egypt--Suez Canal
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Norfolk
England--Somerset
England--Oxford
England--Shropshire
Italy--Naples
Libya--Tripoli
England--Oxfordshire
Description
An account of the resource
After leaving school, Bertram Yeandle joined the RAF apprentice scheme and trained as an engine fitter at RAF Halton. After completing his apprenticeship at RAF Cosford, he was posted to 148 Squadron, RAF Harwell, where he serviced Wellingtons. In January 1941, Yeandle was posted overseas. He describes his journey via Sierra Leone and Durban and servicing Allison engines near the Suez Canal. He then travelled to Tripoli, North Africa, where he serviced Centaurus engines for Beaufighters. In 1943, he was posted to Naples, Italy, and service aircraft there until Easter 1945. Finally, Yeandle describes his post-war life, including meeting his wife, competing in an RAF rugby competition, and working in weapon development after leaving the air force.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Jean Massie
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
148 Squadron
Anson
Beaufighter
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
hangar
Oxford
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cosford
RAF Halton
RAF Harwell
RAF Locking
RAF St Eval
sport
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1238/16152/AMartinEJ181202.2.mp3
dcc21034e9fc49c0be47fc6c89fc524f
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
Martin, John
Ernest John Martin
E J Martin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ernest 'John' Martin (b. 1922, 1469537 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator, was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-02
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.
Identifier
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Martin, EJ
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GC: Ok, ok. Hello, my name’s Gary Clark, I’m at the home of John Martin to interview John for the oral history digital archive for the International Bomber Command Centre, and hello John.
JM: Hello.
GC: And, welcome to your interview, and can we start with your date of birth and where you came from?
JM: The date of birth is the 16th of June 19- 1922, which makes me ninety-six.
GC: And, so what made you think to join the RAF?
JM: Well, in my youth very, very few people could fly or could afford to fly, aircraft were very few on the ground and this came, I'm sorry to say not as a- The idea of getting at the Germans, I joined up with the idea- I could see an opportunity to fly [emphasis], which I did of course. So, that was the- I must be honest, that was the main reason but, I'm always glad I joined the RAF because it’s a great experience, you meet so many people from different parts of the world, so I enjoyed that and valued that part just as much as being able to fly. So, that was it [chuckles].
GC: So, how old were you when you?
JM: I was nineteen when I volunteered, yes, and I was in what was a reserved occupation then, and if you’re interested in this bit, so I could get into- I never imagined myself- I'd only had an ordinary elementary education, I never imagined myself being accepted for aircrew and flying and pilot or anything, navigator. So, I thought, well an armourer you’d be quite close to the aircraft and I volunteered as an armourer [emphasis] and I went to the recruiting centre, passed the medical, everything was going well, and suddenly somebody came up and said, ‘Mr Martin, I'm sorry we can’t accept you, you’re in a reserved occupation’, I packed up again [laughs]. So, I didn’t get in as an armourer but then I knew that if you could get into aircrew, any occupation you might be have- Might be in then was ignored and aircrew took priority. So, very gingerly- Well the- There used to be advertisements in the local, in all papers, national papers and everything wanting people for aircrew, but it always stated at the bottom of the advertisement that a secondary education is essential, or words to that effect, and of course I'd had elementary education so that was me out all the time, and then I noticed after- Well probably a year [emphasis] I would think, they dropped that bit about the secondary education so I volunteered for it, and I got accepted. No, prior to actually volunteering I knew my maths were not good enough and that but luckily, I had this friend who’d had a better education than I, he was keen to get into aircrew, so he coaxed me along up to a better standard and off I went to volunteer and to my surprise- Oh there’s a wireless operator you see, I thought that’s not aiming too high and I was interested in wireless you see, and I thought that’s a very interesting job to be in. Anyway, I went before the selection board as a potential wireless operator, and if you could imagine a row of six group captains and they hardly knee[?] it and they’re sitting there nodding to each other like this, and I thought I'm never going to get through this. To my surprise at the end of the interview they said, ‘Well, Mr Martin we think you’ll make a very good pilot and we’re going to enlist you as pilot’. Which I did, I was over the moon about that of course, you know. Anyway, I was called up- Put on deferred service for some months and then called up, report to St Johns Wood in London and went through all the procedures and you get tuition in morse code and maths, and the interesting bit of it is a lot of the lectures and tuition takes part in a building of Lords Cricket Ground. In fact, it’s the [emphasis] room I think, where the committee sits and I presume drink whisky and watch the match going on, and this is where we sat, and on the wall at one end there’s a picture of W. G. Grace looking down on us [chuckles] and I really thought I'd gone up in the world then, you know, and we had- Used to use a lot of the zoo, the London Zoo buildings for things. Anyway, this went on, having more tuition in maths and sitting in the classroom there then, this (I forget who he was) a flight lieutenant or something came in and said, ‘Right, all you lot are bomb aimers’ [laughs] just like that, no- And it turned out in the end we learned that there was a great shortage of bomb aimers so they were going to use all the recruits in that purpose and I did find out at a later date, whether it was in force when I joined or not, but they never recruited people as pilots or bomb aimers or navigators, they were PNB’s so they could be used for any position in the crew you see. So, anyway, I don’t know where I found the courage but I spoke up for myself then, I said, ‘Look, I wanted to be a wireless operator, you told me I was a pilot and now you say I'm a bomb aimer, I'm not too- I’d like to go on- Carry on to be a wireless operator’. Oh, he didn’t know about that, he said, ‘I’ll let you know about that later’. Anyway, he came back in a couple of hours into the classroom and said, ‘Yes, that’s alright, you can go on as a wireless operator’. So, packed up in London and went off to Blackpool then, where you do elementary things like morse and semaphore, semaphore and drill, foot drill and all of that on the promenade, yeah.
GC: Square bashing was it?
JM: Square bashing yeah, and then you go off to a signal school that specialises in signals and I went to Yatesbury in Wiltshire, No. 2 signal school I think that, and then in those days wireless operators were not taken directly onto the next stage of training, they were put out to get a bit of experience as a ground wireless operator, and believe it or not I was sent to a mustang squadron [chuckles] which is an army co-operation squadron and they didn’t have a morse key on the station and the only thing to with signals really was that I had to fill in a book for a dispatch rider to take off up to London to say- To state the service ability of the aircraft on the squadron. But it was very, very interesting on that squadron, and the commander, the squadron leader commander, I've never known a person like him before or since [phone rings]. Yeah, and as I say it was very enjoyable because the CO was a very down to earth man, he called a spade a spade and that was it and he told you what he thought of you or- And he was very easy to get on with. In fact, the- When I did the second day I was there, the flight sergeant who I was working under said, ‘The old man wants to see you’, oh, so went off, timidly got to his office and tapped on the door and he bellowed, ‘Come in’, and he’s on the telephone when I get in there so I’m standing there rigidly to attention, and he said, [mouthing and motioning to sit down] he means me to sit down in a chair, and actually I looked around to see if somebody had come in behind me, you know, no it was me [emphasis] who got to sit in the chair, never heard of anything like that before. Next thing you know, he’s- A cigarette packet, ‘Cigarette?’ [laughs]. It was a shock if anything, you know, to come across this, that such a person was running this squadron, and that was his way of going on all the time, you know, and he called most people by their Christian names and, and he was a fine man to be under but quite- Never met anybody before or since like him [chuckles] and what they were- Would of done of course, they would’ve been preparing for the invasion I suppose, you know, they were an army co-operation squadron and they used to set off from, from the airfield with, oh several lorries carrying their own runways in a roll and when they came back after probably ten days they all looked like a load of tramps [chuckles], not had a shave or anything it was, you know, really a rough bunch, and- Apparently where they were there was a NAAFI van which the- Only the other ranks were allowed to use, anybody but- Up to a corporal you can use the NAAFI, but there’s the poor officers and that they got nothing, but the CO he gets onto one of the guys, ‘Here, give us your greatcoat’, put on his greatcoat and went in the NAAFI [laughs]. You can- You know, I never met a man before or since [chuckles] like him, it’s just how he went on. But it was grand and then- Anyway, my posting came through to continue with the air operating wireless course, and he got me in the office, he says, ‘Look here’, he said, ‘Do you really want to do this? Bloody dangerous this Bomber Command lark’ he says, and I said, ‘Yes, I think I would’, ‘You sure?’ he said, ‘I can get you off, you can stop here with me if you like?’. I said, ‘No, I think I like’, ‘Well, alright, well good luck to you, best of luck to you’, and off I went, and you go then to the, to the next signal school where you do- Start off with the ground duties but then you convert to air operating, starting off on an aircraft which is- Which we called the de Havilland Domni- Dominie, and it was in- Had a civilian life of a de Havilland Rapide. What it was, was a seven-seater airliner which they used to use to go to the Channel Isles and that sort of- Short trips like, and it was rigged out so that there were five pupil wireless operators and one instructor and you took off and flew fairly locally for a while, keeping in communication on the wireless from- In the aircraft, doing everything they tell you, air comms, set exercises you see, and then when you get a bit more advanced you go on longer trips and a bit higher to start taking loop bearings on the loop aerial, and then when you completed that successfully, got through that, you go on flying solo on your own on these little aircrafts, Percival Proctor they were called, and to our delight they were fitted out for the civilians, you know, had the lovely head lining in and the seats were all leather and all that they did, they took one of the front seats out of the aircraft and I sat on the back seat and my equipment was in front of me either side of the pilot. That was very, very nice but the problem is that the pilots who were flying these Proctors, quite a portion of them were fighter pilots and some of them had been in the Battle of Britain and they were as mad as hatters [chuckles]. They would be doing all sorts of twists and turns and there you are with a- Your log book strapped to your knee, with a pencil in your hand and one minute you’re trying to force the pencil off the paper because they’re climbing so rapidly, and the next minute they’re diving so hard you can’t get the pencil down to the paper, and here’s the morse signal still going on of course, which you’re supposed to be taking down and that, and- But the thing was that if you complained about them you’d probably get far worse next time. But luckily there were some quite nice pilots on there and especially stuck in my mind was two officers of the Royal Indian Air Force, and they were still wearing their turbans, they had special earphones and they were real [emphasis] gentlemen, you know, and when you come down, they say, ‘Did I do that well, for you? I didn’t-’, yes and you know, real gentlemen they were. Anyway, got through that, quite alright. I say after the struggle with these mad pilots and then the next stage of training, went off to a place on the Welsh coast, not far from Bridgend to do what they call an emergency gunnery course, but it doesn’t entail any flying at all, it’s a ground-based flying, two Brownings on a- Mounted on a pedestal and that’s the only- And that was all was necessary really because when you get up into the four-engine bombers you don’t go near the guns anyway. So, it was only an emergency course, and then, the end of that this is when your presented with your wings, which is a great occasion of course. I can always remember the old group captain, I think I can imagine they kept him locked away somewhere and when it came to the wings presentation, they got him out and he comes along with, ‘Oh congratulations my boy, congratulations’, he gets to me and says, ‘Congratulations old boy’, phew [emphasis] and these great whisky fumes [chuckles] all over me, and his uniform was more green then blue he’d had it that long, but there’s a nice old boy, did the job well. And then you go off to- From there when all that is completed, we went off further up the Welsh coast near to Caernarfon, which is now Caernarfon airport I think, but you do what you call, advanced flying training and we were equipped with Ansons, Avro Ansons there which is a very nice aircraft to fly in and it was known as the flying glasshouse because great big Perspex canopy, and it was used in the early days of the war by the, by the Navy- In co-operation with the navy, coastal command, looking for U-Boats, that’s a submarine, and it would’ve been a very good aircraft but, the problem of course it was very slow, and- But it was very nice aircraft to fly in and we did some wonderful flying from there, going up the west coast of the country, over the isle of Anglesey, quite close to the Isle of Man and you could see all- And you had a map in front of you as well and you could pick out all these little tiny islands, and some of them were so small they were just a grass patch, no houses, and sometimes you could see who I presume was the farmer rowing across the [chuckles]. Oh, and the weather of course was extremely great, it was in June 1943, and it couldn’t have been more ideal flying if you’d have paid thousands of pounds to do it, and during that time you get your first experience of night flying. That was a bit of a scare to start with [chuckles], nobody told me that you can see the exhaust gases burning flying past and I thought it was a fighter [emphasis] on our tail [chuckles] but no, it’s the sparks coming off the two engines. You get used to that and then when you, when you finished that course you feel fairly competent then, and the next step is off to Operational Training Unit, and we went to a very nice station called Cottesmore in the- Rutland, Rutlandshire, and it was what you call a peacetime station, built between the wars and you had all the mod-cons there, very comfortable but in fact we, the trainees were billeted in a country house about a couple of miles away, or less, perhaps only a mile, but we were taken each way by bus, didn’t have to walk or anything, lived like gentlemen we did, and that was very interesting. But then, suddenly, ‘You’re all gonna be moved’. ‘You’re all going to be moved’, and there was a rumour that the Americans were going to come to Cottesmore and we thought, oh fancy giving it to them, you know, and we went to a brand-new airfield called Husbands Bosworth, that was in- On the borders of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and- To complete the Operational Training Unit course, and this of course, you really get down your flying operational aircraft or, and you’re really getting down to business, and you do (with the whole crew)- Start off by doing what they call circuits and bumps, that’s taking off and landing, taking off and landing, taking off and landing. But, one problem about that is, that the airfield was nowhere near complete in its construction and the pilot had to watch out for lorries [chuckles] and one chap actually took about three feet off the end of his wing tip on a GPO engineers' lorry, you know. Very difficult it was, but there you are it happened [unclear] then- And the CO of course, of the station, would be under pressure to get going, ‘Come on get it going’, and all that. He couldn’t say, ‘Well give it a rest’ or anything, and so it went, and you, you do things like drop bombs from there, and all the while you’re doing wireless exercises which are done in co-ordination with the rest of the- But everybody’s learning then, the pilot, the navigator, the gunners. You’re all learning but all learning your own bit.
GC: So how did you- What was it like being crewed together then? How did you crew up?
JM: Ah yes now should’ve mentioned that. At Cottesmore, you’re all brought together in a room, and believe it or not there’s tea and biscuits on hand, and you sit down at these little tables and get talking and move about if you want to, and the idea is that you form a crew entirely on your own bat. Nobody guides you or orders you or anything, and I saw this very strong nice looking chap, bit older than us and I thought he looks nice and steady and I went up to him and said, ‘Do you want a wireless operator?’, ‘Yes, yes’, and he’d already got navigator and a bomb aimer and thing, so it was just a matter of getting a rear gunner, which we did, a very good one, Dick Walton[?], and that’s how we formed up, and that’s the most informal thing I've ever know I should think [chuckles]. Now, I was talking to- Or rather, in correspondence, with a modern fighter jet pilot and he said, ‘Yes, that was the fine idea, but it’s not allowed anymore ‘cause they thought it- You got too familiar with each other’. So, although they’ve only got a crew of two, they change every so often. I suppose, they must’ve found this an advantage, but in those days, we got together ourselves and did everything together really, and, and that’s how it went, and as I say you’re doing things which get more and more advanced, your exercises that you do, and you finish up with a quite a long cross-country trip and then in those days, from that station we were converted to what was the, the main airfield. We were a satellite of a larger airfield and we were transferred to there to complete our training, still on the Wellingtons but, doing more advanced and much longer cross-countries, probably six, seven hours perhaps some of them, you finish up with that is, and then, the next thing to do- That’s all been done on Wellingtons but the poor Wellington had been pushed out by now and it was four-engine bombers. So, you were then sent off to what they call the conversion unit, that was to fly. And we had the advantage there which didn’t last much after we did it, of flying all three of the heavy bombers, the Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster, and each had their qualities. The old Stirling was the most comfortable and spacious. The only thing of course is that, you couldn’t fly very high which wasn’t very good on operations. The Halifax was quite a good aircraft to fly in and you were on two levels, which was quite- Something never experienced before, the pilot and the engineer are on a higher level, navigator, wireless operator, down on the lower level, but very comfortable aircraft to fly in. And, then of course the Lancaster, and before we finished the, what they call a conversion course, it became quite obvious that they wanted all the Lancasters on the squadron, and we were engaged taking Lancasters to a squadron and bringing back their Stirling or Halifax- No they kept- Never Halifax, always Stirlings [unclear], flying the Stirlings back, and I learnt afterwards that that’s what the only aircraft they had on the conversion unit, they didn’t get a chance to fly Lancasters because Harris, our boss, butcher Harris as we called him, he was a very hard man and thank goodness he was, because he was one of the few that really got on with the war, and he wanted every Lancaster on a squadron, bombing Germany. For some- I’d learnt from somewhere, that he got a bit of a grudge against the Halifax, and I don’t know why, if he fell out with the manufacturers or what, but he was all for the Lancaster, that was the thing and- So we finished up on Lancasters and went to a Lancaster squadron, number 166, and that’s where you learn what you let yourself in for, because that’s when you start to see, ‘Well he didn’t get back last night’, ‘No he didn’t, no’. There was a chart in the CO’s office and we were all called in there to start with and, I'm looking at this chart and at the end of- There’s a great list of names there of the crews that are there, not there but had been there, and at the end of one or two of them there was a star [emphasis] and I said, said to the CO, ‘I suppose sir, they didn’t get back, they got shot down?’, ‘No [emphasis] they’ve finished their tour’ [chuckles]. Which was a bit of a shaker, you know, and that’s how it was actually but, we only managed to be on our third before this fighter got us. Each time to Berlin we went. But of course, you don’t get used to going to Berlin because you go a different way each time and come back a different way, and in any case when you’re up at twenty-thousand feet there’s no sign posts or say, ‘Oh yes, we turn right here’, or anything like that, you’re all- You’re depending entirely on your navigator and you do get one or two markers on the way that are dropped by the pathfinders just in front of you. But if you’re not pretty well where you should be, you wouldn’t see the markers anyway so, there you are. So, the navigator had to be pretty well up on it, and the first time we went to Berlin, I didn’t know it at the time, but we were in the very first wave, and when we got there, there was nothing going on at all, and I switched over to the intercom because most of the time of course, the wireless operator is not listening to- His listening to his own wireless signal. Switched over to the intercom to hear the skipper saying to the navigator, ‘Are you sure we’re there Jock?’, and Jock saying, ‘Yes I'm sure we are Jimmy, we are, we are’. Jimmy said, ‘Well we must be early, we’ll have to do a dog-leg’, and just as he said that, the flak opened up and you could hear everybody in the aircraft go [gasps], like that. Terrible sight, and you just think you will never [emphasis] get through that, you know.
GC: Are you aware of the other planes around you?
JM: Oh yes, very much so and you can see them getting shot down which isn’t- Doesn’t add to your [chuckles] morale very much, and you realise that some of them never stand a chance of getting out, probably being hit by an anti-aircraft shell and just explode straight away. But, anyway on this third trip we were just very nearly up to the target and I was still switched off the intercom, listening to what we called then was tinselling and it was- What you were tasked with was listening out on the receiver, you’re given a frequency band at briefing and you keep switching over this band and you’re trying to pick up enemy ground to air, or air to ground patter and what you can do then is, once you know the frequency, you can tune in your own transmitter to that frequency and there’s a microphone in one of the engines and as you press the key, the noise of that engine would be sent over the frequency, much to the annoyance of the Germans on the ground and in the air, you see.
