1
25
59
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/3439/AJonesPWA171207.2.mp3
b1161008fdc7ccbc2058d73a7d2e684d
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
Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
2014-12-04
2017-12-07
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jones, PW
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 7th of December 2017 and we’re in Lincoln talking with Peter Jones about the career and life of his father Thomas John Jones DFC. I think just first of all it’s interesting to reflect that in this case Peter didn’t elicit much information from his father, which is exactly the same with my father, and also Jan’s, in that they might have touched on trivialities, but they didn’t talk about what actually happened.
PJ: That’s very true.
CB: So Peter, how does that fit with your feeling of the background?
PJ: [Sigh] I feel very sad, that he, that he didn’t talk to me about it, about what he actually did and had to put up with, and when I did find out, I was immensely proud.
CB: I can imagine.
PJ: But also, as I only found out twenty four hours after he had died, it was an absolute maelstrom of emotions, of reading the memoir that he’d written fifty years after the war, secretly late at night, when my mother had gone to bed - I wasn’t living there at the time - and he’d put all his memories in a WH Smith notebook.
CB: Had he, really.
PJ: And when he’d finished them, he just hid them with all his personal papers I guess knowing I would eventually find it, after his death.
CB: What do you think prompted him to write it? What age was he when he wrote it?
PJ: He was in his eighties when he wrote that; he died in 2004. I don’t know, was he trying to exorcise his demons? Was he conscious that he hadn’t been able to tell me what he’d done and how he actually felt about what he’d done? I really don’t know.
CB: He was awarded the DFC.
PJ: He was.
CB: So clearly he’d had some really horrendous experiences which were rewarded. Do you think that it, to some extent, he felt he didn’t want to look as though he was in any way building on the background?
PJ: Yes, I think he did. He was a very modest man; he was a very modest, self-effacing gentleman. He was a lovely dad.
CB: But never got on to anything to do with wartime.
PJ: Only the very light-hearted stuff. [Microphone noise] He would talk about that, I mean he relates various stories of some of the capers the crew got up to, but when it went to operational, no. No details.
CB: What were the most dramatic capers they got up to would you say?
PJ: Um, I’ve got a lovely photograph taken at Mildenhall when he was flying with 622 Squadron and it shows my dad and three or four of the other crewmen dangling one of their colleagues out of a first floor window. By his legs. [Much laughter] I think that would probably be one of many stunts like that in the day, you know, it, obviously it would be quite a safety valve, and they would thrive on the black humour, but it was a lovely photograph.
CB: This is out of context in the sequence, but I think it’s worth just talking about – how do you think they dealt with the stress?
PJ: Certainly black humour. I think everyone deals with stress differently. So, I don’t know. My father was a smoker. When you, I’ve noticed that a lot, so many photographs of airmen back in the day, and airwomen, of course, they’re nearly all smoking. I think they enjoyed going down the pub as well.
CB: I mean we’ll get on to your father in a minute, but you, as the archivist here, are covering a huge range of different situations and they, there are two things that come out of that in a way, one is the release from the stress, and the other is, we’ll touch on later, is the LMF, the lacking moral fibre bit, which comes up but is largely buried, but the release of the stress is a broad one and in practical terms, what was the main safety valve would you say?
PJ: High jinks. I think that it was the high jinks. We at the archive have got so many photographs of, wonderful photographs of crew, both aircrew, ground crew, WAAFs, having a really good time, it was an adventure. They were young people. And when you look at the photographs of them having a good time, and then just look at the, look at the face, and then look at the rank, they really don’t go together. You’ve got a very, very young man or woman, with a very senior rank and again that must have, must have really weighed heavy on their shoulders.
CB: There was a notion, there is still I suppose a notion, that what the war did to people in the RAF, but particularly Bomber Command, was make them grow up really quickly. Do you reckon you see that in some of the pictures that have been submitted?
PJ: Definitely. Yeah. Certainly some of the more senior officers, you can see it in their faces: they’ve aged. They’ve aged. I mean my father when he, in 1944, he was twenty three. He looks older. And I think they did go through the mill, and I think it did age them, certainly mentally and probably physically as well with some, particularly the rear gunners who had to endure such cold. It must have been pretty dreadful.
CB: And constant flight, fright.
PJ: Yes. Of which they never spoke.
CB: No. I mean my CO in the Reserve had a mental breakdown after being chased by a Ju88 and then shot down, and so the stress there was huge. But what would you put down to the fact that almost, very largely, people in all of the Forces failed to talk about their experiences in the war? What do you think was the background of that?
PJ: We’re looking at a different decade, aren’t we. It was the stiff upper lip decade. It was the decade where men feared to shed tears, other than in private. I think that’s got a lot to do with it. I don’t, would they share it with the rest of the crew? I don’t know whether they would. In fact I don’t think they would, share their fears with the rest of the crew.
CB: No. I just get a feeling, having talked to people, that the LMF bit actually destabilised the crew so there was a very good reason for getting rid of them quickly, but if, and if they spoke about it, the crew was destabilised.
PJ: Yup. I think it was a fear of letting the crew down.
CB: That’s it.
PJ: Definitely.
CB: And that’s bombers, so we’ve got wider scopes than that, which is difficult to fathom.
PJ: [Pause] Mm. One of the things that my dad talks about, is a particular incident where, I can’t quite remember the details of it now, the nearest he actually came to being killed, and he actually quotes - this is in a, in his notes that he wrote fifty years after the event - he actually writes in there and describes this event and he describes himself saying, saying aloud, ‘don’t cry when you get the letter, mum’, and then he suddenly realises that he may be on an open mike, and thinks oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but he wasn’t. You know, so I think that’s an example of again, fear of letting the crew down.
CB: Well I think we know, don’t we, that it’s clear from the four engined bombers but also from the, [throat clear] excuse me, two engined bombers, that the crew was the family.
PJ: They were. My dad describes them as being like brothers, rank didn’t matter.
CB: And they superseded all other relationships.
PJ: Indeed. Yeah, yeah. And because of the nature of the role that they were dealing with, they never made friends with other crews. They felt unable to, because they didn’t know how long they would know them for, and no thought was given to who had been in your bunk before you got in it. That must have been quite difficult to deal with.
CB: So in the Nissen huts there were two or three crews, and when one was lost then everything was picked up quickly, for replacement with another crew. Who they didn’t know either.
PJ: No. It must have been a terrible time for the ground crew, who saw so many come and go.
CB: Yes, and on ground crew, there are two aspects to that. One is losing their crew and their aeroplane, the other one is when the aeroplanes come back bent, or with horrors in. So what’s your perception of the ground crew reaction to that?
PJ: Well of course the ground crew always thought that the aircraft was theirs [emphasis], and they loaned it nightly to the aircrew and lo, you know, god help anyone that bent it, you know. But there was a lovely relationship between the flight crew and the ground crew, and I would imagine there was great banter. I know that my father thought the world of the ground crew. I mean they worked on his aircraft in the most appalling [emphasis] conditions sometimes, to keep it in tiptop condition and to keep the aircrew as safe as possible, or as safe as they could possibly be. But the ground crew must have gone through such terrible times, when their aircraft didn’t come back, you know. And it must have been there in the back of their mind that was it something that we missed? It’s terrible times.
CB: And the link between the aircrew and the ground crew would be the pilot and the engineer would it? Or what would be the main link – just the engineer?
PJ: I think pilot and engineer, yeah, but there would be camaraderie with the whole crew. I don’t know whether the ground crew actually were involved with trying to install the rear gunner in his turret because of course they struggled to get in there on their own.
CB: Yes, ‘cause moving on from there is the aftermath of an attack and removing crew who were injured, or dead. What was your perception of that?
PJ: Pretty grisly business. Very often it, I mean the rear gunners’ odds of survival were so few, so low, and it was quite common that the rear turret just had to be hosed out. Pretty unpleasant job.
CB: And the bits taken out as well.
PJ: Yes. One of the early things that my father talks about in his notes was when they first went to Mildenhall and they saw their first operational aircraft, and it was a, if I remember rightly, it was a Stirling, outside the Flying Control and it was absolutely riddled with holes. And as they walked round, round this aircraft, they got to the rear gunner’s turret and it was just a shattered mess of just shattered Perspex and bent metal, with lots of blood in it, and uniform, bits of uniform and hair, it was at this point my father actually quotes in his notes, ‘it was this point we realised we’d got to pay back the cost of our training,’ and it all became very real.
CB: Yes. Let’s just. That’s a good phrase, I think, that’s appeared in many cases, probably, which is the payback, so how did you perceive the crews’ attitude to that?
PJ: They were professionals: they were dedicated. They were airmen, trained. They were young men, it was an adventure, it was a job and they were young men under orders and they would obey those orders.
CB: Hm. And in a way they were completely detached, if they were at twenty thousand feet, that’s four miles above [throat clearing] where the effect of their ammunition, their bombs, is felt.
PJ: Yes, they’re kind of divorced from it.
CB: Detached.
PJ: Yes, all they see is fires, and explosions and then of course the flak, the searchlights, et cetera and the ever-present fear of fighters.
CB: On a slightly lighter note then, there’s if they make a mess inside the aeroplane, there’s a fine attached to this.
PJ: There was. My father actually flew three hundred hours, three hundred flying hours, before he got rid of his air sickness and squadron lore had it, that if you threw up in the aircraft you had to pay a fine to the ground crew and clear it up yourself. He actually, he mentions that his bank account was saved by a member of the ground crew who gave him any empty biscuit tin. [Chortle] I think that’s another reason why he liked ground crew!
CB: Then there’s the other aspect which is the filling of the Elsan, [clears throat] or not. [Laughter]
PJ: Exactly, or not! Yes, I would think so, or not. A filthy piece of kit, back of the aircraft, just near the rear turret which must have been pretty unpleasant for the gunner. They’d use anything rather than have to use the Elsan, including milk bottles or peeing down the flare chute or even into the bomb bay. But you know, it was desperate measures to have to go and use the Elsan.
CB: See how long it was before it froze!
PJ: Not long, at eighteen thousand feet! [Laughter]
CB: Now [throat clear] what about the interpersonal relationships of the crew? How did that work?
PJ: They were, as I’ve said, they were like brothers; rank didn’t matter. However, once they were operational, on an operational flight, it came into play. The rank did matter then and the skipper’s order was to be acted on, there was no messing about, when they were on ops, there was no, there was no overuse of the communications at all. Everything was spot on. They were professionals.
CB: I think one of the interesting things, looking at the log book and your details of the crew, is that they, the pilot was Royal Australian Air Force.
PJ: He was.
CB: And you also had a wireless operator who was the same, but you had two, he had two Royal New Zealand Air Force and two RAF, three RAF Reserve, RAF Volunteer Reserve. So how did that interaction go?
PJ: It seemed, looking at my dad’s notes, it seemed to work really well. There was no, they were a crew and it didn’t matter where they were from or what their backgrounds were. They were a crew.
CB: I’m going to stop just a mo. Now your father did a lot of ops, but we’ve talked about the aircrew, what about the hierarchy? So, there was a Flight Commander and a Squadron Commander, did you get much out of the notes on that, the relationships?
PJ: No, he does, it’s humour, in some of it. He doesn’t talk much about the squadron commanders although he does talk about when he joined 7 Squadron, that they’d just lost their CO on operational flying. He was replaced and within a fortnight the replacement had gone; had been killed as well.
CB: This is a Pathfinder Squadron.
PJ: This is 7 Squadron at RAF Oakington, yeah. Thinking that, looking back you think was the policy of the squadron CO flying ops a good one? You have to question it really, don’t you. It can’t have done the morale any good, when the boss cops it.
CB: Well presumably the Flight Commanders were Squadron Leaders and the Squadron Commander, ‘cause there’d be thirty aircraft, would be a Wing Commander, would that be right?
PJ: Yes. The quote that my father gives it was three Wing Commanders that were lost.
CB: Oh was it? Oh, I see. In sequence.
PJ: In sequence, yes.
CB: Any indication of whether the Station Commander flew with them occasionally, because Group Captains did sometimes.
PJ: Um, in his logbook there is one: Lockhart. He was, he flew, my father was Lockhart’s flight engineer for one op, other than that it was Fred Philips, DFC and Bar, who was my father’s pilot.
CB: I mentioned earlier the topic of LMF – the lacking moral fibre - did he, in his notes in any way refer to that, either by experience or hearsay?
PJ: He did. And he speaks, and he speaks with warmth about those that just had reached the end of their tether and couldn’t do it any more, and he says he felt sorry for them, but they were still airmen; they weren’t to be ridiculed.
CB: Any indication of their fate, fates?
PJ: Nope. No.
CB: Just stop a mo. I think, in restarting, it’s worth just exploring a couple of things and putting it into context. A lot of these things are written up and in this case there’s a lot from Thomas’ recollections, but the key is the being able to listen to the narrative that you’re delivering. And there are two topics: one’s LMF and the other is the Guinea Pigs. So on LMF, what’s he say there in his report? Notes.
PJ: In his notes he writes a paragraph about LMF in it and he writes: ‘some unfortunates, through no fault of their own, reach the point where they can no longer carry on. Irrespective of how many ops they’d completed, they were deemed lacking in moral fibre. I never knew or heard of any member of aircrew that had anything but sympathy for them.’ And I think, I would like to hope that was a general feeling amongst the airmen, they had reached a point where they couldn’t go on.
CB: Yeah. For whatever reason.
PJ: For whatever reason, yeah.
CB: What do you know about their fate, after they were removed?
PJ: He doesn’t mention a fate at all, he doesn’t mention it.
CB: Okay. And then the people who were badly injured, burned or amputees, what’s he got on that?
PJ: He says, ‘I remember some of the lads who had a tough time: the empty sleeves and trouser legs of the amputees, there were lads with no faces, noses and ears no more than shrivelled buttons, and heavy, newly grafted eyelids, their mouths were little more than slits in a face rebuilt with shining tightly stretched skin grafts, some had hands shrivelled and clawed like eagles talons. They sought no sympathy or favours, but carried on doing a job they could manage. When they went drinking with us, their laughter was as hearty as ever, their spirits unbroken,’ I’m sorry.
CB: It’s all right, we’ll stop. They carried on doing the job they were trained to do.
PJ: Yeah. And he goes on to say when they went drinking with us, their laughter was as hearty as ever, their spirits unbroken and no sign of bitterness. I do find it very difficult to read some of my father’s notes. Even though it’s now, what, thirteen years since he died.
CB: But it’s intensely personal for you.
PJ: Very.
CB: Which it was for all these individuals.
PJ: The notes that he wrote, he wrote in the first person, so it is as though he’s actually speaking to me from the page. Which he is.
CB: Of course, yes.
PJ: That was his idea.
CB: Well the Guinea Pigs, we’re talking about partly there, of course, we’ve interviewed as a group of people, I’m sure we’ve interviewed a number of those, and seen the effects of them and even these years later, some of them brilliantly mended shall we say, but always obvious that they’ve been injured in one way or the other, and McIndoe did an amazing job.
PJ: Fabulous man. And his team.
CB: And of course, there is now, indeed, not just him. There is actually a museum, isn’t there, down in East Grinstead now.
PJ: Yes, I really must go.
CB: In the County Museum, in the Town Museum, and there’s a memorial as well of course. There aren’t many left, but there were six hundred and fifty, in total.
PJ: Yes, it’s sad that we are losing so many of our ladies and gents now.
CB: Shall we now go specifically on to your father’s situation. Here, if we start with earliest information about him. So, he was born in 1921.
PJ: He was.
CB: In Birmingham, is that right?
PJ: Yeah. He was born on the 19th of April, 1921, at 35 Wrentham Street in Birmingham 1, right in the very city centre of Birmingham. The house that he was born in was a back-to-back property on three floors, and a cellar. I think now we would class these properties as slums; they were dreadful places. On the ground floor was a living room and a small scullery, the bedroom above was where his parents slept and then the bedroom above that was where the children were. My dad was one of three. They were, Edna was his, his older sister, and she had a bed of her own, whereas Dad and Ron, his brother, shared a bed. He would talk to me about these sort of things, and he always said that it was cold, bitterly cold, in winter, and they would snuggle up together and there were times when they actually had to sleep under coats. Another thing he would talk about was the fact that it was shared facilities for houses and I think it was six families shared two toilets, which would have made mornings rather interesting, I think.
CB: Out in the garden this is.
PJ: Out in the yard. Yes.
CB: In the yard.
PJ: My father’s parents were William Jones, and Amy Jones, neé Roberts. His father had served with, in the trenches in the First World War, but after the war he became a metal presser. His mother, obviously my grandmother, was a housewife. The family before my dad was of school age, thankfully moved south to Hall Green, which is quite a nice, leafy suburb, and certainly things got better for them down there and he went to, I think it was Pitmaston Road School, and he actually says in his notes that he rather liked school and, but I don’t know what age he was when he left school. I know certainly that he, when he left school he started an apprenticeship with the BSA, in Small Heath, in Birmingham.
CB: Well school leaving age in those days was fourteen wasn’t it, so apprenticeships tended to pick up from there.
PJ: Yeah. When war broke out he was too young to enlist, really. He joined the Home Guard, but I don’t know a lot about that, and I think he was determined to serve, because he was just fed up with sitting at night in the air raid shelter and watching his city burn. He describes in his notes how Edna would sob in, at the very back end of the shelter, frightened as, frightened stiff, as the bombs whistled down. But he was always the boy in the doorway, watching what was going on. Eventually he applied for service, and he applied for service in the Royal Air Force. Why he chose the Royal Air Force I don’t know. Was it the nice uniform? Was it the chance of flying? Why didn’t he choose the army? I think possibly why he didn’t fancy the army was because his father and his grandfather had both served in the army. His dad had served in the trenches and Walter, his, my father’s grandfather, had been out in the Boer War so maybe he’d heard grisly stories about life in the army, on the front line. One memory that I have of my dad when I was growing up, was that he wasn’t a good sailor. In the 1950s and 60s we would go on holiday to the East Yorkshire coast, or the East Riding coast as it was then, and we’d go to Bridlington, and during the holiday it would always, there would always be a cruise on the Yorkshire Bell or whatever the other ones were called, in Flamborough Bay, and I remember my father was always very quiet and rather green around the gills, [chuckle] so I think that was probably the reason he didn’t volunteer for naval duties. Um, I think, I need to go through his log book, but I’m pretty sure he went to Cardington first, in September ‘42 for aircrew selection. And interestingly, when I got hold of his service record, he was turned down - for aircrew - and I think he must have been pretty, pretty brassed off about that. What changed their mind, I really don’t know, because he ended up as aircrew and successfully carried out sixty four ops with main force and Pathfinder Force, so something must have impressed them. I think I have a very vague memory of my dad talking about the flight engineer’s position on Stirlings, which is the aircraft that he started on, as being very poky. My dad was five foot one, so maybe they changed their mind because they wanted small flight engineers! I’d rather think that they saw his potential rather than his size [laughter]. But I guess, like all of the trades, they needed engineers and here was an enthusiastic young feller who wanted to fly. Anyway, from Cardington he was posted to Padgate for his induction and that’s where he was issued with his service number, and like all servicemen it was a number he would never, ever forget. From Padgate he went to the Initial Training Wing, 42 ITW, at Redcar up on Teesside, and there he was billeted with Mrs Thatcher on Richmond Road, Redcar for six weeks and he talks about the capers he got up to with Ken Battersby and Chaz Curle, but most of all he remembers how icy cold it was doing drill on the sea front with the howling north, north wind and the spray from the North Sea. Must be pretty unpleasant. But anyway, he got through that. In December ’42 he then went to RAF Cosford, and there he, a quote from RAF Cosford, he actually said, ‘everything involved muck and mud down there.’ He says that in the first week of every entry it was spent on fatigues, peeling four foot high piles of vegetables and after every meal the floors and tables of the huge dining hall had to be cleared and polished. There was also guard duty but they didn’t mind it because everybody else had to do it. I suppose they’d all gripe but it had to be done, it’s just how it was. From there he went to start his engineering course at St Athan, by this time he was what, twenty two. I’ve got a lovely photograph of him at the age of twenty two, taken at St Athan, where he looks like a very, very young sergeant. He was a natural engineer. It never left him, he was a perfectionist in everything he did in later life. He drove my mother batty because he was plan, plan and then do, whereas my mother wanted plan – do, or just do. [Laughter] But he was a great planner. He was a perfectionist in everything he did. I think that comes from his RAF training and it was instilled in him how important it was. A lot of the people that he’d been at Redcar with were also at St Athan and he writes, most of the lads that had been on the ITW were at St Athan. He records in his memoir lots of names, Tommy Meehan, MacMeehan, John Mullins, Jimmy Cruickshank, Albert Stocker, Arnold Hurn, Jack Walker and John Gartland. And that they would be killed. Taffy Lightfoot and Roy Eames would go down over Bremen and that Billy Currie was shot down whilst still training. It was pretty terrible, and it was a relatively small group to start with, at the ITW, that so many would be killed, and so quickly. From there he went to 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at Stradishall, and it was here that he experienced his first flight in a Stirling. He’d never been higher than a first floor window in his life and he really didn’t know how he was going to cope with it. And his description, I think, of his first flight is fabulous. It’s just something that you don’t think about unless you’ve done it yourself, in an aircraft of that generation, which sadly I haven’t but would love to. And he describes taxying to the runway and, ‘hesitating for a few seconds before beginning the mad dash to the other end and how the aircraft’s thirty tons lifted off the runway and it promptly began to sway from side to side and up and down. Looking back down the fuse, the wings actually flapped, the huge engine appeared to be nodding in unison, looking back down the fuselage the whole structure was twisting back and forth,’ and he says that the height didn’t bother him but after ten minutes the motion caused him to be sick and here he says it took three hundred flying hours before the airsickness settled down. Quite remarkable. I can’t imagine flying in an aircraft that’s doing that, but. It was at Stradishall that he was crewed up, and it was the same process that they all went through: all met up bumbling around in a hangar and sort of someone would come up and say fancy being my flight engineer or I need a rear gunner, and it’s a kind of odd way of doing things; but it worked! You know. I think it’s quite remarkable that a skipper could have, I don’t know, almost a special sense of who he’s choosing and certainly with Fred Philips’ crew, they gelled straight away. I mean the crew was Fred Philips who would become, was awarded DFC before he was twenty one and was awarded Bar before he was twenty two. He was an insurance clerk from Punchbowl, Sydney. Dave Goodwin was a New Zealander, he was the navigator, another Kiwi was Clive Thurstan who was initially bomb aimer, and he had an interesting nickname: he was known as Thirsty Thurston - I wonder why! The wireless operator was an Australian, called Stan Williamson. Ron Wynn who was RAFVR was the mid upper gunner, he was from Stockport. Joe Naylor, again RAFVR was the rear gunner, and interesting he was known by everyone, sorry, it was John Naylor, and he was known by everyone as Joe, or maybe I’ve got that the wrong way round and they did their first flight together on the 29th of September 1943. I can’t imagine what it was, what it would feel like, I really can’t. But having read the memoir, they became instantly, a crew, and gelled as a crew, immediately. And it was after thirty four flying hours at Stradishall that they were declared fit for operations and as I said earlier, that was when it suddenly became very real. On the 2nd of September ’43 they joined 622 Squadron at Mildenhall. They were flying Stirlings. The squadron converted to Lancasters in November ‘43. That’s where his log book starts to get very interesting. Whereas he’d logged his operations in quite detail with additional information added after the op, I think later on. He’s quite detailed, he notes targets and also notes the, sometimes notes, tonnage of bombs and the aircraft that took place and the losses. Having looked through a lot of log books they are all very different. They’re all of the same format, but every airman had his own way of putting things in. I love the fact that you rarely, rarely see a scrappy log book: the writing is almost identical in them all. Whether it was something that was taught at school, or whether it was something that was taught during their training, that they all seemed to have the same handwriting. They’re beautifully readable and they are fascinating books to look through. His first op was a gardening op, a minelaying op, on Skaggerat and he mentions that they had an extra man, for gardening ops, they had a naval, a member of the Royal Navy that would arm the mines before they were dropped and then it just goes on with I think, next we’ve got two ops to Hanover, the first of which they had to turn back due to engine failure, and then it was gardening again, but this time at Kattegat. And just, it’s not intense, the flying, really, right, having said that, I’ve just turned the page, [paper shuffling] and I’ve gone the wrong way round. Er, yup. He’s going to Ludwigshafen, Berlin, Berlin, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart again. His last op with 622 was on the 1st of March, the Stuttgart. And it was there that they, went, after that they went to Warboys and this is where they each learned a little bit of each other’s role so that should anything happen someone else would be able to carry out your role and not let the crew down and hopefully get home.