GC: So, you’re jamming them in a sort-
JM: Jamming of it, yeah, yeah. So that’s what you were doing a lot of the time, but I don’t know if this was just a squadron thing or whether it was accepted throughout Bomber Command but they said, ‘You can, with a long stretch reach back to twiddle the knobs on the receiver and at the same time look out at the astrodome, helping the gunners looking for fighters’, you see, and I was doing this right and the every so often, twice an hour, you get what you called a group broadcast that’s coming through for No 1 Group, and that’s very important that you get that because there’s no telling what might be on it. But mainly it’s telling you what winds have been found by the pathfinders just in front of you, which you immediately give to the navigator because he wants that for his flight plan. Anyway, I look back at the clock and its ten-past eight, I thought oh time to get that broadcast so I swung round very quickly and I didn’t have time to readjust the set and these canon shells came flying past my arm and I was smothered in green crystals or burning- Something burning from the shells exploding. I was sparkling with green, and I realise later how lucky I was, they must’ve just ripped past my arm. Well, I know they did ‘cause I saw them, and anyway I knew then it was time to get on- Switch back to the intercom and I switched back to the intercom to hear immediately the skipper saying, ‘Bail out, bail out’, because he knew the aircraft had been that badly hit, you see, it was hopeless, and the navigator and I (he sat just in front of me), we stowed our parachutes side by side on the other side of the aircraft. We were just like one man grabbing our chutes and clipping them on. All you wear while you’re flying, of course is a harness but you can’t wear the parachute pack because you were- Be too obstructive to any work you’re doing, so you stow your pack separately, making sure you know where it is of course, and off we went to try to bail out. Now, you’ve got a strict drill to follow, which you’re always told from when you first start on Lancasters and I was supposed to open the rear door of the cockpit, go down the fuselage and out of the back door with the mid-upper gunner, and as soon as I opened the door, the flames [emphasis] I could see and it appeared the whole fuselage was burning fiercely. But even so I could look through them a bit and see Bob Brown the mid-upper gunner climbing out of his turret, but the turret itself was right keeled over to one side, it must’ve caught a lot of the heavy canon shells I should think, and-But there was Bob Brown climbing out of it. So, I thought he’d have a good chance of getting out. So, my first thought was slam this door shut again to keep the flames back and I thought, what I'll do, I'll follow the rest of the crew out through their escape hatch in the nose, and the bomb aimer would go first, so he should do because he’s laying over it, and then would be the navigator and then the pilot and then the engineer, I think that was the order. But you had to stick to the order that you went on. And, I thought, well, what do I do, you know, well I can’t barge in on them. So, by that time I knew the aircraft was in a very steep dive, so I thought well there’s something I can do and I went and struggled forward, got in the pilot seat, tried- The idea, try to pull the aircraft out of the dive, but as soon as I touched the stick I knew it was useless, it was flopping about, I think the controls had been cut down in the fuselage, so I couldn’t do that, and I thought well I'm going to die now, and I was certain I was going to die. So, I went back and sat in my seat, and then in all the panic I remembered that I- On my desk at one side you’ve got two buttons and if you press them simultaneously it blows up the IFF set down in the fuselage which is a means of identifying whether something coming up behind you is a friend or foe, and also of course when you’re coming back or going out the, the ground crew at- The ground people want to know who you are. So, that was what that was for, but of course I didn’t want it falling into the hands of the enemy. So, you got strict orders, I pressed the two buttons and blow it up but, of course in my panic I'd forgotten to do this [chuckles], but I did do it when I came back, whether it was still there to blow up or whether it had been blown away I don’t know. But I thought this is it I'm going, because the aircraft by then was almost standing on its nose I should think, and- The next thing I remember was this huge red flash, but no- I didn’t- I don’t remember any noise in the explosion, and the next thing I knew I was spinning over and over in the air and seeing this great piece of fuselage go flying past me, it was that close, I'm very lucky that it didn’t hit me, and then the parachute opened, but I can’t remember pulling it myself. I rather think that what happened that, as I was being blown out the D-ring on the pack got caught in a piece of the wreckage which pulled it and just like- Out I went. But anyway, we were flying at about twenty-thousand feet when we were first attacked, but when I got enough sense to look down now that the parachute having opened, I think there was no more than a thousand-feet, very close [chuckles] and looking down I think, I'm going to go straight in that canal. I thought it looked just like a canal, the long straight thing. I thought, well that’s alright I don’t mind where I drop [chuckles]. But as it- Well I found out later it was a main road, and it was wet, so from above it would look like a canal. But I landed in this, it was like semi-rural area and I landed in this small field but I didn’t have enough sense to get myself off the ground, I was being dragged along by the parachute and it was quite some time before I thought I’ve got to stand up and collapse the thing, you know, which I did eventually and managed to uncouple it, and I lay there for some time thinking how badly I'd been hurt, I knew I'd been hurt, my head and my knees and arms, pretty painful. But then I thought come on, go on, you’ve got to get away from here because we get no end of instruction what to do, get as far away from the scene of the crash as possible and you might stand a chance of evading, and I've got that in my mind, I thought I've got to get rid of this parachute for starts and I could see a straw stack or a hay stack, so I thought that’s the place, put it in there. But of course, I learnt later that must’ve been obvious to the Germans where I'd put it as well [chuckles]. But anyway, I staggered along, hardly knowing where I was going, next thing I knew I'd gone onto this main road and straight away two soldiers there with fixed bayonets and rifles got you. So, you know that-
GC: So, you got caught then?
JM: Took me across the road to their- And I think what it was, there was a searchlight unit because when I got inside this hut thing, they- I could see they were Luftwaffe personnel, they weren’t army, they were Luftwaffe and under German rules all things like anti-aircraft guns and searchlight are controlled by the Luftwaffe aren’t they, not the army, as we were in Britain like. So, anyway, the good thing was they were very kind to me really, and they immediately sent off for a medical sergeant and he came and he was a nice old boy he was and spent a lot of time, and I couldn’t think what he kept pressing my leg for, and I know now what he- He was seeing if I'd got any flak buried in my legs you see, I'm sure that’s what he was trying to do. But, anyway, he gave me quite a lot of time and attention, and he bandaged my head up in paper bandages, and he said, you know, more or less told me I was- Would be alright, and then they- The rest of them told me that in a little while I'd be taken to their headquarters, and in the meanwhile I thought I'd got some coins in my pocket and that’s forbidden, you shouldn’t take any money with you when you’re flying, and I thought I’ll get rid of this, so I gave it away as souvenirs [chuckles] and they were very grateful to receive them you see. So, then I was carted off in a car to the, what I presume was the headquarters of these searchlight units, and I was taken upstairs into a, quite a large room and there sat a sergeant and to my surprise he was holding my parachute [chuckles], I presume it was mine, he tossed it over and motioned to me to put it on the floor and lay down in front of him, and he sat at the desk with his pistol on the thing there listening to this wireless that’s playing very German regimental music, all night long, and he said, ‘You mustn’t move’, and that. So, then next morning I was taken off downstairs again to a hut, somewhere outside this building which I presume was the living quarters of some of these people, and they were quite kind to me and I was surprised how many of those could speak English, and one of them I spoke to- Speaking to, he says, ‘Where did you, where did you live?’, and I thought, should I tell him this? You know, and I thought no it can’t do any harm, I said, ‘Well, you know the Wembley Stadium?’, ‘Jah, Jah, Jah’, said, ‘Near there’, ‘Near Wembley Stadium [emphasis]?’, ‘I played football there as a youth’ [chuckles]. Yeah, so quite easy to get on with but- And they even gave me a midday meal but I couldn’t eat it, you know, perhaps it was the shock and concussion and all that and it wasn’t very appetising, but they were getting stuck into it and when they asked me, ‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’ and I said, ‘No’, well they were all in and, you know, they soon finished it off [chuckles] because I learned later that their rations weren’t very good either, the ordinary- I think the front line troops were treated very well but they went down in stages, the quality and quantity, till they got down to what they call garrison troops and they were the people who’d be guarding us you see, and they didn’t get very much, well I don’t know about much but their fare wasn’t very good, bit of old German sausage which they called wurst I think, and couple of slices of black bread, you know. But anyway, I was kept there and they told me that very soon I'd be collected and taken in to Berlin, and we weren’t very far out of course now. Anyway, they ushered me out and there’s this great long Mercedes there, the longest Mercedes and poshest Mercedes I’d ever seen. There were these two smart Luftwaffe guys in the front, sitting there, but in the back was David [emphasis] the engineer, head bandaged up like this and he were grinning, grinning and laughing his head off at seeing me coming out, I'm [chuckles] stumbling and that. Anyway, I was let in and the, the chap, the officer in the passenger seat he immediately whips out his pistol and said, ‘You two know each other?’, and, ‘No, no, we don’t know each other, no, it’s another Englishman, you know’, and he seemed to accept that, but we knew from- We used to get a lot of lectures from intelligence, you know, and you tell them as little as possible. I mean if they knew we were in the same crew that would be helpful to them, and we were always warned about the interrogation we were going to get. Anyway, we were taken off in this car to Tempelhof airfield, which was like a small airfield more or less in the centre of Berlin, I think, and we were put down in the cellar and before long we were joined with some more RAF aircrew, obviously been shot down that night and they looked a bit knocked about like us I think, and we were told that we’d be there for a while, then we knew we were going off to a place called Dulag Luft. We’d heard a lot about Dulag Luft from our intelligence and this is where they interrogated every allied airman. You all went there for this interrogation, and- But we set off by train, a passenger train and we sat there like lords in the passenger- But the sergeant in charge of the party, he warned us, he said, ‘Now, whatever you do, make yourself’, in his own words, ‘Make yourself as scarce as possible, be as inconspicuous as possible’, he said, ‘Because the civilian population are very hostile towards allied airmen’. So, we understood this and we kept as quiet as we could. Anyway, we arrived at, where's Düsseldor- I’m trying to think of the town that Dulag Luft was attached to-
GC: It was- I’m not sure.
JM: I’ll tell you later when I think of it. Anyway, we get to our destination and we’re waiting on the platform for some transport to take us to Dulag Luft from the rail station to Dulag Luft, and ooh anyway while we were waiting there, there was a plate layer working on the line, he gets up his hammer and takes a swing at one of our chaps and this of course drew the attention to all the crowds on the platform as to who we were, and they started to come forward en masse and, luckily this sergeant in charge of the party, that was escorting us- [whispering in background].
GC: Frankfurt?
JM: Yeah. Yes, the crowds on the platform they realised who we were, allied gangsters as they called us, gangsters we were and they surged towards us en masse and it’s very, very frightening but, luckily- I don’t know if it had happened before to this sergeant who was in charge of us, but he immediately pushed us up against the wall and formed a D round us with his troops and they raised their automatic weapons and they made it quite clear even to our English ears that if they came to (this crowd that were coming), if they came any closer, he would open fire, you know, and there was a bit of a hesitation there, but eventually all grumbling and mumbling they split up and went away. But I shall always be extremely grateful to that sergeant, the way he handled that situation. As I say, whether it had happened to him before, but he certainly did it right, and did it in quick thinking. Anyway, from, from Frankfurt station, believe it or not, we went to the Dulag Luft interrogation centre by tram car [emphasis], which seemed a bit odd but when you think about it, it’s very efficient, we were the only ones on the tram and we got on the tram just outside the station and it put us down, right outside Dulag Luft, and as we went into the place, you go up the first insight into what you’re going to get there, the- As you approach it, you were obviously going into the main door and we could see that one of the windows had been deliberately broken and it had been stuffed up with the foil that we used to drop on bombing raids, that fooled radar and it had the code name of Window, and they pushed it in there and what they were saying is, ‘We know what you call this stuff and you thought it was a secret didn’t you?’ you know, and that’s your first touch of psychology you might say [unclear]. Anyway, we were moved into the main hall and then almost immediately we were split up into individuals and I was marched out between two or three Luftwaffe airmen, taken into a room where I was made to strip out entirely, no consideration to any injuries that I've got, you know, get stripped out and they got my clothes and immediately in the- In our battle dress blouse, around the waistband at the back where you had sewn in the back (we knew it was there ‘cause we) like a passport type photograph and with great gesture and that, they got their knives and cut that out, you know, ‘We know where to look for that’, you know. Trying to demoralise you all the time, you see, and then you also- One of your buttons on your battle dress has got a magnetic dot on it so it would act as a compass and they, ‘Oh there it is’, and cut that off, you know. They were being as psychologically cruel to you as they possibly could, you know, and then they did things like light a cigarette and blow the smoke in your face as though to say, ‘We Germans have got everything’, you see, you know?
GC: Yeah.
JM: And, we had been warned about this sort of thing so it was a bit of help, but then we- The last thing that they did, we were issued just- Not long before I was shot down with some long john underpants and they were made of pure silk and wool and they were very good for keeping the cold out, well more on the airfield because I didn’t need them really where I was in the Lancaster it was too hot, but on the North Lincolnshire airfield, unofficially we were wearing them all the time, not just for flying duties, you know, and they were holding these up as if to say, ‘These old fashioned things we modern Germans, you know, don’t wear those anymore’, you know. In other words, they were, as I say, humiliating you as much as they possibly could. Anyway, they must have a button somewhere and they pressed this button and in came two guards with bayonets- Rifles and bayonets, took me off down what seemed to be endless corridors in to a little tiny cell, and there’s a bed in there, probably no more then- Well if it was two feet wide that was as much as it was, and there wasn’t much room at the side to get into it, so the cell must of been very small in width, and down the end was a very small window, very high up in there, and I was pushed into there and the door [claps] slammed and you knew you were inside then, and there was few dirty old blankets on the, on the bed, but we had to get on the bed ‘cause there was nowhere else to go, there was no standing space. So, anyway I was listening to what was going on up and down and I knew that I had nobody in the cells at the side of me, I was entirely on my own and it was quite, quite demoralising that was, you know, because you’ve got to remember that in an aircrew, you’re working with people all the time and it doesn’t do your morale much good to be shut away on your own, you see-
GC: By now you’d have been-
JM: And they probably knew this, you see, the Germans, yeah.
GC: And you’d have been worried about your crew members as well, wouldn’t you?
JM: Yeah, yeah and- Anyway, I was shut in there and later on in the day they brought me two slices of black bread, which I just couldn’t eat and some Ersatz coffee, which I couldn’t drink. Well, I just had a couple of sips of it but, anyway, that was the food I got that day, then the next morning I got what would be their breakfast, which was the same again, a little steel mug of coffee and a couple of black slices of bread which I had to have a nibble at, but I couldn’t finish them all and that’s how it went on for the, about the first day and a half. But then, they come and collected me out of the cell to take me to be interrogated, and this is where I stepped into real trouble because- I gotta go back to the squadron now that- We do the ops we’re on, we hadn’t been briefed but the washing facilities on the headquarters group of this dispersed airfield were much better than on the living site, so I thought, oh chance to go wash here, so I stripped out and had a good wash, came away, left my identity tag hanging on a hook. So, this chap starts to interrogate me, and hinting straight away that I wasn’t an airman at all, I was an agent dropped for espionage purposes, you know, and he suddenly- I said, ‘Well, you know, I’ve got my uniform”- uniform yeah, ‘You were wearing no identity tags’, and of course it- Well I knew, I’d missed them just before take-off, but I knew there was no time to do anything about it, and of course, I didn’t know I was going to get shot down but, I never realised the significance of them, I thought they would accept the uniform and that would be it. But he kept on about it, you know, and, ‘Right, well tell me who the crew are’, and then he gets on to that, he said, ‘You don’t even- Don’t seem to belong to a crew either’, you know, and he took that line about me being a, an agent rather than an airman, and I was dismissed back to the cell to think about a bit, you know. I came back- He had me back the next day, taking up the same line, you know, asking me different questions and he was on- I said, ‘Well, I’ve got uniform on, you know’, he said, ‘I can go and buy those in Paris in the black market, as many as I like so that means nothing’, you know, and I thought well, that’s it, so I felt really hopeless and he kept me there- No he didn’t, yes. Then he let me go back to the cell, yeah, and the next morning I was once again ushered out, into the corridor and I knew I was going to interrogation once again which I was dreading. But, although I didn’t realise it, I was being led in a different direction and I encountered quite a different person there, and he more or less greeted me and said how we’re both wireless people, ‘Technicians’, he said, ‘So we understand each other, don’t we?’, you know, ‘Yes’ [chuckles]. And then he was talking about different thing- Then he suddenly says, ‘Were you carrying fishpond?’, and this shook me rigid because only two or three days before being shot down, all wireless operators had been summoned to the operations room, to be introduced to a new piece of equipment that we’re going, going to be fitting soon to the squadron. Absolutely [emphasis] top dead secret. Its code name was fishpond.
GC: How did he know?
JM: Yeah, and of course this really shook me rigid, you know, and I was thinking what I was going to say, but he- I didn’t have to think up an excuse, he said, ‘Come with me’, and he led me off into another room, and there he gave me my second demonstration of fishpond, because it was all set up there working. So, this shook me but he didn’t dwell on it too long and next thing I know, I'm back to the cell, you know, and I thought that’s a funny thing, you know, nobody’s supposed to know about that, and then I was back to this first man again, was still saying that I was- Obviously I was a case for the Gestapo, and he couldn’t deal with me and then he suddenly whips around and says- Questioned, say, ‘Right, tell me your crew, tell me about your crew’, and of course, I knew- Didn’t- Couldn’t- Knew I didn’t- Mustn’t tell him about that, because it would link me with them and link me to a squadron, but it’s very difficult when you’re actually facing it. But the main [emphasis] thing I think you feel more than anything, it’s the isolation. The whole time you’re isolated as a prisoner, whereas when you’re in the aircraft- In an aircrew, you’re mixing with other people all day and everyday sort of thing, and you notice that, you feel that very much, and how much on your own you are. Anyway, I went back again two or three times to this first man and on one occasion, he said, ‘Right, if you’re aircrew as you say you are, tell me where you were trained?’, and of course I knew I couldn’t tell him that, and another boy said, ‘You no need to think you’re telling me anything’, he said, ‘Look in there’, and he tossed this great thick book towards me, and I opened it up, and, he urged me to, he went, ‘Look at it, look at it’. I opened it up, and I could see it was in alphabetical order, there’s a list of all RAF establishments and what units were stationed there, what squadrons there were, and I thought, well what do I do about this? But luckily his telephone rang and he was answering that telephone and it seemed that the telephone call was more important than dealing with me, so unbeknown to me he must have a little button at the side of his chair, pressed that and the guards came and took me away again. So, I thought that got me out of that [chuckles] one, you know. And then, next time I went back again to the wireless man and he was asking me questions that I knew I mustn’t answer, but he wasn’t very persistent, he wasn’t the bullying type, he was more friendly than anything, which once again we’d been warned about, the friendly attitude, and- Then again, at least another two times, I went back to the man who I’d now- I now called the espionage man, and he said, finally- All the while on the desk he’d got this file, and he must’ve been a wonderful actor because he got me frightened to death and he’d look at this file and then eventually close it, said, ‘Right, this is now, is [emphasis] a matter for the Gestapo’, you know, and off I went to the cell, think, well this is it. Then that afternoon I was feeling, you know, what they gonna do with me, but, that afternoon there was this terrible feeling in the cell that the whole building was shaking and all the air was being drawn out of the cell, and I couldn’t think what it was really, but then it came to me then. What it was, was the- When the Americans bomb, they do what they call carpet bombing, and they fly in formation and the bomb leader- The leader opens his bomb doors and once the rest of them- And they let the bombs go in one go and it has a terrible effect. We saw the results of this actually going through the streets of Frankfurt. Not just individual buildings that had been bombed, vast areas [emphasis] and it had just been bulldozed just to get the road clear, and the rest of the area was just a load of rubble, you know and- Anyway, I had to put up with that, that was very frightening, and- Another thing was, that came to me at that time, that the intelligence people back on the squadron, all the while during training were talking about Dulag Luft and they said, ‘If they keep you there more than ten days, watch out, you’re either telling them- You might’ve told you something or they think you’re going to’, and this was day nine [emphasis] I think, and I thought I don’t know, don’t think I've told them anything, and the last words, the last interview was with who I call the- The man who threatened me with the Gestapo, he closed this book and said, ‘Right, that’s it you’re off to Gestapo’. So, the next time the guards stopped outside the door, I thought that’s where I'm going, and I went off between these two guards, could hardly feel my legs [chuckles] I was so frightened, I thought well I’m off now to the Gestapo, and when I got a bit further along, we came to this door and it appeared to be going to the outside and I thought, it’s even worse, they’re gonna shoot me now, I'm going to the firing squad now, you know. Anyway, they opened this door, and there’s a big crowd of the lads in there, all laughing and joking and smoking cigarettes. I was released then, and oh what a relief, and then next thing you think is David the engineer who went down, got out with me, coming out grinning all over his face, head bandaged up. So, that was the end of Dulag Luft, and that afternoon, that very afternoon, we were marched off- No not marched- Taken in lorries to what would’ve been a marshalling yard I would think, on the rail, it wasn’t a passenger station, and we were loaded onto these trocks, and once again we were- We could recall and identify them as being for prisoners because before being shot down- Looking at the news reels at the cinemas in, in- Back in Britain, we often saw these Jews being loaded into these cattle trucks, being prodded in and then exactly what it was like, all barbed wire around the thing, you know, and I thought, that’s it. Anyway, we got in there and it wasn’t too bad, there was- Wasn’t room to lay down, but we could sit with our backs against the wall, and the guards had the centre section where the doors were, so no chance of getting out of there, they occupied that, and off we went in this, in this trock after about a half an hours wait, and we didn’t know where we were going to of course, but we knew we were- Kept stopping with the train, each time we thought well this is it, this is where we’re getting out. But, no, we realised later we were being pushed into a siding, to allow other trains to come by, and we also knew that we were going in the direction of the Russian front, because the train going in out of action were loaded with things like lorries and field guns, the trains coming in the opposite direction to us were loaded with wounded, wounded soldiers, all bandaged up and some you could see looking through the windows on stretchers, they looked- You know, a terrible sight really, although they were the enemy, they [chuckles]- We still had a little sympathy for them, and- Anyway, that’s what we did, kept stopping in sidings. Eventually, we got to where we were going to, this Stalag right up in North- East Prussia, right, to the North of East Prussia, and we were- Not a very long march from the train, but certainly well under guard and marched into there, and then we were put in a compound and there were only us few English or British chaps, there were Empire people in there, there were Canadians of course, Australians and that. All the rest were Americans. We had to mix in with them, but they were alright, we got on with them fine really, and the funny thing like I put in my book, that our idea of Americans we got from the films that we saw in the cinemas, and we knew that they were all rich, they went out in big cars, took their girlfriends out to big slap-up dinners and all that, and they hailed a taxi just by doing that and run there. Of course, we knew about the cowboys and all that, but we realised these were just ordinary people like us, you know, they had an ordinary job and earnt an ordinary living doing it, so they were very much like us. But we learnt a bit about the American Air Force and that, and of course they’d all- Most of them had come out of liberators, or B-29’s, you know. As I say, we got on fine with them, we played their ball games with them, but what we couldn’t understand is the way they tried to barrack the striker while he’s waiting for the ball to be delivered, and they’re all shouting insults and telling him to hit it when he shouldn’t hit it and all that. Couldn’t understand that, because, thought nothing like our cricket is it, you know [laughs]. But we got on with them quite well, and then suddenly for no reason known to us- Well it was probably because there were more and more Americans coming in, that the British and Colonial Empire people were moved out of that compound into another compound, where the- They were all British or Australian or Canadian in there. But we understood them more, they were in the same air force as we were, and what we did notice straight away was much more organisation there, and the next thing we realise is a man comes into the hut, all dressed up smart, collar and tie, all that thing, and he’s got the BBC news bulletin reading to us, which is wonderful really. They were much, you know, they’d been in the- Most of them had been in the bag two or three years or, perhaps some of them more. In fact, there was one man there, and he was shot down on September the 4th, 1939, that’s one day after the war, and there was another man who’d been in there that long, or nearly that long, and he was actually- Let me try and explain how they ran the aircrews then. You had the navigator and pilot, they were together all the time, but the gunners and the wireless operator were not included in the crew, they were in their own ground trades and then when there was operating, they would be called in to crew up and go off on a raid. And this particular man, he was living out in civilian accommodation with his wife and children and as usual, he sets off to work and he’s a fitter by trade, but he hadn’t been on the job many minutes before he was called in for briefing, and off he went and was shot down. So, he went off to work in the morning, leaving his wife and children, and she didn’t see him again for-
GC: Five years, maybe?
JM: Five years [chuckles]. Yeah, laughable now but, no. But, anyway, we joined up with them and actually in our hut, there were people from my squadron and of course we could yarn[?] a bit about that, and then came the thought of being overrun by the Russians, who were- Because remember, we’re out in the North-East part of Germany, quite close to the Russian front, and we could hear the guns getting louder and louder, and we thought the Germans were just going to clear off and leave us. No, no chance about that, they collected us all together, went off, although it was a hurried exit, it was very well organised, no panic whatsoever. But, when they came to our compound, K, they sort of split it down the middle and the line of huts opposite to us, which included our navigator- Our engineer, Dave, he was in there, they were taken off and we were left there for the time being, and they- Those that went out with that patch, they had a terrible time they did. They were off to the, off to the coast of the Baltic from there which wasn’t very far, and there they were put on this old ship, an old merchant ship that was- Used to carry coal, and they were rammed down into the holds, down a little narrow ladder, and there was hardly room to- Hardly space to put your feet. Of course, I didn’t know about this, I had to learn all this from David when I met up with him later, and also there is a book telling you all about it, which I've read and learnt a lot from that. But they were rammed down into this. No water, no sanitation, anything, and they set off sailing, and somebody found that there was an E-Boat following them, and they thought what’s going to happen, they’re gonna get out there, they’re going to take the crew off and sink us, you know. Also, known to the- ‘Cause they’re all RAF, but it was a great mine raid area, a lot RAF mine laying in that area, so every time they hit something, bit of flotsam, they thought that’s it, you know, had all this to put up with until they landed eventually in a port further down the coast, where they were taken off there, put into some railway trucks, but never- They weren’t driven off, they had to stop there all night. Once again, hardly any water, hardly any room to move. But in the- Next morning, they realised that the guards that had taken them on the ship and that, had gone, and in their place were these young Kreigsmarine people (be the equivalent of the Hitler youth) and they were the most arrogant people they could- And they were each armed with a bayonet, and they were sharpening these bayonets in front of the prisoners, letting them see they were going to use them, you know. Anyway, they set off from out of these trocks on a march, and there was a great big German officer leading the march and he was so tall and spritely, they couldn’t keep up with him marching, they had to run, and there were these young Kreigsmarine guys, anytime that anybody dropped behind a bit, they’d slash ‘em with these bayonets. Most terrible, and I mean, what a miracle and I’ve only just dodged this for being on the right side of the compound, and they were taken off to a new [emphasis] camp, new prison camp, and they were treated pretty badly all the while I think there. But, as I say luckily, I wasn’t on it but- Now, with us, we were- We went right off to Poland, long train ride and we landed up in a place called, where was it? Anyway, this Polish- Small Polish town, and we were marched from there to the prison camp, and it was really better off than in the old camp, much more room to move about, but of course, no more to eat, starvation was always apparent, and we learned that it had been used previously as a Polish officers training camp, and the Germans were still using part of it for training purposes. But we were allowed out, almost until it got dark, and we had much further to walk around in, seemed a lot better you see, no more food of course, but and it- Of course it was getting much warmer by then, after the cold weather up in the Baltic, and, you know, reasonably well. But, then of course it wasn’t long before we could hear the Russian guns to the East of us, but we didn’t think we were going to get liberated then, we’d learned our lesson from the previous camp, and sure enough they gathered us up and off we went back to the train from there, and up- Back up into Germany itself again to just North of- Can’t quite think of the name of the-
GC: That’s alright.
JM: Way up into, into- More towards the North at Hannover, thirty miles to the North of Hannover, and we were there and the food got scarcer and scarcer then, but the lucky thing was that we could see much more air activity going on, but of course, what we were waiting for was the army to come along and liberate us, but- The Red Cross parcels which were- Had been our life saver because we were certainly slowly starved to death under the German rations, but we weren’t well fed at all, including the Red Cross parcels, but they did stop us from actually dying of hunger, and they became more scarce because even the commandant said, ‘when we put a barge onto the river or the canal, it’s shot off, if we put a train onto the rail road, it’s shot off, if we put a ship in the port, it’s bombed, what can we do?’ But that was good news, but that didn’t help us [chuckles] much and- Anyway we, we thought, you know, we were getting near and then of course, D-Day came along, which was a great booster to us, and we heard about that over the secret- No we didn’t. The Germans themselves posted that up on a notice in the camp, and the wording of it was, was something like this, ‘At last the allies have delivered themselves to us. Now we will apply a pincer movement and those that are not wiped out will be driven back into the sea’, and we didn’t want to hear the rest of the thing. For us, the allies had landed and that was it. But the- We were still getting the British news bulletin through the secret radio and from what we heard from that, yes, they’d landed and they were pushing across fine, hardly any opposition at all, you know. But, when we- Well it would’ve been two years, eighteen months later anyway before we got the truth that they were having a terrible battle once they’d landed to gain any ground at all, and the German forces were very much amassed down there. But we weren’t told this on the news, they were- According to them we were making great strides, you know, and we began to think, well, where are they [chuckles]?
GC: Yeah, that’s the propaganda I suppose?
JM: Yeah, yeah, and- Anyway, this went on for long enough and yes, they did gain- Took over- Took the whole of France for instance, and the Russians of course were advancing from the East, and we were making headway in Holland and Belgium. But then came the winter of 1944 and instead of coming forward in Belgium, they- According to the reports we were getting off the radio, they were being driven back. Very demoralising. But, anyway, we were getting hungrier and hungrier by then. We wondered if we’d ever, ever survive. But, eventually, we were- The forces did catch up with us and the first we knew of them, was one single British tank came up near to the camp, blew a farm house to pieces and then turned round and went back again [chuckles]. But within about two days, there was an armoured car came right into the camp, from the seventh Royal Irish Hussars, and the poor guys inside, they couldn’t get out because of the crowds around them cheering and waving but- Took them [chuckles] probably half-an-hour to get out of the front, they were showering us with bars of chocolate and some bread, and tins of bully beef and that sort of thing, and- Which of course, we all pounced upon, and then it was some time, some hours before anymore armoured cars came up but we weren’t- We couldn’t think what to expect when the front came up to us. The only guidance we had was what happened in World War One, when we imagine there were thousands of troops with fixed bayonets would come forward and fighting every inch of the way but, these guys were arriving, they were clean [emphasis], admitted, they got tin hats on but they marked us welcome off the barrack square [emphasis], you know, all clean uniforms and- Of course they all got a small arm or something with them, wasn’t what we expected at all, and then some more heavier forces came up-
GC: So, when the- When they came forward then in the armoured truck, where were the German guards, had they, had they gone had they?
JM: They’d gone then, yeah. Well- I’ve got to tell you a bit. Just before they got to us, they took most of the camp out, but it was my idea, my idea actually, I don’t know how I thought of it. We concealed ourselves in an empty hut, so we were left in the camp.
GC: I see.
JM: You see, but they took everybody else out. Now, that was a stroke of luck, because almost the first night- The first day after they were taken out the camp, they were strafed by our own Typhoon aircraft, with rockets, fire and machine guns and there was no end of them killed from our hut [emphasis]. So- But what happened was, and as I say I’ve got this idea of concealing ourselves in an empty hut and let them take them out, and we would perhaps be able to wait until the forces came up. But- Actually, what happened, before any forces came up- Came onto us, any, caught up with us, they were forced to bring these prisoners back and this is where we- When we learnt, and how we learnt what happened to them, and there were several in our hut who were dead, killed, you know. So, we had- Did do a lot of good by not going out with the rest of them. But, then of course we were all there, no food or anything, but I did manage to find a few rotten potatoes which I shared out amongst our group, but then I became terribly ill, I was sick and- Terrible temperature, and I put it down to these rotten potatoes, and I really felt like dying, I didn’t care what was going on outside, I was in that bed, with as many coats and blankets I could get over me, and then somebody come back and said- Somebody came in to the hut and said, ‘The British medical officer’s come back’, to get me out there and see him, you know, and I thought, well I don’t know, I might as well die, you know, but then I thought, well it’s my only chance and I got up. When I got to his surgery, there’s a great long queue and all the time I was having to go off with diarrhoea, you know, but luckily all the rest of the queue were doing the same thing [chuckles] so, so you eventually got to see the MO and he said, he said, ‘No, it’s not- Nothing to do with that food’ he said, ‘You’ve got dysentery’. He said, ‘There’s a lot of it about and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do for you really’, but he said, ‘Take these two white tablets’, and an orderly came out and gave me two tablets and he said, ‘What you’ve got to do is get back to your bed, keep as warm as you possibly can, and that’s all I can say for you’. Which I did, went back there, and it was at that time when these other cars came in so. I don’t think I went down to see the first one, I was feeling too, too ill, you know, but things improved. I got better, a lot better after that, I suppose it’s when you start getting some food.
GC: Yeah.
JM: And then came the news that they were going- Started to take us home, take us out, and we’d already decided amongst ourselves in the prison camp that those who’d been prisoners the longest would be the first to go, and that system was followed right through. But, when I went, I was feeling quite comfortable, got plenty of food, I'd got over the dysentery, had plenty of food and we could go out and about. But, there was one thing there that we thought we were going to cop it again, they- One of the regiments, I think it was one of the guards regiment, bought up their band [emphasis] in the back of a lorry, and they set up there, all their instruments in the back of the lorry and they were playing this wonderful music to us, and suddenly [imitates firing] machine gun bullets everywhere, they- We scattered in all directions but the band, they seemed to go in an orderly manner under their lorry, as I said, perhaps they were used to it, but we weren’t [chuckles] and- But I don’t know whether we were the actual target or what, but anyway, as soon as it was done, the band were back up onto the- Back on the lorry playing away but we didn’t start listening for a while after that [laughs]. We were too scared, but it was a very good gesture, you know, and then what happened when they started- When my turn came, we were driven through on a lorry, army lorries, to an airport, way over to the West, it was called Diepholz, the place, and it had obviously seen a lot of war because the whole of the airfield was- Well, you could see where there’s been craters filled in, they had either been severely bombed or artillery fire creating all- But it’d all been filled in and the airfield was back in operation again, so. We were in- Put into army tents, which wasn’t too bad at all and, next morning they started to take us off in these Dakotas, and- But we thought because we, we- Thought we weren’t gonna get away that day, we thought gonna have to wait a longer day. Oh, must tell you one thing. As we were going on this journey, we came to a river, big river, I think it was the Elbe, and the bridge across it had been destroyed and the army had put a pontoon bridge there, and these army lorries that we’re in, they stood that high, terrific height off the ground, and as we drove onto the first pontoon it healed [emphasis] over to one side, and there we were looking at the river [chuckles] we thought, we’re going to drop into there, but took a bit of getting used to and you were certainly happy to get to the other, the other side [chuckles]. But that was on the way to the airfield, as I say we got there and they laid on a good meal for us there, and they got these tents ready for us to sleep in, and the next morning as I say they started to take us back, but we were told that we would be- Have to wait until the morning, but then they came again and said, ‘One of the Dakota crews has volunteered to do another trip because the weather’s so good and they can do it’, so off we went, that night. No, it was still light, afternoon then when we set off, and we flew westwards of course from there and, in this- These camps that we went to, we joined up with the army, in fact there were more army prisoners than RAF, but the thing was, that these army prisoners, none of them had flown [emphasis] at all in an aircraft, you know, they had been fighting in the desert and Italy and that, and they were quite strange to an aircraft so. But anyway, we got in this Dakota which was- We could see it’d been fitted out to drop paratroops actually, and they got flying along there and then the cockpit door opens and this guy comes out, handing out sweets and chocolates and the man sitting next to me in a really terrified voice, he said, ‘Who was that? Was that the pilot?’, and I had to tell him, I said, ‘Well, it’s probably a second pilot or’, I said, ‘He’s perhaps gone onto automatic for a bit’. But he was really frightened this guy, you know [chuckles]. Anyway, we approached Britain from the North Sea of course, but then he must’ve done- Whether he was ordered to do that, or whether he did it on his own back, he must’ve turned to the South quite a bit, and brought the aircraft up flying straight at the white cliffs of Dover.
GC: Could you see that then?
JM: And he got, got one of his crew to make sure we were all looking out through the cockpit window and these white cliffs of Dover came up and he went straight over the top of the-
GC: How did you feel at that time?
JM: Oh, oh, bit tight in the throat, you know, and we went off to an airfield in Buckinghamshire, called Wing, and we were met there by WAAFs, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, took us and lead us back to this reception area where there was tea and cakes waiting and then there was a quick medical examination. That was a funny bit as well. Imagine these people, with some of them had been in prison camp for five, five years, they’d never seen a woman, well only if they’d seen one, it would be in the far distance, and when we came they’d set up this emergency medical centre and it consisted of about six cubicles of- Done up with sacking or something like that, just temporary things, and- But one of them was staffed by a lady doctor [emphasis] and we found this out, I'd just been called into one of them and as I went to go through this door, the door sprung open further up and this chap came tearing out, being followed by a lady doctor saying, ‘Don’t be so damned ridiculous’ [chuckles]. But I thought to myself afterwards, well, it wasn’t very well thought out that was it, you know? I mean they didn’t have many lady doctors anyway, but I thought [laughs] and- Anyway, we all went through that and they did a good check on us and, and then we, we went off then, I think they must’ve split the army then from the air force personnel ‘cause we went on a train straight to RAF Cosford and we were all very well received there. We came off the train and unusually the train at Cosford is very near to the main entrance of the camp, you had hardly any distance to walk and we got into this- Well a dormitory I suppose it was ‘cause you gotta remember in those days RAF Cosford was the main RAF hospital for the whole of Great Britain, you see, and- So we were taken into this what I suppose was a ward and then into a bathroom, where, oh I- We put out whatever we were carrying in this ward and then we were lead off to a bathroom and there was a bath, full of water at just the right temperature, there were big white towels waiting there for us, oh absolute luxury. We dived into these baths and wallowed about in there, and then we- When we’d had this bath we came out and they showed us where we were going to sleep, and there were the beds laid out with lovely clean, white sheets and they turned back ready to get into, there’s pyjamas laying on the top of the bed, well we couldn’t believe it, and I think that was the best nights sleep I ever had. But the funny thing happened the next morning, in my early days, I think it was the first signal school I went to, there was a flight sergeant there, he wasn’t a technical man at all, he’s there purely for discipline and he was a right swine, you know. If he- I think his objective was is to have every one of you on a charge before you left, you know, and he was being shouting and hollering all the time, you know. Anyway, I woke up next morning from this wonderful sleep in this wonderful bed to be handed a lovely mug of hot tea, and who’s [emphasis] giving it to me but this flight sergeant [laughs].
GC: Oh, incredible.
JM: And I couldn’t help saying to him, ‘I’ve seen you before’, and told him where it was. No, I didn’t tell him where it- I said, ‘I’ve seen you but, where it was’, and I said, ‘I can’t remember which one it was but it was in a signal school’, and then he said, ‘Yatesbury’, and then he said, ‘I think I remember you too’, and he said the date of when I was there, you know, got it all in his- He had nothing else to think about I suppose [chuckles]. Anyway, that was a very rewarding to me, you know, it was like a revenge if you like, but he spoke very, very friendly, you know, the old flight sergeant had gone, you know, he was on this new job of receiving prisoners back. But, anyway, they then had- We had more medicals then at Cosford and we were fitted out with all new uniforms, well battle dress and we were even given- Asked us where we wanted to go, and the found out the times of the trains and every- They couldn’t’ve done any more for us, and it was actually on May the 2nd, I think, when we were [unclear] and according to air force rules and regulations, summer begins on the May the 1st, so there was no greatcoat for us, but the weather had changed completely and it started to snow and these people more or less said [unclear] to the rules and they went and found these greatcoats, and we were very glad of them too, to go out and- Next thing, there we are, we’re out standing on the platform going home, and, wonderful, and then I must tell you about a wonderful coincidence that, Adelaide my wife, course I'd met her years before because I was- Did my OTU course at an airfield quite close to her village, but that didn’t come into it really because she herself was in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, she was stationed down in Gloucestershire, but we met because she went to the local dance and that’s where we met, and we kept in touch, well when I moved away of course to different places, we kept in touch and I saw her three or four times I suppose after- Before being shot down. But I didn’t know what had happened, or anything, she could’ve gone off with somebody else or something, you know, but when I got to my sister's house where I intended to go, because my parents had moved away from London then. Thank goodness they did because of the flying bombs and rockets and that. They’d moved into Huntingdonshire, and I sort of- Well, I didn’t- I did go there on leave a little bit, but for the seven day leave I only spent about two days there and I wanted to get back into London where the- You couldn’t say the bright lights in those days ‘cause there weren’t many but, the life then, the London life, yeah, and- So, I decided that’s the place I'm gonna make for, from Cosford, I’ll go to my sister's house, which was quite close to where we used to live actually, and I could see there was a lot more damage been done around there and I knocked on the door and I was very apprehensive, I thought, well, anything could’ve happened, you know, I thought they could’ve been killed or moved or something like that. Anyway, a few seconds went by and my sister opened the door, and shouts, ‘He’s home, he’s home’.