CB: Now Warboys was the night flying unit, so what were they there to do?
PJ: A lot of it was circuits and landings, obviously like the initial training but they were learning night navigation I believe as well, using a bubble sextant and things like that and that was the second sort of hat that my father wore. That he, he learned to do the, now what is it called, the navigating via the stars?
CB: The star shots.
PJ: Star shots, thank you. Yes. It was after that, that on the 4th of April 1944 they transferred to 7 Squadron, Pathfinder Force, at RAF Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Their ops started on the 9th of April with an attack on the railway yards in Lisle. This was ’44, so a lot of the ops here are French. This was running up to D-Day, and interspersed with German ops as well, but there’s an awful lot of operational flying on Normandy. [Paper shuffling]. Get these the right way round. On the 1st of July they start doing day ops, or daylight operations again it’s all French and they’re hitting communications, flying bomb sites, railway yards, oil plants and then he goes night flying again, over Germany, and then it’s back to France. Interestingly some of these ops they were flying two ops a day. On the 18th of July ’44 they did a French op, a flying bomb site, flying three hours fifteen minutes in the morning, then at night they were up again for three hours thirty five minutes attacking an oil plant in France. A lot of these French ops now in July, Fred Philips had been promoted to Master Bomber with 7 Squadron, so I guess it would have been even more intense with the crew than it had been in the past because I guess they weren’t dropping bombs and markers then scarpering: they had to hang around. Must have been pretty stressful. Going on to again, July. On the 30th of July, my dad’s log book shows that they were bombing the Normandy battle area. That’s followed by more flying bomb sites. On the 6th of August they were observing the artillery firing, 7th of August it was the Normandy battle area again, and it was the enemy strong points were being bombed, back to oil depots and then fuel dumps. The 12th of August 1944 there were two ops: in the day it was a fuel dump, four hours five minutes, and then in the evening they were stemming the enemy retreat. Then it’s back to flying bomb sites on a daytime raid. 29th of August 1944 was the longest flight that they ever did, and that was to Stettin in Poland, a total of nine hours and ten minutes, and my dad refers to this op in his notes by saying that it was the coldest he had ever been on an op and he felt so sorry for the rear gunner, because my father was in a heated cockpit and of course there was little heating for the rear gunner and of course many of them had a clear vision panel although they punched the panel out to see, so he must have been incredibly [emphasis] cold on that raid.
CB: Just before you go on from there, in his notes, what does he say about the bombing of the V1 and V2 sites, because they were difficult a to find and b to actually hit?
PJ: He doesn’t actually mention them, he doesn’t say much about them. It’s all in his log book with just a little note, he doesn’t actually describe physically attacking the V1 and V2 sites, and most of his descriptions are of Berlin and the Ruhr, which were of course the bread and butter targets, and nasty targets as well.
CB: Yes, so how did he feel, in his notes, about Berlin?
PJ: Like them all, he hated it. It was the big city. It was the place that Hitler did not [emphasis] want hit, but.
CB: So what was the significance of them being an unpleasant place to go? Was it more flak, was it fighters or combination of both?
PJ: It was a combination of both. I mean Berlin had massive, massive flak towers didn’t they, and the flak was intense. Um, he describes the noise when the curtain went back, in the briefing, when they followed the red line and at the end of the red line was Berlin and he just describes it was a loud groan. Really, no one wanted to go to the big city.
CB: So as the Pathfinder, now on 7 Squadron, the most accomplished ones would drop the reds, the newer ones would drop the greens, if Fred Phillips became the Master Bomber did that mean they ended up dropping reds?
PJ: Er, I don’t know, he doesn’t describe that. He does remember graphically being extremely uncomfortable circling the target for so long, on an open radio, you know, and he was very aware that they were the sitting duck, the aircraft that had to be shot down.
CB: And what height would they be flying then? Does he give any indication of that?
PJ: He talks about eighteen thousand feet. Whether they dropped for the target, I don’t know. He does describe flying over enemy territory at ten thousand feet, when they were, they’d been severely shot up over the target and they experienced severe [emphasis] airframe icing and the only way that they could gain height was to make the, was to jettison anything and they ended up throwing out all of the ammunition and the guns and they flew back to the UK at ten thousand feet, over enemy territory. Eventually, there was no way they were going to get back to Cambridgeshire, so they diverted to the first airfield available which was West Malling in Kent, fighter station, and ran out of fuel and piled into the runway. They wrote the aircraft off completely. And he describes having to get back to Oakington, from Kent to Cambridgeshire, on the train, in flying gear. [Laughter] There was no taxi in those days. No, but that was just one of the dodgy moments he had.
CB: Did the aircraft become unserviceable or a write off because he landed without undercarriage, or what happened exactly?
PJ: He doesn’t go into great detail, but it was written off, completely written off. I don’t know at the time whether West Malling had a concrete runway or whether it was still grass, I don’t know. But I can’t imagine the CO of West Malling being impressed as a Lancaster drops in very heavily. But they got away with it. They were, at Oakington, Fred Philips’ crew were known as the lucky crew. They’d been flying on a lot of ops by then and they were probably seen as one of the more senior crews on station and they were invariably late back, and usually peppered with holes and my dad describes in his notes, once, the fact that they were so late back that he later discovered they’d been written off and marked up as missing and he describes how they eventually landed and they were debriefed and then they went into the dining hall for their post-operational bacon and eggs and he said there was one of the, there was a WAAF in there and soon as they walked there in she burst into tears.
CB: And the relationship with the WAAFs, was that regular or how did it pan out?
PJ: I think it was, yeah, again, they had great respect for the WAAFs and many a young amorous airman could be put down by just one stare from them [chuckle].
CB: Does he make any comment, it’s an interesting point though I think, about the experience of the WAAFS who had relationships with the aircrew and constantly losing that person?
PJ: He doesn’t mention it, but I’m aware that it must have been very difficult. And I mean some of the poor girls got the reputation as being the chop girl because they’d lost so many boyfriends, or well, airmen who they’d had relationships with, and they got this dreadful reputation and that must have been really hard to live with.
CB: Absolutely.
PJ: And yet there are so many lovely stories about the relationship between the aircrew and the WAAFs. Stevie Stevens’ story is absolutely fantastic, in that, I can’t remember where he was flying from, he, he really enjoyed, loved the sound of the WAAF controller’s voice and then she suddenly just disappeared off the radio and she was never heard of again at that station. I think it was Scampton that he moved to and lo and behold, there it was, the same voice as he was requesting permission to land and he was so intrigued by this WAAF’s voice that he actually went to the Control Tower to see who she was and of course the upshot of that was that they married!
CB: Never looked back.
PJ: Never looked back and are still happily married to this day. Yeah. Some lovely stories.
CB: I think one of the interesting ones that emerged from interviews is the occasions where the WAAFs lined up at the end of the runway to wave off. Does he refer to that in any way?
PJ: He does. Yeah, he does, he said there would be a row of them, or a row of people on the Control Tower balcony and there would be, and he said invariably there would be, I think he calls it a gaggle of WAAFs, that would wave their handkerchiefs to them, but another person that he talks about was a little girl and he talks about this, a family that lived next to the perimeter track in a farm cottage, and he describes how the squadron would taxi round the perimeter tracks from their various dispersals, describing, and he described the aircraft as being like a row of ducks and he said just this roar and spit and hiss of brakes and he said there was this little blonde girl would appear at the back, at the garden gate, every time there was an aircraft on the perimeter track and she would wave to them, every evening. And he said without fail each aircraft that passed this little girl, the crew would wave back and the gunners would dip their guns at this little girl and he said he would love to know who she was, and after my father died I was researching his notes and I found out who she was.
CB: Did you?
PJ: Her name was Clara Doggert, if my memory serves me right, but sadly she died, but it would have been so nice to have met this lady.
CB: Yes. On a lighter note, looking at the log book, [bump on microphone] I think it’s quite interesting to see the entry that says NFT – Night Flying Test - and the timing. What do you know about the choice of timing?
PJ: Um, I hadn’t spotted that one.
CB: So the idea is that you take off at twenty three hundred hours, and you do your night flying test which takes an hour and ten minutes and why is that?
PJ: I think it would be because they would get their breakfast?
CB: They would get their fry up! [Laughter]
PJ: Good for them!
CB: After midnight! And I think this is one of the intriguing things there. I mean on ops obviously they were coming back because they were flying at night, but to do the night flying test.
PJ: They had a cunning plan!
CB: Yeah! Some of them had to be in the day so that didn’t work. Same title, but different time.
PJ: Yes. I think they’d become a pretty savvy crew by then, knew how things worked.
CB: So how many ops had they done when the crew left 7 Squadron?
PJ: Sixty four.
CB: Oh, right.
PJ: They had, by then they had an extra crew member because Fred was Master Bomber so they had a specialist map reader, of course H2S had come along by then so they were an eight man crew. The eighth man was a guy called Steve Harper who hadn’t done as many ops as the rest of them, so when the crew split up he wasn’t tour expired, and Steve kept on flying with 7 Squadron for a bit longer and he was very, very seriously injured by flak on an op. He survived, but he was seriously injured. Their favourite aircraft was PA964 and in less than a month after them, the crew splitting up, the aircraft was shot down and the entire crew were held then, as POWs. So the name ‘Lucky Crew’ was pretty apt. They got away with it. They never saw each other again.
CB: Didn’t they?
PJ: A couple of the Australians and the New Zealanders did, but the RAFVR chaps didn’t. And in my dad’s notes he does actually mention that and he asks the question, would I want to meet them again, and he actually makes the point of saying no. And the reason he wouldn’t want to meet them again, because he wants to remember them as being young men. He doesn’t want to see a load of old men, he wants to remember them as, how they were.
CB: I think that’s a really telling sentiment, as to why some people don’t want to open up about what they’ve done: it’s a memory that’s hurtful, in some ways, it’s pleasurable in others. But there’s a mixture of emotions, isn’t there.
PJ: But there is, and again in his notes, he hints [emphasis] at the, the difficulty he had with the number of civilians and children that were killed. I think he took comfort from being, with his role as a Pathfinder, that he was marking targets as accurately as possible to cut down on the losses, but he was, I think one of the reasons he couldn’t talk about it, were the civilian losses.
CB: Any reflection on the British civilian losses being on the opposite, receiving end?
PJ: No. The only thing he mentions in his notes is the, when he was a teenager in the air raid shelter and he also mentions walking from Hall Green to Small Heath one morning after an op the night before, after a raid the night before on Birmingham, and he actually mentions being fascinated by the effect of the bombing: that one house was a shell and yet the house next door was perfectly okay. One had no windows, the other one was intact, with an alarm clock still ticking in the window, and he describes a double decker bus, sitting on its nose, in the middle of the road. And he just describes this as being absolutely fascinating in an horrific way, and he couldn’t, just couldn’t work out why it wasn’t all flat and yet why would one building remain intact, as though it’d not been touched at all and yet the one next door was completely devastated.
CB: Just on that tack, what do we know about the composition of the German bomb load, in dropping bombs on Britain.
PJ: Well they were using twin-engined aircraft and certainly the bomb load that was dropped on this country was far less than was delivered to Germany.
CB: I was thinking of the composition of the load itself. So they’ve got high explosive and they’ve got incendiary. Because the RAF learned from that.
PJ: Yes, um, it was the incendiary that would cause the, the devastating fires, then you had also, certainly from an RAF perspective, specialist bombs for, that were used on specific targets. Like the Grand Slams, et cetera.
CB: Had father got to the stage of dropping those as well?
PJ: No. No, by the end, by the time he was on Pathfinders he was mostly dropping markers with a basic payload as well.
CB: ‘Cause his job was to make a mark, marking.
PJ: Yes. Primary job was to mark, mark turning points and targets for main force.
CB: So at the end of the tour, tours, two tours, effectively.
PJ: Two tours.
CB: What did he do then?
PJ: When he left, when he left Oakington, I think, I’m sure he went to Northern Ireland to, er, looking at.
CB: To Nutts Corner.
PJ: To Nutts Corner, 1332 Heavy Conversion Unit, and he was there from the 28th of December ’44 to April ’45. One of the things that he talks about is the warmth of the people of Northern Ireland. And he describes that when he arrived in Belfast he was kind of adopted by a family and given a late Christmas lunch by this family because he was a young lad; you know, sort of, he wasn’t that young by then, but he was so far from home, from his, from Birmingham. 1332 Heavy Conversion Unit moved to Riccall in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was an airfield to the south of York and just sort of north of Selby, and as a teenager I used to cycle out there and it was all still there, which was wonderful, knowing that my dad had served there, but that’s, I digress, and it was whilst he was serving at Riccall – he was the adjutant of the Engineering School there - he went to a dance in Selby, which was a little market town, and the dance was at Christy’s Ballroom, above a shirt factory, of all things, which I think was how they were in the day, and he met the girl who would become my mother. And she was a farm worker’s daughter, who was at the time working in service, as a maid for a quite a wealthy timber family that ran a wealthy timber business and actually where she was living at the time, working, was on the perimeter track of RAF Burn and later my mother would tell me how, as a young working maid, she would also go to the bottom of the garden, in the evenings. But anyway, my dad would cycle to Burn or to Hamilton, where my mother’s home was, and that’s four miles south of Selby, on his service bicycle. That wasn’t too bad, but then 1332 HCU moved to Dishforth and his weekly trips then were a hundred and twelve miles, on a service bicycle, in all weathers. I guess he was in love! [Laugh] Mad fool!
CB: Amazing what motivation there can be in that! What were they flying, 1332, that was a Heavy Conversion Unit, but.
PJ: Initially, they were on, at the time they had a mixture, I think, of Lancasters B24s, certainly the last aircraft my father flew in was B24.
CB: But what was their role? It wasn’t bombing.
PJ: I think, I think they’d gone over to transport by then, or certainly they were heading that way. But when his time was up at Riccall he went to Bramcoats, and there he was the Station Armaments Officer, and this is where his RAF career is kind of taking a spiral because he’s not flying, he hates it. He really [emphasis] wanted to stay in the RAF and pursue a flying career but my mother wasn’t having any of it, so that was the end of his dream of serving round the world and spending his days flying. From Bramcoats he ended up going to Uxbridge and after a medical and signing lots of papers he was given a cardboard box with a suit and hat in it. And he was demobbed.
CB: When was that?
PJ: Oh, I think ’46, I think. I’d need to look at the log book. But my parents married in February ‘46.
CB: And he was still in the RAF then.
PJ: Yes. His wedding photograph is in uniform.
CB: How did he feel about moving from operations, which were very intense and specific, in terms of being a Pathfinder Force, to an OC, to an HCU? What did he feel about that in his notes?
PJ: Um, I wouldn’t say he was bored. But -
CB: Frustrated?
PJ: Yes, frustrated probably. He did have the odd bit of excitement. I mean he talks about [bumps on microphone] one particular incident at Nutts Corner where he was a flight engineer for a young Canadian pilot. He said that this young Canadian was a flying boat pilot and he said lovely chap, really eager, and loved it, he said they were on final approach to Nutts Corner and my father kept looking at this pilot and the pilot kept nodding excitedly much as ‘I’m doing all right aren’t I’, and my father looked at him again and then looked down at the switch gear and looked at him again, and my father just gently leaned over and pushed the full throttles wide open to force an overshoot because he’d forgotten to put the undercarriage down! So the eager Canadian airman was having too much of a good time. Apparently his expression was one of hang dog!
CB: This was on a Stirling?
PJ: Yes, er no, it was a Lancaster actually. Because of course he wouldn’t have been on flight deck for a, with a Stirling. Yes, I can imagine the poor Canadian’s face. He thought he was doing really, really well.
CB: Amazing!
PJ: But I think he was disillusioned, my father was disillusioned: he didn’t want to be on the ground, he wanted to be in the air.
CB: So when he left the RAF, what did he do?
PJ: I really don’t know. As I say, my parents married in February ‘46 and initially they moved to Birmingham and also to Bath because my grandparents, my maternal grandparents lived in Bath for a very short time and then moved back to Birmingham, and then my parents ended up settling down in Selby and my father started working for John Roster and Son which was a paper mill. They were a Manchester based paper company and they had a satellite factory in Selby, and he worked there for years [emphasis]. I came along in 1954 and as I was growing up I remember that my dad was hardly ever at home. He, for years and years and years he worked six and a half days a week and he would always cycle to work and he cycled to work in all weathers, and I can still see him in winter with his RAF greatcoat with plastic buttons on it, he’d taken the brass buttons off, and he used his old gas mask, service gas mask bag, for his backup and there’s a really endearing image I have of him, cycling off in his greatcoat. Um, having said that he was never there, when he was there, he was a great dad. He always had time to read stories to me, and we would read things like the usual 1960s classics that every little boy read: Moby Dick and Treasure Island et cetera, and I have lovely memories of him reading those. Again, going back to his practicality, he used to build me all sorts. He made stations and tunnels. He made the tunnels out of paper pulp, from the paper factory, from the paper mill. So I always had a really good train set.
CB: A type of papier maché.
PJ: An early type of papier maché. Yes. It was very smelly as well!
CB: He worked as an engineer, presumably, at the paper mill.
PJ: He did, he did. Yeah, and he was there until I was in my teens and of course I changed from junior school. He was brilliantly supportive with my homework and he would spend hours helping me with homework and I remember one for some reason I was struggling with the coffee trade in Kenya and I now can’t forget it and he just sat down and we just went over it. He was an incredibly skilled artist - self taught - and sadly I never inherited those genes, although my daughter has. He produced some fabulous sketches.
CB: Amazing!
PJ: And watercolour paintings. [Paper shuffling]
CB: [Indecipherable] in 1979. Amazing, yes.
PJ: He started from nothing with his art, you know. He just used to doodle and then he just got better and better and better. An example I’ve got here today is the, this, his lionesses head and it’s incredibly [emphasis] detailed isn’t it, you can almost see every hair.
CB: Yes. As an engineer did he go into design engineering as well do you think?
PJ: I don’t think so, I don’t think so. I think he was possibly a bit of an innovator, when problems arose, which of course he would have had to have been back in the war, he would have had to have been very self reliant and that carried on with him. He became a model maker as well, and he produced a model that I still have at home that sits in my sitting room and it’s a twin engined compound engine. Stationary steam engine.
CB: Oh really!
PJ: And it works. It probably, well it worked. It probably doesn’t any more because I haven’t kept it serviced. But it has pride of place.
CB: Brilliant.
PJ: Yeah, it’s a lovely thing.
CB: So, you were a teenager when he left the paper mill. What did he do then?
PJ: He got a job as a maintenance fitter at Danepak Bacon, in Selby, and it was then that he actually started to only work five days a week, which you know, I suppose was luxury, really, but sadly he didn’t work there for a very long time because he was, the company got into difficulties and he was eventually made redundant. I think that [emphasis] had a big effect on him [pause] and after his redundancy he never had a job again, and he was made redundant before [emphasis] retirement age.
CB: So what messages did you get from his [emphasis] experiences and advice as to what career you would follow?
PJ: He wanted me to go in the RAF, and follow his footsteps, but I didn’t. [Laugh] My mother didn’t want me to. So I headed off in a different direction altogether.
CB: What did you do?
PJ: I went into acute healthcare. Well after a while, I went into acute healthcare. I had numerous, numerous sort of jobs first. Nothing too serious.
CB: Did you have some kind of vision of what your career was to be?
PJ: Initially no, not at all and then I met up with a few people who were working in healthcare and I thought yeah, that sounds interesting.
CB: So what did that involve?
PJ: It involved a thirty four year career working with anaesthetics and airway management.
CB: Tell us more.
PJ: I trained as an operating department practitioner and specialised in anaesthetic support and ended up working mostly with emergency patients. I specialised in emergency work in the end.
CB: Doing what exactly?
PJ: It was airway management. I used to work in, I was based in operating theatres but I worked in Intensive Care Units and then the resus rooms in A and E departments. It was the A and E work that I really did love. I worked all over the country. I started in Kettering and from Kettering I went to, um, where did I go from Kettering? To East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, then I went up to London and worked at Moorfields Eye Hospital, the Western Ophthalmic Hospital, Great Ormond Street. Then I worked in the St Mary’s Group, which was St Mary’s in Paddington, Mary’s West 2, St Giles West 10, Samaritan Hospital for Women, and then I got a little bit disillusioned with living in London, or maybe it was my then girlfriend who got disillusioned and wanted to move. So I got a job in Lincoln and a month later my then girlfriend who would be my wife and now my ex-wife [laugh] followed and I moved up here to Lincoln in 1987 and I’ve been here ever since. I took early retirement in June, July 2012 because I was just so disillusioned with how the NHS management worked, messing things up, and I really didn’t want to be part of it any more. I had two years where I didn’t do anything, really, and I saw a post, I think it was on the internet or something like that, about the International Bomber Command Centre and I read this post and thought that sounds really interesting. And lo and behold it was based in Lincolnshire, and so they were looking out for volunteers. So I thought well, I spent two years sitting on my bottom doing next to nothing, or once a week walking up the pub and I could be doing something a little bit more worthwhile and something that would reflect what my late father had been doing and I started on the project as a data checker. I was working with the, with Dave Gilbert who was doing a fabulous job recording at the losses and it was one of my jobs to check the accuracy of the information against the data and make sure that what was going to be put on the IBCC records was accurate. And it was fascinating but shocking, as well, going through the losses and looking at the ages of those that had been lost and also looking at the fact that an awful lot of those aircrew that had been lost were lost in training before they’d even got on the squadrons, and I was really shocked because I was, at the time, I’d been given a whole load of Canadian names, I’d been given about a hundred and fifty Canadian names, and the losses in training were higher that the loss, operational losses, for this particular group of airmen, and I thought, and I’m thinking where are these poor sods remembered. They’re not. Not really. There’s the odd little memorial in a hedge bottom, somewhere, which I think are wonderful, but there were so many lost in training that aren’t recorded. They’re not in Chorley. Mind you, Chorley was the record of the aircraft not the crew, wasn’t it.
CB: Absolutely.
PJ: And this is one of the reasons why I got so hooked on the project, and I think it was in January 2015 I had a phone call from the Bourne office asking me if I’d like to come on board as a paid member of staff, to work on the archive, and I bit their hand off. We were based initially at Witham House on the University of Lincoln’s campus. We were in a portacabin which I think my colleague describes as the nearest thing the university had to a Nissen hut, at the time.
CB: We remember.
PJ: You remember it well, [laugh] with the flexi floor, but in August 2015 we moved off the main university campus out to University of Lincoln’s Riseholme Campus, which is where we are today, and we work in the most beautiful country house and I think it just lends itself so, so nicely to the project. It looks, I [emphasis] think it looks like a Group Headquarters and when I first saw it I thought, yeah, I want to work there. But there are two things missing on that house: it doesn’t have a flagpole and it doesn’t have an RAF Ensign fluttering from the top of it. But um, beautiful house. Beautiful grounds and I am very fortunate that I’m now working with a fabulous group of people. Working with some amazing [emphasis] facts, figures, and dealing with amazing stories and artefacts and literally every day is like Christmas Day, when I open the post I have no idea what’s going to come through the door. But it’s also every day is an emotional rollercoaster, you go from the Christmas Day of opening a parcel and seeing these amazing artefacts and these wonderful memories that are sent in, or I’m listening to other recordings of fabulous stories, or heartbreaking stories that come through and it’s those stories and reading the letters, that a young airman wrote, hoping that no one would ever have to read it and of course I’m reading it because his parents did. And I remember reading one of those, it was from a young Canadian airman from Vancouver who had just started operational flying and he’d written the [emphasis] most beautiful letter. I found it remarkable that a nineteen year old could write such a mature letter. I was, I read this letter late on a Friday afternoon and I couldn’t get rid of it, and it haunted me all weekend. I mean, those letters were wonderful. But also we deal with the other side of it, in that I got into the archive about two hundred letters from a young airman who, before he joined up, had worked at Park Royal, in a printing works, and the letters that he was writing weren’t to his family, they were to his workmates, and so they weren’t sanitised and they were laugh out loud funny. My colleagues here will tell you that I was laughing, out loud, at some of these letters, and this particular airman was the Eric Morecombe of his day and I got inside his head and I got to know this man and reading these letters and he’s describing one where there’d been an influx of two hundred WAAFs on station and he actually says ‘the chaps are getting choosy’, with the WAAFs [chuckles] and you know, these were lovely letters and then I got to the last letter in this pile and I rang this chap up and the donor, the owner of this collection was from Bridgewater in Somerset, and I rang him up and said ‘I’ve just read the last of Peter’s letters’ [banging] and I said ‘what happened to him? Have you got any more letters?’ [Steps] And he just says, ‘well you’ve read his last letter.’ He didn’t come back. And that really hurt, because having read all his letters I thought you know, I’d got to know this man, he was a very funny man, and he must have been fabulous to serve with. But the project’s going really well. I’m in receipt of some amazing [emphasis] stuff and I do it in my dad’s honour.