GC: Wow.
JM: And why she shouted that was, unbeknown to me there was a family reunion being arranged at her house, ‘cause they knew I was-
GC: You were back?
JM: Free, yeah. They didn’t know when I was coming home actually, and they had arranged this reunion and also quite by coincidence, Adelaide, or Ann as I used to call her in those days, that was her name in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, she had been on leave, but on her way, she decided to call and see my sister, and she was there too.
GC: Wow.
JM: [Chuckles] Wow, it was unbelievable the coincidence, you know. But then, she was due back then, she had spent most of her leave and I think she had one or two days to go. So, we said between us, ‘Shall we see if you can get some more leave?’. So, every quick communication then, there was- You wouldn’t be able to telephone in those days, sent a telegram off to her CO, could she have a further forty-eight hours leave. Next day, the answer was back, ‘Take seven [emphasis] days compassionate leave, plus forty-eight'.
GC: Wow.
JM: We had a lovely time together, you know, and it was really very nice. But I think that’s as far as we’ll go, I'm back in England.
GC: You’re back in England, yeah, and that’s a good place to finish yeah?
JM: Yeah, and- But we were very- For the whole of the way, from the RAF point of view we were treated very well indeed and we had a very good rehabilitation course, a month or so, six weeks after we came home and we had a nice long leave and we- Everybody did everything they could for us, you know, very good. But then I went back working for them then [chuckles] at Cranwell, but that was quite enjoyable really, we- Adelaide and I were married then, and we managed to get to living out accommodation which was extremely rare, or scarce that any is going spare and especially in an establishment like Cranwell, there were thousands of people there and there was quite a number of them were seeking rooms so that they could get their wives up there. But I was lucky, working on my section was this old guy and he was an ex-merchant navy wireless operator really, and he knew everybody I should think on this vast camp of Cranwell, I think he knew everybody from the air commodore downwards, you know, he could speak to anybody, he was also the station band master. But he, knew somebody who knew somebody, who got some rooms to let and he- And I used to work with him, you see, so [unclear] and he said, ‘I think I've found you somewhere’. So, we- And it worked very successful. Adelaide got on very well with the landlady and we could go- Got plenty of spare time at Cranwell and we could go off every weekend and we went to- All worked out very well. And then the day came when I was demobilised [chuckles] yeah. End of story.
GC: Yeah, well that’s great. Thank you very much John, and-
JM: No, it was good.
GC: It’s been a pleasure, thank you.
JM: Ah [chuckles].
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Martin
Creator
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Gary Clarke
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-12-02
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMartinEJ181202
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:42:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
John Martin was born in June 1922 and lived in London. He always wanted the opportunity to fly and so at the age of 19 volunteered to join the Royal Air Force as an armourer. He was not accepted as he was in a reserved occupation. Eventually he reapplied as aircrew and was accepted as a wireless operator. He describes his signals training at RAF Yatesbury, involving flying in Dominies and Proctors. June 1943 saw him undertake advanced flying training with 14 Operational Training Unit at RAF Cottesmore and then RAF Husbands Bosworth flying Wellingtons. He completed conversion to Lancaster bombers before being posted to 166 Squadron. January 1944 saw him flying an operation to Berlin, where his aircraft was shot down. He describes how he had to get out of the burning aircraft before parachuting in to a field where he was captured. Initially he was taken to Dulag Luft near Frankfurt, where he was interrogated and believed to be a spy as he had no identification tags with him. Eventually imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp in North Prussia. As the Russian forces advanced, John was moved to another camp in Poland, and then again to one north of Hanover. Here the prisoners heard about the D-Day landings in June 1944.
Allied troops arrived and repatriation to the United Kingdom was carried out by C-47 aircraft. On arrival in England, he and other returning men were taken to RAF Cosford where they were given baths, clean beds and new uniforms. Rehabilitation courses were provided, and John served at RAF Cranwell until he was demobbed.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Rutland
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Oberursel
Germany--Berlin
Poland
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Diepholz
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06
1944-01
1944-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Tilly Foster
Jean Massie
14 OTU
166 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
C-47
Dominie
Dulag Luft
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
Proctor
RAF Cosford
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Cranwell
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Yatesbury
shot down
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1249/16388/ADareI180704.2.mp3
03d0d174f27b1395f85258c9123c9f67
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Dare, Iris
I Dare
Description
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An oral history interview with Iris Dare (1922 - 2018, 427994 Royal Air Force). She served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and was married to Flying Officer Maurice Edward Dare (425238 Royal New Zealand Air Force), a pilot with 75 Squadron.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2018-07-04
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Dare, I
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Transcription
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GT: This is Wednesday the 4th of July 2018, and I am at the home of Mrs Iris Dare, wife of Maurice Edward Dare, a New Zealand Lancaster pilot of 75 New Zealand Squadron RAF, from 1944. Iris was born Nineteen June 1922 in Newcastle, England and joined the RAF in January 1940. Iris, thank you for having me in your home. Can you please tell me why you joined the Royal Air Force, and when?
ID: It was a time when I was making up my mind whether I should join the air force or do- Go into nursing. Well, the air force won because of one thing, the uniform [chuckles].
GT: [Chuckles]
ID: That’s all, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I enjoyed every minute of five years.
GT: So, you joined from Newcastle?
ID: I joined in 19- At the beginning of January 1940. The war had just started. I mean I can remember as if it were yesterday. I was listening to the radio and I heard them say, you know, ‘We are at war with Germany.’ Oh dear. Oh, I know what, should I do nursing, no, I like the uniform, I’d rather be in the women’s air force. So, I went to- I was born in a village outside Newcastle, but I went to Gosforth to join up and from there, as I say, they sent me down to Swansea down, right down in Wales, and I was there for about eighteen month I think, and it was- I’m sure it was the start of the training of- To be a balloon operator, which was- I enjoyed in a way but, only to a certain degree because there was a lot of heavy work attached to being that person. But, well, as I say, I got used to it and I enjoyed being with the girls, I mean, I made a lot of friends. It was really, really an- I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy one minute [emphasis] of being in the women’s air force. I absolutely loved it, loved it and, I mean, I’m sure the girls today have a better time than we had [chuckles] I mean, when you think about it, we used to get paid one-pound-thirty for a fortnight. But a lot of the things that we had and were given were from Lord Halifax, he used to supply us with all sorts of things, free. So, we had really nothing to spend the money on, only luxuries, and we spent them very quickly. By the end of the fortnight, nobody had any money, nobody. But of course, when I got married to Mauri, every now and again he would send me a five-pound note [emphasis], I mean, I don’t- Do they have five-pound notes now? Well, he used to send me that and of course, I used to treat all the girls, we’d go up to the NAAFI and we’d have- Because on a Thursday, you only had horse meat for your dinner and I didn’t like that, so we used to go to the NAAFI and have what you call a sticky bun and a cup of coffee [chuckles] and I used to pay for the girls. That was practically the end of the five pounds, oh gosh [chuckles].
GT: So, when you were doing square bashing and marching and all that kind of stuff, or was it admin or?
ID: You do that at your initial training, and I won, well, no I didn’t win, I mean, they had a word of command, that is to take the parade, and I thought- There was two people left after we’d had the audition, I was one, and a young girl, seventeen, was the- Another one, she won it, I didn’t get to go with the passing out parade, she did it.
GT: Seventeen.
ID: But, I mean, I do try to speak clearly because of Andrea being deaf.
GT: So, when you were doing your marching, you joined up in January, that was winter for England was it? So, were you in skirts or did they give you trousers ‘cause it must’ve been really cold?
ID: Well, we had the dress uniform and a battle dress, trousers and a what do you call it? Top thing.
GT: Tunic, tunic?
ID: But that was mainly for working, but I mean I've seen a lot of the girls, when I was there, they would wear them to go out with but I never did, I used to wear my uniform. But that is about the only time I have ever had a skirt, I mean, the lady today said to me, she’s taking me to the hospital, she said, ‘I think you should wear a skirt,’ I said, ‘A skirt [emphasis]? I have never owned such a thing as a skirt’ [chuckles]. Oh dear, honestly, but it was a wonderful time, wonderful. I recommend it.
GT: So, they posted you to Stockport on balloons, did they?
ID: Yes, that was- I was first on balloons. But, then later on I became a driver, and I used to-
GT: Now, with the balloons though, what did you do to look after the balloons? And your brother was involved, you said?
ID: No, I didn’t do anything before the balloons, that’s the first thing I was taught on. But-
GT: And what did that involve Iris? What, did you have to do for the balloons?
ID: Well, to start off with, you’ve got to learn how to splice ropes, you learnt how to lift heavy concrete blocks, and you’ve got to look after a balloon, which I didn’t and got severely told off for.
GT: What happened Iris? What happened?
ID: I don’t know, I mean, when I was a corporal, I went out with the girls one night and I had, I think about nine gin and oranges, by the time I came outside, I got back to the billet and of course, in the thing that we were living in, this tin thing, you have a separate room, the girls are in there and you’ve got a room to yourself. Well, I came in and I lay down and everything went round and round and afterwards, I told one of the girls, she said, ‘You should have lain on your stomach and you wouldn’t have had that,’ and I said, ‘Now she tells me’. But, the WAAF officer came round that morning, and she had to interview me sort of for the day, and well she, she looked at me and she said, (it was a very warm day) she said, ‘Are you alright corporal?’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘It’s a nice day and you’ve got your battle dress on and a big scarf round your neck,’ she said, ‘Aren’t you hot?’ [chuckles]. I don’t know, honestly, I felt so embarrassed but, I found the officers very nice, very nice, but I like the uniform today, I really do.
GT: So, tell me how you lost a balloon?
ID: Oh, don’t mention the balloon [emphasis]. Honestly, I was left- I was a corporal and I had sixteen girls. Now, you let eight go on the evening up till ten o’clock, that’s alternate every night, eight go, the next night the other eight go. Well, I was left with eight girls and, as I say, it was a beautiful night, and they said, ‘Can’t we just go down the pub?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m sure, you know, nothing’s going to happen, yeah’. And I should never have let them go. Well, I mean, you know what they used to call me? Softie. They just had to say it and I would say yes, and I was sitting- And they hadn’t gone ten minutes [emphasis] and the bell rang from headquarters, ‘Bed all balloons’ and I thought, ‘Oh gosh what do I do?’. You’ve got to have an eight crew to do that ‘cause everybody has their individual job, and my brother was on the next site (he’s as daft as a brush) and I rang him and I said, ‘Can you come round and help me?’. So, he came round, and he said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said, ‘Can you drive the winch, that reels in the balloon?,’ and on the balloon, you’ve got fifteen feet and then you’ve got a bag, and then another fifteen feet and you’ve got another bag. Now the thing was, that they hoped a plane would come along, go in that bit in between, cut the wire and it would cling on to their plane wing, saw the wing off and it would down the plane. I think it did, one or two times, I'm not sure, I’m sure I'd heard that they’d done it a few times. Well, he gets into this winch- Honest, I can’t tell you how- I stood there watching him and I thought, ‘Oh god, what is he doing?’. And he did that, and they fired, and off the balloon went, and I had to ring headquarters and had to speak to a Sergeant Starky, so he came round about an hour later, asked me what I'd done and I told him, and I said, ‘Have they found it yet?’. He said, ‘Yes, they’ve shot it down over Switzerland.’ And that was the end of my [unclear], he said, ‘Don’t let me ever [emphasis] see you do that again.’ It wasn’t my fault, but I got the blame. Anyway, that’s the story.
GT: Did they post you from barrage balloons, away- At that time or did you stay on for a while?
ID: No, I was there for a while. I was there until I went down to- God, it’s down London ways. You go there, to be tested and the officer that I was with up in Stockport had put my name down to go down there to be tested. This is to get your stripes. I went down there, we were there for three weeks, and they test everything you do on the balloon. Well, I was living off everybody else's brains. I mean, I was standing next to a girl and we were standing there in a group, and the instructor was there, and he asked the girl to do something with the balloon and she hadn’t done it, and it was to untie- The balloon was tied to hold it down, she hadn’t done that right, and then a girl standing next to me said [whispering under her breath], ‘She hasn’t untied the balloon,’ I said, [louder] ‘She hasn’t untied the balloon,’ he said, ‘Give that girl marks’ [chuckles] I got the marks and they didn’t. But that’s how I think- I mean, as I say, there was twenty-two girls on the course at the time, and I'm sure there was no more than four or five when you go up for the last day and they tell you whether you- I mean, there was a girl there called something King, a blonde girl, she come from London and she really studied hard, every night she studied, and I was going out enjoying myself, I thought, ‘I’m just here for a party and a nice time,’ I never [emphasis] did any studying. Anyway, at the end of the day, I went in and- As I say, there was these three ladies and two men at a table, and they just looked down the page and they said, ‘Congratulations Corporal,’ and that’s how I got my stripes. I really didn’t deserve them, not really. But, then on- I mean I was ok, it was then that I was sent to- Down to Swansea again, and, it was so [emphasis] remote, there was that place and the next place to it and I was at a place called St Mawgan. I’d never been to Wales, but I didn’t like it, for the simple reason, the people were awful. They used to- If you were in a pub, sitting there and they would come in, they would be talking in English, the minute they saw you in uniform, they’d go back to their dialogue- Welsh, you know. I don’t know why they didn’t want you to hear, I mean I wasn’t bothered about what they were doing, I really couldn’t have cared less, but I do think- I mean, I don’t probably think they’re like that now, but they were like that then. I’m sure things have changed, I'm sure, but I don’t like Wales. Oh, dark, drab place, it really is.
GT: So, when you were as a corporal with the balloons there- You had a bit of competition?
ID: A competition?
GT: You had some competition with the other girls I hear? And one of them-
ID: Oh no, no, I still acted as if I was one of the girls, and I was smartly told off, I wasn’t.
GT: Did you get your sergeants stripes?
ID: Yes, I did, but as I say, when he came round, the officer, one day, a man, I said, ‘I don’t want them anymore, I really don’t, you don’t get paid enough.’ So, he said, ‘I think you’re very silly,’ I said, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘Your sergeants stripe came through this morning,’ [chuckles] I said, ‘Oh right’. Because from then, I went from one-thirty a fortnight to four-pound-forty a fortnight, thought I’ll have that, yes. That was good, I had that. So that’s why I took it actually [chuckles]. Honestly- No I was ok as a sergeant but I never got any further, that was all I got up to, for five years.
GT: So now, tell me how you met Mauri, because we’ve got, we’ve got Mauri, Flying Officer Maurice Edward Dare, a pilot from New Zealand and he arrived in around about March 1944 to England, and so, from there how did you meet him?
ID: Well, I was on this site up in London in Clapham Common and there was a girl there called Tina, she was a corporal, and I, I mean, I wasn’t a friend of hers, I didn’t go out with her at all. Do you know what she used to go- Have you heard of David Niven? She used to go out with him. She was the most gorgeous looking girl, blonde hair, beautiful teeth, beautiful skin - She had everything, and one night, in the summer there was- Her girls, she’d sent them on the day off, or evening off and she was going to go off too, and it was my night off, and she said, ‘Are you doing anything?’ and I said, ‘Not really’, she said, ‘Well, would you like to come with me to town?’, and I said, ‘Yeah, ok’. I’d never been with her before, and we go up there and I said, ‘Have you got any special place in mind?’, she said, ‘Oh, I think’ (How she knew it, I don’t know) she said, ‘I’m gonna- I think we’ll go to the New Zealand officers club’. I said, ‘Oh right, ok, never been to that before’. So, we went in, there was an empty table, we sat down, the next table was Mauri and I think four or five of his crew, and we sat there for a while, didn’t seem to get very far and she said, ‘You think we should go?’, I said, ‘Well, not much going on here’. So, we got up to go and Mauri looked across, he said, ‘Are you going?’, and I looked, I said ‘Well we thought about it’. He said, ‘Why don’t you join us?’. So, I would think as a I say, there was four men of his crew with him, and three of them left him and Danny Boon. Now, Tina went to sit next to Danny Boon and I’d sat next to Mauri, and we had the evening with them and then they took us back to Clapham Common, and the next morning, they were out there, when we were doing something to the balloon, I looked and they were standing at the railings, and Mauri was swinging a key. I said, ‘What are you doing with that?’, he said, ‘We’ve just booked into a hotel across the road’ [chuckles] and they were on a week's holiday. So, we went out the first night, she went with Danny and I went with Mauri. The next night, she said to me, ‘Can we swap because I like yours better than mine?’, I said, ‘Don’t be silly, you can’t do that, that’s terrible’, so she said, ‘Oh, I thought you might change, ‘cause I’m not keen on that one’. But, she ended up marrying him, really, Danny Boon of Whakatāne and his family are supposed to be the most well-known people in that area, and I mean, Danny when he married Tina, on the property they had he built a house because the big house was where his mother used to live with her two daughters and Tina, she’s a cockney, she just says what she thinks, you know? And the mother-in-law said to her one day, ‘Tina, did you know we had a lady in our family?’, and Tina just said, ‘Well, I think we’ve all [emphasis] got a bow to our- We’ve all got a something to our bow’ [laughs]. She was, she was awful. But, anyway, being as he only had two sisters, the mother died, so of course he took over and he went to live in the big house but he then supplied a house for his two sisters, and he let the house that he’d had down from the house to a chap that was working on the farm. So, we went down once to have a weekend with him, and we had to get up at four o’clock in the morning, and Mauri was supposed to milk the cows and there was just two little calves that had just been born, and I said to Danny, ‘What have you called them?’, he said, ‘Well let Marcia name them’. So she named them Marci and Andrea [laughs] the two little calves.
GT: That was after the war-
ID: Oh yes, after.
GT: But I would like to know, how you and Mauri got on, and how you knew he was a flyer? Did he tell you?
ID: Flying. Well, I didn’t always know when he was flying, but if he could tell me he would, but I mean sometimes he would come over the house that we were renting at the time, it was a village, he’d dip down and go up and dip down again, I used to have the kids standing outside waving to him [chuckles]. You could see him [emphasis] in the cockpit, he was so low.
GT: Did he tell you he was flying on 75 Squadron, or couldn’t he tell you anything?
ID: Oh yes, he told me. Yes, he told me. But I didn’t know what 75th Squadron meant.
GT: Oh [emphasis] 75 Squadron, not 75th.
ID: Well, isn’t it the only one in New Zealand?
GT: Oh, now it is, but back then it was 75 New Zealand Squadron Royal Air Force, yeah. So, so when he was flying and doing his ops, did he let you know or?
ID: If he could.
GT: You’d become a couple by then, had you?
ID: Oh yes, yes, and we were in a village and not far up the road, was the station where he was. If he wanted a babysitter, he would get a young chap and a young chap came down one night and he said, ‘Can I ask, what is your name?’, I said, ‘Dare’, he said ‘Dare, any relation to Charlie Dare?’, I said, ‘It’s Mauri’s brother’, he said, ‘See these teeth? He filled them in the camp’. He was training to be a dentist, and when he got back to New Zealand, the government offered to pay for him to finish training and become a complete dentist.
GT: So that was Mauri’s brother?
ID: Yes.
GT: So Mauri’s brother RNZAF, and he joined-
ID: He- Charlie, there was only the two brothers there was no daughters in their family at all. But, Charlie, I mean after- He was shot down on the first trip, so he was a prisoner of war for four-and-a-half years, a sorry mess when he came home, very sorry mess. Crippled with arthritis because of lack of food. I mean, he told me one day that the Gestapo had come into their camp, stopped at their Nissen Hut where they were and they had a horse and trap and when they came out to get their horse and trap, it was just the trap. They’d taken the horse, killed it and eaten it. He said, they used to scrape the scrap heaps where the cook had put them out, (potato peelings, things like that) boil them up and put- I don’t know, they used to get some beans or something from the Germans, they didn’t feed them well, not at all. But-
GT: And Mauri got to see Charlie after the air force, but- Now, when did you marry Mauri?
ID: Eight months after I met him.
GT: And he was still flying on operations at the time?
ID: Yes, but he was on holiday that week.
GT: And where did you marry?
ID: At Clapham Common, where I was stationed. I was there, oh quite a while, up in London. Clapham Common was where we were married and we were married in a church that was bombed the night before and the altar where you- At the top, the minister told us to do kneeling, he said, ‘I can’t ask you to kneel, because it’s all broken glass down here’. But the morning we were supposed to marry, I stayed with another girl, it’s on my wedding photos, she’s the corporal, I stayed with her. Got ready the next morning, came to the church, I managed- I don’t know, oh I know, there was a chap I'd met from the army at Catterick camp, and- Oh it’s long before I met Mauri, and he became a prisoner of war, I had forgotten about him and then all of a sudden I got this letter that they sent from Germany and it was from him [emphasis] and it said he was sending me fifty pound, and I thought, ‘What is he doing?’, I wrote back, I said, ‘Why are you sending me fifty pounds?’, he said, ‘I want you to buy an engagement ring’, and I got- He gave me the address of his mother, she lived I think in Manchester, so I got in touch with her and I said, ‘I’ve got to send you this money because I don’t want to get engaged to him, I really don’t’. So, she said, ‘If he gave you that money, then you keep that money’. So, I used that money to buy my plain clothes to get married to Mauri [chuckles], aren’t I horrible?
GT: Who was your best man?
ID: Warren [unclear], navigator of his.
GT: The navigator of Mauri’s crew.
ID: I didn’t know the rest of the crew.
GD: Yeah.
ID: I’m surprised that anybody of their left alive.
GT: Well, just to briefly mention the crew of Mauri. So, you had Mauri Dare as the pilot, G. Warren as the navigator, N. McDonald as the bomb aimer, W. Neville as the wireless operator, J. Dunbar as the flight engineer, A. Bannon as the mid-upper gunner and G. Lawton as the rear gunner, and currently, as of July 2018, Norman McDonald the bomb aimer and Alf Bannan the mid-upper gunner are still alive in New Zealand.
ID: Well, I mean I don’t know how friendly he was with these men, but he never mentioned them, only the guy that was our best man, and at the time Mauri had just got his commission and he had no money, so that Warren chap lent him a hundred-pound [chuckles] and as soon as he got paid his back money, he paid him back of course. But, ah the times, I wish it was now, I wish I was in it now. I really [emphasis] do, it was much better than anything I’ve been in, and I would’ve- I mean, my girlfriend back in New Zealand, she was- She came from Scotland, she- I’ve asked you, haven’t I? Did you hear- Have you heard of Whitecliff Saw Mill? It’s just outside Auckland. Well, Jimmy, his father owned that, and he had three brothers, and when he went back to New Zealand, the father died and they were supposed to share, the four of them, but the other three, apart from Jim, didn’t want it. So he raised money to pay them out and he took it, and he’d married Jan. Now, when we got to New Zealand, we stayed with Mauri’s mother and we were there about three months, and Charlie, he was in something- The [unclear] flag, I think, renting, and he wanted to be somewhere near. He’d got in touch with the, the chap that I told you- There was Mr Butland[?] that got made Sir Butland[?] with the money, he gave seventy-five-thousand, he said it was his profits, he gave it to England to help the war effort, and he got knighted for it, and his wife, Mrs Butland- I mean, he was going flying around in- Oh god- A big American car, blue, blue something and she had this little old Austin, she wouldn’t change, and her and I got on absolutely famous. When we left, she said- She sent word when we came back when he had the Panama Canal thing, she sent word she wanted to see us and I went up to this big house in Remuera and she gave me a present and she had a lovely silver cigarette case for Mauri with his initials on and a picture of New Zealand, and she had for Marcia a lovely little pair of patent leather shoes, and we were sitting there talking and I heard in the distance something like a bell, and I said, ‘What’s that?’, and she said, ‘Oh, it’s a bell in the far wing’. They had tennis courts, swimming pool everything, but she never, ever, would’ve let anybody think that she had anything. I mean she was so down to earth but her family, all like that.
GT: Now, Iris take me back to the, the end of ‘44, you’d married Mauri and Mauri was continuing with air operations. During that time, did you ever worry about losing Mauri?
ID: Tomorrow?
GT: Did you ever worry about losing Mauri, being shot down for instance?
ID: Oh gosh, yes, yes, absolutely. But as soon as he could he would ring through and let me- Oh, I mean not me, the neighbour that had a phone, not many people had a phone in those days, not a landline. I mean, mobiles never heard of anyway. But they would- Yes, he would let me know but- For going over, as I say, he would write a letter and he’d put a cross on the bottom and he told me previously, if I ever do that, you know I'm going on a raid and- I mean, it was quite often he did that, and that was a night raid.
GT: So, you were in Clapham and he was in Mepal, so he would write you a letter, how long did it take for that letter to get from him to you? Couple of days?
ID: Just, different things that were going on, but nothing that would give away any secrets what so ever, never.
GT: Did he ever have any black marks on his letter?
ID: No [emphasis], no, that was only [chuckles] when this chap in the army was writing to me, I thought, ‘There’s not much of a letter left there, only a couple of words’, so silly. I mean, they never mentioned the war, I don’t know what the Germans were afraid of.
GT: So that was- Oh you mean the British Intelligence because they were worried about censorship of the letters, I understand, yeah.
ID: I’m sorry I didn’t get-
GT: So that was the censorship of the letters wasn’t it? So, so, ok, so did you ever go to Mepal to visit Mauri?
ID: To visit?
GT: Yeah, did you visit Mauri in Mepal air base?
ID: Oh yes, yes. In fact my granddaughter took him just after he’d had his first stroke when he was seventy-something to a base near Peterborough. She took him for the day, and he got down there and there was three chaps waiting for him, to show him around and then they took him into the officer’s mess for lunch, and they took him onto the plane and my granddaughter said, honestly, she said, ‘They were trying to tell him what was going on’, she said, ‘He absolutely floored them, he knew all, they didn’t have to tell him, he knew it all’. It had all come back, I was amazed, he’d had his stroke, but it wasn’t severe.
GT: Ok, but in World War Two though, when you were at Mepal air base, did you go into any of the pubs in Sutton or- And Ely or anything like that?
ID: Yeah.
GT: Yeah, which ones?
ID: Oh.
GT: All of them?
ID: The Green Man, was one, a little, a really little old pub, I don’t know, very, very old, very old.
GT: Chequers? The pub, Chequers? Or, The Green Pickerel? The Three Pickerels? No, ok- Well, now when Mauri finished his tour in December ‘44, what happened to Mauri after that? Did he fly anymore?
ID: No, he only did the four years and then he was put- Sent back home. Well, or course they sent him on a boat, and he I think went on the Rangitiki, and I went on the- The one I went on, was a patient carrier with like a sick hospital and if you have children, they had a special room for the children, and they get looked after for the night.
GT: So, did you have children by then?
ID: Yeah, I had Marcia.
GT: Marcia, oh, when was she born?
ID: She was born in 1940…- Halfway between 1945 and ‘46.
GT: And then when did you sail to New Zealand? When did you follow? 1946?
ID: I can’t- Yeah. As I say, we only took the normal- That they were supposed to do, and then we went back but, there was no planes flying there at the time it was all boats, and I know he was on one boat and I was on the next one, every stop- When we got to Suez Canal thing, he was on one side of the canal and I was on the other, and he rang me from there, yeah, and we spoke, yeah, I don’t know whose phone, whether it was their phone, his phone or any, I've no idea, but I was quite surprised but yes- Took six weeks to get there, six weeks [emphasis]. Mind, I enjoyed it. It was lovely, I got to know one of the chaps on the- That used to serve the meals, and I just used to say, ‘That was a nice pudding, can I have another?’, ‘I’ll see what I can do’, and he used to get me another pudding [chuckles].
GT: So, when you arrived then to New Zealand, what air- What seaport did you go into?
ID: Wellington. That’s when we came up on the train and I said to him, asked him each stop, Paekākāriki, ‘Don’t be silly Mauri, what is it called?’, ‘Paekākāriki’.
GT: And it’s still Paekākāriki. Oh right, so, Mauri was living in Auckland by then?
ID: Oh yes, his mother, she was English, she had gone there with her father when she was young from Essex in London. He had an antique shop and he opened one in- When he got to Auckland, he opened it in the next, what do they call- Oh god, New something it’s called, now I forget, and he opened it there and then he came- He went to live with his- Mauri’s mother had a sister, and he went to live with her, but he was a wonderful old man, him and I got on like a house on fire, he- I used to sit and talk to him and he used to say to me, ‘Nobody ever does that, nobody sits and talks to me’. He used to ask me about London, the tubes and things like that and he said to me one day, ‘The Elephant and Castle and another station, and then another one, but something happened to that middle one, what was it?’, I said, ‘It was bombed on the entrance and it flooded and eight-hundred people were trapped and killed, eight hundred people’. So, I loved talking to him because you could talk about England. But oh boy, I don’t think I enjoyed my days in England like I did in New Zealand, I loved Auckland. Absolutely, and never got to see the South Island, I never got there.
GT: So, how long did you stay in New Zealand then, before you came back to England?
ID: Nineteen years.
GT: You were nineteen years in New Zealand?
ID: I mean, the girl in the hospital just recently said to me, ‘Where do you come from? What’s your accent?’, I said, ‘I haven’t got an accent’, she said, ‘You have’, I said, ‘Well what do you make it?’, she said, ‘Australian?’ I said, ‘Oh gosh, no’, she said, ‘Then it’s got to be New Zealand’, I said, ‘Right, you’re right there’. Absolutely loved that country, I do. But my friend, Jan, the one I told you that married the chap with the timber mill, she died three month ago, ninety-six, the same- A year- No, a year younger than me and I was friends with her for nearly seventy years and we- Mind it was me, we never had a cross word. Well, it wasn’t me that was- It was her she wouldn’t argue with you. She came over, for my eightieth birthday as a big surprise. Absolutely wonderful, I was devastated when she died. But actually, she hadn’t been too bad and then suddenly her son sent a text message to Andrea and said that she’d deteriorated in the last three weeks.
GT: So, if we just go back to Mauri for a moment. Now, Mauri had a serious stroke in July 1997?
ID: Yeah.
GT: And he died a little bit later, yeah?
ID: He had another one, I mean he said to me- He’d had the stroke, for about two or three weeks and he said to me, ‘You know, I could have another one,’ I said, ‘Don’t say that, you’re wishing that on yourself’, he said, ‘Well, it could happen’, and it did. He was- When he was up in bed, couldn’t move. So I immediately got the doctor and they left the surgery immediately, they’ve only got to come down the road, and they looked at him and they said, ‘Yes, he’s had another stroke’, and- Before they came, he turned- He tried to turn over, fell out of bed on the floor, and I had to ring my son in law and say, ‘Please come and help, I can’t get him up’, he was a dead weight, and they came- I can’t tell you, a hundred miles along the high road to get here, but we got him up anyway and took him to- He was supposed to go to Queens but they took him to the city and he didn’t like the city, if only he knew today that that’s the better place than Queen. But he kept saying, ‘If you take me back to Queens, I’ll be ok’. But they put some tubes up his nose to his stomach to feed him, and he kept pulling them out [emphasis] and then they’d have to go down to the- Take him down to operating room, put them in again, he’d pull them out.
GT: Did Mauri ever talk about his time on 75 Squadron to you, after the war?
ID: Oh yes, yes. Probably- Not anything important, but he loved being a New Zealander, he really did.
GT: Did he like being a pilot?
ID: Yes, but honestly, my granddaughter has gone into everything that he’s done, she’s right up to date with them, but she did say that when he was tested. He did a course over in Ireland for weather. I mean, I don’t know why he did that, but he did that course, and on the thing upstairs, the picture with his medals, he’s only got five, and none of them are really important, they’re just medals that anybody would get, but he’s got this little thing at the bottom saying he did this course for meteorology. I don’t know why he did it, I have no idea.
GT: But his time with 75 Squadron, and for that matter, bomber command, he did his job with purpose and also because he was fighting for King and country, yeah?
ID: Yeah.
GT: Yep, and he didn’t have any regrets as to what he did?
ID: No, never, no.
GT: That’s good.
ID: He loved doing it, but as I say, when he was tested once, his landing. The chap said, ‘He needs a lot of review on the landing’ [chuckles].
GT: I’m sure he refined that later, yeah, well that’s fascinating. Alright, so then, if we go back to when your time in New Zealand then, when did you come back to England, to live?
ID: Well, the first time I came back after eighteen months I’d been there, I was homesick, but I’d no sooner got- And I was six weeks on the boat, and no sooner got back and thought, ‘I’ve done the wrong thing, I know I've done the wrong thing’. I couldn’t wait to get back, I couldn’t, but, as I say, I don’t know, I can’t remember if that’s when Mauri got discharged or what? But-
GT: Was this, was this feeling you had about homesick, was that the same for all the other wives, all the other ladies that followed New Zealanders back home?
ID: I- It probably was, but I never knew them after we arrived in New Zealand. I never had anything. I did- I kept in touch- Well he kept in touch with me, the chap that looked after Marcia in the- Where they were looking after the babies, he took to Marcia. I mean, one day the father was out of his house, and he had a little veranda, and he was on this veranda, he saw this car going up and down and it stopped in front of him, and he said, ‘Can I help you?’, he said, ‘I’m looking for the Dare’s’, he said, ‘Oh, it’s here, who do you want?’. He wanted me, and when I went out to him he had presents for me and for Marcia and he wanted me to divorce Mauri and marry him. I said to him, ‘You must be joking’. I mean, he was a nice enough guy but, I mean, he never on the ship, he never spent the money that he had for wages, because he kept- I don’t know why he kept them but, he said his father owned four warehouses, so I don’t know if he had money or not. I mean, I liked him as a friend, what he did for Marcia, but no way I wanted to marry him.
GT: So, did Mauri follow you to England, did he?
ID: Who?
GT: Mauri?
ID: Yeah.
GT: He followed you to England?
ID: Yeah.
GT: And how many years did you stay here in England then?
ID: Years.
GT: Oh, oh, from the time that Mauri left New Zealand you didn’t go back? Twenty years?
ID: I can’t- Oh gosh no, no, it was much less than that, much, much less. He said, ‘You know, if you want to stay here, I’m willing to do so’, and I thought, ‘Well, my mother and father died very young’, I said ‘Well, I've got relatives but they’re not that important, no, we’ll go where you want to go’. That’s when we went home and stayed with his mother for three month. Until Charlie got the offer of two flats and after he picked one, his mother said, ‘Why don’t you let Maurice have the other one?’. So that’s when, we went that night with Mauri’s father to this address we had, Mauri went down to the door, the father and I stood back, and he knocked on the door, all I heard was, ‘Mauri?’ and another voice, this chap from- That had the saw mill thing, he’d been with Mauri in 75 Squadron, so of course we got the flat. It was a big house, and he’d broken it up into three flats. So, we got the front one, and that’s when we became friends with Jim, and he, I mean his wife Jan from Scotland was having the first baby, and he said to me, ‘Can you, if I ring you at about three, I'll come and see you at three o’clock in the morning, will you come with me to the hospital?’, I said, ‘Yes of course I will’, and he did, it was three o’clock in the morning, he knocked on the bedroom window, ‘Iris’.
GT: Who was Jim?
ID: Jim?
GT: Jim wo?
ID: Taylor. The one that I told you, that Mauri had been with in the 75 Squadron. Jim Taylor.
GT: 75 Squadron?
ID: Yeah, and he’s dead now, he died, gosh, Jan- She told me not so long ago, a few years since he died. But he, was a clever man, he won the DFC.
GT: He was awarded it?
ID: He had-
GT: He was awarded the DFC?
ID: Yes.
GT: Yeah.
ID: He did something, but it was a- Like a navy and white stripe little badge and he won that. It was something for bravery, I don’t know what it was, I have no idea.
GT: Fascinating...
[The interview has been edited here as the interviewee spoke about personal, post war matters.]
GT: Well, the reason Iris that I'm in your home now interviewing you is because someone in your family saw my name on the internet and told Andrea, and Andrea contacted me only a matter of weeks ago, and whilst I'm travelling in England now, this is the reason I've come to visit you in your place, and-
ID: Well, Andrea told Marcia all about it and Marci said, ‘Don’t do it’, she said, ‘Could be a hoax’, I said, ‘Oh for goodness sake Marcia’.
GT: [Chuckles] I’m no hoax. However, it’s been lovely chatting with you about your husband Mauri who was on 75 New Zealand Squadron RAF, and he was part of Bomber Command, he joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force and also became part of the Royal Air Force in 1944. He completed a full tour of ops on 75 NZ Squadron, from Mepal and he obviously fought for King and countries [emphasis] ‘cause it was England and New Zealand he was fighting for.
ID: Absolutely, absolutely, but I didn’t know till you told me that he’d been to Canada.
GT: All training from the Australian and New Zealanders and Canadians and British later, but was done in the Canadian training scheme and various stations right across Canada. So the tens of thousands of airmen that moved across the pacific, they were trained in Canada and then they were shipped across to England to carry on their training before they joined operational squadrons, and some of those chaps may have trained for nearly two years, before they got to England. So, it was great dedication. All volunteers.
ID: Well, I do remember him mentioning- Well, I thought he said was Banff, and I got the idea that that was in Canada. It is? Oh [chuckles].
GT: There you go.
ID: But he didn’t talk much about it. Didn’t tell me much about that at all. I think he enjoyed being here, he liked England. I said, ‘No, we’re not stopping here, we’re going to New Zealand’. I was dead keen to go to New Zealand, but I didn’t think when he took me down to the boat, do you know? He went for free, but he had to pay for me and Marcia, and I can remember, it was a hundred and something pound, to pay for us to go there. I can remember him paying it when we got down there to the boat. Went from Southampton.
GT: There were many ships that went back to New Zealand with servicemen and wives from England-
ID: Oh yes, I know there was a lot went. I don’t know- Mind, a lot came back too. Glad to get rid of them. No, I was a very- After my first eighteen months, and I was homesick, was so stupid, and I went back and I thought, ‘Well I’ll never do that again’, and I didn’t, and I loved living in Auckland, absolutely. I was so happy there, really was. I mean, what’s? Oh no you wouldn’t know, this chap here, what’s his name? He’s a- He’s in the midlands, he’s dead now but- He died just recently. He used to have a- Funny comedian, funny stick, and I mean, when I first got to New Zealand, I got this job in credit control and where I lived the houses were there, and then there was the road and then more houses, and another one behind that, and that one the bus used to go round there and come down our road. This lady, was on the bus- Oh quite a few days, and I got to sit next to her one day and I got talking, and she said, ‘I’ve just had a CD from my cousin in England’, and I said, ‘Oh what does he do?’, and she said, ‘Well, he’s a comedian but he’s not very well known’. So, I said, ‘Well what’s his name?’, and she mentioned it and I said, ‘Never heard of him’. Well, it was only after that I realised when I came back, who he was, and he was very well known. I mean, I didn’t realise that was her cousin. Amazing how you meet people. But I met a lot of people from New Zealand when I came back here, that had come back and I used to say, ‘Why did you come back [emphasis]?’ I would’ve never (apart from my first eighteen months), I would never have wanted to come back. As I’ve said to Andrea many times, ‘I wish I had never left’. Honestly, it was only through- We used to go to bowls, and he met this couple from South Africa, they were there and her father became very ill and they were called back to South Africa, and they must’ve said to Mauri, ‘Why don’t you come to South Africa?’. He came home one Saturday, he said, ‘Do you want to go to South Africa?’, I said, ‘What for?’, he just- Our house that we had, when we bought it, was ordinary, ordinary windows. He took them all out, he put ranch sliders in, he’d built the kids bedroom furniture, and I mean, he used to say, ‘I’m not a good carpenter’, I’d say, ‘You’ll do me, absolutely, very good’, I thought. But, Jim Taylor, the one that he was with in the 75th Squadron, as I say, they owned this timber company and Mauri ordered some wood from him once, and they were delivered, put on our front lawn. But you think we could get Jim to give us a bill? And Mauri said, ‘I can’t ask him for any more wood, if he won’t take the money’. He was a lovely man Jim. He idolised Marcia, ‘cause when she was three-month-old, he used to take her about nine o’clock at night, when it was dark, outside and he’d say, ‘What’s that Marcia?’, she’d say, ‘Tar’ and then he’d say something else that didn’t refer to the star, ‘What’s that Marcia?’, ‘Tar’ [chuckles]. He loved it.