[Other]: Yes.
PJ: Well, I hope he’s smiling down on me.
[Other]: I’m sure he is. You’ve given us a fantastic insight into your father’s experiences. Absolutely.
PJ: He was a remarkable man. He was a lovely man.
[Other]: Yes.
PJ: As I say, it’s been thirteen years since he died and, [pause] I still miss him.
[Other]: Course you do. I’m going to the loo. [Whisper] [Laughter] I’ll turn this off.
CB: It’s running. So Peter, thank you for what you’ve done so far. I think, in summing up we could cover a few other things, but what was your parents’ reactions to your career choices after the experiences of their parents, and your father in particular, in the war?
PJ: As I said, my father, I think, rather fancied the idea of me joining the RAF, as I did, but my mother put me off that. I don’t think my father was disappointed at all, in fact he was quite proud of the career path I chose, but interestingly, another career path that my mother put me off: I gained a Deck Officer Scholarship with Shell and my mother put the kybosh on that as well. [Laughter] She was quite, quite, um, she tended to get her own way.,
CB: What worried her about going to sea?
PJ: It was being away from home I think. Actually she was probably right because of course the British Merchant Fleet has gone. So I’d probably be redundant.
CB: As a Captain! [Laugh]
PJ: I doubt it! [Laughter] More like Pugwash! But no, my dad was proud of where I ended up.
CB: Of course. Well I mean it’s a very good thing to do.
PJ: And I really think he would be very proud of what I’m doing now.
CB: I bet, yes.
PJ: It’s a great project. I think that we are trying to turn back history, because Bomber Command and particularly those that flew were demonised and we want to tell the story of the whole of the bombing war, not just from British perspective, but we were an umbrella over the whole of the war. We want to hear the experiences of people on all sides and we are getting remarkable stories: we’ve got fabulous inroads into Italy with amazing stories from there. And, you know, going back to Bomber Command, I can’t, I really can’t imagine what it was like in 1945 when everyone was huddled around the wireless, waiting for Churchill’s victory speech and everybody was mentioned. Except Bomber Command. And I think that must have been a terrible blow to everyone that served with Bomber Command; a body blow. So many had been killed and what recognition had the government given them? None. What is a life worth? What was a life worth to them? You know, I think it was a terrible thing to miss them out.
CB: Did your father ever mention this matter?
PJ: I think he did once. I can’t, I wasn’t that old, and I’m pretty sure it was a conversation he was having with someone else, but he was pretty hacked off about it, he’s, I think his opinion of Churchill had gone from being very high to being very low. He was hurt by it, very hurt. Because he’d lost so many, many friends.
CB: Yes, you mentioned them.
PJ: Well that was just a few I think.
CB: Yes, that was just from his early days.
PJ: Exactly, it wasn’t from the later days.
CB: What was do you think his overriding memory was, of his service during the war?
PJ: I can tell you – it’s in his memoir, if you -
CB: I’ll pause while you look it up. Right, we’re re-starting now.
PJ: I can quote from my father, I remember him saying that all in all he felt he’d had a good war, he’d had a relatively easy war, he’d come out unscathed and that in a way I think he felt guilty because he had survived and so many hadn’t, but he then, in his notes, he reflects and he reflects asking what made them do it? What made them go on ops, over and over and over again, and he says was it the patriotism, was it the pride of volunteering being greater than the butterflies in the stomach, was it the fear of letting down the crew, or of the lifelong stigma of lack of moral fibre? And he says perhaps it was one or all of them, who knows? And then he follows that with what I think a lovely sentence.: ‘And what do I have to show for it? My discharge papers and identity discs, my flying log book and a few medal ribbons – and a thousand memories.’
CB: I think that’s extremely touching, it, it in a way, glosses over an important point which is not unusual for him, people like him to miss, which is: he got a DFC and nobody crowed about that but why did he get a DFC, what was the origin of the award?
PJ: I’ve never found the citation. I think possibly, of course, he was on a crew that carried out a lot of ops. I’ve found Fred Philips’ citations for both of his DFCs, for his DFC and his Bar.
CB: Which were earlier.
PJ: Which were earlier. Of course by 1945 they were dishing out quite a lot by then, weren’t they.
CB: What was the date of your father’s DFC?
PJ: I can’t remember.
CB: But it, was it a similar time to his pilot, his second one?
PJ: No, it was later.
CB: Later, exactly.
PJ: Which makes me think possibly the number of ops, or -
CB: Nothing specific. Could have been the end of the tour, the second tour.
PJ: Yes. That’s what I think.
CB: Would be nice to be able to get the citation though.
PJ: It would. I would like to see that.
CB: Right, we’ll pause there for a mo. Now we’ve already talked about the DFC and also the crew gelling together, but what sort of conversations did they have, in these circumstances?
PJ: One of the conversations that my dad did tell me about, and that was a conversation he would have with the mid upper gunner, Ron Wynn, when they were coming back, leaving the target on every op as flight engineer it was my dad’s role to walk the length of the fuselage doing a damage control walk, to see how badly damaged, or if [emphasis] they were damaged. And my dad would always use a shielded torch and Ron Wynn would always say, ‘Oi, you’re lighting me up like a bloody lightbulb up here, turn that torch out!’ And my dad would always reply, ‘If there’s a hole in this bloody fuselage I’m not falling out of it for you!’ [Laughter] And it would be the same conversation, every op, but there must have been more, there must have been more. Even in the, even in the sort of, the terrible times of the operations the humour was still there. Like in the breakfast before the op there was always somebody who’d say if you don’t come back, can I have your breakfast, wasn’t there, you know. There was always that, that lovely, lovely dark humour.
CB: Yes, it’s a trait where you deal with the danger, at the threat, and the horror of it, with humour.
PJ: Yes, but since my father’s death, I’ve spent over eleven years researching his notes and of researching his crew, or the crew that he served with, and I was fortunate enough to have made contact with Fred Philips in, who was living, still living in Sydney, and interestingly, when his flying career with the Royal Australian Aircraft, Air Force came to an end he joined Qantas and he eventually became the Chief, the Senior Training Captain, with Qantas and he was the first Qantas pilot to fly a 747 to Heathrow. Now sadly Fred died in October last year. The other one I managed to get in touch with was the mid upper gunner, Ron Wynn, still living in Stockport. After the war he’d been an instructor at Cranwell and I managed to speak to him on the phone and it was quite an emotional encounter I think, for him, talking to the son of someone he hadn’t seen for so long, but after the initial emotion he was very chatty. And after the conversation I had an email from one of his sons, saying how much his dad had enjoyed talking to me and hearing what my father had gone on to do, but then he said that the conversation had brought back a lot of memories and he wouldn’t want to talk again. I do hope that wasn’t too upsetting for him. But you know, I’ve gone through the crew and I now know what all but two of them did, after the war.
CB: One of the reasons was it, the link between the mid upper and the flight engineer was both were acting as lookouts, during this, but what was father actually doing as a flight engineer in his role?
PJ: In his role?
CB: So, start with take off.
PJ: At take off he would take over throttles so that the pilot could use both hands on the stick, for take off. During flight he would be constantly making fuel calculations et cetera, trimming the engines, shifting fuel between tanks et cetera, just to keep the stability and also keeping records, and as I say doing calculations because they didn’t rely on instrumentation for fuel, it was the engineer’s calculations, and woe betide if he got them wrong. My father could, could fly, he, it was again, going back to the Warboys experience where they did a bit of each other but I think it would have been straight and level flying, it wouldn’t have been landing, take off and landing, that sort of thing. Looking back at his, reading his memoirs, I think he did have a good time. I once went to the 7 Squadron reunion in Longstanton and when my, when his tour was up and they were going their separate ways they took their ground crew out, to the pub, The Hoops, in Longstanton, where they wouldn’t let the ground crew spend a penny. In his notes, my dad said it was worth the twenty four hours of hangover. And I dearly wanted to go and have a pint in The Hoops but it’s been knocked down.
CB: Oh dear.
PJ: But I did walk the streets of Longstanton, in the rain. One of the things that he talks about as well, is once on an aborted op they were returning to Oakington in a really vicious side wind and they had a sudden gust of wind and bounced badly on touchdown and went round again, and as they were roaring off, off the runway, the wind had sent them across the village at very low height and he can vividly remember seeing people staring up and people running away and he can clearly remember a lady running out of a house and grabbing a little girl, or her child, and pulling her into the house, out of the way. My father describes how they, they very narrowly missed All Saints Church in Longstanton and that when they touched down, got out of the aircraft, the rear gunner came, wandered around, and said to Fred Phillips, ‘if you’d have told me you were going to pull that stunt I could have taken that weather vane off as a souvenir!’ [laughter] But thinking as I was driving into Longstanton, it’s a long straight road into the village, the hair almost stood up on the back of my neck when I saw that, the spire of the church and realised that’s it! That’s it.
CB: In conclusion, because this is fascinating and it’s covered so many aspects of your experiences, and your father’s experiences. But thinking of father’s experiences with the research that you’ve been doing, and what he had written, what’s your overriding feeling about the story?
PJ: My father’s story or the story of Bomber Command.
CB: Your father’s story.
PJ: My father’s story. [Sigh] The little lad from, [pause] from the slums of Birmingham did all right.
CB: Can I translate that into a feeling of great pride?
PJ: Indeed.
CB: Thank you, Peter Jones.
PJ: You’re welcome
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AJonesPWA171207
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Peter Jones
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:49:58 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-07
Description
An account of the resource
Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) speaks about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force). Peter Jones discovered a memoir written by his father, Thomas Jones, a flight engineer, just after he passed away. Peter talks about his father’s life and service during and post-war, some of the details in the memoir and memories of their time as a family after the war. There is much discussion about operations and post-flight details, how emotions, injuries and fears are dealt with, including non-flying personnel as well as those who flew. Peter’s own life and work, particularly on the IBCC Digital Archive is also talked about, and the way the stories of others are so emotive.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-23
1944-04-04
1944-08-12
1944-08-29
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Berlin
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Wales--Glamorgan
England--Warwickshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Second generation
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
1657 HCU
622 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Pathfinders
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Nutts Corner
RAF Oakington
RAF St Athan
RAF Warboys
Stirling
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/326/3485/PShenbanjoA1701.1.jpg
28672247ff8d13752e2c93c8a8e5f8fc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/326/3485/AShenbanjoN170727.2.mp3
5eacf3be349c6c8c6109ab5cfc456dff
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
Shenbanjo, Akin
A Shenbanjo
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Neville Shenbanjo (b. 1945), the son of Flying Officer Akin Shenbanjo DFC, and 12 photographs.
Akin Shenbanjo attempted to volunteer for service with Bomber Command whilst in Nigeria. He was told they were not recruiting there so he made his own way to the UK to enlist. After training he flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 76 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Neville Shenbanjo and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Shenbanjo, A
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: Neville, it’s lovely to be with you here this morning. Just for the record at the start of this interview let me say that I’m Heather Hughes and I’m here in Neville Shenbanjo’s flat in Leeds and it is Thursday the 27th of July 2017. And its lovely also to have Keeley here with us who is going to hear some of her dad’s stories about the family. Thank you so much for agreeing to, to be interviewed for our project.
NS: No problem.
HH: It’s been wonderful to meet you. Let’s start by talking a little bit about you and then we’ll get on to all the wonderful stories that you have collected, that you heard from your dad and you are hopefully going to pass on to the rest of your family and a lots of other people besides. So I wonder if we could talk about you first Neville and where you were born and when.
NS: I was born on the 22nd of February 1945. I was born at number 22 Crawford Street, Leeds 2. Childhood was extreme. I can remember my childhood. I can remember being a baby. We was brought up by my grandmother and grandfather. We lived with my grandmother and grandfather and it was wonderful. My father was away. I were born in ’45 but my father was still an officer in the Air Force and I think at that time he was in Palestine but he used to come home regular on leave. And it was really surprising because most children at that time had somebody in the armed forces, somebody in the family but when my father came home they used to love it because he was in an officer’s uniform and that felt really special, you know. For me, a little boy that felt really good. My mother and father split up when I was around about three, four years old and I stayed, I stayed with my grandparents. We moved to Seacroft when I was around about five years old. Moved to Seacroft in Leeds when I was about five years old and that was, that was a change because we moved out of the inner city to open fields but it was wonderful. It was absolutely marvellous and there were times when I thought things aren’t right you know because I was with my grandmother and grandfather. My mother used to live around the corner but I was happy living with my grandmother and grandfather. My father still came and visited. And then again in his officer’s uniform and all this. Kids used to come out in the street. Anyway, my father moved back then. He moved to London and I didn’t see him for quite a while. He used to write. I didn’t see him for quite a while. I think the last time I saw him when I was around about nine. He came up visiting. When I was twelve he asked me to go to London to visit him. I can remember my grandmother and grandfather putting me on a train to London. Twelve years old. I thought how exciting this is. Went to London. Stayed with my father but oddly enough after a week I was homesick [laughs] I missed, I missed my grandparents so I came home. But I used to go and visit regular. I had a friend who lived around the corner and his grandmother, he’d come and visit his grandmother but he came from Twickenham. I’ll never forget him. Tom Courtenay, they called him and I’m still in touch with him now and he came from Twickenham and he used to, he used to stay at his grandmother’s during the school holidays and I used to go and visit him. And then we used to go and visit my father. Now, I never saw my father again. I would write him but we lost all contact and I thought what’s happened? And I was eighteen and I had a letter from my father saying, “I’m remarrying. Would you come down and visit me?” So I did. And he remarried again and I thought marvellous. He’s happy. He had another boy. That was good and I kept on visiting. But it wasn’t right, you know. I didn’t feel comfortable in his house with this strange woman. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I didn’t get on with her but there was something about her. But anyway, everything turned out ok. Now, about my father’s stories —
HH: Before we go onto your father’s stories how, just tell me a little bit about how, how your mum because you said she had been a WAAF?
NS: My mum was a WAAF, yeah.
HH: So tell us a little bit about your mum.
NS: My mum, she always said she couldn’t wait to be eighteen so she could join up. She always wanted to join up and she liked, well she wanted to join the Wrens because she liked the uniform better [laughs] but she joined the RAF. Now, she used to pack the parachutes and hand the parachutes out and that’s how she met my father because James Watt who was my father’s pilot who, Jimmy Watt but his real name was Reginald but he liked to be called Jimmy and he was going to, she told me tell this story that they were going to get their parachute and they had to give their name. So, she said, ‘Name?’ So Jimmy said, ‘Watt.’ So she said, ‘Name?’ So he said, ‘Watt.’ So she said, ‘What is your name?’ So he said he had to get his card and say, ‘Look, that is my name.’ And that, my father was behind and that’s how she met, that’s how she met my father, you know. So it’s just a funny story like that.
HH: And what happened to your mum after the war? What did she do?
NS: My mother. She, well, well she was pregnant during the war.
HH: Yeah.
NS: And so she was asked to leave. You had to leave the Air Force.
HH: Yeah. They had to didn’t they? Yeah.
NS: So, she left the Air Force and just carried on with life, you know. Well, left the Air Force, got married. They got married at Leeds Registry Office. They were supposed to get married in a church. I shouldn’t tell you this. They were supposed to get married in a church but my dad kept, there were going to be press there and my father didn’t want any press to be there and he changed, he changed it twice and they finally got married in Leeds Registry Office. Just so that there weren’t any press about. That’s how my father was. And my mother remarried. I’ve got six, six siblings on my mother’s side and they all live close as well.
HH: And you stay in touch with most of them?
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah. I’m going on holiday with them next month. With one of my sister’s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carole. Yeah. They’ve all got families now. Well, everybody has, you know. Grandparents and grandchildren. Yeah. We get on really great. All of them.
HH: Great.
NS: Yeah.
HH: So, let’s talk a little bit then I want to, I want to come back to the the way in which you have remembered your dad and the little, the shrine that you’ve created to your dad here. But I think, lets go back and look at some, look at your dad’s time in the RAF and tell me how he came to be in Britain because he was Nigerian wasn’t he?
NS: My father was Nigerian. Yeah. He had two pals in Nigeria. They called them the [Coss], the [Coss] brothers —
HH: And you’ve got a picture there of them.
NS: [Aberwello], yeah. [Aberwella Ollawalli], Akin Shenbanjo and Eddie [Cambo]. Not a very Nigerian name that Ede Cambo but only two arrived. My father and [Olliwello].
HH: Now, your father had tried to enlist in Nigeria and he was told that —
NS: Well, he didn’t try to enlist in Nigeria. He wrote to the War Office.
HH: Oh ok.
NS: He wrote to the War Office asking to join the RAF but I think this was 1941. The Battle of Britain. Everybody wanted to be a fighter pilot but the office, the War Office wrote back to him and said, “We aren’t recruiting from Nigeria at the moment.” So that’s it. My father wrote back insisting, ‘but I want to join.’ So, the War Office wrote back and said if you want to join you can make your way over to England and just go to the nearest recruiting office and join. You can take this letter with you and join. So my father had a scholarship to go to university. So he used the money that his father gave him to come over to England. That’s why my father could not go back. He was the oldest child. So he could never go back. He give, he give his right up and he’s never been back to Nigeria. He never went back to Nigeria. They came over. They got the boat. They got to the Recruiting Office at Southampton, they both went in to the Recruiting Office and said, ‘We’ve come to join the RAF.’ And they had, I don’t know whether he said they laughed at him but they just said, ‘Well, you can’t.’ But my father pulled this envelope out and said, ‘Oh.’ So the man said, ‘Well, alright. You’re in the RAF.’ That was it. Then they both joined together and my father’s friend during training he discovered he was scared of flying and so he had to go on ground crew. My father lost touch with him and that was that. My father was, I don’t know He finished up at Holme on Spalding Moor. But that’s where he was and that’s where he met his pilot. Now, I was talking to Jimmy Watt. I said, ‘How did you meet my father?’ So, he said, ‘Well, I was walking around. I was walking around the base and I saw your dad sat on this wall so I approached him. I went over to him. I said, look, I can see all your ribbons,’ you know wireless operator, navigator. He said, ‘Have you not done all this training?’ So my father replied, ‘I’ve done so much training I could fight this war on my own.’ Well, Jimmy said to him, ‘Right, come with me,’ and that was it. They were settled from that moment on and I’m still in touch with Jimmy’s son. We phone regularly. Once a fortnight we’ll phone. There was a time, it was around about six years ago. I had a phone call to say that they was a disbanding 76 Squadron. Well, it was only I used to go visit Spalding Moor. I used to go to all the reunions and everything. In fact, the school, a primary school there and the 76 Squadron has done so much for that school the children absolutely love it and they know all about the war and all that 76 Squadron did because they are teaching children about the war now. They never taught them about the war when I was a kid. We never got taught about the war. In fact, my grand, my grandson, Keeley’s son there was, they asked if there was anybody had got any grandparents, any old pictures? So I sent the are pictures and my dad’s medals. They were flabbergasted. They were over the moon with that. Yeah. Anyway, go back to where were we?
HH: We were talking about your dad having got together with the pilot Jimmy Watt.
NS: Oh, he got, yeah he got together with pilot, Jimmy Watt.
HH: They flew in 76 Squadron obviously and they flew Halifaxes.
NS: They flew Halifaxes. Halifax. They named my father’s Halifax, “The Black Prince.” They didn’t like naming the planes at that time because they said, ‘Don’t name a plane because if a fighter gets the name of that plane or it shoots down something they’ll come looking for you.’ So my father said, ‘As long as I’m flying this plane nothing will happen.’ And nothing ever did. Now, my father flew so many missions because it was practically every night there was somebody goes ill or something like. Most like they just get scared. This is it. It’s our time. And they don’t refuse to fly but my father would always volunteer to go. My father flew in most of the planes at that base. He told me about it because they thought, nobody would pick my father as crew, they thought he might be bad luck. I don’t know why. But when Jimmy Watt picked him up everybody thought he was good luck and so they were getting him to fly. I don’t know how my father got his DFC. I never found out. He never told me and I’d like to find out how my father was awarded the DFC.
HH: It would be possible to find out.
NS: Yeah.
HH: We can do something about that.
NS: I’d like to find that out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can’t think now. I’m stuck.
HH: No. Not at all. So [pause] your dad would have flown with quite international crews because —
NS: Yes.
HH: There were Canadians —
NS: Yes. My father was, well the pilot was Canadian. Two Australians. A New Zealander. Two Australians, two New Zealanders and an Englishman. That was it. Nigerian.
HH: A really international crew.
NS: Nigerian, two New Zealanders, two Australians and a Dutchman. That was it. Yeah.
HH: And they became like family didn’t they?
NS: Oh, well they were family because they never, they were always together. You know, they all used to eat together and do everything together.
HH: Well, they had to look after each other.
NS: They had to look after each other.
HH: To come home safely I would think.
NS: They had to look after, they had to look after each other and they never made friends, never made close friends with any other, any other bombers because they were losing too many friends. They said they used to go in to the mess hall for breakfast on a morning there used to be two tables empty. You know. So —
HH: And did your dad’s entire crew survive the war?
NS: All of them survived the war.
HH: Remarkable.
NS: They all survived the war.
HH: That’s remarkable.
NS: They all survived the war. The plane was never, I heard a story when they finally had to leave the plane and the plane went up again it never came back. You know. So, and that’s, that’s supposed to be a true story. Yeah.
HH: And what happened to your dad after the war? Did he stay in the RAF for a while?
NS: He was in the RAF until 1953.
HH: Gosh.
NS: ’53 or ‘54 because I know he was, he told me his story and I shouldn’t really say this but I’ll tell you the story anyway. It’s coming out now. He was in where did I say he was? Not Israel. Palestine.
HH: Ah huh.
NS: He was in Palestine and he had this secretary. Now, she had relations in Leeds and she knew that my father came from Leeds and she asked him if she could send him some letters but my father, he read the letters first because he wasn’t to send them, but he did post them for her. One day he was in the mess hall. He said, ‘We were just having a sing song round a piano and this secretary banged on the window and he said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘Will you come out with us for a drink?’ So he said, ‘I’m with my pal here.’ They said, ‘Well, bring him us. We’ll go out for a drink.’ And they left the base and they got a hundred yards down the road when the mess hall blew up. There was a bomb in the piano. Now, this, she must have known about it but she got my father out and I don’t, I know you shouldn’t have wrote, read those letters.
HH: Don’t worry.
NS: But if he hadn’t have done he might have gone up in that.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Anyway, that’s another story.
HH: He was clearly a very lucky person.
NS: He was. Yeah. And a well liked person. It’s amazing. People have met him and they said, ‘You’re father’s amazing.’ And I said, ‘Well why? He’s just a normal man.’ ‘No. He’s amazing.’ Even my friends you know, ‘Oh, your father’s so different.’ I said, ‘What do you mean so different? He’s just like your father.’ He said, ‘No. there’s something about him.’
HH: What do you think it was that people saw?
NS: I don’t know. I don’t know. But my grandparents. They loved him. I mean imagine 1945. Your daughter comes home with a black man.
HH: There was a lot more prejudice then then there is now yeah.
NS: Oh yeah. No. Well, no but my grandfather had seen my father. He used to be a boxer in the RAF and he’d seen him boxing.
HH: So was your dad a boxer as well?
NS: Yeah. Yeah. He was lightweight boxing. I think it was from all the Army, Navy and Air Force champion. Yeah. Yeah. And my father had seen him box you see. My grandfather. He must have boxed at Leeds Town Hall or something like that. That’s anyway they really liked my father. My grandparents.
HH: How do you remember your father? What was he like as a person? What was his personality like?
NS: It’s hard to say by me because he was strict but he wasn’t strict with me. Probably because we were distant or I don’t know. The distance between us part but he was very strict but he was very moral. I know that. But he was very fair as well. A marvellous man. A really marvellous man.