GT: So, what did Mauri do as a job once he came back to England?
ID: He became- He went to a warehouse and he’d been there before the war, think he’d been there from leaving school, and he got on very well with- In the linen department there was a man that was manager of the linen department, and Mauri became manager of the linen department.
GT: And where was that?
ID: In Auckland.
GT: And once you guys came back to England, what did Mauri do then?
ID: I think he stayed there until we came back here, and then he got a job with Paton and Baldwin Wools and he worked for them for quite a while, and then my eldest daughter was married to a chap who was a managing director of a big curtain company, and he got Mauri a job with them. But, I mean, Mauri found out that this son-in-law wasn’t very nice and he didn’t want to make any arguments about it, but this son-in-law had said to somebody, ‘He got the job because I got him the job’, and Mauri said, ‘I was told’- He told me, ‘I said to him did you help get me the job the job? He said, no you got it on your own merit’. But he lied. Mauri was very upset.
GT: So, when did Mauri retire?
ID: What?
GT: Did he- When did Mauri retire?
ID: I think it was- It’s changed now, it was sixty, sixty, that’s when he retired.
GT: Retired at age sixty. Brilliant. Well, Iris, you’ve had a rather a bad couple of months there with tripping over and falling out of your car and injuring yourself badly, and now breaking your wrist et cetera, so I’m very honoured that you’re able to sit here and tell me about your lovely husband and his career and your life, and, I think it’s time now for me to finish our interview and the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln will be very pleased to hear of your time and your recollections from that era, which obviously you were a great part of, and also marrying into Bomber Command people.
ID: Well, I’ve loved every minute, I really have, I’ve enjoyed it, and it was so [emphasis] nice to meet you.
GT: Well, thank you very much Iris, and it’s lovely to meet somebody from the 75 Squadron people and I'm very grateful for, for your daughter allowing me to come and have a chat with you, and from your injuries I hope you mend well, ninety-six, that’s a tough road.
ID: Well, I'm glad you met Andrea.
GT: Yep, thank you very much.
ID: She’s a lovely person.
GT: Yep, that’s good and she looks after you very well I can tell
ID: But, she’s so like her dad, she really is.
GT: Yeah.
ID: She perspires like him.
GT: [Chuckles]
ID: When he used to do the garden, she’d have to put a band round- It used to stream down [chuckles].
GT: But obviously he was a great flyer and he committed himself to King and country and that’s, that’s a huge attribute.
ID: Yes, I think he was pretty good, apart from the landing.
GT: Oh, I think he got better.
ID: This chap said, ‘Leaves a lot to be desired’ [chuckles].
GT: But he completed a full tour of ops.
ID: Do you know what? When we got back to New Zealand and he’d finished with the RAF, there was an ad in the paper that Qantas were looking for pilots, the same day the RAF were asking for pilots to come to England and he thought, ‘Oh, dear what should I do?’. So, he applied for both, and he got both [chuckles] and then when he said, ‘Which do you want me to take?’, of course I said, ‘England’ stupidly, and that’s when we came back. But then once we got back permanently, I said, ‘I don’t want to go back there, I really don’t, I’m quite happy here’. But I mean he said, you know, I mean, he didn’t have much to do with his mother and father, although his father was a very nice man, the mother didn’t like her at all. She just took a dislike to me, I don’t know- I never did anything to her. When I got to Wellington, she was there to meet us, she took Marcia out of my arms and walked away. Never said hello, the father turned round and he called her, ‘Mum, aren’t you gonna say hello to Iris?’, ‘Oh, hello’. All she wanted was Marcia because she’d only had two sons, she wanted a daughter.
GT: Well, it’s amazing that you guys came back to England because many, many British brides stayed in New Zealand for the rest of their lives, and you must be one of the few that came back this way. But look, Iris it’s lovely to have chatted with you, thank you very much for allowing me to talk with you
ID: You’re more than welcome.
GT: And, and I wish you well with getting better and so, thank you and we’ll sign off our interview now yes?
ID: Thank you very much.
GT: Thank you, Iris, bye-bye.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Iris Dare
Creator
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Glen Turner
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-04
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADareI180704
Format
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00:58:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Balloon Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
New Zealand
Switzerland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--London
England--Stockport
New Zealand--Auckland
Wales--Swansea
England--Lancashire
Description
An account of the resource
Iris was born in a village outside Newcastle. At the beginning of 1940 she went to Gosforth to join up for the Royal Air Force. Iris liked the idea of uniformed service more than the option of becoming a nurse. She was then sent to Swansea for about 18 months to train as a balloon operator, which involved a lot of heavy work. She was paid £1.30 for two weeks but loved her time in the Royal Air Force. Iris was posted to Stockport on balloons but later on she became a driver. She explained what working on balloons involved – splicing ropes, lifting concrete blocks and looking after the balloons. Nicknamed 'softy', she allowed her eight girls to go to the pub while being the corporal in charge of 16 girls, eight working each night. Despite her brother’s help, the balloon got loose and was eventually found in Switzerland. Iris went to the London area for three weeks to be tested for her sergeant’s stripes, which she gained although she admitted that she hadn’t deserved them. She then returned to Swansea, but she did not like Wales because people used to speak in English, but when they saw them in uniform, they switched immediately to Welsh so that they could not be understood.
Iris met Maurice at the New Zealand Officers Club in London and they married eight months later at a church that had been bombed the day before at Clapham Common. Maurice was born in June 1922 in Newcastle. In January 1940 he joined the Royal Air Force and from 1944 he flew as a New Zealand Lancaster pilot with 75 Squadron Maurice had completed a full tour of operations. In July 2019, Norman McDonald and Alf Bannon were the only two surviving members of his crew, still alive in New Zealand. Maurice never expressed regrets about what he had done during the war. His brother Charlie had been a prisoner of war. After Maurice finished a tour in December 1944, having done four years, he and Iris went back to New Zealand. Their first daughter, Marcia, was born in 1945 and Andrea followed. They stayed in New Zealand for 19 years before returning to England. Before the war Maurice had worked in a warehouse. After the war he became manager of the linen department of a warehouse in Auckland. On return to England he got a job with Paton & Baldwin Wools.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Adalberto Di Corato
Tilly Foster
Jean Massie
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1944
75 Squadron
aircrew
ground personnel
Lancaster
love and romance
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Mepal
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/212/3351/ABlackhamCP161023.1.mp3
41156d573a080b43ea5fb588daf52a1f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Blackham, Charles Philip
Charles Philip Blackham
Charles P Blackham
Charles Blackham
C P Blackham
C Blackham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Charles Philip Blackham (1923 - 2019, 1624693 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 550 Squadron.
The was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Blackham, CP
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin, the interviewee is Mister Philip Blackham. The interview is taking place at [deleted] Cheshire, on the 23rd of October 2016. Philip, good afternoon.
PB: Good afternoon.
JM: Could I ask you to tell us a little bit about your family background, where you were born and brought up and where you went to school?
PB: Well, I went to Stockport School, which is a well-known secondary school in Stockport on the main Wellington road going south out of the town and I was there for four years and I rose from being seventeenth in the class to top of the class. Amazing because they decided to honour my parents who’d paid for me to go to the school, I hadn’t won a scholarship so I went on to be top of the class to my absolute amazement, sharing that top position with another young man in the class of twenty or thirty cadets and pupils and I got my school certificate with a distinction in art, believe it or not, and physics.
JM: So you have some science and maths in your background.
PB: Yes, I was a hopeless failure at chemistry. Otherwise I passed in everything.
JM: And what had you thought you would do with your life, had you got a choice of career in mind?
PB: I thought I was gonna be a priest at one stage but it didn’t happen, it didn’t go on in that direction. I became an apprentice in mechanical engineering at a very big and famous diesel engine company called Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day, a very, very wonderful firm which I had greatly admired and it’s just been dismantled in the last twelve months.
JM: And had you started your apprenticeship before the war began?
PB: No, the war was already starting, I think. I hope I’m right about that because I can’t be absolutely certain.
JM: Had you got any experience of flying? Had you ever thought of joining the Royal Air Force when you were at school?
PB: No, no, I hadn’t, no. I just wanted to get into the services cause there was a war on and my father had fought in the Great War and become very lame so I had to stand for [unclear] his good example, he was still alive and hobbling from war wounds in his legs.
JM: So you perhaps didn’t feel to join the Army but perhaps the RAF was a choice.
PB: Well, I had no interest in the Army whatsoever. The Air Force interested me because it was aeroplanes and petrol engines where of tremendous interest to me.
JM: So, your interest in engineering was really a factor of perhaps you becoming a flight engineer
PB: Oh yes, yes. I also became an engineer, I took the engineering qualifications at Barry, South Wales.
JM: Right. When you were in the RAF.
PB: Yeah, qualifying, after qualifying as a pilot, took the engineering degree as well.
JM: Right.
PB: And I still got the certificates.
JM: Let’s go back a bit. What age were you when you joined the RAF?
PB: About seventeen or eighteen.
JM: Seventeen or eighteen. Had you seen anything of the air raids against Manchester or Liverpool?
PB: Yes, yes, we had a bomb in our own garden in Stockport, a district known as Edgeley and this was a plane that was dumping its bombs I think and the neighbour tried to throw a sandbag on a firebomb and while he went to fetch another sandbag because the first one burst, a high explosive bomb dropped, about as near as that wall there.
JM: That must have done a lot of damage.
PB: And I had me motorbike, I was, I must have been seventeen cause the motorcycle at the time had been inverted so I could fit a bicycle dynamo to it, cause it wasn’t an electrical motorbike, it had an acetylene light, 1929 model, I was very fond of it, it was a lovely thing and I got it going extremely well, used to take people out on it, going horse riding in the country in Cheshire. All over the place on a 1929 Raleigh motorbike so I was fond of engines.
JM: Right.
PB: And I had totally rebuild that engine myself. So I was going to be an engineer and I was and in due course became the chief, something, the title for my position in Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day, [pauses] I’ve forgotten the title.
JM: Doesn’t matter.
PB: I had a big title for the whole of Europe at London office, they moved me from Hazel Grove, Stockport to the west side of London.
JM: I imagine you could probably have stayed in that company during the war as a reserved occupation.
PB: Yes, they were trying to reserve me and I wanted to get out to it and get into the services.
JM: Why did you think so strongly to, that you wanted to join up?
PB: I wanted to be in the action because the war was at its worst at the time, at the time of the Blitz and the bombing.
JM: So, we’re in 1940, the summer and the autumn of 1940.
PB: Yes, I can’t see you very clearly by the way, there is a very bright light behind you. I don’t know whether the curtains could be closed, could they, just to reduce the strength of the light, that’s a good idea, thank you.
JM: What did your family say when you told them that you were going to sign up?
PB: Nothing. They just, they accepted it, there was a war.
JM: Did you have brothers perhaps, at all, older brothers?
PB: Yes, my brother came with me into the Air Force, my older brother and he was recruited, conscripted, I volunteered, so I could be with him,that was how it happened.
JM: Right. Do you remember where you went to enrol?
PB: Oh, I’d been in the Home Guard already, by the way, I had no interest in the Army, I had been a Dad’s Army member, a very happy one too and I used to walk home down our road from the Headquarters of the Home Guard to my house carrying a rifle and ammunition. That wouldn’t be allowed now, would it?
JM: No, it wouldn’t.
PB: At my young age and I had the amazing experience of being told, if you don’t stop asking stupid questions you’re gonna be thrown out of this lecture room. That was what the Commanding Officer said to me.
JM: And what were the stupid questions you were asking?
PB: Oh, just quizzing him about things he was lecturing us on, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you exactly.
JM: Well, they weren’t stupid questions if you were, seeking clarification.
PB: They weren’t stupid questions, they were questions about six rounds, rapid fire between yonder bushy top trees,that was the sort of terminology. And I became a Home Guard driver eventually, that’s another thing that levered me towards being a motorist. I knew how to drive but hadn’t driven, so I got myself into headquarters where the, there’s an Armoury in Stockport, a major building for military purposes called the Armoury, and I got myself recruited there as a driver and took a party of Great War veterans with their respirators and tin hats to a village nearby, name was Marple, in snow and ice, and I’d never driven before ever [emphasises] on the roads, but I had a motorbike, so I knew what the rules of the roads were, this 1929 Raleigh which was my pride and joy incidentally and got myself to Marple which is a very, very hilly area and I was stupid enough to get the passengers to get out and push instead of bouncing as I should have done up the steep hill called Brabyns Brow.
JM: Let’s go on with your time with the Royal Air Force. Do you remember where you went to enrol and what happened to you once you joined?
PB: I went to Manchester to enrol, was immediately accepted, I was fit and well and very thrilled about going into the Air Force.
JM: And where did you receive your initial training?
PB: Cambridge University.
JM: Was it?
PB: Would you believe that? Wasn’t I lucky? In St John’s College, Cambridge, which is a very famous college
JM: It is.
PB: And had a very famous choir.
JM: It has.
PB: And I was there in the ancient buildings on the river Cam.
JM: And were you receiving basic military training there or was this aircrew?
PB: Yes, Air Force engineering and stars and sky and [glider]
JM: How long were you there for, do you remember?
PB: Twelve months.
JM: Twelve months.
PB: And I was living in the college building and even got, for some silly reason a friend & I decided we would sleep out in the quadrangle one night and we were, some students were also in the college, they carted us off into a far corner of the quadrangle where we couldn’t easily get back into our quarters and the rain came and the [unclear – could be “sirens”] went all at the same time.
JM: I imagine there were plenty of examinations, weren’t there, as you were being trained?
PB: Oh yes, they were.
JM: And how did you do with those examinations?
PB: Probably still got the books if the truth be known.
JM: Really? Yes?
PB: I’ve certainly got my brother’s books.
JM: Did you pass the examinations well?
PB: Oh yes, I had to do that.
JM: And what happened to you when that course of training was complete? Where did you go next?
PB: Uh, got to think about that. I can’t remember.
JM: Do you remember if you went for flying training?
PB: Not till I got to Cambridge.
JM: Right.
PB: That was my first flying where I went to Marshalls Airport, Cambridge.
JM: Yes, it’s still there.
PB: And eventually, much later still, I became the Manager of the Marshalls Airport.
JM: Right. How did you get on?
PB: [unclear]
JM: Do you remember what you flew first of all?
PB: Tiger Moths.
JM: Tiger Moths. How did you get on flying with Tiger Moths?
PB: I loved them, beautiful little plane. And I was not taught to look out behind me and look for trouble and I was criticised for that but that was the teacher’s fault, he hadn’t taught me to look round.
JM: Do you remember?
PB: There is a chimney there called Joe’s something or other, it a brickwork
JM: Yes.
PB: On the other edge of Cambridge Airport, do you know it?
JM: I don’t know.
PB: Cambridge Airport, Smokey Joe it was called
JM: Right.
PB: And we used that to tell the direction of the wind.
JM: And do you remember how many hours before you went solo?
PB: I didn’t actually succeed in going solo until I got to Canada.
JM: Right.
PB: In a plane very similar to a Chipmunk, it was a Canadian built two seater, [pauses] just like a Chipmunk to look at
JM: Yes.
PB: You wouldn’t even tell the difference but it was in fact a six cylinder engine, whereas the Tiger Moth and the Chipmunk had just four cylinder engines.
JM: So you were sent from Cambridge by sea to Canada to complete your training.
PB: That’s right.
JM: And that was in 1941, was it?
PB: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. And what was it like? What were your impressions of Canada, a young man arriving in Canada?
PB: Terribly impressed, was a big thing cause I’d crossed the Atlantic by sea in the submarine chase.
JM: Do you remember the ship that you travelled on?
PB: Yes, the Aquitania.
JM: Right.
PB: Let me think about this, yes. That’s it.
JM: Yes.
PB: I was hoping for the Queen Mary.
JM: [laughs]
PB: Cause it was in use in those days but I didn’t have the luck to go in the Queen Mary, I went in the Aquitania.
JM: Well that was a big ship, was it?
PB: Was a huge liner, built in 1914.
JM: And do you remember whereabouts in Canada you went to?
PB: Yes. First of all, De Winton near, what’s the big city in the far west?
JM: Vancouver?
PB: No, not as far as that.
JM: Calgary?
PB: Calgary.
JM: Right.
PB: De Winton is the airport for Calgary.
JM: So you went to Calgary.
PB: It’s straining my memory trying to remember these answers for you.
JM: Well, you’re doing very well but I mean, I think people will be interested in what it was like to be living in Canada and flying there
PB: Oh.
JM: So, anything you can remember,
PB: I can remember all that.
JM: Please tell us a bit.
PB: We had a first posting was the eastern part of Canada, a place I can’t remember the name of, where my cousin has just gone to live now to look for work in the building industry. I have not told you about that, have I? He’s gone to live there, looking for work as a builder.
JM: But what was it like for you in 1941 being in Canada? What was the food like?
PB: Oh, everything was perfect. It was very cold, I remember that, we had to be careful not to get frozen. And when we eventually got out to the prairies. And then we went from eastern Canada and I’m sorry I can’t name the exact spot, we were there for say a week or ten days and we went by rail right across Canada. And if you want a silly joke, the attendant in the steam train said that “you want to hurry up, if you hurry enough you’ll see Lake Winnipeg”. And we did, we hurried down for breakfast to make sure to being ready to see Lake Winnipeg and we were passing it for a day and a half.
JM: [laughs]
PB: That is a fact.
JM: So, that’s a big lake.
PB: A day and a half by a slow steam train, which was very dirty and dusty. And they had to come round with a brush all day long sweeping up the soot. And we eventually got via intermediate cities across Canada to Vancouver, no, sorry, not Vancouver, Calgary. And there I was for six months learning to fly a little plane, very similar to a Chipmunk.
JM: Yes. So, you were flying single engine aircraft at that stage.
PB: Yes.
JM: And did you want to continue as a fighter pilot on single engine aircraft or?
PB: Yes.
JM: You did.
PB: I did.
JM: And how come you were selected then to fly bombers?
PB: Well, I think they were short of bomber pilots and they had to convert me to a four engine pilot.
JM: Do you remember what, what large airplanes you flew first of all? Once you’d qualified.
PB: Just those. We flew Chipmunks of course, for 190 hours on Chipmunks learning to fly to get our wings.
JM: Yes. You must have been very proud when you got your wings.
PB: Oh, I was. Still got one.
JM: [laughs] Good for you.
PB: I’ve never worn them for [unclear] have I?
JM: No.
PB: I got a pair of Air Force wings which is my pride and joy. Best thing I’ve ever done in my life. And we were graduated in the middle of the Canadian desert, as it were, it was a wild and windy place with cold weather.
JM: I was wondering.
PB: It was the 21st of April, I can remember that too. I always remember the graduation date.
JM: I was wondering if you ever flew the Oxford out there.
PB: Only as a navigation exercise.
JM: Right.
PB: Just once or twice.
JM: Yes.
PB: Navigation with about three of us on board, taking turns to navigate it.
JM: Yeah.
PB: Yes.
JM: And how did you find navigation? Was that a skill you could master?
PB: Oh yeah. I was qualified as a navigator.
JM: Right.
PB: I got a certificate to say so.
JM: Did you do observation of the stars as part of your navigation?
PB: Yes, all that lot. And I frightened one of my instructors by doing a violent evasive action when what I was avoiding was Saturn.
JM: [laughs]
PB: This is a fact, it frightened me to death. I still dived out of the route I was supposed to be taking, when doing some low flying over the Bow River in Calgary area.
JM: Did you meet the Canadian people very much? Did you go to their homes?
PB: Yes, one or two were very good to us and kind and we got friends with the family, doctors and such like. And we even were allowed to drive their cars and we got petrol for them. They had English cars with American tyres on them that were below standard, they were some wartime grade of tyres they were allowed to use in wartime. And we had a “meatless Tuesday”, I’ve never forgotten, “meatless Tuesday”, as a feature of Canadian life.