HH: Did he ever wish, did he ever voice a wish to return to Nigeria or was he quite happy to stay here after the war?
NS: He was happy to stay here. He’d never been back to Nigeria. His son and his second wife they went to Nigeria. But my father never went.
HH: Did he maintain contact with his family there?
NS: Yes. Now, he had a sister. She was a nurse and I can remember her coming to visit us when we were living in, I was only four years old. Grace, they called her. I named that statue after her. Auntie Grace. She was marvellous. She was a nurse and she used to come to England. She used to go to St James Teaching Hospital. That’s in Leeds. And she used to learn things there and then go back. She used to come regular. And he had a brother who used to come over and he brought me my first pair of football boots. I never get it in London. You go out of Woolworths in London. I’ll never forget that. Yeah. Marvellous man. And he’s got there are so many Shenbanjo’s in England now it’s unbelievable.
HH: Oh, really. Well, there you are.
NS: If you go on facebook —
HH: Ok.
NS: You find so many Shenbanjo’s in America, Australia. There are Shenbanjo’s all over the world now. Yeah.
HH: All over. Yeah.
NS: Yeah. You know, so he spread the word my father did.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Yes.
HH: So, but you it was after the war when, when you presumably, you know you’d finished school and you were becoming an adult. You, you, did you, you helped your dad quite a lot to stay in touch with squadron and so on and Squadron Associations —
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: And so on. Tell us about that.
NS: Well, I was, I used to go and visit. I worked in Peterborough and I used to go visit my father because London, Peterborough an hours’ drive. I would drive. So, he’d be North London. Kingsbury. So just an hour’s drive down the A1. One day I was there and my father said to me, ‘I want you to do something for me son.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. Whatever you want dad. I’ll do it.’ He said, ‘I want you to get the crew together that I flew with during the war.’ So, I said, ‘Ok dad.’ Just said it like that. I went out. I got in to the car and I’m driving up the A1 and all of a sudden I was thinking how can I do this? And I thought fifty years from now. That’s what they said, ‘We’ll meet fifty years from now.’ I drove up the A1, got back to Peterborough. The next day I’ve come up to Leeds. I’ve called at my mother’s because my mother was WAAF at 76 Squadron. And I said to her, ‘Look, he's asked me to do something.’ She said, ‘What?’ ‘He’s asked me to get the crew together he flew with during the war.’ Well, my mother looked at me stupid and she said, ‘Well, there was Jimmy Watt. He was a Canadian.’ I thought, ‘Well, I know that mum.’ She said, ‘But there was something on the television last night. It was about bombers flying from Holme on Spalding Moor.’ So the next day I went down to the studios., Leeds Studios. Television studios. I went to the reception desk and I told the receptionist what I was looking for. She said, ‘Look, I don’t think I can help you but just hang on.’ She went upstairs and she brought down the producer with her. Well, this producer said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I, I aren’t supposed to do this but I’m going to give you this video and you can watch it and if you find anything that’s ok but you must bring it back.’ So I said, ‘No problem. I’ll bring it back.’ I took the video, I watched it I couldn’t see anything on it. So I went back to this television studio the next week and I went to see the man. Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. Thank you but I couldn’t find anything.’ So he said, ‘I want you to ring this number.’ He said, ‘It’s a lady. Patricia —' I’ve forgotten her second name.
HH: Was it Welbourne or something?
NS: Welbourne.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Patricia Welbourne. They used to call her Paddy. Oh, she used to work [pause] She used to be she was there and she was something to do with 76 Squadron. So I rang this lady in York and I said, ‘Mrs Welbourne?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ Oh, I said, ‘You won’t know me. My name is Neville Shenbanjo.’ Well, she said, ‘I haven’t heard your voice in forty eight years.’ And I was said, ‘No. No, that’s my father. That’s my father.’ She said, ‘We’ve been looking for your father,’ you know, to get [pause] Anyway, that’s when it all started. She gave me the number of Jimmy Watt and I rang Jimmy Watt up in Canada. And that’s when it all started. I got three of them together. And I think five, five of them we all met once at one reunion. One guy had died and he lived just near my father. We got the rest together and marvellous. I’ve met Jimmy Watt three or four times.
HH: So you, so you made your dad’s wish come true.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was over the moon about that. Yeah.
HH: Was he, was he really thrilled?
NS: Oh well, when he met Jimmy Watt after those years, there’s a picture on the wall there. Arms around each other.
HH: And where was that reunion? Was it —
NS: It was at Holme on Spalding Moor. At the —
HH: Ok.
NS: At the base. We, they still have reunions there that there’s not many people to go now.
HH: No.
NS: You know so its —
HH: But what, what about the next generation like you?
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: Do they still participate?
NS: They still go but it’s done mostly like everything else internet now and over the phone. You know. That’s how, that’s how, that’s how they communicate. But I haven’t been there for a while but I still like to go back every, what am I going to do this Sunday? I’m going to go visit there. There’s a funny story. We was there one day and I don’t know whether this is true or not but there one day there must have been thirty of us all there and this guy came. The place is an industrial estate now and this guy came up to, up to the crew and he says, he were the head of the security and he said, ‘I’ve got to tell you guys something.’ They said, ‘What?’ He said, well he was, one of his men was just going around the perimeter and security and he said he saw these kids playing football. So he thought that’s odd because it’s in the middle of nowhere this place. So the security man went up and there were kids playing football and he said they all had uniforms on. He said they had RAF uniforms on he said. And that man, he just ran back to the office and he said, ‘I’m not going back there.’ So they said it was the ghost of the —
HH: Yeah.
NS: But I never believed it but the man never went back to work.
HH: He was convinced.
NS: He never went back to work.
HH: Yeah.
NS: So, I’ll tell you stories about my father. What did he do? You know, it’s hard to say. It’s hard to —
HH: What did he do when he came out of the RAF?
NS: He, he went to work at the Post Office. Then he finished up as a chartered surveyor. I don’t know. I know he worked at the Post Office for a while and he went as a chartered surveyor.
HH: And all the time he was living in London was he?
NS: All the time he was living in London. Yeah. All the time he lived in London because I can remember when I was a kid my father used to send money up for me because my mum and father were divorced. And now and then this money didn’t arrive. My mother used to get angry about it. Anyway, the sad thing is we had a guy that lived around the corner and he was our postman and he was stealing the money.
HH: So your dad was sending the money.
NS: He was sending money but this post, anyway this postman finished up in jail for it. Then my father was forgiven for that. Yeah.
HH: How did you discover —
NS: Well, my father said, my father worked at the Post Office and he was sending it up registered. So, they just had to, I think they just —
HH: Yeah.
NS: They tricked this guy.
HH: Yeah. And sadly he went blind in his later years.
NS: My father went blind in his later years, yeah.
HH: And when did he pass away?
NS: Twenty five, twenty five years ago, I think.
HH: Gosh.
NS: Twenty five years.
HH: So it was in the ninety, late 1990s.
NS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s when he passed away.
HH: And where is he buried?
NS: He’s, he was cremated.
HH: He was cremated.
NS: And it’s, and it’s, there was a plaque on the wall. It said, oh it’s in a crematorium in North London. I can’t remember.
HH: Ok. So, it’s in North London.
NS: It’s in North London.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Not far from Kingsbury.
HH: Ok.
NS: So, the crematorium there.
HH: And you were just telling me earlier that your mum survived a very long time and only passed away quite recently.
NS: Yeah. She was ninety one, my mother. Yeah. She passed.
HH: And she’d always lived, continued living in Leeds.
NS: Continued living in Leeds, yeah. She lived just up the road.
HH: And how come you found your way back to Leeds after you’d been in Peterborough? Where else did you travel and work?
NS: Well, I just happened to work in Peterborough. I just wanted a job and I’ve been an optical technician all my life. Since I was fifteen. And they were asking for somebody in Peterborough. So I went. I used to travel back to Leeds every weekend you know.
HH: So your home has always been in Leeds.
NS: My home has always, I’ve always had a home in Leeds. Yeah. Yeah.
HH: One of the things I wanted to, to ask you was how you, I mean obviously you have a very personal interest in how Bomber Command, RAF Bomber Command is remembered today. Do you think that, that Bomber Command is remembered adequately? Do you think that they’ve been given the respect or the recognition they deserve?
NS: They are now. At one time they was not. Not at all. My father regretted. My father made a lot of German friends. He used to visit Germany a lot. He felt so guilty, you know. I remember my father bombed Dresden and places like this and after the war he used to feel, he felt so sad you know. He told me this. But what could he do? He had to do it and that were, that was the end of it. I was very proud of him naturally. And everybody else. I had friends and they say to me, ‘Oh, your father. Oh yeah, he was an officer.’ And some still don’t believe me and I’d say, ‘Yes, he was an officer in the RAF.’ I can remember one guy once said to me, ‘No black men flew in the RAF.’ And this guy was in, this guy had been in the RAF, you know [laughs] I just laughed.
HH: Because I think, I mean don’t you think that that is an issue? That Bomber Command, you said earlier you know they didn’t have recognition for a long time but within, within that lack of recognition the, the black airmen and, and others who served in Bomber Command got even less recognition.
NS: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Probably. Probably. But I can’t see it though because my father was made an officer. So no. I don’t, I don’t think there was any prejudice in.
HH: No. But afterwards. The way in which Bomber Command has been remembered afterwards.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s sad because nobody realises. All they think about is bombing children and things like this. Nobody understands that it had to be done. It was something that just had to be done and that was the end of it. You know, I understood. I understood this for a long time. Yeah. When they say about [pause] some of the things he did he told me and I just, everything just went out of my head. Ah. I made some notes. [pause] In training. Him and Jimmy Watt. There was one time I was in Peterborough and I was in the pub and somebody came around, they put, ‘Anybody want to do a parachute jump.’ Well, you know it happens doesn’t it, in a pub? No. I was over forty then so I said, ‘No way.’ And I think I was forty. Anyway, they came back an hour later. That would be another three pints later [laughs] and the hand was up straight away. ‘Yeah. I’ll do it.’ So, then I thought, ‘What can I do now? How do I get out of it?’ So, I was going to visit my father the next day. So I went to my father and I said, ‘Dad, I’ve done something stupid.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I volunteered to do a parachute jump.’ He says, ‘You’ll love it.’ I said, ‘Dad, you never did one.’ He said, ‘I did.’ I said, ‘Why? Your plane was never shot down.’ He said, ‘We were test, test flying a Lancaster over the Humber Estuary and the rudder got stuck so it was just going around in a big circle all around the Humber Estuary. Well, we had to get in touch with base and they had to get in touch with Bomber Command and the only thing to do was bale out and, ‘Bale out while it’s over land and then we’ll send some fighters to shoot it down.’ That’s the only thing they could do. So they all baled out. My father landed in this church yard in [pause] Oh where? Anyway, in this village churchyard. I remember the name of the village. And he said, ‘I landed.’ Well, they had overalls over their uniforms then. He said, ‘I landed in this churchyard and this vicar’s wife came out with a shotgun. And she had a shotgun over me.’ So he said, ‘Look, I’m British.’ ‘So she looked at me and said, ‘Oh no you’re not.’ [laughs] Anyway, then the vicar came out and the local, local police sergeant. They let my dad, and then they realised. Well, the policeman did anyway. They realised he was British. And that woman used to send my father Christmas cards and birthday cards for twenty years before she died. That’s how, that’s how friendly he was. That’s how people took to my father. You know, it was just like that.
HH: That’s a wonderful story.
NS: Anyway, I did the parachute jump [laughs]
HH: And how did you find it?
NS: Marvellous. I wanted to do another one. I’d do one tomorrow. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Yeah. That’s a good story about my dad. [unclear] Parachute. Oh, and Jimmy. Jimmy Watt, I were talking to him and he said, ‘You know once we had, we couldn’t land at our base. There was something up with the plane. We had to land at this other base.’ And there there was American bomber planes. Well, they landed. ‘They took us in to the mess and this one crew member said to Jimmy Watt, he said, ‘Does he fly with you?’ So, he said, ‘Yeah.’ So he said, ‘Well, aren’t you segregated?’ He said, ‘What do you mean segregrated?’ so he said, he said, ‘We fly together, we eat together and,’ he said, ‘We’ll probably die together.’ And that’s what Jimmy Watt told this Yank.
HH: And he was right.
NS: He was right.
HH: Tell us that story Neville about how your dad recognised his, his ground crew from, from his voice all those years later at a reunion.
NS: Oh yeah. We went to a reunion. My father was blind by this time and we were, we was walking to the church and it’s a hill to go up the church. My dad was blind and I had my dad on my arm. Well, this old guy came up and he says, stood in front of my father and he says. ‘You won’t remember me Able 1, will you?’ My father was blind. My father said, ‘Remember you?’ He says, ‘You saved our lives.’ He said, ‘You were the ground crew. We relied on you.’ And he remembered his voice and it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. I can remember one time. This is a silly thing. I had to go to London. I had to go to get to the other side of London which is south London so I asked my father for directions. He said, ‘Come on. I’ll take you.’ I said, ‘Dad, you’re blind.’ He said, ‘I was a navigator wasn’t I?’ [laughs] So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So I’d got him in the car beside me and don’t forget he were blind but he directed me to exactly the place I wanted to be. ‘You take the next left.’ And it, and it was about a ten mile journey but I don’t know how he did it.
HH: He got you there.
NS: I don’t know how he did it. Another time [unclear] [pause] Oh yeah. Another time his pilot told me, he said, ‘We were coming in to land and they knocked a chimney pot off a farmhouse.’ But the next day the farmer came screaming, he said, ‘But we blamed somebody else.’ [laughs] But my father wanted to admit it. He said, ‘No. You don’t admit it. We blame somebody else.’ And he told me another other time as well it must be forty years after the war. Yeah, and he’d visited York because they used to go to York and he said, ‘I was sat in this café —' and this lady came up to him and she said, ‘Did you serve in the RAF?’ So, he said, ‘Yes.’ ‘I used to dance with you. Do you remember doing?’ And she used to dance with him at one of the dances in York. You know, he said, he said it’s forty years ago and she still remembered. I said, ‘Dad, you’re an unforgettable person.’ You know.
HH: Was he a good dancer?
NS: Oh yeah. Supposed to have been, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s where I got it from.
HH: Are you a good dancer too?
NS: What are you laughing at [laughs] No. I can’t, I can’t even walk.
HH: Does dancing run in your family?
NS: I can’t even walk. Palestine. Jimmy Watt. I did this. Brenda Bernell. What’s Brenda Bernell? Oh. This is another story about my father in uniform. I was six years old and I was very ill. The doctor didn’t know what was wrong with me. He thought I had measles. But then he thought it was a bad case of flu because I came out in blotches and everything. Anyway, there was a girl that lived around the corner. I’ll never forget her name. Brenda Bernell. And she was in the same class as me so my grandmother had sent her a note to say, “Neville won’t be in school because he’s got measles.” That’s what they thought I had. When I finally got back to school teacher said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ It turned out it were just a bad dose of flu. I said, ‘Well, I’ve had flu.’ And I had to stand outside the headmistress’s office for lying. Well, you know [laughs] So my father had come to visit me. And he said, he was at home so when I got home he was there. So, he said, ‘Why are you late?’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve been outside the headmistress’s office for lying.’ He was angry with me. He said, ‘You’ve been lying?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. I just told them I’d got flu.’ And grandma said, ‘Well, that’s what it was but we sent a note saying he’d got —’[pause] My father marched me to school the next day in full uniform. I thought, but the respect he got when he went through those school gates. The headmistress, she was all over him. You know. She couldn’t do enough for him. And I thought well she was a right cow anyway. Mrs [unclear] we called her Bumblebee.
HH: Did you get an apology?
NS: Oh, I got an apology, yeah. But when my father had gone I got, you know I still got picked on and what have you.
HH: So which, which schools did you go to in Leeds, Neville?
NS: Went to [unclear] Primary School and then to Foxwood Comprehensive School because Foxwood, it was the first comprehensive school in England and I had to write to my father because I had passed my Eleven Plus and had a choice of going to Roundhay School, or Coborn High School or another school. But I had to write to my father to say what, so he suggested Foxwood School. That will be the best in the future. That’s the only mistake he ever made I think [laughs] No. I did alright. I did alright. I did alright. But I can’t tell you about, I can’t tell you his missions that he did because I don’t know. I know there was a lot. I know he did more than anybody else.
HH: What happened to his logbook?
NS: His son’s got that in London.
HH: It does, it does survive though, does it?
NS: It might survive. I know, I know he’s got little things because he’s an hoarder and he’s, he’s not interested in any of this because when, when we was going to the fiftieth reunion to meet all his old, his son was there and I said, ‘Akin, do you want to come with us?’ ‘No. I’ll stay with mum.’ You know, he’s one of them type of things. I think he’s got, I know he’s got his ration book, things like that so he might have his logbook. But my father would have given it to me if he’d have known, you know, that he was going to die. He made sure.
HH: But that would probably have the fullest record of all his ops.
NS: Yeah. Yeah. But I don’t talk to the man. I don’t want to talk to him.
HH: No. There is another way of getting the information. Look, looking at operational record books.
NS: Yeah.
HH: Which is, which is possible but we can talk about that another time.
NS: Yeah. That’s fine.
HH: Maybe get some information from that.
NS: I just want, I just want to know how he was awarded his DFC. That’s all I’m interested in.
HH: And we’ll get, we’ll try.
NS: Yeah.
HH: And look for ways of —
NS: Yeah.
HH: Finding that information for you.
NS: I thought they might have let me know when I applied for his medals because my dad’s medals. Oh, the medals that’s another story.
HH: Tell us that story.
NS: Well, my father, when mother and father split up he got lodgings in this house not far and he had to go to London. So he asked this guy would he look after his medals until he comes back. He said, ‘Oh yeah. They’ll be safe with me.’ My dad was gone for God knows how long and he went but the guy had moved and the medals had gone. Now, this guy had been seen at the Cenotaph in Leeds wearing my father’s medals. But we never, I had to get some copies made but my father, you know he said, ‘No. He wouldn’t have stolen them.’ I said, ‘Dad, he did. There are people like that, you know.’ My dad didn’t think there were people were like that. You know, why would anybody steal somebody else’s medals?
HH: Yeah.
NS: The guy had been in the RAF himself. But I think he was only ground crew but you know he was marching up and down with my dad’s medals on.
HH: So, did you, have you had those medals, the replacements? Did you get those for your dad or did you get those after he had passed away already?
NS: I got them for my dad but he said, ‘No, you keep them. You keep them there and then I’ll know you’ve got them then,’ you see.
HH: Yeah.
NS: So, I kept them up here.
HH: So, he knew that he had the replacements.
NS: Oh yeah. He, yeah I said, ‘I got your replacements. Don’t you worry about that.’
HH: Yeah.
NS: Anything else? I don’t [pause] it seems I have loads to tell you but I can’t think.
HH: Well, you have told us loads.
NS: Have I?
HH: You have. And I suppose it would be a good, a good way to end off really by talking about how the rest of your family feels about these stories because I know you’ve got children and grandchildren of your own.
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: Are they interested in these stories?
NS: Oh yeah.
HH: Do you tell them the stories?
NS: I do tell them now and then. Yeah. Like I said he’s —
Other: Yeah. My brother who lives in Spain. He’s got, he’s got all the photos up at his bar.
NS: Oh, he’s got a bar in Spain.
Other: He’s got all the photos of my granddad.
NS: They called the bar, “Banjos.” They call the bar, “Banjos.”
HH: Have you been out there?
Other: Yeah.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Other: Of course.
NS: We go out there. I go out regular and he has, well he’s got some more pictures now.
HH: So, you do keep this memory alive.
NS: Oh yeah. Yeah.
HH: Of your dad in the family. That’s wonderful.
NS: And its amazing how many people are interested in Spain because he’s got these pictures and he’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s my grandfather.’ But there’s so many. When I go now people want to talk, want talk to me about it you know. And there’s one guy, one guy especially he runs a radio show in Malaga. And I think he’s mentioned it on the show in Malaga. You know. That’s another thing.
HH: So he should.
NS: Yeah.
HH: It’s important that these people do remember.
NS: It is. Yeah. It is. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
NS: Yeah. So I’ve got to get some more pictures now and take them over when I go to fill his wall up you know. I’ve got, well, I’ve got plenty on my phone anyway, you know so—
HH: That’s great. Thank you so much for sharing all of these stories.
NS: It’s ok [unclear]
HH: If you think of anymore which is doubtless going to happen take a note and we’ll come back and do some more chatting.
NS: Well, I’ll come and meet you. It’s not —
HH: It would be wonderful to welcome you in Lincoln.
NS: Yeah.
HH: It would be wonderful to take you around the new International Bomber Command Centre when it opens which will be next year.
NS: Yeah. I’d love to do it because there’s a guy I used to work with in Peterborough, an optician. And he’s really interested in this because his father was in the RAF. He was a —
HH: Do you stay in touch with him?
NS: Oh yeah. Gilbert. Yeah.
HH: Well, Lincoln is a good place for you to meet halfway.
NS: He lives in Boston.
HH: Oh, there you are. Boston and Leeds. You can meet in Lincoln.
NS: Yeah. He used, he used to have an optician shop in Boston. A Specsaver shop in Boston, this guy.
HH: One of the things that I just wanted to ask you before we close everything up is would you mind if we took some pictures of your photographs?
NS: No, not at all.
HH: Because if, if you are willing for us to be able to do that we would love to have copies put in to our archive as well.
NS: Yeah.
HH: For other people to have a look —
NS: Yeah.
HH: In future. So that would be really good. So, thank you Neville.
NS: Yeah.
HH: Perhaps the thing to do now would be to take some images and we also want a nice portrait of you.
NS: Oh, that’s ok.
HH: And we’ll take a portrait of Keeley too. Thank you so much.
NS: You’re welcome.
HH: Let’s stop all the equipment and take some still photographs and some other photographs. Is that ok, Alex?
[recording paused]
HH: Ok. Tell me about your dad’s love of jazz.
NS: Love of jazz. He loved jazz. He wanted to play it for his funeral, it was “Blue Indigo,” by oh I’ve got, I’ve got the CD down there.
HH: It’s, “Mood Indigo.”
NS: Mood. Well, it was, “Mood Indigo” It was “Blue Indigo,” because there’s, there’s so many different versions.
HH: Versions. Yeah.
NS: Because when I tried to get it afterwards because I’ve got a friend that has a record shop and he said, ‘There’s twenty different versions of this,’ but I’ve I’ve got the right one.
HH: And that’s what was played at his funeral.
NS: That was played at his funeral. Yeah.
HH: Lovely touch.
NS: It was so, the music. It just [pause] that’s it. You might not have heard of him Terry Gallagher the jazz singer. He’s great. That’s him there and that’s me just where I used to live in the centre of Leeds but he’d done a show there. How do you want to do these pictures then? Do you want to —?
[recording paused]
HH: Now, Neville, tell me the story about the brother you discovered much later.
NS: Well, about ten years ago my daughter, Keeley she rang me, she said, ‘Dad, you’ve got a brother.’ I said, ‘I know I’ve got a brother. I don’t talk to him.’ She said, ‘No. This is another one. He’s looking for you and he lives in America.’ So I finally, I phoned him and then he came over, didn’t he? He came over to see me and it took him three weeks. Now, we can’t stand the one down there. I can’t tell you what he calls him over the phone. But he, but he’s a marvellous kid and he was brought up in care. His mother gave him up when he was three years old and he went to Durham. Now, this lady she just looked after half caste children. She fostered them. And what do you call the dressmaker? Bruce —
HH: I can picture him.
NS: The gay guy. Bruce.
Other: Bruce Oldfield.
NS: Bruce Oldfield.
HH: Oldfield.
NS: He was there in the same one. I used to have a picture. I used to have that book. A picture of Bruce Oldfield. But, now this guy they’re like brothers. Well, they are brothers. They were brought up as brothers and Bruce Oldfield lives in Italy now. He has a place in Italy. I think it’s Lake Como or somewhere, but he goes over and visits him regular. You know he’s a smashing guy is Barry.
Other: They were in a band together.
NS: Oh he was in a band together, yeah.
Other: London Cowboys.
HH: Did you? Wow.
Other: London Cowboys he was in.
NS: No, he wasn’t in a band, what do you —
HH: But it was through this brother that you heard about us.
NS: Yeah. He, he phoned me and says I want you to do something about it. I said, ‘Look, I can’t send emails. I’m useless at that, you know.’ But luckily I had this guy next to me who used to live next door to me. He said, ‘I’ll do it for you.’ It’s why, just Dave emailing, I was telling him what to write. Anyway, I finally did and I told Barry. He said, ‘I want you to do it before he does it down there because he knows nothing.’ You know, that brother in London. He’d just do it for he’d make sure he got his name in print somewhere along the line. See if I can find out.
HH: Well. You must keep Barry informed and get him to come over when the, when the centre opens.
NS: Oh, we will do yeah.
HH: Come down and visit together. It would be wonderful.
Other: Yeah. Barry works in all the studios. Universal studios.
NS: Yeah.
Other: Works on all the sets.
HH: Wow
NS: Find him —
Other: I’ll just click on the top of that.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AShenbanjoN170727, PShenbanjoA1701
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Neville Shenbanjo
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:54:36 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Heather Hughes
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-27
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Nigeria
England--Yorkshire
England--London
England--Leeds
Description
An account of the resource
Neville Shenbanjo was born in 1945, the son of Akin Shenbanjo. Flying Officer Akin Shenbanjo DFC was born in Nigeria and served as a wireless operator / air gunner with 76 Squadron. His crew named their Halifax 'Achtung! The Black Prince' after him.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Holmes
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
76 Squadron
African heritage
aircrew
Halifax
perception of bombing war
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/480/8363/ABrooksR151029.2.mp3
d0d059fc3e408586027f57552f30d5d2
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
Brooks, Edward
Edward Brooks
E Brooks
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Brooks, E
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Rita Brooks. Widow of Flight Lieutentant Edward Brooks DFC, DFM who flew operations with 12 and 460 Squadrons.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Rita Brooks and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS Right we’re in business. We’re ready to start. Ok, thank you.
RB Right. My late husband was Flight Lieutenant Edward Brooks DFC, DFM. Now Ted hadn’t meant to join the RAF. He’d already started work as an office boy in London and had joined the Home Guard, but he wanted to join the Army. So he went to the army recruiting office and all was going well, until with the innocence of youth, he stated that he wish to join the Oxford and Bucks, the regiment in which his uncle Company Sergeant Major Edward Brooks had been awarded the Victoria Cross in 1917. The recruiting sergeant looked up and said : ‘You can’t pick and choose sonny.” To which Ted replied : ‘Right, I’ll go and join the RAF.’ This he promptly did. His date of enlistment February 1941. But he was dismayed to learn that they were unable to take him immediately, but they gave him a lapel badge to indicate that he’d enlisted and that they would let him know. The months passed and although he must have been very busy, working during the day and Home Guard duties at night, he just wanted to be in the service, so after several months had elapsed he wrote to the Air Ministry [Shuffle of paper]. Two months later, two weeks later he was at Uxbridge. There followed the initial three months training course at Blackpool. There they were billeted in a former seaside boarding house. They had to surrender their ration books to the landlady and they were always hungry. Their meals were served in the dining room, but they soon realised that the Corporal in charge of the bul- billet had all his meals in the kitchen with the landlady, and was enjoying much better fare. On the day they all left, to register their dissatisfaction [turning of page] they nailed a kipper to the underside of the dining room table. Another memory of Blackpool was, before leaving they were lined up, sleeves rolled up and given multiple vaccinations. Then they were allowed to go home on leave before their next posting. Ted collapsed on arriving home and taken by ambulance to RAF Henley hospital, they lived nearby, where Vaccine Fever was diagnosed, and where he spent most of his leave. The chapter Ted contributed to “Lancaster At War Two” as wireless operator follows his training up to OTU where he said he met the RAAF. At some time during those previous months his mother, always concerned for her sons comfort, was worried that his regulations shirts were too rough. So she bought him officer’s shirts which she sent to him and which he wore on a night out to the local town. He was, however, picked up by the MPs and put on a charge for this offence. This was quickly followed by an individual posting to Northern Ireland to serve on a small anti-aircraft observation unit miles from anywhere. The isolation of this unit and the ever-present threat of the IRA made him sleep with his rifle alongside. They were a small group of young lads unused to cooking for themselves, so each one took their turn to be cook for the day buying meat and vegetables from the local farmers. Stew was the main meal of the day but Ted was horrified to see how it was being cooked. Meat and vegetables were thrown into a large saucepan, potatoes, carrots etc just as they had been lifted from the ground complete with the soil. Ted said that he’d do the cooking. Then to OTU at Litchfield where they crewed up. Five of the crew were Australian with the pilot being Murray Brown. I had the privilege of knowing Murray Brown and John Clarke, his 460 Squadron pilot in post war years when they visited the UK. The crew were posted to 12 Squadron at Wickenby, a satellite station of Binbrook. The Commanding Officer was Group Captain Huey Edwards, who was the CO of Binbrook [alarm sounding in background]. Many post war years later, Ted saw an article by Group Captain Basil Crummy[?] who said he was Wickenby’s first CO. Ted said he’s confirm the facts by writing to Sir Huey Edwards VC who kindly wrote at some length explaining that for a short while he was in charge of Binbrook, Wickenby and one other station, Basil Crummy taking over from him soon after. I realised a little while ago that these letters from Sir Huey should be in an appropriate archive, and I donated them to the RAAF Museum, Melbourne. And so Ted’s first com- tour commenced on 13th May 1943. The target being Bochum. The operation had to be abandoned after crossing the enemy coast due to an outer engine catching fire , and they had decided that would have to ditch but Murray went into a steep dive and mercifully the fire went out. When looking through their list of t- targets it illustrated Bomber Commands Battle of the Ruhr, known to the crews as Happy Valley. Also Peenemunde, Berlin, Cologne, Turin, Genoa and Hamburg. [Turning of paper]. Many years later in the 1950s we sailed along the River Elbe to Hamburg. As we reached our moorings Ted looked at the other bank where there was a large sign Blohm and Voss. Ted said that the shipyard had been their aiming point. Their tour finished with Stuttgart on 8th October 1943. After returning from Mannheim they were on their crew bus on their way from dispersal to the interrogation room when it collided with a petrol tanker which had broken down on the perimeter track. They were all pitched forward off their seats and were dazed for some seconds, Ted had been smoking at the time but when he came to he realised that it was still in his mouth but broken in half. They hadn’t realised, however, that a member of the crew had been pitched out they continued. Some considerable time later when he[stuttered] he they continued but some con - considerable time later [stutters] he appeared in the briefing room and amongst other things was asked for his escape rations. He said : ‘He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t as he’d had to eat them on the long trek back.’ On their leave on the 22nd of October 43, the crew made a BBC broadcast entitled : “Lancaster crew describes an operation.” I found in Ted’s papers a receipt from the BBC for three pound. Ted was then posted to Lindholme instructing. He said that one night in the mess Squadron Leader John Clarke came up to him and said that he was forming a crew to do a second tour, would Ted like to join him? ‘Yes,’ he said and so to his posting to Binbrook and 460 Squadron. The first operation there was the 22nd/23rd May on Dortmund and the last 16th September, Rhine which was the night of on [incomplete]. [Turning of page] The pattern of this tour was essentially supporting the invasion. On D-Day 5th/6th June 44, their target was the Normandy coastal bat- batteries in which over a thousand aircraft were involved. Their target being the battery St Martin de Varreville. The following night the important six way junction near, road junction near Bayeux and the Forest de Cereza. There followed oil plants, flying bomb sites culminating in their final operation 16th/17th September Arnhem. Bomber Commands main operations that night were in support of the following days landings. Several surrounding airfields were to be bombed 46- 460’s target was Rhine. However John Clarke’s crew was selected to remain behind after bombing Rhine [cough]. They were secretly briefed to carry out a low level reconnaissance over Arnhem, and told because of the importance [sneeze] of this assignment the radio equipment would be modified to take quartz crystals, so that the tuning would be spot on to transmit their observations. Just as Ted was about to enter the aircraft the Signals Officer drew up thrusting two small objects into his hands. ‘I don’t know how to use them,’ said Ted. ‘Neither do I,’ said he, ‘but you’ve plenty of time to find out.’ So ended his operational career. During this time, I’m not sure whether it was 12 or 460 Ted had been feeling very unwell during the day but they were told that would be taking two high ranking army officers on their night’s operations as they wished to observe the German anti-aircraft defences. During the flight Ted felt very sick but there was no suitable receptacle. He looked down and by his position he saw two upturned army caps, these he suitably filled and then despatched them down the flare shute. On landing the two chaps searched for their caps but they were told by the crew that very strange things happen at night. He always suffered from severe migraines in post war years, this he attributed to the fact that on one trip shrapnel had penetrated the fuselage and severed his oxygen tube. He didn’t tell his pilot at the time as he knew it’d been very dangerous to reduce height and did not do so until it was safe. However he said the pain in his head was just unimaginable. After Binbrook, I believe it was back to Lindholme, there they would take ground crews to see the destruction in Germany. On one separate occasion the flu had to [laugh] the crew had to fly to the Luftwaffe base on the Island of Sylt, purpose unknown. They dined in the mess with the German officers and I understand it was rather a tense situation. After time he flew to Brussels but burnt a tyre, burst a tyre on landing. They were there one month before a replacement tyre was obtained. He said that he had volunteered for Tiger Force and that he had crewed up. I believe that this was the plan for the RAF and USAF bombing campaign of Ger- of Japan. And I found confirmation of this in his 460 records. Finally, in summer 1946 he was demobbed at Swinderby. You will note that in the 12 Squadron crew list I didn’t named the mid-upper gummer gunner. This is because on July 28th/29th they were briefed for Cologne and during the outward flight he had collapsed very distressed and had to be physically restrained by other crew members. The operation had to be abandoned and they returned to base after dropping their bombs in the sea. [Sharp turn of page]. After that they had several replacement MUGs. He finally left the service in August 1945 from RAF Swinderby.
AS Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Rita Brooks
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Sadler
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
2015-10-29
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:14:54 audio recording
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABrooksR151029
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Rita’s late husband was Flight Lieutenant Edward Brooks DFC, DFM. He was in the Home Guard before he enlisted with the Royal Air Force in February 1941, and sometime later went to RAF Uxbridge. Following his training at Blackpool the recruits were billeted in a former seaside boarding house. Whilst at Blackpool they had their vaccinations before going home on leave. On reaching home Ted collapsed and was diagnosed with vaccine fever and he spent most of his leave in RAF Kenley hospital.
Ted was trained as a wireless operator and was posted to Northern Ireland to serve on a small antiaircraft observation unit. Next he went to Operational Training Units at RAF Litchfield where they crewed up. His crew was posted to 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby. Ted’s first tour commenced on 13 May 1943. The operation had to be cancelled due to an engine catching fire. The pilot managed to extinguish the fire by going into a steep dive. Targets included the Ruhr, Berlin, Peenemünde, Cologne, Turin, Genoa and Hamburg. On the 8 October 1943 the tour ended with an operation to Stuttgart. On their leave on 22 October 1943 the crew made a BBC broadcast entitled 'Lancaster crew describes an operation'. Ted was then posted to RAF Lindholme as an instructor but then joined a second crew and was posted to RAF Binbrook with 460 Squadron. On D-Day they supported the landings by bombing batteries. In August 1945 Ted finally left the service from RAF Swinderby.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Northern Ireland
France
Germany
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Genoa
Italy--Turin
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
Germany--Peenemünde
Italy
Great Britain
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-13
1943-10-22
1943-10-08
1945-08
1941-02
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
12 Squadron
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Binbrook
RAF Kenley
RAF Lichfield
RAF Lindholme
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Wickenby
Tiger force
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/559/8826/PStephensonS1608.1.jpg
52f47ebba3be09356c1defc18313a953
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/559/8826/AStephensonS160315.2.mp3
0b67961bc8438304de61a0d561cc6db6
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
Stephenson, Stuart
Stuart Stephenson MBE
S Stephenson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stephenson, S
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. An oral history interview with Stuart Stephenson MBE, Chairman of the Lincs-Lancaster Association, and issues of 5 Group News.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, some items are available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So, this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin, I am interviewing Stuart Stephenson MBE, it is the 15th of the third 2016, we’re in Lincoln at his home address and it is twenty past one. So Stuart, can you tell me some of your earliest memories to do with —
SS: I was obviously born in 1935, which meant that when war broke out I was five-ish. When I was six-ish, I think it would be — in 1941 I think — my father had gone in the Army, I was at home with my mother and sister. We lived in Boston, it was the middle of the year so it was very light early in the morning and we heard a low-flying aircraft of some sort. We slept downstairs because of the bombing, had black-out curtains, I leapt out of bed, I went to the front window, whipped the blackout curtains. To my amazement, in front of me crossing the road from behind to in front, was a very low flying German twin-engined aircraft with a, with a gun turret that pointed its guns down the road, and they fired down the road across as, as we were coming, as they went over. I later discovered that they was actually shooting at a lorry that was parked up the side of the road, and I seem to remember it belonged to a gentleman called Mr Ingoldmells, who was one of the very few haulage drivers in the area at that time. A month or two later, when there was heavy rain, next door but one — a Mr Parker — he said his spouts were overflowing with water, so he got a ladder and he climbed up, and I was lucky enough to be presented with a whole handful of spent German cannon, ammunition shells, cartridge shells that he’d rescued from his gutters. I don’t know what happened to those but this was at Boston. As the, within a couple, maybe a few months — it was a Saturday morning and there was my mum was talking to the lady next door across the fence, and there was an aircraft up there droning away, and I came out and I was looking up in the sky, and I could just see this dot. Little dot of an aircraft. And I watched it and the women talked on, and suddenly, something fell off it, and I said to the women, I said, ‘Look mum. There’s something fallen off that plane’. ‘Stuart, don’t interrupt, we’re talking. It’s rude to interrupt’. And I’m watching this coming down, and I’m saying, ‘No. Look, it’s coming down. Look’, and I finally got them to stop talking, and I looked and I saw this thing coming down and it was getting closer and closer and closer, and I wonder what’s happened. And it fell behind the house, maybe a quarter of a mile away, near a place, a tower, Rochford Tower Hall it was called. Rochford Tower. There was an enormous explosion, at which point we decided it was a bomb, but to our, to my amazement, as a child I saw a row of very large trees. I saw some of these trees flung up in the air with a massive bang and bits coming down all over the place. The two women — ‘Stuart, get in the house’, and we immediately, I immediately, ‘I don’t want to go in the house. The plane’. ‘No, you’ve got to go in the house. We have to get under the table in the kitchen’. Having been under the table for five minutes and I wanted to go outside again to see what was going on, but the plane had droned away to the east and lo and behold, the air raid warning went, which, which encouraged my interest in aviation. Later we moved away from Boston. My father was in the Army and he was stationed near Bakewell in Derbyshire, so we moved to Bakewell and I went to school at Bakewell for a time, and I well remember, and people that have been to Bakewell who will remember the street. The street sort of divides, the main street divides two as you go towards the bridge over the river, it divides into two, with a sort of building in the middle, which was the main one in front of you was the Post Office. And we were waiting to cross the road, there was little traffic, but there was a lot of women and a lot of kids, and they were all talking and I was that bit older then, and suddenly, there’s a strange whistling noise, and there’s women looking up and I’m looking up, because I’m thinking, ‘Oh this is another aeroplane’, and to everybody’s amazement this plane flew over. Well, they all thought it was going to crash because it’s got no propellers on it and it’s, it’s going to crash. And it didn’t crash, but it flew straight over and the panic was gone, and they was all saying, ‘Shhhh. You’ll hear a bang in a minute when it hits the ground’, or something, but it didn’t and it went away. And again, I’m not sure what year, I have a feeling this would be maybe 1944, but by what I recall, there was only the meteor that was flying at that time, and that was my first introduction to a jet. I went to school of course in Boston, I went to school elsewhere. Eventually, having sort of grown up into my twenties, I was still interested in aircraft and the time came in the 1970s when a Lancaster came back to Waddington, and this was PA474 which is currently with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. This aircraft had been recovered from Henlow by 44 Squadron, who had been given the task to, by their CO to locate a Lancaster to bring to Waddington as a gate guardian. They, they had struggled to find a Lancaster and by chance, one of the officers, who I won’t mention but I know him very well, he spotted this Lancaster through a hole in the hedge at Henlow, and it was sitting in a grass field with a Lincoln standing beside it, which the Lincoln was the later development of the Lancaster. 44 Squadron then having made some enquiries, it was discovered that it belonged to the Air Historical Branch of PA4. Well both aircraft did. They, they sent a working party to go out to have a look at it, to ascertain whether it was — how much it would take to dismantle it to bring it, to road it back to Waddington basically, in bits. The ground crew that went to look at it — they’d all been ex-Lancaster ground crew types during the war, because the gap was comparatively short between the two and they were coming up to retirement age. Anyway, they spent several weekends down there and they would go on a Saturday morning or a Friday night with a tent, sleep in a tent under the aircraft, and work on it on the Sunday, doing whatever checks they had to do. After a time, it was decided that it was better than they thought, it might be. So they, they decided that they would take a bowser and put some petrol in it or fuel in it, and see if they could get it to run. Bearing in mind the engines hadn’t been inhibited or anything, it was just standing there. So anyway, they went and then they got this fuel and put in to it, and within another week or two, they suddenly got four engines running. So at this stage, the commandant of Henlow — a college I believe it was, or air, air base — he came along and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ and they said that there was, they’d got permission to move this back to Waddington. So he said, ‘Well we thought — we had this message but we understood you were going to dismantle it and take it by road’, and they said, ‘Well we’ve checked it over, and we decided that it, it is a runner. So it is going to take an awful long time to dismantle it and we’ve got to bring cranes and fittings up here to do it, so we will come and we will hopefully fly it back’. So he was somewhat upset by this, because he wasn’t expecting them to say this and this meant he’d got to make a decision I suppose, but anyway the decision was made that yes, they could fly it back but on one must-not-do. ‘When you take off, you must not fly over the college buildings. The airfield buildings. You must go away from the airfield and the base, so if the wings fall off it, you’ll not fall on to the —’ So anyway, they duly reached that stage. They found a pilot who I believe was a Polish gentleman, they then began to look at the field itself. Working parties were brought to walk the field to fill in holes and generally check it over. They spent several weekends doing this, and the day came when it was to go, so they — it was crewed up and they did all the engine run ups and all the usual pre-flight checks, and off they went across the grass, gathering speed. Reached the point of tail up, and lo and behold, there was a hole in the ground, which they think it was maybe a fox had dug. But our Lancaster hit this and it, with one jerk, it was airborne. The pilot gathered it and kept it flying and it duly flew back to Waddington. I believe the navigator, it was claimed the navigator made a slight error, because the press were waiting at Waddington, and it didn’t initially go back to Waddington. It made a circle around and flew over Scampton, who’d got R5868, which is now in the RAF museum as their gate guardian, with a sort of two fingers up sign, ‘We’ve got one that flies at Waddington’. Anyway, that was done and he duly came in to land at Waddington. So I was told that the press were there in great numbers, and it was all very exciting. He came in to land, and it was one of those landings where he touched down and then took off again, and he touched down and then he took off again. The camera lenses were seen to be going up and down with the long lenses on the cameras, and it duly came to a standstill. Taxied around and was, the engines were switched off and it was back at Waddington. It was only then that they learned that the pilot, who was Polish, he was a test pilot for, I believe it was English Electric in those days, and he was a test pilot flying Canberras, and he’d basically landed it — done a Canberra landing in a Lancaster, which a Canberra has a nose wheel and it lands on a nose wheel configuration that, it doesn’t sit with its tail up or anything. It goes down, whereas the attitude of a Lanc is completely different. Had they known they wouldn’t have let him fly it but — because there were other pilots who were qualified to fly in that, that format of a tail wheel aircraft. We, we were living at Bracebridge Heath and for a year nothing happened. The Lancaster went in the hangar and it was thought that it was being prepared as the gate guardian, however, it then appeared on the airfield from time to time and were doing engine runs and then it, it occasionally took to the air, and it was very pleasant to sit in one’s front garden and see a Lancaster, or have it fly over, virtually over your head, fairly low. At a time when there wasn’t another one in the world flying, the Canadian one was not flying at that stage, and gradually the flying time that it was putting in was increased, and then it sort of appeared at Biggin Hill or Farnborough, and this was really building into something. The officer commanding RAF Waddington, the group captain, he tended to fly it, I think his name was Stanley, along with several others who were qualified to fly that aircraft type. The time went on, and having extended it then the — it was taken for granted by the population that it would stay at Waddington, and that was it, and we were all quite happy. And then suddenly, it was in the Lincolnshire Echo in 1973 that Waddington’s Lancaster was to be moved to RAF Coltishall in Norfolk. Obviously, there was a great deal of muttering and everything, because the thought was, why take the bomber away from where it was, came into service, because Waddington was the very first Lancaster station where it was introduced in ‘41. Anyway, it was duly — something had to be done. A letter appeared, or a piece appeared, in the Lincolnshire Echo, and it said that there’s a Mrs Buttery who had written a piece and made a statement to the Echo, to say that there should be some effort made to retain this Lancaster in the county. It belonged to the county, it didn’t belong on a fighter station. Anybody interested, would they please contact her. I went and contacted her on the, this was on a Friday, I contacted her on the Monday morning at work, which was the only address she gave which was in Guildhall Street opposite the old Post Office in those days. I was the first one there and I introduced myself, and her name was Hilda and we got on very well. There was various other people turned up as the next week or two went on, and we gradually sort of came together. Alderman and Frank Eccleshare decided that there was public interest in this and he would form a — there would be a meeting held in Lincoln for everybody that was interested to come and have their say. So, needless to say, our little group had got together. We called ourselves the Lincolnshire Lancaster Committee, because we was just a committee, we weren’t thinking of anything else. We, we went to the meeting which was well attended. There was a thing in those days on the radio at lunchtime that — Jimmy Young who was a broadcaster, broadcast every day, and if you’d got a problem, he would, I’ll say fix it, but nothing to do with the fix it that we all hate today. However, I wrote to Jimmy Young, and this was before the meeting, and I said this is a problem, and to explain that the local population didn’t want this aircraft moving and, ‘Go on Jimmy. Fix it’. I received a nice buff pre-printed card from the BBC to say Mr Young will — is looking in to this and he’ll be in touch. It’s now forty-three, forty-four years since I got that card and I’m still waiting for his reply. He didn’t come back to us. However, the meeting was held and various — we stood up and made our piece, and amongst the people in the audience, a gentleman stood up who I, we got to know quite well, his name was Eric, Eric Gledhill. I’m sure anybody that knew Eric will not be upset when I say that Eric, he was a crew chief, he was obviously, I don’t know, flight sergeant I guess in those days, but he had what we called a lavatory brush hairstyle. His hair was spiky and it looked very much like a lavatory brush. Eric stood up. ‘I’m the crew chief that looks after this Lancaster, and I can assure you, it will not fly for another couple of years, then it’s going to be on the ground. It can’t go on, it’s on its last legs and this would be the end. So we’ve got two years to try to do something’. Anyway, the, the meeting ended, and we decided that we’d got to sort of try to put a mark on this aircraft, to try to get it kept in to Lincolnshire. So again. I’d had the idea that the Lincoln City, the mayor and his, his attendants were very often seen in the local newspaper in the, in the ward room of the then HMS Lincoln and having the odd drinkies, and so I thought, well if they, this was Lincoln’s adopted warship and I thought, ‘Well come on, Lincoln shouldn’t be adopting a warship, they should be adopting a bomber’. So, I brought this up at the committee meeting and said, ‘Look, we should be making advances to the council to get the bomber adopted’. Our chair lady, she knew the mayor and the message was passed to the mayor, and the council looked at it and the question, I believe, was asked, ‘What’s it going to cost to do this?’ And the answer came back, ‘Very little’., and they seemed to like that idea, and so it was arranged that the, the aircraft would be adopted. It was duly adopted. I’m sorry, I can’t remember the date exactly but it coincided with a visit from 463, 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, their big reunion. They were coming over to, to Waddington for this event and they were duly to be treated with full ceremony, and the adoption would be on the same day as they came to see the Lancaster. I said, again I raised at the committee that if, if we’re going to have it adopted, we should ask that they put the Lincoln City badge on to the nose of the aircraft to illustrate to all and sundry that it was Lincoln City, Lincoln City’s aircraft. This was agreed, that would be done, and the RAF were contacted and they were warm to the idea. I learned later that we’d actually asked just for the badge, but I learned, I learned later that the, this was came in after it’s been moved to Coltishall. But they, they sent somebody from Coltishall, an officer came from Coltishall to Lincoln with a camera, to get a photograph of the Lincoln City badge. Of course, today it would be done by email and it would be in a flash, but he came to Lincoln and he wandered about the city, I’m told, looking for the badge. And in the end, he saw the badge on the side of a Lincoln City Corporation bus, and it had the Fleur de Lys coat of arms. Below it was, in gothic script, “City of Lincoln”, so he took a photograph of this, took it back to Coltishall. It was duly, it was hand painted on to the aircraft by a gentleman who was an expert in this type of work. He had not understood what was asked of him, so he painted the badge very nicely and he’d put City of Lincoln underneath it, which was an idea that we hadn’t have thought of but it was better than we’d thought of, so we got this thrown in as a bonus. So she had a very large badge on her nose in those days, with City of Lincoln in gothic script, and that was put on the nose then. She’s been repainted several times, but it was made, it was officially pronounced that this aircraft was named City of Lincoln, and it would remain that. Whatever paint job they put on it, that would remain on it, and it’s still on it today, although in reduced size on the opposite side to where it was first put on. Coming back to the, the Australian visit, this was a remarkable event, because they, they came to us and they said that — I live in Waddington village — these Australians were coming over and would — when they came to Waddington during the war, there was not enough space for them to live on the camp, so they were billeted out throughout the village. People took them into their homes, the aircrew, which was very traumatic for some because obviously, they didn’t all come back. However, all these years later they’re coming again. ‘Would you like to take a chap and his wife for a week while they’re over here?’ So we said, ‘Yes, we would’, and we were duly allocated, if that’s the right word, the gentleman. Buchan comes to mind. He was the gentleman that flew the Lanc that flew the longest mission ever, when he flew back and he, the BB for the royal aircraft or the Crown Film Unit, to film the Tallboys going down on the Tirpitz, that finally sank the Tirpitz — that’s a famous bit of footage. He was told - they were told they were flying back to Lossiemouth. He said — stuff Lossiemouth or words to that thing, and he would fly back. ‘I didn’t want to go there, I want to come back to Waddington’, so he flew back to Waddington, landed and I don’t — he hardly had enough fuel to get back to his dispersal, it was sucking air. So I was looking forward to, to this visit, because it was obviously somebody that was very interesting to me and I was liking to talk to him, however, at the last minute, unfortunately his lady wife got ill and he couldn’t come, so we had it changed around and lo and behold, I got a fella and his wife called Bill Berry. Bill was a — not a tall man, shall we put it like that, and he was very nice and he talked in a real dinkum Australian accent. That was very good, fitted the Bill Hancock’s Half Hour voice very nicely. They came to stay with us, and of course, we talked. Now, he said to me, he said, ‘Do you know, Stuart’, he said, ‘My best mate ever’, he said, ‘He lived here, he lived in Lincolnshire. He was a farmer’, he said, ‘And we used to go shooting with an old car with the headlights and’, he said, ‘It was a marvellous time between flying’. And he said, ‘I’ve lost touch with him’, and he said, ‘I’ve no idea. I can’t remember where he lived now’. So I said, ‘What was his name then?’ So he said, ‘His name was John Chatterton’. I said, ‘I know John Chatterton’. ‘You don’t’. I said, ‘I do’. So he said, ‘Well blow me down’, or words to that effect, so he said, ‘Can we make contact?’ I said, ‘Well hang on a minute’, so I got up and I dial the number, and he answered, and I said, ‘Hello John. Is that you?’ So he said, ‘Yeah, it is. What do you want Stu?’ I said, ‘Well I’ve got an old mate of yours here’, I said, ‘Who wants to talk to you’, so he said, ‘Have you? Who’s that?’ I said, ‘Does the word Bill Berry mean anything to you?’ ‘Bugger me’, he says, ‘I can’t believe it, put him on’. So they talked, and it was agreed that within the next night or two, they’d, they’d come together in our lounge at Waddington, to meet after all these years, and it was a suitably emotional evening and they brought their logbooks with them. And of course, I’d known John Chatterton for quite a while, his son, Mike Chatterton, was, I believe, at that time currently the Lancaster pilot with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. So, Bill, he said this was fantastic and they compared log books, and I wish I’d had Dan’s recording machine with me because they were going through all these anecdotes and comparing one night. Where did you go on so and so, and so and so? ‘I went to Dusseldorf that night’. ‘How long was you there? How long was you airborne for?’ ‘I was airborne for three hours twenty minutes’. If you like. ‘No, no. What was you messing about at? We did it in three hours and ten minutes’, and there was a lot of verbal going on like that. So they came, after they’d ceased, they’d done their ops and they went to Syerston together as instructors, and they told me a little story. He said they were in the crew room at Syerston, and he said it was, had been a horrible few days and there had been no flying, and there was a lot of blokes hanging about and we were waiting for the weather to lift. The cloud base was still fairly low but it was going up slowly, and he said, ‘We were there’, he said, ‘And we were bored and’, he said, ‘Suddenly, John Chatterton stood up and he said, ‘Right, my lot, we’re going flying’. ‘Are you’re going flying?’ ‘Yes, I’m going flying. I can’t stand this any longer’. So they got up, and they went charging off to their aircraft, and fifteen, twenty minutes later it taxies out on to the runway, comes trundling down the runway, and they all go outside to watch it go past, and it goes past, and it’s — if you look at a map of Syerston, you will see that the River Trent is at the far end of the runway. So he goes, this is Bill telling this story, and he said, ‘He goes down the runway and his tail wheel’s up, but he’s not, his main wheels are still on the ground, and he gets to the end of the runway and he disappears in to the Trent, and we thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s crashed’. So there was bicycles, there was people running, there was vehicles, there was fire engines, they were all, they were all charging down to the end of the runway to see the wreckage in the Trent and hope these fellas are still alive, and he said, ‘We got there expecting to see oil on the water and all sorts of wreckage. Nothing. There’s no marks on anywhere. We can’t — we’re looking around. We can’t believe. Where is he? He’s vanished. It’s magic’. And he said, ‘We just stood there and then we heard a sound, and it was Merlin engines and’, he said, ‘They were, they were behind us and he turned around, and here’s this Lanc coming at ground level and its straight for us, and we all threw ourselves flat, and he comes almost through the middle of us and then climbed up and went away’. And he said, ‘that was John Chatterton, and somehow he’d managed to turn to starboard or port, whichever one it was, and he’d managed to get away without us realising where he’d gone and he’d gone around the back of us, and we was all, we’d all been covered in mud. We’d all thrown ourselves flat on the ground and, and,’ he said, ‘That was a moment I remember’ And I looked at John Chatterton, who’d got, I’m sure if he was here, he would agree with him, Mike would agree with him, that he had a baby face. He looked a rounded baby-faced chap, and I said to John, I said, ‘John, would you do a thing like that?’ And he said, ‘Stu, could you imagine me doing anything like that?’ I said, ‘Yes’. So there was laughter and that was a moment to remember, but I put that, I was lucky to be there with these two guys to hear all these stories, and what a pity. There was a lot more I can’t remember, but there was a lot was forgotten forever I’m afraid because I couldn’t record it.