JM: A number of airmen who trained there and came back to Britain remarked as how they’d grown when they were living in America and Canada and eating all the steaks and the fine food that wasn’t available in Britain. Do you have that sort of?
PB: No, I don’t recall that at all. Just had good food I know
JM: And exercise.
PB: Very satisfactory.
JM: Yeah. Where did you go when you were off duty?
PB: To the local cinema [laughs]. That’s all.
JM: Did you have dances or it was just the cinema?
PB: Oh yes, we had dances and invited the local villagers from another, yeah, the next aerodrome I went to after De Winton was another one which I have forgotten the name of, if you could switch off for a minute I could.
JM: Now, Phillip, I gather you have a story about a motorbike tyre.
PB: Well, I was running an Ariel Square Four motorbike by then and I’d graduated from the 1929 Raleigh 250 to a 1939 Ariel Square Four and it needed a tyre and I bought a tyre in Stockport, my local town. But it proved to have a fault, it was a crack in the side of the tyre or something undesirable, so I took it out to Italy because I knew they put up with any tyres they were short of anything at all that goes on their cars and motorbikes. They didn’t realise it was a tyre of an undesirable size, unsuitable for a Fiat or any other sort of small car. But they gladly gave me quite a lot of money for it and put it under the seat of the Lancaster [laughs], carried it to Italy and disposed of it there for a good price.
JM: [laughs]
PB: Was quite amazed. And what’s the other story?
JM: The other story is about the picture at the reunion at North Killingholme for Operation Manna and.
PB: Well, I can’t remember a reunion, there’s something that-
US: Each year the reunion that the Dutch come to [unclear]
PB: They come and join in our parties and the prayers at the memorial, there is a beautiful memorial being built at North Killingholme [sighs] probably before the end of this talk we shall remember where I was trained for the Lancaster, I’m sorry I can’t think of it.
JM: It’ll come to you. I’m interested to hear about the reunion and the story of the painting of the Lancaster. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
PB: I’ve got a print of it, that’s all, just a print of the Lancaster with a title on it, forgotten what the title is, it’s gone, I’m sorry.
JM: Now, Phillip, we are looking at a lovely copy of a painting of Lancasters flying over Holland dropping food. Can you tell us a little bit more about the story of this painting?
PB: Not of this painting, I’m sorry. Because I don’t remember ever seeing a windmill in Holland.
JM: That might be a bit of artist license, mind you.
PB: I think they substituted that. But it’s a lovely painting, isn’t it? These are the bankings around the water, I think. Here, drainage areas, but I can’t add anything to that except there are three, five Lancasters, I don’t remember seeing it, can I look at the other side of it for a minute? I don’t know why I wasn’t aware of this. There’s the Phantom of the Ruhr.
JM: Yes, there is another painting here showing the Phantom, the Lancaster PA474.
PB: I got a print of this.
JM: Yes. Wearing the colours of the Phantom of the Ruhr 550 Squadron aircraft.
PB: I’ve got a print of that one but that one is new to me.
JM: Philip, at the top of this print of the Lancaster there are a number of signatures. Do you see these here?
PB: Can I look? Cause I may have signed this, Jack Harris, who is a well-known organiser of the meetings.
US: He’s the other pilot.
PB: Can you see any other names? Can I bring it nearer to you? There I am. [unclear]
JM: [unclear].
PB: It’s very indistinct. Yes, I’m there. How did you get this? Cause I haven’t got one with my signature on it. Do you notice we have aerials spreading from the cockpit to the tops of the rudders?
JM: Yes.
PB: Spitfires had a rather similar arrangement with aerials trailing to the top of the rudder.
US: I think a couple of these chaps are now dead.
PB: I wouldn’t be surprised, Jack Harris was the organiser of our meetings at North Killingholme.
JM: Who is that, Philip, can you read that one?
PB: Let me try and see that. It’s not clear in my sight at all.
JM: Ok.
PB: He’s the navigator.
JM: It doesn’t matter-
PB: Chaz somebody. I might be able to recognise his name if time comes. By the way, I continued flying right up to the Squadron being closed down in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
JM: I was going to ask you about that.
PB: I will come to that later if you like.
JM: Well, please tell us now while it’s in your mind.
PB: Alright, well, I went and joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force while I was earning my living in Manchester and working as an engineer and representative and I [pauses] what did I do?
JM: What was it like in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force?
PB: Wonderful, a real life and the CO used to organise motor rallies.
JM: Did you fly with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force?
PB: Oh yes.
JM: What did you fly?
PB: Meteor jets.
JM: Did you?
PB: Phew
JM: So you were a jet pilot as well as a Lancaster pilot.
PB: Yes, that was the big thing in my life. Every weekend I was zooming about in Meteor jets twin engine, at all levels and in all kinds of formation aerobatic and I survived it, two, three of my friends were killed.
JM: Very sad.
PB: Three of them,
JM: Yes.
PB: For various reasons. One who I’d just taken home on leave and he was killed the next weekend.
JM: And I believe you also had time with the Air Training Corps, I believe you were an officer with the Air Training Corps, will you tell us about that?
PB: Yes, I’ve been a civilian and
JM: Civilian.
PB: Everything in the committee that you can be,
JM: Yeah.
PB: All the small positions right, leading right up to the top position as the manager, civilian manager of the Air Training Corps.
JM: So I expect you flew with them.
PB: Two or three different squadrons in Manchester and Stockport area, so.
JM: I expect you must have flown an aircraft in the ATC.
PB: Yes, to this day I am still the Superintendent of an Air Training Corps squadron.
JM: Right.
PB: Still active although I’m immobilised as you will have noticed, I still do that work.
JM: When you look back now from where you are in your life now to your wartime experiences, what feelings do you have? What did it do for you?
PB: Well, it’s a long distant past now, it’s just the past and it’s gone by, that’s how I feel about it. The happiest days were at Cambridge, there’s no doubt about that, but I also continued in Cambridge as Manager of Marshalls Airport, on another job for the Air Force.
JM: Yes, yes. So when you left the Air Force, what year was it you left, do you remember?
PB: No, I couldn’t recall
JM: No, no. But you
PB: I’m sorry.
JM: Your life after leaving the airport was very much involved with engineering?
PB: I was a chief sales manager of the Marine Division of Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day and National Gas & Oil Engine Company which were associated with each other, they were related, two factories eight miles apart.
JM: And you were telling me that you had a job as a journalist working on a magazine to do with steam trains.
PB: Yeah. That’s right.
JM: Tell us about that, would you?
PB: Well, I, the publisher was, the name of the publisher, has just escaped me, who was right near the, [pauses] there was a famous cathedral.
JM: Here in Manchester or? No, in London?
PB: No, in London. Can you name a cathedral?
JM: St [unclear]
PB: A famous cathedral?
JM: Saint Paul’s Cathedral?
PB: No, no, further south than that.
JM: Uhm, Southwark Cathedral?
PB: No.
JM: Westminster?
PB: Westminster Cathedral.
JM: Right.
PB: We were just outside the doors of that.
JM: Were you? Yeah. And you were producing.
PB: I was writing and checking and working with them and I learnt the art of editing a railway gazette and writing nearly the whole of the articles sometimes, the whole of the magazine was my responsibility. I even went to the publishers, which was Odhams Press, to put it to bed as they call it.
JM: So, your whole life really had a theme of engineering in it from when you left school, through the flying and in your life after that, your working life after that was, engineering was a common thread, wasn’t it?
PB: Yes, absolutely. And I, huge engines in, were as tall as this room, massive marine engines
JM: yeah.
PB: And I’m very proud of one or two jobs I had to do. One was this City of Victoria, a huge passenger liner with four engines sailing from Vancouver to Victoria Island across the water
JM: Yes.
PB: Do you know that area at all?
JM: I’ve been there once, yeah. But I wanted to ask you about your, you told me that you had kept in touch with your crew members.
PB: Yeah.
JM: I gather you were quite involved with the veterans, the members of 550 Squadron.
PB: Oh yes, yes. Still go.
JM: Are there many left now?
PB: There’s dozens, but only a few go.
JM: Right.
PB: Cause a lot of ground staff go.
JM: Did you have much to do with the ground engineers when you were on the squadron?
PB: No, nothing.
JM: You just kept yourselves as a crew flying.
PB: We were flyers.
JM: Yeah.
PB: And we had, one of the nicest thing was one Sunday, I was minding my own business with my Ariel Square Four tucked away in safekeeping while I was overhauling the cylinder head, I was always working on these motorbikes, as well as using them to come to Stockport at the weekends and the Flight Commander arrived in my hut right across the fields from church parade where he had been. You know the church we go to? Well, I found myself sitting close to the Wing Commanders and people in charge of the squadron and one of them suddenly turned up at my, in my Nissen hut, and asked to see my Ariel Square Four, well, I think, get out of bed and take him out to the Gents toilet where I kept it [laughs] across a muddy field and he was in his best outfit, cause the church parade was medals, in all his fancy regalia in uniform and his flat hat on, a top man in the squadron, not the Commanding Officer but one of the very, very senior flight commanders. I used to fly in the RAFVR. RAFVR
JM: Yes.
PB: After the war, after my full-time service. Oh, I stayed on with the Air Force because I loved it and it meant everything to me. So what, did I say I’d done?
JM: In the African desert.
PB: I had a job of repairing the engine of a York, which is identical to the engine of a Lancaster by the way, but the wings are higher up the body, they’re down here in a Lancaster and they’re up there on a York and I had to be on the scaffolding doing the repairs myself cause I was qualified to do that sort of thing and repair the fuel feed pump, something that had to be changed and everyone else was having the afternoon in bed on a very, very hot sunny afternoon and I was working on the scaffolding on the aircraft, which was a terrific, terrific privilege to me to be allowed to tinker with the engine on a York aircraft. I’d never tinkered with one before by the way.
JM: And you were successful.
PB: Oh yes, it flew away to Singapore. And I should have been going with it but this delayed my departure so that I wouldn’t have been back in England in time to report back to work. So therefore I had to get off this York and then get me baggage and rubbish and go back with another plane back to England and guess what I came back in? A Sunderland flying boat.
JM: Tell us about that.
PB: That was a wonderful experience to me. This beautiful Sunderland flying boat was gently resting on the waves at Valletta harbour and they took me on board to give me a lift home and said, would I like to fly it? And apart from the act of take-off and the landing, I did all the flying all the way back to England.
JM: Was it an easy aeroplane to fly?
PB: Beautiful, amazing experience and something I’ve always remembered. And the crew went to bed in the back of the plane. Honestly.
JM: Oh yes, a big aeroplane.
PB: With little round windows all way along the side. And I’ve since met an Air Training Corps officer, very senior one called Cross, who was in charge of the whole of the Air Training Corps, and he said, his father was an Imperial Airways pilot that what set him up as a pilot in the first place. So he knew what I was talking about with regards to flying a Sunderland, huge plane but beautiful.
JM: And this would have been presumably in the late 1940s?
PB: They did the take off and the landing by the way, I didn’t do that but we found out where we were, we got lost over France cause we weren’t expecting to be very precise with our navigation over France. I’d done numerous jet’s trooping between England and Italy, England, Italy, England, Italy, Italy, England, from Milano to this aerodrome that I couldn’t name in Southampton area, I’m sorry I can’t remember the name of it, it’s a very well known, it’s where they fly American transport planes to this day.
JM: Well, we’ll come back to that. Are there any other stories that are in your mind from your RAF time either during the war or after that you’d like to tell us?
PB: Certain funny ones. One in particular was when I was driving back from Grimsby on a motorbike and only a 350 and we found an Australian crew of a Morris Minor, now I don’t mean the modern Morris Minor, I mean the wartime Morris Minor which is a very square [unclear] sort of, very sluggish sort of aeroplane, eh, car I mean sorry, and they’d broken down by the roadside so I offered to tow them back to the aerodrome, they were members of my crew. And we got going you know, slowly gathering speed up a very gradual incline up to the aerodrome about five miles and they had about five people in this tiny little car and they had to get out on the running boards to accommodate them all, including my crew member as well, my navigator in this case or my, uhm, not the bomb aimer, yes, it was the bomb aimer, a man whose name I could tell you later on, he may still be alive too. Uhm, he was an expert on Robbie Burns, and that was, he was, he loved reciting to me, taught me all about Robbie Burns, he was my bomb aimer and we carried on until I felt the back of the motor bike was squirming like this, and I looked round and it was going from curb to curb [laughs] we got up such speed and although it was only a 350 motorbike with all these Australian crew plus my bomb aimer hanging on the running boards not in it but on it, we got out of control so I had to slow down and I got them back to the aerodrome.
JM: It’s a story of young men enjoying themselves for the moment.
PB: Well, they’ve been out enjoying themselves in Grimsby and, or some pub on the way to Grimsby. I had the great joy of escorting them back on the end of a rope from a motorbike. It must have been their rope by the way.
JM: You wouldn’t have one of those on your bike, would you?
PB: I wouldn’t have had a rope on it, no. But this was only a little 350 Triumph. A powerful one by the way. Before I graduated onto an Ariel Square Four.
JM: Are there any other stories that you’d like to tell us? About your wartime service, your flying time?
PB: Well, only that we were chased by Spitfires for practice for them, that was quite an interesting experience.
JM: Tell us about that, please.
PB: Well, I just took photographs of the Spitfires that were honing in on us, homing in on us, to take photos I suppose.
JM: I think that was called fighter affiliation.
PB: That’s right, that’s exactly what it was called.
JM: And that was giving them a chance to practice intercepting and you a chance to practice evading.
PB: That’s right. And they were probably from an aerodrome which I subsequently flew at myself on Spitfires and the name’s escaped me just at the moment, uhm, [pauses] sorry, the name’s gone, it’ll come back, cause I used to be there for months after my demob, well, towards my demob and they were a nice crowd till the Flight Commander was killed while I was there.
JM: In a flying accident?
PB: Yes, he made a mistake doing a roll over the runway and just dived straight into the ground and he had just given me leave, was very sad about that. The name of the aerodrome I shall easily find in my memory because of having difficulty with remembering it in the past. I’m sorry it’s gone. You want to switch off while I’m thinking that name? I will do in a minute. I want to tell to them ‘cos it’s so funny.
JM: Tell us the story then.
PB: Well, I’ll tell you about Lyneham being a landing point back in the United Kingdom near Southampton and they now have American transport planes landing there.
JM: And this was when you were bringing the prisoners of war home.
PB: Troops, not prisoners.
JM: Well, ex-prisoners of war.
PB: Yes. Or servicemen who couldn’t wait for a boat.
JM: Ok. Oh, I see, so they were any servicemen.
PB: Not just prisoners.
JM: Right.
PB: A story about life on North Killingholme aerodrome, was near Grimsby, we had a Warrant Officer called Warrant Officer Yardley and he stopped my navigator and said to him, Warrant Officer, well, forgotten his surname at the minute, “what are you doing out on your motorbike without your hat on”? Which is how he expressed himself, he was a very brusque Warrant Officer in charge of the discipline on the Air Force bomber station, “what are you doing without, your, riding your motorbike without your hat on”? And “Warrant Officer” the man at fault said, “but Sir”, very polite to this Warrant Officer cause he was very firm, “you can’t ride a motorbike in a strong wind”. Forget exactly how he expressed it, “you can’t” and the Warrant Officer looked round at the sky and said, “but there ain’t no wind today” [laughs]. It was a calm day that particular day.
JM: Was a calm day.
PB: But he still had to wear his hat and of course he’d generated a certain amount of that wind himself.
JM: yeah.
PB: I had a nasty smash on that same motorbike and finished up in hospital for a week.
JM: Oh dear.
PB: When I should have been doing some bombing runs.
JM: Philip, you’ve told us many lovely stories, you’ve really described the life of a young man here in England and in Canada and on operations at the end of the war. Thank you very much for your interview. It’s very important, thank you.
PB: It’s been a pleasure- And I’ll tell you the name of.
JM: Just as an afterthought, you’ve told us that you were commissioned as a Flight Lieutenant and I’m going to conclude this interview by thanking Flight Lieutenant Blackham for his interview. Thank you very much.
PB: Thank you.
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Interview with Charles Philip Blackham
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eng
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00:46:52 audio recording
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Julian Maslin
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2016-10-23
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Philip Blackham became an apprentice engineer at Diesel engine company Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day, of which he became a sales manager post war. He served in the Home Guard becoming a driver, then he enrolled in summer 1940 with initial training at Cambridge University, St John’s College, for engineering. After that he went to Marshalls Airport, Cambridge for flying training. Eventually he became a flight engineer at Barry, South Wales.
In 1941 Charles was posted to Canada to complete training at RAF De Winton, learning to fly a Chipmunk and then converted to four engine aircraft: 'I got a pair of Air Force wings which is my pride and joy. Best thing I’ve ever done in my life'. Canada was described as being nice, vast, and cold, inhabited by friendly people, with plenty of fine food that wasn’t available in Britain. Very few details are given about wartime service. After the end of war, he went on to serve in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force as an engineer and representative of Meteor jets, which he also flown. Charles also became an Air Training Corps superintendent. Describes his involvement in one of the 550 Squadron reunions at RAF North Killingholme where they discussed Operation Manna. Talks about PA474 Phantom, a 550 Squadron aircraft.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cambridge
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
Alberta--De Winton
Alberta
Temporal Coverage
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1941
Contributor
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Jean Massie
550 Squadron
aircrew
civil defence
flight engineer
Home Guard
Lancaster
memorial
Meteor
military ethos
military living conditions
navigator
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
pilot
RAF North Killingholme
recruitment
Sunderland
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27443/ANewtonJL[Date]-01.mp3
325b72bbca36d854ce1a8b42c8dad8ec
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-15
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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Other: Hello. And how nice it is to have our guest this evening and our guest this evening is Jack Newton. And I don’t know if you’re like me but often if I go to a bus station or a railway station or even an airport you look at all those masses of people walking about and you think to yourself I wonder who you are or what your name is or what you do. Or I wonder where you’re going. Perhaps I’m just nosey, I don’t know. And I had this feeling a little earlier when I went down into Reception to meet Jack because Jack was chatting to his lady wife and people were milling about but I don’t suppose any of them in their wildest dreams would have thought to themselves, sitting on that seat is one of the bravest men that you will ever meet and a man who has faced death and got away with it. Because Jack was an airman and he was, “escaped”, I should say, I think that’s the word because the Germans never caught him. But Jack will tell you his story himself. And, hello Jack.
JN: Hello.
Other: And thank you very much for coming in because yours is some story isn’t it? Because you start off before the war, don’t you? Flying aircraft.
JN: Yes. I started in 1938 as a Voluntary Reserve pilot but I was unfortunate or maybe lucky I never made pilot. I crashed an aircraft and I was taken off and I was a pilot no longer. They didn’t give you much option in those days but when war came along I was still recruited as a sergeant pilot. And people were looking at me and thinking well he must be darned good. He’s got three tapes up and the war hasn’t started yet. But during the second week I had another letter to say that I have now been sort of confirmed in the rank of AC2 which was the lowest form of airman in the Royal Air Force. And the only way to get back into aircrew was to do the job that nobody seemed to want to do. It was in a position where the Germans always had a go first. And that was what we used to call the rear gunner or a Tail-End Charlie. So I became a rear gunner and I started flying on Boulton on Paul Defiants as a night fighter squadron. Also on Fairey Battles out of France and also, eventually, on to Bomber Command on a Wellington Mark 2 from 12 Squadron.
Other: Now, we go back when you was a rear gunner because the rear gunner his actual service wasn’t very long, was it? They always said that they got killed the quickest of all of them. But we’re going back. What are we now? 1940 – 1939 – 1940?
JN: 19 — I joined the Reserve in 1938. I was conscripted into the Royal Air Force proper on the 3rd of September ‘39. And I joined an operational Squadron of Wellingtons in March of 1940.
Other: Now, on the night of the 5th of August now that wasn’t your first flight over Germany was it? Or —
JN: No. I had done a few trips before that on Wellingtons. I’d also done quite a number of operational sorties on night fighters. On Boulton and Paul Defiants. And a few leaflet raids on Fairey Battles which 12 Squadron were equipped when they left France.
Other: Now, on that night which must have imprinted itself on your memory what sort of night was it?
JN: When we took off it was about 11:30, quarter to twelve. Nearly midnight on the 5th of August, which was bank holiday ‘41. A normal night. A few clouds but by the time we left the Squadron and were over the North Sea approaching the target area it was what they called a real bomber’s night. It was a full moon.
Other: Now, you were off to Cologne weren’t you?
JN: The first primary target as they called it in those days was Cologne. We either could go Cologne or to Aachen. Aachen was the secondary target and this was the Michelin Tyre Company. And it so happened that with the speed we were attaining and the height we were at and the weather conditions this more or less dictated to the pilot that it should be Aachen. Or as the bomb aimer used to say, walking up and down the fuselage, ‘This is not Aachen. This is amen.’ And Aachen was the German name for Aix la Chapelle which was just over the borders between Belgium and Germany.
Other: And you know when you see these things on the films and that you see these young chaps laughing and shouting and all hyped up. You must have been very scared. Or were you actually hyped up and raring to go?
JN: Not really. We were doing a job. We were doing it for the love of our country. Although we put on a pretty brave face that you know here today and gone tomorrow and I think the, in those days, in 1941, the reasonable expectancy of life was about four trips. Well, I was lucky. I did more than four trips. But we just took it in our stride. We joined the Air Force to fly and this is what we did and we were happy to do it but there were moments when butterflies in your stomach really took over.
Other: And Jack, you took off on that night from where?
JN: We took off from 12 Squadron which was situated just outside Grimsby. At a Squadron called Binbrook.
Other: And how long would it have taken you to get over to Cologne?
JN: To Cologne would have taken about two and a half to three hours. But we reached the secondary target at Aachen in about two hours.
Other: Now, I’m going to let you take over this story because in actual fact it is, it is so true that it’s almost unreal isn’t it? Because there you are flying a lovely, I suppose you could see everything quite nicely. But were they shooting at you?
JN: There was a considerable amount of flak as you approached the French coast along a direct line from Binbrook or Grimsby down to the French coast. There was the normal flak but being on a Wellington Mark 2 we attained a pretty good height of about fifteen thousand feet and it didn’t seem to affect us at that height. It was a fairly light night and it appeared to be getting brighter as the hours wore on and it was a full bomber’s moon by the time we reached the target. Turned around. Successfully dropped our bombs and returned. But over the target I looked up and I saw some stars and I thought well can they be stars? They seemed to be sort of moving about pretty oddly. And in those days they had certain Messerschmitt night fighter squadrons which had a couple of searchlights on their wing tips and when these were coned at about thirty yards they gave the actual pinpoint for them, the Huns to press the buttons and they were on target for a rear turret or a part of a British aircraft. Well, these things, these stars were looming about and apparently one of them must have been a night fighter because suddenly the starboard engine, there was a ginormous great crunch and I looked away to the right and the starboard engine was on fire. So we’d been hit either by cannon shells or by flak. At that time we were at about twelve thousand feet leaving the target. The engines wouldn’t keep us up. We were losing height. We were throwing out things we didn’t need. Odd magazines, odd flares, odd bottles and things we collected. We were chucking out bottles over the target because with the stoppers out or the corks out, very large champagne bottles which we used to pinch from the Officer’s Mess. When they were thrown out they seemed to whistle like a five hundred pound bomb as they were descending. We chucked everything out that we didn’t need but we were losing height and by the time we were reaching the coast we could see the coast coming up which was the Belgian coast. There was this awful warning, ‘Get ready. Bale out.’ Well, I was up in the front turret when I realised that baling out wasn’t on because we were approaching a cathedral and the cathedral was on the starboard side. And unbeknown to us it was Antwerp Cathedral. And then we all realised after having received the message to bale out that the dinghy was behind the starboard engine and this was the engine that was on fire so when we pulled the rope to get the dinghy out there had have been nothing on the end of the rope but just molten rubber. But being up front, rotating turret and firing everything I had left in the ammunition pans I suddenly realised below us was concrete. I yelled out to the skipper, ‘Left, left, Skipper. Concrete.’ And in a marvellous rate four turn to the left he managed to turn the aircraft around, lined himself on the number one runway and we landed successfully. This was actually number one runway of Antwerp Deurne Airport which was fully operational with Dornier 217s and Messerschmitt fighters being assembled on the southern perimeter. The aircraft rumbled to a halt. Fire was on the starboard side approaching the leading edge of the wing. We all got out, pulled our parachutes, fired off four Verey cartridges, set fire to the aircraft and then decided to beat the hell out of it towards the perimeter defences. We all had leather suits on. We climbed the wire. All managed to get over. Three went one way. Three went the other. I was with the Skipper and the wireless op and we walked for a couple of hours until it started breaking daylight. This was about half past three on the 6th of August ’41 and we made for a field, got down behind a hedge and decided to sleep. We slept for about an hour. Still in full flying kit. We kept everything on. It was cold. And the wireless operator “Titch” Copley, he was a real small titch too, about four foot nothing suddenly stood up, stretched his arms and he was seen by a Belgian worker on a bicycle who was cycling on the way to his office or whatever. And he leant his bike up against the hedge, came back and said, ‘Are you English airmen?’ We said, ‘Yes’, he said, ‘Did you land up the road there?’ Up the road was about nine miles away so we’d covered nine miles quite happily in the small hours of the morning. And he said, ‘Stay where you are’ in perfect English. We thought this is funny. This is a reception committee. This is the way to do it. ‘And I’ll come back and help you later in the day’. Around about late evening. So he came back with a friend. Led us to a farmhouse. We stayed in the farmhouse overnight and the next morning there was food and clothes. We were kitted out and fed quite well. One or two questions asked. What aircraft we were flying. Who we were. What Squadron it was. So we had to say one or two things and not answer other questions. And we were led off to different houses. I didn’t see the Skipper or the wireless operator again. I was led on to very many farmhouses. Various people. And during the ensuing few months I was in Belgium and Holland and France I stayed with roughly forty different families. I eventually met the leader of escape line, Comète, which was an Andrée de Jongh. She was the leader of the Resistance movement escape line. One of the first escape lines and the most favourable one. The best one to join in Europe. And she personally led me from Brussels right the way down to Spain which meant crossing the Somme together, getting a train from Paris to Bordeaux which took fourteen hours. I had civilian clothes. I had false papers. I had a good photograph on my false identity card which she had obtained. We got out at Bordeaux and we took a train to Bayonne and then we walked from Bayonne, Biarritz, St John de Luz, Anglet, and then we were at the base of the Pyrenees. Here was the last safe house in France which was lived in and looked after by a Madam De Greef who also got the George Medal after the war for helping members. And also the leader of the Basque smuggling group. A chap by the name of Florentino.
Other: Jack, when you were because you make it sound so easy. But when you was on a train you must have been checked over by Germans. And surely there must have been times when you thought this is it.
JN: Quite, quite a number of times. The, we were in different compartments. There was myself and a Polish chappie. A Basque guide actually on the train from Paris to Bordeaux and Andrée de Jongh the leader of the escape line Comète. We were in particular separate compartments. I just was dressed with a black beret, a grey overcoat. I had a French paper and a bag of oranges and apparently people didn’t like other people eating oranges in compartments. They just kept well away from them. This was one of the things I was told to do. Eat and suck and make a lot of noise sucking oranges [chuckling].
Other: And what did, you spoke French?
JN: I only had schoolboy French. If a German had spoken to me —
Other: Yes.
JN: I’d have most likely got away with it. But most of the Germans who were patrolling the carriages —
Other: Yes.
JN: And asking for papers never spoke. They just came in and said, ‘Papieren’. You gave them the papers, they looked at it, they clipped your ticket and there was a Frenchman by the side looking at the ticket. He clipped it. Gave it to you back. They never spoke at all.
Other: Really?
JN: I had a, I had sideboards, I had a black moustache which I’ve still got. Getting a bit grey now. And I looked, possibly, a typical Frenchman. A bit scruffy, black beret on, a scarf, a dirty old coat, smelling a bit. Terrible bag of rotting sort of orange peels in the bag on the floor. They didn’t seem to want to know me at all.
Other: And when you went from one house to another did you, were there, did you meet other escapees?
JN: No. I never met anybody else at all. The person I met was always a stranger I’d never met before. I didn’t know his name. I knew him by either Paul, Jean, Pierre, Robert and never knew anything at all about them. Saw them once and never saw them again.
Other: Because they were incredibly brave because they would have shot the whole family wouldn’t they there?
JN: They were. There were notices up on the walls that if anybody had any information about any Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman helping any RAF personnel they would immediately be shot and they were given, any information and they were given the equivalent of five hundred pounds.
Other: Really? Now, you’ve got, you’ve got right to the Pyrenees. Now, the job is to get over, isn’t it?
JN: Well, that was in the worst part of the year. That was in December 1941. It was cold. It was wet. It was snowing. It was slippery. They gave us four pairs of rope soled sandals which were called les espadrilles. We had a little bag which we tied on our back. There was a tin of British bully beef which they’d evacuated from the Dunkirk area. There was a bottle of whisky which was either John Haig or Vat 69. We each had a bottle of that. They had all these stores which they’d dug up that the Germans hadn’t got hold of, and all these stores were ferreted down the escape line for the likes of people getting over the Pyrenees. The Basque smugglers were smuggling nylon stockings and towards the back end of the year they were even smuggling perambulators. French built perambulators loaded with cognac and brandy, silk stockings, silk clothing, underwear. They were literally pushing perambulators up the Pyrenees, taking them over the top, over the bridge into Spain and selling them and coming back to pick up more perambulators loaded with brandy and what have you.
Other: And of course by now it’s 19 — what? Still 1941.
JN: This was still 1941.
Other: Yes. And Germany was doing very well, weren’t they?
JN: They were.
Other: Yes.
JN: They were exceptionally, exceptionally getting on with what they had to, what they had to do. And getting into Spain. If you were caught in Spain the Spaniards had their own concentration camp which was known as Miranda del Ebro and they could either put you in there, intern you just like the Germans would have done if they’d caught you, put you in one of their sort of concentration camps or POW camps. Or they could sling you back into France and hand you back to the Germans. So it was kept very, very quiet. If you get into Spain without being caught the Diplomatic Service or the British Foreign Office would take you by a car from wherever you were picked up to wherever you had to go. In my case it was from the Consulate St Sebastien in an old Daimler car with drawn blinds and an armed guard in the front took me down to Madrid. I was offloaded at the British Embassy and met Sir Samuel Hoare, the British Ambassador. I stayed there in the chapel which they called their internment camp in the Embassy grounds for three days. I was interrogated and then sent from Madrid down, again in a car with drawn blinds, to La Linea. Had diplomatic, it was a diplomatic car so there was no stopping. They just waved you through La Linea and then you were in Gibraltar.
Other: And of course we must remember, this hadn’t been done before had it?
JN: No. No.
Other: You couldn’t have had a trial run.
JN: No.
Other: So really you were, you were the guinea pigs weren’t you?
JN: Well —
Other: Well, you were.
JN: Well, I was lucky. I was, I have the honour of being the first British airman to be sort of used on that escape line and I was the first evader to have used it in 1941. One or two soldiers had got through the same route but they were not led by Andrée de Jongh. They just managed to get over themselves. They were from the British Expeditionary Force left behind at Dunkirk and just couldn’t get out by boat back to UK.
JN: Now, you actually got, you went over the Pyrenees. Now, where, where did you get the plane home? To put it, put it simply.
Other: Well, the ways of getting back from if you were lucky enough to have got to Gibraltar. Gibraltar was an RAF unit. They had two Squadrons of Short Sunderland Flying Boats. 200 and 202 Squadron. And you just waited there either for a tramp steamer back or a frigate, destroyer. I was fortunate enough, or unfortunate for the rear gunner of a Short Sunderland Flying Boat who’d come back from South Africa, had been shot at by a Focke Wulf Condor over the particular Atlantic and they’d killed the rear gunner. And there was two whacking great holes in the turret where a cannon shell had got him right through the head. They just hose piped the turret out, patched up the two holes and asking for a volunteer to go back as the gunner to the UK. So I said, ‘Yes, please’. So with a black beret on, part of my uniform I’d kept under my civilian disguise clothes, a pair of flying boots and a pair of woollen gloves I came back from Gibraltar to Pembroke Dock after doing a square search in the Bay of Biscay for submarines. And that took nearly sixteen and a half hours before we landed at Pembroke Dock. Having arrived at Pembroke Dock on the 13th of January ’42 I was interrogated again, given a pound note, a railway warrant and a packet of cheese sandwiches and told to go to St Marylebone Station to be interrogated by MI9. And that’s what happened. I got to Baker Street. I was handed over to MI9 and eventually managed to contact my wife and my family to let them know that I was back from the dead.
Other: Because you were missing, presumed killed I suppose, actually.
JN: Yes. She’d received. She’d been on the Squadron that weekend it happened to me. They saw me go. Waved me off. She came out the next morning to wave all the crews back but only six of the seven got back. My wife then sort of phoned the Squadron and was told that, ‘Well, he might be in the North Sea in a dinghy rowing back or they could have landed somewhere for petrol. I suggest you go home.’ She was home for five hours and then received the dreaded telegram, “Missing. Believed killed in action”.
Other: And it’s interesting actually when we were chatting before we went on air is that I asked you did you fly back and keep bombing again? And you told me that once you had escaped like that you weren’t allowed back over Germany or the place where you had escaped from. That was because if you had got caught they could have got all the secrets out of you.
JN: That is correct. They would have known that I’d been there before with a crew on a Wellington and the crew of a Wellington was normally six. They’d caught five of them so what had happened to the other one?
Other: Did you, I know you told me you were you went to the Middle East, wasn’t it?
JN: You had the option of not flying. You couldn’t fly over the same front again but you had the option of not flying at all or going on another Command which in my case appeared to be Transport Command in the Far East. Which I didn’t really like the sound of. Having only been married a couple of months beforehand I had been enough trouble to my wife. I’d always been a constant worry to her and I wanted that worry to stop. A Belgian had come through and had recommended that I would make a good operative on other sorts of duties. And after my Air Force I came out of uniform, went into civvies and let us say I joined Special Duties which I cannot say much about. That is the essence of another story.
Other: Yes. Of course, it’s like all incredibly brave people you always make it sound so easy and just as if it was sort of walking down to Tesco’s. But your colleagues in the aircraft here. Did you meet them again? Have you had like a reunion?
JN: Yes. I was fortunate enough to be able to go back after the war. I had to go back to Belgium to pay my respects at the various little village graveyards that have been made. The tombstones. I had to go back with an RAF band. Play the Last Post. And I was in uniform and I had to salute each grave in turn. I did this in quite a number of various places in Belgium. I then went to one place where I’d been looked after by a Belgian farmer, a [Monsieur Wagemans] whom, I met his son for the first time two years ago at the same farmhouse where I’d been sort of looked after. Who took me out to the shed under which our flying kit, my flying kit and one or two other bits and bobs had been buried and these were dug up and I managed to get them ferreted back to Tilbury. And my flying kit or part of it is now in the Bomber Command Museum at Hendon.
Other: Really. Incredible.
JN: One or two other bits and bobs I managed to hand over to the Skipper and also the wireless operator. They all came back eventually but the navigator had received a hell of a beating up in Stalag Luft or Dulag Luft 3 and he came back and unfortunately he committed suicide. His wife came down to the kitchen one morning and he’d tried out the gas oven and I’m afraid he committed suicide. He just couldn’t cope anymore. But the rest of the crew, I’m remaining with the wireless operator. The rest of the crew I’m afraid are no longer with us. The Skipper died about five years ago and I always phoned him up on the 5th of August ’41. He was always very grateful for a little talk. And he always respected that and said what a faithful friend I’d been and the best front gunner he’d ever had.
Other: Really?
JN: I was only a front gunner for that one night. The rest of the time I’d been a Tail-End Charlie. But I always remember that.
Other: Of course, I should also say that in Wellington Ward in our hospital here you’ll see a lovely watercolour picture which Jack presented to the ward. And it is of the Wellington coming down on fire and it’s Antwerp Cathedral and there’s a, as you say a bomber’s moon and there’s searchlights and I suppose every time you see that it brings a lump to your throat.
JN: It really does.
Other: Yes.
JN: Not only sort of that but always in remembrance and I think I’ve put on the plaque on the wall there that I hoped future generations will realise just what a little country like the Belgians did for the likes of the Royal Air Force.
Other: What did, you know you’ve had experiences which thank God I should say that not many of us will ever have. But what has that taught you? Has it taught you anything about life? Are you a religious man?
JN: I’m a, I wouldn’t say that I go to church every Sunday but I’m a very God-fearing man and I can never understand why fate has decreed that I should have been so lucky. Why the number thirteen always popped up. Why I was always lucky to get away with illnesses. To get away with my life. I never thought I’d ever reach the ripe old age of twenty years of age but I have.
Other: But Jack I’m going to just be rude and butt in because you did tell us, I’m ever so pleased you just said this, you’ve jolted my memory because you told me that everyone had a lucky mascot. Some had a rabbit’s paw, some had a horseshoe or whatever it is but you had always thirteen. Now, tell us Jack. Why thirteen?
JN: I had a badge which was an embroidered badge which a friend had embroidered and on the badge it was in the form of a red heart about three and a half to four inches deep. It had the initials M&J for Mary and Jack. It had an arrow through it with a lucky number thirteen. It had a black cat. It had a broken mirror and a ladder against a wall under which you never walked. Thirteen has always been my lucky number. And the night that the accident happened or the episode happened it was a rather cold night so the Sidcot flying suit that I normally wore on which this badge was stitched to the pocket was left behind and we wore a leather suit. The rest of the crew said that if I’d have been wearing my lucky Sidcot with my badge on it we would not have got shot down. So it was all my fault we got shot down that evening. But the lucky number thirteen always popped up because I joined a flying school before the war in 1938 which was number 13 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School at Maidenhead. I was born in a house, number 13 Lancaster Mews in Hampstead. My wife was born on the 13th of May. I crossed from Holland into Belgium on the 13th of September. I got over the Pyrenees down to Spain and I arrived home ex-Gibraltar to Pembroke Dock in Wales on the 13th of January. And the first house that I ever had, a brand new house at Finnegan Drive at Orpington was as it was then known as plot number eleven. But when the numbers were allocated by the council it suddenly appeared that it was number thirteen. So that is why thirteen has always been my lucky number.
Other: Well, Jack as I say I’ve, it has been a great honour to chat to you and perhaps I hope later on we’ll be able to meet again and hear some more about the escape because it, it must have, we’ve missed out such a lot because it must have been a bit hairy especially at that time of year to go over the Pyrenees. But thank you Jack very much indeed for coming in. We very much appreciate it. And as I say if you want to see this lovely picture which Jack presented to the Wellington Ward go down because its down in the Wellington Ward and you can now say that you do know all the story. Jack Newton, thank you very much indeed.
JN: Thank you. I feel very honoured.
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Title
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Conquest-Hospital Radio interview with Jack Newton
Description
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Jack Newton joined the RAF in 1938. He trained as an air gunner and was posted to 12 Squadron at RAF Binbrook. Just before midnight on the 5th of August 1941 Jack and his crew set off for Cologne. They were attacked by a night fighter. One engine was on fire and they were losing height. They jettisoned everything they could but were still losing height. When they thought they were finally going to have to abandon the aircraft they saw a cathedral to their side which they discovered later was Antwerp Cathedral. Jack looked out and saw concrete and alerted the pilot. The concrete was Antwerp’s Deurne Airport which was now an active station of the Luftwaffe. The pilot landed the aircraft on the runway and knowing that time was limited they managed to set fire to the aircraft before making their escape. The crew split up and Jack was accompanied by the skipper and wireless operator. They were spotted by a Belgian while they were hiding and he organised what would be the start of their escape through the Comète Line.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
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Sound
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Pending review
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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00:32:42 audio recording
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Jean Massie
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NewtonJL[Date}-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Gibraltar
Pyrenees
Belgium--Antwerp
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08-05
air gunner
aircrew
Battle
de Jongh, Andree (1916 - 2007)
Defiant
evading
George Medal
RAF Binbrook
Sunderland
superstition
Wellington