DE: Sure.
SS: The, the story. I think I’ll have to pause now a minute if you don’t mind.
DE: Ok.
[Recording paused]
DE: Right, so we’re recording again. There we go.
SS: The Lancaster moved to Coltishall but she’s crewed by aircrew from Waddington and Scampton. Jacko Jackson had been allegated to, allegated, is that the right word? Allocated as officer commanding the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in 1972. I believe that’s correct although the thing at the Battle of Britain Flight might tell you wrong. But —
DE: People can find that out. Yeah.
SS: I’ve got it on. They don’t know at Coningsby yet, I’ve not been over since I found out. I’ve a letter from, inviting me to Jacko’s leaving party, and Jacko was, it says in there when he was made officer commanding. I’ve got it in the other room but we can find that out in a minute. Anyway, this was causing them a lot of problems, because they were having to travel by coach to Coltishall and back again at weekends, in all the seaside traffic because it’s a very busy road. This was wrong. We’d been petitioning to the, well the Lancaster Committee we’d, we’d had fun and games. We didn’t realise it but when the Lanc was about to leave Waddington for the very last time, one of our members, who wouldn’t admit doing it but we know he did, he went around all the local pubs where the airmen gather, and he put around these stories that these freaks at Lincoln were going to go to Waddington and they were going to sit on the runway to stop them flying the Lanc out. Well, bearing in mind, Lincoln was, Waddington was a Vulcan base much connected with the Cold War, and the nuclear weapons that were stored thereabouts so the RAF didn’t want a lot of people on the airfield, and the Echo put out statements from the RAF that no public person would be allowed on the, on to the camp while this was taking place. And this was all to be sorted. Come the day, there was police galore in land rovers, patrolling the Sleaford Road. There was more dogs than, than you’ve ever seen. I think they’d brought extra people in from other bases. There was a lot of people on the roadside along there, but there was no trouble and it flew out, and that was the end of the story, but there was a little, little bit of a kink in the tale of it all, that before it went, they’d had a press thing to let the press come on the airfield through the guardroom to take photos and interview the captain and whatever. One of our committee members — he’d got, he’d been driving around the camp, he usually carried about six cameras around his neck, he, he noticed that there was a group of press people gathered in a little group near the guardroom, so he left his car quickly in the officer’s mess car park, walked across to the guardroom and just joined up with these newspapermen. Within minutes a coach appeared, they all gathered on the coach. Nobody checked who they were. They all got on the coach, they were all taken onto the airfield, to the aircraft, and they all took it in turns to get in the aircraft. Well the captain on that day was, we called him Uncle Ken but his name was Squadron Leader Ken Sneller, who was the nicest man you could ever wish to meet, and of course, he knew Trevor, who was the guy that had smuggled himself in, and it came to Trevor’s turn to get in the aircraft to take pictures. And he duly clambered in and came up to the front end, clambered over the main spar to, to see Uncle Ken there. Uncle Ken said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘Don’t tell anybody. I’m a, I’m a spy got on the airfield where nobody’s supposed to be getting’, so he duly took photographs in the cockpit and that was, that was that little moment of when we had the last laugh, but nobody in the RAF knew it had happened. The, the story about the Australians that I repeated a little earlier, that happened a few years later, after the aircraft had been at Coltishall for a time.
DE: Yeah.
SS: So, so it’s not out of context.
DE: That’s fine. Thank you.
SS: The, the time went by and we started collecting signatures to get the aircraft brought back to Waddington, or to Lincolnshire. I think we — but we thought it would be Waddington. We gathered signatures, within a matter of, I think it was fifteen weeks, we got some nineteen — seventeen to nineteen thousand signatures, including every MP except the MP for Grimsby — Mr Crossland who refused to sign. Everybody else would sign for it, signed the petition. From Australia came signatures like Hughie Edwards, who was a VC from Bomber Command’s earlier years. A lot of famous people signed. A meeting was arranged and we met the minister for the Royal Air Force who was — Labour were in power at the time, a little Welsh gentleman called Mr Brynmor John, and an appointment was made for him to meet us at Swinderby, which was a very active RAF station in those days. We were told we would meet at, in the officer’s mess at Swinderby at 2.15 I think it was, and he would have to be leaving by 2.35, so we weren’t given very long to make our point to him. We duly got all the signatures bundled up and tied up with red ribbon, and Mrs Buttery, who was chairman, she came and she made a speech and photographs were taken, and we talked to the minister. It was noticed a little bit later that the group captain in the background who was, I think it was Group Captain Green, I’m not sure, but he seemed very agitated and he kept looking at his watch, and he was pacing up and down, and we were talking to the minister and the minister was talking back to us, and the time schedule that they’d set went completely wrong. I don’t know what happened to his — where he was going after he finished with us, but he ended up about an hour late. Anyway, the bottom line, we got the promise that they would look at it but they couldn’t make any promises and it was wait and see, which we really thought we were just being fobbed off to be honest. Within a few months, Jacko Jackson had taken over. He was then OC of the Battle of Britain flight at Coltishall and Jacko came to me and he said, ‘Stuart, I’ve got some news for you but this is, this is something that is so hush hush that you’re not — you can tell the committee, but you’re not to tell anybody outside the committee, and it’s not to get out because this information will have to be released by the ministry or the Royal Air Force. Not by — not come from outside. So you’ve got to, before I tell, you’ve got to tell me that you’ll make sure that you’ll not pass it on other to those that are sworn to secrecy’. So I said, ‘Yes Jacko, I’ll do what I can. I’m sure they’ll —’ Anyway, we duly had a meeting, I’d made a little bit of a gesture beforehand and we had, I think it was two or three bottles of champagne were put on the table at the meeting, and the rest didn’t know what it was all about, and there was three bottles of champagne or whatever and some glasses and, ‘Well? What have you got? Tell us’. So I said, ‘Well the story is that I’ve been told that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight are going move back lock stock and barrel because we’d lost the Lancaster. We were now going to get the Lancaster complete with Spitfires and Hurricanes returned to the county but unfortunately, it wouldn’t be to Waddington. It would be to Coningsby. The reason why it’s not to Coningsby, we discovered later, er why it’s not at Waddington, we discovered later was the fact that the Waddington, the group that controlled Waddington in those days, were a different group that covered Coningsby. Our group at Waddington had given the Lanc to the other group where the Merlin spares were, and so that other group were not prepared to give the whole of the Battle of Britain Flight back to the group that it had — the Lanc had come from. So, it went to Coningsby. So in due course, all the aircraft came back to Coningsby and of course, this made them within much closer range and LLA — oh we’d gone through the ritual war dance of setting, of A) stopping being a committee any more. Becoming an Association, because people was wanting to, to join up. We had a thing going to raise the money, and have the deflection can made, so that it could put the upper turret on to the Lancaster, because in those days, she was a flat back and it was missing this mid-upper turret which they’d got. It had been sent from Argentina by the Royal Navy, it arrived at Tilbury docks or somewhere, and the phone call was sent to Waddington. ‘We’ve got a big crate here for you Waddington. Do you want to come and fetch it?’ ‘What is it?’ ‘It’s from the Argentine Air Force and it’s a piece of a Lancaster’. So it was fetched but they couldn’t fit it, because it was, they didn’t have the metal work to fix around it, to stop the guns from pointing in to the —shooting the tail fins off or shooting the back of the cockpit, so we — they came to us. And they said, ‘Would you like to — could you get this made?’ So we said, ‘Yeah, well of course. Why not?’ So again, our chairman, she had contacts within the engineering companies in Lincoln, which in those days were very big, and the plans were brought to us. She went off to see them and they’d agreed. ‘Yes, we’ll do that’, but when they saw the plans, because not only is this a strange shape but it tapers as the, as the fuselage narrows, as it goes down towards the tail, they suddenly decided they’d got too much work to do with oil rigs and they couldn’t, they couldn’t do it. So it was eventually came back. She said, ‘Well I’m sorry, I’ve failed with Lincoln completely. Anybody else got any ideas?’ So I said, ‘Well I was’, my task, I was an insurance broker, so I said, ‘Well I’ve got a company that I deal with in Grimsby called Marionette Engineering. I’ll talk to Peter Wild’, who was the boss who I’d known, again, for some years. I went and saw Peter, and I said, ‘Pete, I’ve got these plans. Can you, can your lot make this?’ They, the Marionam Engineering — basically their role was repairing trawlers that came back with damage, which is a bit, slight heavier metal than is used on an aircraft, so he looked at it and he said, ‘Well I don’t know Stu’, and made all sorts of — anyway I seem to have got this ability to keep talking non-stop, and I talked him — eventually he agreed to it, on the basis that it was to shut me up. I took the plans to them which, I’m sorry, which I’d got and he said, ‘Well come back in a month and see how, how we’re going on’, so I said, ‘Alright, but I bet you’ll have forgotten about it as soon as I’ve gone out the door’. ‘No I won’t, I daren’t face another barrage like I’ve had’. So I went back a month later and there, laid on the factory floor, was a large sheet of metal, which must have been measuring about twelve to fifteen foot square. A huge square. And upon it was spot welded various pieces of metal with the tops cut off at funny angles, and it represented something like a thing that you’d expect in one of these Indian type gentlemen who climb ropes and eat fire, that he would lay on a bed of nails. It looked like one of those. So, he, I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry. I think you’ve got that wrong haven’t you? Because it doesn’t make any sense’. ‘Oh we’ll make sense of it to you’, and he whistled up some of the fellas and they brought brown paper out and they draped brown paper around all these things, and suddenly it made the shape of what’s wanted, with the hole in the middle and it was, and suddenly it made sense. And I said, ‘Well that’s marvellous. I don’t know how you’ve done that’. ‘No, I don’t really’, he said, ‘But we’re trying’. Anyway, the, the flight had moved then, had moved back to Coningsby, and it came the day when this, this piece of metal would be transported to Coningsby to be fitted on the aircraft and of course, I went to watch this happen, and the lorry appeared from, from Grimsby. And the fellas that had made it came with it and they drove in the hangar, and they looked at the aircraft and they looked at what they’d done, and they said, ‘Good heavens, isn’t it big?’ And that was the general consensus. Anyway, the RAF had got some, some special platforms at each side of it so that this thing was lifted up by hand. The hole was made in the top of the fuselage where the turret was going to sit, and so the piece that they’d made was then fitted in the exact place where it would be when it was actually screw riveted or whatever they were going to do to the fuselage, and suddenly it looked right. It was — it was — the guys, the guys that had made it couldn’t believe that it was, it was so right. They discovered then that when, after they’d all looked at it and felt duly, duly pleased with what they’d done, the RAF were happy. They couldn’t get it off because they couldn’t get their fingers underneath the edges of it, where it fitted to the fuselage. It was such good a fit. They had to put their hands down the inside and lift it off, up, to get it off and that was duly fitted, and that was a few weeks later, the mid-upper turret that had been in storage for so long was then placed into its position on the bomber and she was no longer a flat back. So she had that on her and she had the City of Lincoln on the nose, which was a good tie to the county. Part of our other project when we’d started was that we wanted to get the Lancaster back to the county, but we realised if we got her back, we should maybe have to do something towards housing her, which would be an horrendous type job requiring a lot of money. So we set to and to raise funds by producing postal covers and appearing at air shows and doing anything we could to raise money, which we were, all in all, quite successful at. The job that we’d done on the Lancaster had made a lot of people say, ‘Can’t anybody join your committee?’ Well, a committee’s a committee, it’s not — it’s not for a lot of people, a huge lot, so we decided to call ourselves Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association. Hence the LLA which it’s become known as today. We applied for charitable status, which we were granted on an educational. We were classified, as far as I can remember, as an educational charity because we were educating people as to what had gone on, and we was trying to extend the life of this aircraft as long as possible. The flight, the two years that Eric Gledhill have given us four years before, had long expired but she still continued and continues well to this day. The problems that Eric had outlined to us, which were unsurmountable in the, those days when it first started, were not on. Not on at all. But modern technology and the fact that the flight had now become very publicly known, and I think it was thanks to our efforts that it was put so well publicly known, that she had gathered a following of her own people. Initially there was not too many. All the ex-World War Two aircrews were interested, their families were interested, but the grandkids in those days didn’t seem too interested. And there was a lot of, ‘Well, maybe. Is it worth doing it?’ And whatever. We did have exciting moments like a royal visit was coming along, and it was decided that we should have the aircrew who, in those days, wore — they called them “growbags.” They were sort of browny coloured baggy flying suits with zips. Lots of zips in the front for pockets and maps and things. We decided the Red Arrows, who didn’t live in Lincolnshire in those days, they wore these fancy red flying suits, and it would be nice if we could get some for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight bomber. Well we were only thinking about the bomber crews in those days. Get some black ones. I was told that Marks and Sparks were the firm, that was the firm to approach. So bearing in mind that was, it would be nice to think we could maybe, dare I say, scrounge them or persuade them to donate half a dozen flying suits for these Lancaster aircrew chaps to wear, but if need be, we would pay for them. So I duly went and saw the management of M&S to outline to them what we needed. They listened to me waffling on about, about what they did for the Red Arrows and could they do it for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight etcetera, and was greeted with, ‘Well I’m sorry, but everybody’s heard of the Red Arrows, but nobody’s ever heard of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Good day’. So I’m afraid we drew a blank, but the Queen was coming and Philip on a certain day in a month or two’s time, so I managed to get the blue prints for these “growbag” flying suits, and the Bracebridge Heath Ladies Sewing Circle made five flying suits to the measurements. Inside legs were taken for the manufacture of five black flying suits. These were duly worn when the royal visit came, with their badges of rank on their epaulets and the pilot’s brevets or whatever, whatever they were. And this went off very well, and photographs were in the papers of these black suited people standing in front of the Lancaster, and that was the first time anybody at the BBMF had ever had a black flying suit. We were not asked after that to, to repeat the thing, but somebody somewhere must have taken notice because suddenly black flying suits became available. Strange how these things can happen, but we think we maybe lit the touch paper with that one. So all in all, our efforts continue. We, we’d always been on the lookout for spare parts, there’s always an outcry for spare parts, and I remember a chicken farmer, I believe it was, somewhere in the back woods of Woodhall or that area. I got a phone call to say, ‘Is that Mr Stephenson’, and I said, ‘Yes, I was’, and he said, ‘Well, you don’t know me, but my name’s’, and I’ve forgotten his name, but he said, ‘We’ve just been put on the electric over here and’, he said, ‘I have got a Lancaster generator that’s been used since the war, ended for lighting up our chicken huts’. He said, ‘Now this is now surplus. We don’t need it ‘cause we’ve got the electric fitted on from the electric board and would you like it as a spare part for the Lancaster?’ So we said, ‘Yes, we’d be delighted’. So I duly went and collected this from the gentleman and it was handed over to them, and it had been driven by a tractor with a belt from a pulley to light — to make the electric for the chicken huts, but it worked alright and I think it was put into their stock, and it’s maybe still there or maybe not. Exhaust stubs, I was, each engine has got, I think it’s — is it six or eight of these down each side of the engines, so there’s all these exhaust stubs and they are always on the lookout for these things. And a sub aqua, a sub aqua club from up in Humberside contacted me. They had discovered an aircraft in the Humber that had been submerged for a long time, they’d managed to retrieve an engine which, when they’d sprayed all this mud and muck off it, it turned out to be a Merlin and they were going to clean it up to be put on display. Would we like — it looked new — would we like the exhaust stubs in exchange for some burnt out ones from the Lanc? So we said, ‘Yeah. We would be delighted’. So that was arranged, but the strange thing was this particular engine — research was done on it and it turned out to be, from all things, a Wellington that had crashed in the Humber in the very early part of the war. Now, we never discovered why, what it was doing up there but it had, it had crashed and it had sunk and it was recognisable from the serial numbers on the engine what it was from. The strange thing was that there was still oil in the sump and everything, of this engine so oil samples were taken out and sent to Conoco up there, who did some research on this oil and they came back and they said, ‘It’s as good as new. If you’ve got a lot of it, you can use it’. And it had been under water for I don’t know how many years, but I suppose oil doesn’t rot away does it? Anyway, that was another little offshoot that happened about this time. I think I’d like another break Dan, if you don’t mind, while I gather my wits.
DE: Ok. I’ll press pause again.
[Recording paused]
DE: Ok. It’s recording again.
SS: As far as the LLA side of things were concerned, we became a, we stopped from being a committee to the Lincs Lancaster Association. We became a limited company as well because we felt that this was — as we were attracting members, it was a way of not leaving responsibility for things in the hands of a few. It was to spread the thing about and to keep it on a proper company way of dealing with these matters as far as bookkeeping and the like. Charitable status was confirmed, we then had to make reports annually to Company’s House with regards to all the affairs of expenditure and what we’ve been doing. Likewise to the Charities Commission, which had to be approved by both of those. As I said, we continued to raise money, in those days with a great deal of help from the Battle of Britain flight themselves because we were — we were the only people of our type. The Red Arrows didn’t have a following like we had. We gained, we gained steadily a thousand, two thousand, three thousand. I think in my period as chairman which lasted for some, from about thirty six/seven years as chairman. I were chairman all that time mainly because no one else would do it, we gathered up to five and a half to six thousand members and it seems to have stuck at that level-ish, in that area. It’s fallen away, it falls away from time to time. Basically, finding volunteers to do the work that’s needed to be done is difficult. The roles of treasurer, of membership secretary and chairman I suppose. I don’t tend to think of it in my own terms, but these, these are roles that do take a lot of time, and as volunteers you don’t get paid and it’s — particularly the, the membership secretary who has to deal with members paying, members getting behind and dealing with cheques and sending out renewals. It used to be done by hand. We had a lovely lady called Sheila Wright who did it. She had big old fashioned — this was really before computers had got going, big old fashioned manuals that she used to do it all in the old fashioned way. She’d been an accounts lady for one of the local newspapers. Sheila used to do it and she was very reliable. She was retired, she gave her all seemingly all the time. There was never any problems. She decided she would go on holiday and she went. She was going on a bus trip, I remember they told me, she went to Unity Square in Lincoln, got on the coach, sat in the chair with her friend and died. She just sat there and passed away and that was shock. She was Sheila, and she’s dead. I’ve no idea what the cause of death was but this was a disaster for the LLA, because she’d been running this thing and picking it up from the bottom is very difficult when there’s so many things that is day to day running. She’d written to people to say you’ve not paid for so many months and either pay up or you’ll get nothing else. This has been an ongoing problem. With the advent of computers, one would think that this sort of becomes easier but we’ve had, we had, in my day, a series of membership secretaries who tend to find it, for some reason, more difficult to keep up with things when it’s on computer, then when it’s done in the old fashioned way. So I guess adding the columns up is easier when it’s done on a computer in Excel, but to do it as far as all the entering up is concerned and the typing in of names and the details., this is what takes a lot of time and identifying who’s due for renewal. And unlike other organisations, when we started we only had small numbers, and we decided that if somebody joined in January, his renewal would be in January every year, and if he joined, if somebody else joined in February, his renewal would be in February, so that means all the renewals are spread out over twelve months. Which again is very, yes, that’s good, but we find that other — since this and it still operates like this today I’m told, but since then other organisations, we find they’ve got one renewal date which is the day of the financial year ending, or in some cases the end of a year.
DE: Yes.
SS: So that then means you’ve got maybe, have five thousand coming in at once, but if you’ve, if you’ve got to deal with the banking side of five thousand, well that’s, that’s the easy bit in some senses but you can imagine that to handle all these things. This was before Pay Pal and direct debits and things as we know, know them so well today have come out. It, it was difficult then, but I’m told that it’s still difficult and it’s not a job that people want. If there’s anybody out there who is in to accountancy and wants a, one’s has got a volunteer spare time job, then this, their approach to LLA would be very much appreciated. Having said that, there’s recently been a piece in The Times following the lady’s — Childline was it called? The, the children’s charity that broke.
DE: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SS: A report on that and the, the, it’s, to me it’s opened my eyes a lot, because the result of that is that there was an official statement made — that for a charity to be successful, it must be run properly, which means that in a case of expecting volunteers to do everything is not acceptable if that doesn’t make, if that is failing to make the thing run below what it should be doing. It needs, if needs be, it must — the people must be paid to do the work on a normal footing, as if it was a proper job. They would be paid and this has to be paid out of the subscriptions or the money that’s raised, because if it’s not the whole thing, the bubble will burst, as it, as it, did in this recent one. So that is something for the future for them to look at now. I keep feeding these bits of advices to them, but whether they take any notice or whether they’ve got time to, because I’m afraid with all committees, you find that you’ve got one or two people that are very active and they can’t really do enough, and you’ve got a lot of people that like to sit back and do very little and throw criticisms and block everything, and generally cause mayhem, when it shouldn’t be like that if you’re all in for the same thing. The excuse that was, is usually given was, ‘Why are you saying this all the time?’ Is — ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate’, is a much used word, but I’m getting off the point. LLA continues today, it seems to be very successful. There was a time, a few years back, when the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight decided that they wanted to take over LLA, but when you’re a charity, you can’t really be taken over because you’re responsible for all that money in the kitty as the charity, and you can’t sort of give that over to something that’s going to be run as a business. A charity is a charity, and so the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, in their wisdom or not wisdom as I see it, have gone into partnership, or, or — is it partnership? They have a firm that produces their club they call it which you may see advertised, which is a, the reason for the club was given to me that, when it was started that the reason that that club was formed was that it was, it was to allow them to give money to other charities that were not necessarily involved with what the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight normally would be. To whit, the things like the Battle of Britain Memorial, sorry the Red Arrows John Egging Trust or whatever you call it. That was started by the widow of the Red Arrows pilot that was killed. They wanted us to give a chunk of money to them and we felt that, as trustees of that money which was raised for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s benefit, it wasn’t right for us to do that. And this, because we wouldn’t do it, this seemed to cause a fracture which is, was completely uncalled for as far as we were concerned. But they, we wouldn’t be taken over and we wouldn’t do those sort of things, and so this caused them to form their own club. We continued to support them and when they want money for various projects that they’ve got which they invariably, if they get a budget for so much in a year, they want something that’s maybe beyond the budget or - at the moment, I’m speaking now today that there is a project next year for the anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. And the Lincs Lancaster Association will be or have been asked if we will pay, pay for the painting of the Dakota, to be painted into the colours used by the, during the Berlin Airlift, which I’ve been told they’ve agreed to pay, which is obviously the sort of things that’s needed which their club A) hasn’t got the money for and B) is not for that purpose. So as a retired chairman of many years, it’s left me feeling somewhat disappointed to find that they’ve made this sort of split. The charitable side of the fence seems to be quite disturbed because the flight seemed to publish as much as they could, “Join our club. Join our club”, there’s never any thought that the charity really needs the same. It’s due the same backing as the other one because over, over the years while I was chairman, I did try to work it out, and we’d donated for various projects, I think it was just over a half a million pounds for various things that would have been done over the years. Some quite expensive. We put all the, all the engineering books manuals which they’ve got — a huge collection of manuals on their airframes and all their aircraft all in wartime issue type books. We had all those put on, digitised, which I’m sure Dan knows all about. We provided them with a very big printer so that, when you’ve got a fold out document within a book that was scanned, so that it could be printed the size of the unrolled thing out, unfolded out of the book so that they could go in the hangar. If they wanted to know about Lancaster tail wheel, all they’d got to do was type in Lancaster tail wheel, it would come up, all the references they wanted. They could go to that page, print it off. Whether it was an A3, whatever. The biggest size you could think of, it would print it. The, I did receive a letter from the chief of the air staff thanking me for this that we’d done for the Flight, and by producing that book and putting it all on to, on to discs, I think it was in those days, that we’d saved them the equivalent of one and a half men a year in time saved looking for things, trying to find things in books. Today’s age, I’m afraid, those years have slipped by and it’s all forgotten, which is very sad I find. I’m sorry. I’m going off on a tangent.
DE: No. No. That’s fine.
SS: Now.
DE: How do you feel about the LLA supporting other aircraft other than the Lancaster?
SS: Well as far as I’m concerned, I’ve learned today that — I’ve been making some enquiries which — I get bees in my bonnet, being eighty years old now and I’m thinking, well I wonder why that is? And so, I sort of went through the very difficult task of googling a question and I find myself on to a website, a government website, which tells me that one charity with similar aims, can support another charity of similar aims so long, so long as the trustees of that charity agree that it can be done. Basically that’s the precis of what it says in a lot of language and it maybe needs somebody with a, with a lawyer’s degree to read that, to make it as easy as I’ve read it, but it does not, it means the door is open. And it means that in the case of, if we’re supporting the Lancaster, we read we’re set up as an educational charity so to my mind that leaves the door open that A) we can support the Bomber Command Memorial, which is educational with its Chadwick Centre, and it also means that if need be, we can support East Kirkby and its Lancaster, even though, in both cases they’re both charities in their own right, and the fact that they’ve got similar aims means what it means. This brought to mind because there was a piece, the Vulcan to the Sky people — there was a piece on their website which said they have come to an agreement, they’re now supporting the Typhoon Restoration Group. Not the RAF type of today but the wartime Typhoon aircraft, to rebuild one to put back in to the skies of Britain, and this has been supported by the Vulcan to the Trust and they’re both charities, and so I thought if they can both do it I will, I will check up on that see if that’s true and that’s what I’ve come out with this very day. So there’s, there’s hope for LLA to be able to help in other fields, but it still just amazes me that when we started, there was nobody doing anything like we’ve done for anybody else. We were one off. We were completely one off and then gradually, one can see that it’s fostered other ideas amongst other people who have come up with similar sort of things to what we’ve been doing. But as per this BBMF club that they’ve got — it’s, it’s been operated by a money-making firm who are producing various booklets and magazines and things for them, but all on a financial basis. Ours is basically all the administration is done, or has been done up till now, has been done by volunteers, and obviously, with what we’re learning now, since this kiddies thing went into bankruptcy and the results of what the enquiries have come up with, it means that maybe there’s a time to come before too long when it should be run on a proper fashion by employed staff. Only time will tell with these things I’m afraid, it’s a developing scene. I must admit that I got, I got poorly and had to retire, it would be four or five years ago now. The time flies by. I’d been doing the job too long I must admit, I was really getting tired with it. But it’s in my blood and I can’t get it out of my blood, and even though I’ve, I’ve got Parkinson’s and I’m still struggling to get about quite a bit, I’m dealing with about four projects that I’ve dreamt up myself, because nobody is, nobody’s thinking about doing these sort of things and by generating things that are home produced by the charity, that’s a lot more from a financial point of view. It’s a much better bet than buying something in for ten pounds and selling it for fifteen. If you can have it printed yourself and sell it for fifteen, you’ve got it a lot cheaper. Somebody else isn’t making a profit out of it before you get it in other words
DE: Sure.
SS: So I still keep doing, doing that and we’ll just have to see how long I last for, and how long it — how the situation develops, but I keep proffering my advice to the present chairman and whether he takes any notice of me, time alone will tell. But I maybe won’t be around to know whether he has or not, so I can’t think of anything else I can say at this stage Dan. Unless you’ve got any questions.
DE: I’ve got, I’ve got a few questions.
SS: Yeah.
DE: If you look at my page. Could you go back again to why it was you that you wanted to get involved in the first place, when you saw the thing in the paper about — ?
SS: It was just a gut reaction. Completely. Basically, my thought was, and I aired this in, I think I wrote a piece for the Lincolnshire Echo, and it was, I can’t remember the wording, but it was saying things like the next thing you know, officialdom will want to move Lincoln Cathedral to London. We felt it was such a, such a — the link between that aircraft and, in particular, in Waddington, which, Waddington — when the Lanc arrived at Waddington, three were delivered on Christmas Eve 1941. Three airframes for 44 Squadron, which was the first squadron to set up and with those three airframes came, I’ll not say a little army, but a group of people from the Avro factory, who were there to do modifications to these aircraft while they were, while they being put in to service almost. It was, it was an absolute — it must be done, and those people that came — a lot of them married local girls and there’s a lot of families in the Waddington area whose ancestors came from Cheshire and Woodford and Stockport and those places around. So the tie is not just — to a certain extent, it is sentimental but not a hundred percent. There is family links there that’s unbreakable. And by chance the same — another one of my projects which I’d better mention, is that we’re doing this booklet, myself and Toucan are producing this booklet to honour Roy Chadwick, who was the chap that designed the Lancaster and the Vulcan and Roy — he worked tirelessly to do it. But this business, the Lancaster was delivered to 44 Squadron and its first operation that it ever did, was mine laying. They divide the area of the sea around the cataract the North Sea in to areas, and all these areas were named after vegetables so these mining sorties were known as, as gardening sorties. Gardening was the first sortie that was undertaken by Lancasters from — well I was going to say from Waddington, but was it Coleby Grange? Because there was some stories that they would possibly had moved to Coleby Grange for some reason. Whether some work was being done at Waddington, but they were done basically from Waddington, because that’s where the headquarters was. Years later, when the Lanc finished, it of course went on past the end of the war, and in the mean — before, I think before it had finished, the Vulcan had been accepted into the RAF. It came into service at Waddington as well, so there’s another link between Avro and Waddington. The first, the first sortie for the Lanc was a gardening sortie. The last one of the war, on the last day of the war, believe it or not, was a gardening sortie. They’d started off gardening, they’d ended up gardening, and it is said that the Bomber Command sank more ships than the Navy during World War Two. I haven’t seen an exact figure to that but it is spoken about quite openly, and I don’t know whether your researchers have found anything to that effect.
DE: I’ve not looked at that. I think we might have to find someone to have a look at that.
SS: I think there’s a certain mythology about it, because if they’d put, put mines in the North Sea they’re not, they wouldn’t be aware that one of these had struck a ship and sunk it on that spot. How would they know? That’s something that doesn’t add up but that’s, that’s often said. And coming back to the Vulcan in service with Waddington, well the Vulcan went out of service and what squadron took it out of service? It was 44 Squadron — Rhodesia Squadron who took it out of service, who brought the Lanc in years before. They flew the last Vulcan bomber practice mission and then a valedictory flypast, which will all be in this new thing that we’re producing and there’s another coincidence that 44 is involved twice with the two different airframes, though 44 didn’t bring the Vulcan into service. Next question?
DE: It’s another one about how do you feel about how the Lancaster and Bomber Command is remembered today?
SS: Yeah. Bomber Command is — has been very badly treated over the years. I was a great believer in Winston Churchill. His speech, his speechifying shall we say, was second to none when it came to the war and keeping the morale of the country high, but the fact that he, he cut himself off from Bomber Command following the Dresden raid, which is infamous, and he fell literally, we fell or our authorities fell for the propaganda that was put out by Dr Goebbels and his people at the Ministry of Propaganda within the Nazi party. They put this out and we swallowed it hook, line and sinker basically and this, this made that, this changed Bomber Command were upset. There was no medal issued, which has been an ongoing thing for all these years and still, still despite what they did, it still there’s still people complaining about it even though I’m afraid the veterans are getting very long in the tooth, and going back to the Dresden thing, Harris was, was vilified almost for allowing it to take place but what they seem to forget is that Churchill had gone off to, I think it was Yalta, on a conference. The command of the Royal Air Force as such was in the hands and the decision making was in the hands of Portal. Portal was the one that decided where they were going to bomb. The Russians wanted Dresden to be bombed because they felt it was being used as a railway junction for supplying arms and men to the Eastern Front. They wanted it wiping out. I’m told, reading, and I forget who wrote the book, there’s a very good book on Dresden, and when it turned out that the, this raid, this day and night attack thing that took place originally there was three choices I believe. And Dresden was the one that was chosen because when they wanted to start it, was best from the weather point of view. The weather was the restricting thing. It was Portal that gave the order, not Harris. Harris did as he was told. He was outranked, and yet the ones that made the decisions at the top have sort of turned their back on it and left the lower ranks to carry the can as you might say. And the can was carried right down to the fellas that flew on those missions, because they was the ones that was made to feel like they were murderers, and there was no medal issued and there was just a pathetic silence from the government. Which to me over the years, the number of these fellas that I’ve met was beyond my dreams, that I would ever meet so many of them and to a man, this was always something that has created a lot of heated expression and the fact that Winston changed — turned his back on Bomber Command has never been forgotten. I can’t really say much more on that one then I can think of at the moment. It’s been a tricky subject I’m afraid, but the strange thing is that the Americans — one would think that they took no part in Dresden. They, they have not been treated the same way as our lads did. One, I think it was day, the RAF went at night and the Americans went by day, which was the way things were run in those days, and the RAF went by night as they did and the first raid took place and it was calamitous. It was fire storms was soon going. The Americans went back the next day, they saw a lot of smoke rising and they bombed, and it was later discovered that they had actually bombed Chemnitz, which was not the target. Dresden. They’d gone to the wrong place. So that, that says it all to a certain extent. Sorry Uncle Sam, you’ve, you’ve — their side of it has been forgotten. One would think it was only an RAF event, it was not a joint services thing. And I’ve never heard any, any words from the American top brass, commanders of the 8th Air Force, if it was the 8th that was involved in that event, that they’ve never had anything really to say about it. It’s just been another day and the RAF seem to have copped for the, to use an old country expression, the sticky end of the stick. Next question Dan.
DE: I think on a happier note, you’ve talked a little bit about the people that you’ve met. Could you go into, you know?
SS: Well yes, I’ve been very lucky that I’ve met, I’ve met so many. I’ve got a book here, I’ll just have to open it up to get my memory. I’ve carried this book with me and if I’ve met people who, who —
DE: So it’s, “The Lancaster at War”.
SS: “Lancaster at War” volume one. The first thing, when I open the pages, I’ve got a letter here from RV Jones at the Department of Natural History, Aberdeen University dated 18th of January 1979. RV Jones doesn’t mean a lot to Dan, I can see he’s wrinkling his eyebrows. Jones was one of the brains of — he was the man that bent the beams. He was, well all I can suggest is he’s so, he’s such a nice fellow and he’s so knowledgeable. Unfortunately, he’s no longer with us like so many of these people aren’t. I’ve got two or three letters here from him, but there are, he’s written. He did write books and I’ve got a copy of his book which he’s duly signed for me, and that is one of my treasured possessions because it’s such a fascinating book. That he flew, he was, he was involved in coming out with these scientific ideas. He was, he was a confident of Churchill and the top. A boffin as they were called in those days and he was — he was a great guy. I’ve got Crumb, Henry. Henry Crumb. Augsburg raid to you. I was lucky. Bert, Bert Doughty. These were the guys that went to Augsburg. I’ve got letters from Henry Crumb, Bert Doughty, David Penman. Where are we? Oh, that’s another one from Henry Crumb. There’s another one. Augsburg raid. The chap, John Nettleton got the VC on the Augsburg raid. When the Lancaster was moved to Coltishall in Norfolk, there was a young WAAF officer who he met and he married, called Betty, and Betty Nettleton was a WAAF at, at Coltishall of all places when I went to, we did a postal cover and I had to try to find these people, and I thought well I’d like to try and find Betty Nettleton. So I made some enquiries and did some detective work, and I discovered — I’ve got a letter here from her. She worked for the National Westminster Bank Company Limited at Lombard Street, London. When I had to contact her, she didn’t know me from Adam so I thought well the best thing, is to ring her up and I got the telephone number from somebody, which was a different number on the letter she wrote to me, because I had a number of communications with her, but I’ve got this letter and the strange thing was, she said that if her husband had still be alive, he’d be turning in his grave if he’d got one to think that the Lanc was moved to Coltishall. To a fighter base from a bomber base. She wouldn’t like that at all and made that point very strongly, and the strange coincidence was that her telephone extension number at this National Westminster Bank was 474, and she didn’t realised the significance of her extension number on her telephone. It was 474 was our Lanc’s PA474 which was a coincidence. So that was Betty Nettleton. What have I got here? Oh, another one of the — Patrick Doorhill, he was another Augsburg raid survivor. There’s two letters from him. Sorry, three letters from him. What have I got one here. Oh, this is one from — “Dear Stuart”. This is very nice green-headed paper from Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire KC. Oh, he’s got so many titles after his name, Ministry of Defence, Chief of the Air Staff. “Dear Stuart, I’ve just heard of the magnificent effort of Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association in scanning the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s servicing manuals on to cd rom. Such a practical initiative is not only a great help to the BBMF but also displays, in a very material fashion, your interest and support for a most important part of our nation’s heritage. I would be most grateful if you would pass on my sincere thanks and congratulations to your members for a job well done. My very best wishes for your continued success. Yours sincerely, Peter Squire”, and that’s addressed to me. So that’s, those are just some letters that are tucked in the first page of the book. Well I turn the page over, I will see some names that will maybe ring a few bells with people. Page one, believe it or not, the one at the top of the page is Bob Stanford Tuck. Bob Stanford Tuck, in case you don’t know, was not a bomber pilot but he was a Battle of Britain ace. He was the original brill cream boy I’m told. He was always a very flashy type. If you, if you google Bob Stanford Tuck, you’ll see what I mean. But looking down the page we’ve got Gus Walker. Now I met Gus at Swinderby. Gus was a famous man. He was, he was a one-armed man, he lost an arm at Syerston when he was — well the story was, one story was that he walked into a propeller that was — and it took his arm off. The other story was that he’d gone to try to rescue someday from a burning aircraft, and it exploded and he’d been thrown out, so I’m not quite certain of that one. Looking down the list is Mr Chandler, 170 Squadron. We’ve got various, various names. We’ve got David Penman, David Brotherick, Bert Doughty of course. We’ve got Mary Chadwick which is — Mary Chadwick was Roy Chadwick’s widow, the mother of Rosemarie Lapham, nee Chadwick, and Margaret Dove who was his other, Roy’s elder daughter. She has been in the forefront of it, well while she was alive, parading her dad’s name around the world. Rosemary was the, some nine years younger and she’s really kept in the background until her sister died and then she’s come a little to the foreground, but they are getting, she’s getting a very old lady now as well of course. I’m sure she wouldn’t be upset if she knew I was saying that. Looking below it, would you believe it or not, I’ve got John Chatterton KMY, 44 Squadron and I’ve got underneath him is Bill Berry and he was, he’s got VNG which is 50 Squadron so they were good friends but obviously on different squadrons at the time when, when they were in operations. Some of these names that I’m struggling to read are the names of some of the chaps that survived the dams raid who are no longer with us. Now looking on the next page, the one at the top of the page is Lord Lilford. Now Lord Lilford won’t mean much to anybody except Mrs lilford, but Lord Lilford was the chap that, that bought NX611 which is now today Just Jane at East Kirkby. He bought it when it was put up for auction at Blackpool, and having left it at Blackpool for a while, he then said to the RAF, ‘You can have it as a gate guardian at Scampton providing you’ll remove it to Scampton and possibly refurbish it before it goes on the gate’. So he was responsible for it being on the gate, until it was eventually he decided to get rid of it, and the Pantons, who’d, who’d bid for it in the early stages and hadn’t bid enough, they then bought it. So it then moved to East Kirkby. Now we come to some dams people. We have Geoff Rice, Basil Fenera, Jack Buckley, they were all people that had survived the dam’s raid. I met them at Scampton and I’m not sure which one, but he had he showed me his car ignition key with a chain, a little bit of chainy stuff on it, and on it was a thing that I could say was something like that you bleed the air out of a radiator. A little key. And when they came back from the dams raid, he walked around under the aircraft and that was dangling on a lanyard and this was the key that was pulled out of the bomb when it fell off, the spinning bomb, when it fell off to make it live and as it fell away from the aircraft, it was only when that was pulled out that it became live, and he’d seen that and he just took it off and put it in his pocket, and he’d now got it on his [unclear]. I often wonder what happened to that. If somebody realised what they’d got and maybe threw it away when it was — [pause]. Underneath that, we have Ken Sneller, who I’ve remarked about before. He was the Lancaster captain when it was at Coltishall before Jacko took over. He’s put Lancaster, he’s put Lancaster captain PA474. November 1974. I’ve got Mary Stopes Roe, daughter of Barnes Wallis signed there. Somebody Smith, that could be anybody couldn’t it? I’m not sure who he is. Somebody Johnson or something. BE Johnson. HI Cousins. There’s a famous name which Dan’s looking as if he’s never heard of. Air Commodore Cousins as he was, part of the Sneider Trophy outfit. But he was, I’m not quite sure of his role, but he made a lot of, he scrounged colour film from the Americans to make a educational, not an educational — a thing to educate the RAF up and coming aircrew as to how to go about things. And the film that was slowly cobbled together, was issued on DVD and is still available today. It’s called, “Night Bombers”. You see all those Lancasters taking off from Hemswell in a row, he was responsible for that film. I did say, I said to him, there was one particular shot if people have seen that film, where they, they’ve got a Lancaster and the camera runs from the navigator, whatever, behind the pilot and it trundles through to the pilot and it moves up and down the fuselage, and I said to him, ‘How did you get that?’ And he said, ‘Oh it’s quite simple Stuart. We just took a Lancaster and carved it in half’. So they cut a Lanc down the middle and then they put, sat the man in his seat as he would be in his half and then they filmed that. And that was, that was something else. The BB — sorry — the BBC — our government didn’t have any colour film in those days, and he had to scrounge it from the Americans he said. But some of the films that were shot by him at that time were quite unique. Like Fido, lighting Fido. At that, Fido was something that hadn’t really been heard of, but Fido was the fog dispersal, whatever it was called. It was the way by burning petrol down the side of the runway to clear fog. That was the theory, but what it cost in miles per gallon I hate to think. Looking down, oh here’s one, Barnes Wallis. Barnes Wallis. Next to him, we’ve got Jacko Jackson had signed it. Below him, we’ve got one of the forces sweethearts of those days, Anne Shelton. Next to Anne Shelton, we’ve got Michael Redgrave, the actor who played Barnes Wallis in the film, so I’ve got Barnes Wallis and Michael Redgrave close together. Below Michael Redgrave, I’ve got Richard Todd who I became very friendly with. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get Guy Gibson because he was wasn’t around to sign. Pat Daniels, he was quite famous. 35 Squadron, 83 Squadron and 97 Squadron. He was — Pat Daniels I think was one of the Augsburg guys, again, I’m not, I can’t remember this. My memory’s fading a little. David Shepherd the artist has signed here, “After a memorable”, let me just get this, “After a memorable day of pure nostalgia in with PA474. Kind regards. November the 4th 1976. Coningsby”. That was the day then, David came and took photographs on which he based the painting that was, was his famous Lancaster painting, which you’ve, you’re people will have seen and I can claim that on that picture, you’ve got a fuel bowser trailer to the right — an oil bowser trailer to the right of the picture which I located for them. Belonged to a farmer, that he used to, he put diesel in it and he used it for tractors that were ploughing well away from roads and everything. And there was, what was it? A bomb trolley with no bombs on it, but the bomb trolley that I’d got collected up from a local scrapyard or some similar thing for that particular painting. But the, it was all done outside the BBMF hangar, which doesn’t appear on the actual painting because it’s, it’s David’s. The way he’s portrayed it. He wanted, I remember on the day, he wanted — he suddenly decided he wanted reflections, so they had to get the fire service. The Coningsby fire section had to attend and they had to pour gallons and gallons of water on the concrete below the Lanc and in front of it, so that he could get the reflection off the concrete of the bomber. That’s the sort of power you’ve got when you can draw out the fire service to do those sort of things. Turning the page again, well I’ve got best wishes from Brian Goulding. Good old Brian. I don’t know. The last time I heard of Brian, he wasn’t very good. Mike Garbutt his co-author has signed as well. We’ve got Johnny Johnson who’s become quite famous these days. “Best wishes Stuart”, that was John Pringle who was the engineering officer who was in charge of the refurbishment of NX611 when it went to Scampton. John Searby is another one, Air commodore, he was a master bomber on amongst the Pathfinders who put himself at risk. He was the master bomber on the raid on Peenemunde for instance, and many other big raids. I met him two or three times. Arthur Harris, Marshall of the Royal Air Force. He did sign for me when I was, when I got to speak with him down in London. Did I mention the meeting with Barnes Wallis? I was introduced to Barnes Wallis down at the RAF Museum and, ‘This is Mr Stephenson’, and he looked at me and bear in mind, he was ninety plus, and he said, ‘Oh I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard of you’, he said. And just imagine, how you meet somebody that — I mean Barnes Wallis to me, with his designs of the bombs, going up to the Swallow, his supersonic aircraft —to have him say that was just — took my breath and I couldn’t, I was lost for speech, which is unusual for me as you maybe notice. And I said, ‘Well how on earth could you have heard of me?’ And he followed that up with an even more strange thing. He said, ‘Not only have I heard of you, Mr Stephenson, I owe you a debt of gratitude’, and I thought, I don’t know what this is going to come out as but I shall going to dine out on this one forever, because this is, this is God talking to me in person almost. So I said, ‘Well you’ve got me on two. How on earth can you have heard of me and how on earth do you owe me a debt of gratitude?’ He said, ‘Well’, he said, ‘You’re the fellow who got that deflection can made so they could put the mid-upper turret on the Lancaster, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes. Yes. You’re right’, he said, ‘Well the debt of gratitude is A) that you got it done and B) that if you hadn’t got it done, they told me they were going to ask me to organise it’. I said, ‘I didn’t realise I was in competition Sir Barnes, otherwise I would maybe have surrendered’. He said, ‘Good job you didn’t because all the people that I know in sheet metal work, unfortunately they are no longer any of them with us. I have no contact with anybody at all. So’, he said, ‘I would have been in real trouble if you hadn’t done it’. So that was a good one. Unlike Sir Arthur Harris, who I met on the same day who unfortunately, and I’m not exaggerating when I say he was a very difficult man to talk to, because he appeared to be somewhere else though I was talking to him. It was very difficult to try to make a conversation, a meaningful conversation with somebody when they don’t answer any questions, and they just say yes and no and as little, seems as little as possible. I must admit I was rather overtaken by, he was wearing his best blue, which with his ranks and decorations and things that he’d achieved over the years. I think he maybe had two best blues but this one must have been a spare or something, because I was trying to talk to him and try to keep this conversation going, which wasn’t really a conversation, and I was transfixed by his blue which had an assortment of holes all over it, onto which had his various badges and ribbons and stars and clusters and things were obviously meant to fit through the holes on his coat, and have little pins in the back to hold them in place, so that when he was dressed properly, he would have all this tin work on his chest and down but he didn’t. He hadn’t put them on or he’d put the wrong coat on when he came, and I thought he’s been attacked by a fleet of killer moths. That just came in my head and I’ve remembered that ever since. Sorry. Sorry Sir Arthur, that’s mean of me to say that. Right. We’re on to Searby down. Looking down the page, I’ve got Don Bennet who of course, Don Bennet was the leader of the Pathfinders and the AOC of the Pathfinders. Next to him, just underneath Bomber Harris, we’ve got Hamish Mahaddie, who was a broad Scot of course who was likewise famous in his own right as a Pathfinder I believe, but he was the guy that put all the aircraft together for the famous film The Battle of Britain, which was a major job that. Getting those vintage aircraft together to make that film. Underneath his name is one that I’ve just told you earlier on, the letter heads, Betty Nettleton has signed the book. Now hang on a minute. Hamish Mahaddie, I’ve done Don Bennett, I’ve said him, and the last one that page is Tony Iverson, 617 Squadron. Those are the front cover pages, but I think I should have to go through the book, but some of the pictures inside the book — there’s the odd one or two that’s maybe got the odd autograph on it, because it’s something they were connected with, but I should have to have a good search for that to find it, but I really must get a note made of all these signatures because you’ve had a look at them and you know how difficult it would be to interpret some of them, because I have a struggle to interpret them some of them — who they are — myself. But there’s enough names to keep somebody with google going for quite a while to sort out who they were. These, these are just the ones sometimes I’ve not had the book with me. I’ve met. I’ve met through business, as well as the Lancaster Association, quite a few of the German side of the fence and one of the interesting ones I met was Hajo Hermann or Hajo Hermann, who was the head of German night fighters. He was asked to form a group equivalent to the Kamikaze amongst the German night fighters towards the very end of the war, but that never got going. I guess they weren’t as, quite as fanatical as the Japanese. He was, he was, he told me a good story. Before the war, well before the war started, the 1930s, he was an officer in the Army would you believe, and he, he was with his soldiers and they were trawling through a swamp, he called me, he told me and lo and behold, there was two or three chaps came up on horses and they sat on their horses watching these fellows crawl through the sludge and muck and general mess, and they were covered in it and eventually one of these people on the horse said, ‘Did you enjoy doing that?’ Not in. I’m not going into “Allo. Allo” German but, ‘Do you enjoy doing that?’ And he said, ‘No’. He didn’t really — he could think of better things to do, and this gentleman said, ‘Well why don’t you join my Luftwaffe instead? We’re just reforming’, and it was Goering. So he, he said, ‘Oh yes. I’ll bear that in mind sir’, or something. Anyway, he went back and he thought well he was due for a change, he was fed up of these swamps, so he joined. He sought out Goering and reminded him and he said he’d be pleased to, and they became friends and he joined the Luftwaffe. He was involved in the war in Spain and then later, he bombed Hull would you believe, amongst other places. He was involved in the bombing of Norway, the Blitz in London, he was involved in the Mediterranean war. He told me a story. He was — they were tasked to attack ships in the harbour, a big harbour in Greece, the name’s gone from me at the moment and they were told they’d got to drop mines in the, in the harbour. That was the task and he said he didn’t want to drop mines, he wanted to drop a bomb. So he duly disobeyed orders and he took a bomb with his mine load, and when he came to dropping the bomb, he dropped it and there was a ship moored out in the, in the harbour. I’m sure the name is going to come back to me in a minute but it won’t at the moment. It hit this ship and the resultant explosion was enormous. Apparently, it was an ammunition ship that was waiting to be unloaded, and it was called the Clan Fraser I believe. He told me. It blew the windows out in Athens which was five or six miles away. A long way away anyway. It wiped out the airport, sorry the harbour, it wiped the harbour out, and as a result, it had a dire effect on British resistance, because it was our ammunition that they’d blown up. And his aircraft was very badly damaged and he coaxed it back to his home base, and was immediately got into trouble for disobeying orders, but when it was discovered what had happened, he got a medal. But he was the only officer in the Luftwaffe, he gained equivalent rank to group captain as I understand it, and he was the only one who could walk in to Goering’s office without an appointment. He could knock on the door and walk in and nobody else could do that. He was made the chief of night fighters amongst his other, because he’d been on bombers. He’d been involved with the invasion of, I think it was Salerno, or Anzio, I’m not sure. Anzio or Salerno when they first used the Fritz X wire guided, I think it was wire guided missile which was used to great success there, and he went to Goering and he said that he’d had this idea. They’d built, Blom and Voss had built some massive flying boats, which were already flying, and his idea was that they would use these flying boats, arm them with a whole load of these Fritz X missiles, which at the speed they fly, they could sort of climb out and reattach to the wings. They would fly out in to the Atlantic, find convoys and with these things they could play havoc in a convoy. They would pop ships off left, right and centre and that would, that would be a — these aircraft were comparatively cheap to make in comparison to the cost of a submarine and its crew. The, the expenditures would — for one submarine, they could maybe build a squadron of these flying boats and Goering thought it was a brilliant idea, and he’d go and see Doenitz. So he made an appointment and he went to see Doenitz. Goering made the appointment for him I think, and when he got there, he met Doenitz coming out of his headquarters, walking down the steps and he saluted him and he said who he was. ‘Oh, you’re the gentleman that has got this idea’. And he explained it all to him and he said that he felt that this would save an awful lot of people’s lives, on submarine crews, who were having a bit of a beating by this time, and it could maybe turn the war even, because we were relying so much on these ships bringing food and arms across the Atlantic, plus building up for D-day. And apparently, having listened to it all, Doenitz reaction was, ‘So you want to be my corporal do you?’ Or something, and he said, ‘I’ll think about it’, and he turned away and it never got thought of again, because Doenitz didn’t want to lose his position as commander of U-boats. Well that was Hermann. There was another guy who was shot down, a German pilot, fighter pilot who was shot down in the Battle of Britain, whose name again eludes me, but I think I’ve got a print that he signed for me. He was shot down and he came down unconscious and he landed on a road, and he was laid on a road, when he came to and there was a crowd of people around him, and he didn’t know whether he was in France or in Italy or where he was in the UK. So there was a guy tending to him, and the guy in German said, ‘Don’t move’, and started reassuring him that he was alright and he thought, I’m in Germany or I’m in France at least, and it turned out that the fellow that was looking after him was the son of, was it Gerald Henderson as it, who was the British ambassador in Berlin when war broke out, and the son was a doctor, who was British of course, and lived in this country and a million to one chance he, he looked after this German guy who was shot down. His daddy had been the ambassador in Berlin. So that was, that was a good one. There was Winkle Brown of course, I met him a few times. Cats-eyes Cunningham. Again these, these are not bomber names. There was the guy that flew Boxcar. It doesn’t mean a thing to you does that? This was the American that dropped the bomb, was it Hiroshima the second one? Or Nagasaki?
DE: Nagasaki was the second one.
SS: Yeah. Well Boxcar was the one that dropped the bombs. I met the pilot of that who was a very nice fella, and he told me this story that they’d had, they’d gone to one place and it was covered in mist and they couldn’t see the target, so they’d gone somewhere else and by the time they’d done what they had to do to get into position, dropped the bomb and then fly back they, they was virtually running out of fuel and they literally got back and they didn’t have enough fuel hardly to get off the main runway before it stopped. But that was — his aircraft was Boxcar. Which was, which was a good one. Jimmy Dell, there was another good name that I met several times. Jimmy Dell. Little fella. Jimmy Dell was, he was a test pilot for English Electric as it was. He test flew Lightnings in their early stages. He took over or he joined Roland Beamont who I’d met, to fly a TSR2. And TSR2 Beaumont, he was the lead, he was the chief test pilot. He was, our man was second. He — the promotion occurred and our man moved up to first position. They were, they were flying test flights from Boscombe with it. He — he was involved when it was flown from Boscombe up to Wharton. The TSR2 was flown up there to demonstrate it to the people that made it, to show how good it was, and they decided that he would fly it up over through the Welsh mountains, the TSR2, at low level. Jimmy would follow him in a Lightning as a chase plane, just in case there was anything went wrong because they were taking telemetry from it, which was in its early stages in those days. They set off and he followed. The TSR took off, he followed. He tried to follow him and he couldn’t stay with him. He had to climb up to — I don’t know — some big altitude to get because it was so much buffeting in those mountains that he couldn’t live with that. Apparently the TSR2 flew through it like butter through a knife you might say. It arrived at Wharton and had landed when Jimmy comes over with the Lightning, just caught up with him. That was a good story, but Jimmy again he told me they were, they were doing a test flight and they went in the morning, and the crew chief said, ‘We’ve got a snag. You can’t fly today I’m afraid, but come back after lunch’. So they said, ‘Right’. So him and the navigator guy that he had with him, they went off to a local pub and had a pub lunch and was playing bar billiards, and the landlord said, ‘It’s the budget day today. Do you mind if I put the radio on?’ And they said no, and they were playing, and they was making the announcements, and they announced the TSR2 was cancelled, so they grabbed their flying helmets and everything, got in their car, rushed back to the airfield, ‘Are you ready to go chief? We’re ready’. ‘Sorry. It’s all cancelled’, and they couldn’t believe, he couldn’t believe it was. They’d been told it had, was cancelled immediately apparently, so they went back to his office where he’d got all his records and everything, and his office had been ransacked. They’d took all the, all the, all the records that he’d kept of the test flying and observations, and everything on it had been taken away, leaving very little on the shelves, because that was his job as chief test pilot by that time of course. And he said it was, that was the worst day of his life. And again, he was such a nice fella. They went, they broke all the jigs and everything to make so if there was a change of government, it was Labour because Denis Healey was the man. He’d apparently said it wouldn’t be cancelled before the election to keep the unions on side, and then immediately when they were voted in, it was changed. Never forgive Denis Healey for that. Nor can I forgive Lord Louis Mountbatten, because apparently the Australians were up for buying TSR2, and Lord Louis Mountbatten bad mouthed it like crazy and they backed out, and that really helped its demise. But they’d even got to the stage that they’d got a firm making these big models of TSR2 for recruiting office windows, and they, they broke, they went into the factories where they were making these models and smashed them all up. They destroyed everything on it, and Jimmy was telling me all this and he’d got this big model, and I said, ‘Well hang on. You just told me they smashed them all up’. He said, ‘Years later this was presented to me’. It was, it had been separated from all the rest. It had a dustsheet or something over it and it survived and that was, that was that one. It came to his retirement — Jimmy, and it was his last day and there was a knock on his office door, and this fella came in with a box and some stuff in it, and he said he said Jimmy said, ‘Hello’, you know and the fella introduced himself and he said, ‘Look, I’m one of the guys that had to go in your office and extract all the paperwork on the TSR2’. He said, ‘We were instructed to take it to so and so and it was all to be burned. Shredded. Destroyed’, he said, ‘But I couldn’t do it all, so I’ve brought you this’. This is what — and he had a box full of stuff that he’d kept. Gone against orders. So Jimmy, he hasn’t said what he did with that, but I guess he gave it to some museum somewhere. But he’s not with us anymore unfortunately. He banged out of a Lightning aircraft and there’s a famous picture of a tractor in a field and a Lightning coming down nose down.
DE: I’ve seen it. Yeah.
SS: That’s Jimmy Dell banged out of that. Sorry, I’ve gone on again.
DE: That’s quite alright. That’s some wonderful stories. Been talking for over two hours and that’s two hours on the tape. There was more when it was on pause. So —
SS: Have you got any more?
DE: I’m just looking. I think we’re going to have to, going to have to call it a day there anyway, but I think we’ve covered most of the questions I’ve got written down.
SS: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. No. That’s absolutely wonderful. Thank you very much. Have you anything else that you’d like to add?
SS: Well no. Personally, I’ve done my bit to help Nicki. I’ve given her quite a lot of stuff from my own collections to sell, and I’ve arranged, before we knew that charities couldn’t give to charity, I made an arrangement with the chairman of LLA that I bought stock that was maybe worth a thousand or two for twenty five quid, which I presented then to Nicki. It cost me twenty-five quid but that’s that was my donation again. That went to the LLA to pay for these things, so that it wasn’t — can’t be logged as a gift, but we maybe needn’t have to bothered with that now, if that’s — it’s on the government website if I’ve read that correctly.
DE: Yeah. We’ll have to have a look at that.
SS: But we’ve got, we’ve got this booklet coming out on the Chadwick thing.
DE: Yes.
SS: And I told you about the university and the picture.
DE: Yes.
SS: If you, if you google Roy Chadwick and go on pictures, you’ll find there’s a picture of Roy, the Lanc and the Avro badge on a landscape type painting, which we’ve got permission to put on the, use in this book.
DE: From Manchester University.
SS: Yeah. And I would imagine that’s maybe going to be a good money spinner, because it will be a book that’s only going to cost five or six quid. I sent her an email back, thanking her so much. She’s not mentioned, I asked if there was any charge when I sent the question, if there’s any charge, please let me know. She’s not mentioned that so I sent her a message back, thank you so much for your help and we were just wondering if there was going to be a charge made for us to use this. I don’t suppose there will be though.
DE: Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Well thank you for the interview. Thank you for all you’ve done for the IBCC and the things that you’ve donated, donated for us to scan.
SS: I’m pleased to help Dan, and if I can do anything else to help while I’m mobile, I will.
DE: Smashing. Thank you very much. Right. I shall press stop.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Stuart Stephenson MBE
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-15
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AStephensonS160315
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.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:16:01 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Stuart was five when war broke out and recounts some of his early memories.
In the early 1970s the Lancaster PA474 was flown to RAF Waddington from RAF Henlow ostensibly to be a gate guardian. In 1973 the Lincolnshire Echo announced that it was to be moved to RAF Coltishall. A group gradually formed to oppose the move because of the Lancaster’s connections to Waddington; the Lincolnshire Lancaster Committee. A public meeting was held and the City Council agreed to adopt the Lancaster. The Lancaster moved to RAF Coltishall. The committee collected over 17,000 signatures in 15 weeks and eventually the Lancaster returned to RAF Coningsby.
The committee became Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association so funds could be raised. While Stuart was Chair for c. 36 years, £½ million was donated to projects, including the digitisation of manuals.
Stuart describes how unfairly he felt Bomber Command and Sir Arthur Harris were treated.
Stuart lists a large number of people he has met, received letters or signatures from.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Vivienne Tincombe
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Chadwick, Roy (1893-1947)
childhood in wartime
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
perception of bombing war
petrol bowser
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
RAF Coltishall
RAF Coningsby
RAF Waddington
service vehicle
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/8847/AGrundyAF150707.1.mp3
16c04ada25c70bfe8f8c41c6fb4da2c5
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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So this is an interview with Frances Grundy, my name is Dan Ellin, and this is for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive and we are at the University of Lincoln, and it is Tuesday, 7th of the 7th 2015. I’d just like to say thank you very much for donating all the objects that you have for us to scan and all the things to do with your father. Could you start by telling us a little about where and when you were born and your early life please?
FG: Well I was born in Dorking during the war in 1942, my father wasn’t actually out bombing at the time but he was certainly actively bombing as it were. We moved around a lot during the war, and the only memories I have of that are really the names of places that they’ve told me about, and of course my grandparents who we visited a lot. My paternal grandparents lived in Southampton and we certainly went there in the war me and my mother, but other places just sort of place names as it were. So it wasn’t till after the war that we moved to London and my father was demobbed and he took up his solicitor’s articles again. And from sort of 1946 onwards I do have clear recollections of life as it were, of what was happening. We had a tiny little house in South Kensington, for five pounds a week that they rented behind a posh Crescent, it was quite near to the Brompton Oratory, and there was a bomb site right in front of our house. And about that time I started going to school up the Brompton Road, the Hampshire School, Susan Hampshire, you won’t remember her, her mother ran a rather strange school but it was quite interesting, and we danced and learned lots of things. And that moved to a church hall nearby behind Harrods and lots of trestle tables, and dancing and things and playing rounders in Hyde Park opposite, well in Hyde Park. Then at eight they sent me off to boarding school, which was a disaster for me because I didn’t like leaving home at eight, and I stayed, that was in, that was near my grandmother who’d by that time moved from Southampton to Lymington, and it was a nice place but I was very very very very home sick, and it was a tradition of the family that you sent the children off young to school. My mother had gone very young to school because her father was a Padre, and so she had gone young to boarding school even younger than me but I wasn’t, I was just plain home sick. They then moved house in about 1950 to another house in Chelsea, which my father lived in until he died in 2004, and I was happy there but again I was sent off to boarding school in Winchester, so all my sort of school days happened in Hampshire, and I came home to London for the holidays. My father moved, he remained a solicitor in the city, I can’t remember when he moved to the NEM, the National Employers Mutual Insurance Company, and probably in the mid-fifties, and then he moved to, he became the Chairman of an Industrial Tribunal when he was sixty so that would be 1975 I think wouldn’t it. Do you want to hear about me now?
DE: Oh yes, you can tell me anything you like.
FG: You said.
DE: What did you do when you left school?
FG: I went to Keele and read maths and economics, and enjoyed the work very very much and particularly the maths, I wasn’t a very good mathematician but I enjoyed the sort of puzzle of it. And then went to work for ICI as a, in the maths group they were doing operational research to optimise the production of chemicals at Mond Division in Cheshire, and worked with a very interesting man who was brilliant at making equations out of chemical production, I couldn’t believe it as I watched it you know. You told him what the inputs were to the products, and what the capacity of the plant was, and all that kind of thing, and all the by-products and everything and he made these absolutely fantastic equations. Anyway we, me and my colleagues, we had to put these into an operational research package which optimised it, and then the result came out, and then you had to write a report, I enjoyed that actually. I got married to John, who was at Keele he was a lecturer in philosophy in 1966, and then I went to work at English Electric Computers for a bit. And then I was pregnant with my daughter who was born in ‘68. And I got a job at Keele in the computer centre and I worked in the computer centre until about 1980, and then got a lectureship in 1981, at the time of the cuts of 1981, and stayed there till I retired. I did a lot on women in computing, women and computers, we wrote a book together called “Women And Computers” which was successful when it came out, it didn’t go down a treat with my employers. I did take my employer to an Industrial Tribunal in 1979 for being passed over and I won, two to one, I admit, it wasn’t a very good win but it was a win and it was 1979 so. [laughs] And but then you know conscious of the fact that there were no women in computing I started to do work on general computing and wrote this book, and got a lot of invitations to go to mainly Northern Europe to talk. And what was quite interesting there was that here I was going to Germany and talking, and you know giving these talks, and making massive friends with German people, generally a lot, a lot younger than me, and but there were interesting things that happened then actually. They were very conscious of the war even the young people that you know they were very conscious of the war I think, well not the young, people my age too. Can I pause for a minute just to collect my thoughts on that because I haven’t thought about it for a long time? The first time I went, I went to Dresden and that’s what really got, well it is relevant, because Dresden you know, Dresden was beautiful and a mess when I got there, but as I left the front, I went to stay with him in London before I left and caught the went to Heathrow or whatever. He said it’s extraordinary, he said, ‘Remember they’re still the’ my father rather, ‘Remember they’re still the enemy’. And I couldn’t believe my ears. [laughs] And I told, and my mother had just died, he was very traumatised by her death, very traumatised, I mean their marriage was was very important to him because of the circumstances under which it happened, under which it all occurred. And I reminded him some years later what he’d said, he said ‘Did I say that?’ You know I mean it was quite extraordinary. And then I had a good German friend whom I worked with in Freiburg and so on and once he said to me, ‘Invite him over tell him to come and see me.’ Because he was reasonably fit at that time, so I went and said, ‘Are you coming?’ He said, ‘no.’ He said he wouldn’t come but he didn’t fly much after the war. And one of the comments he made one of his ho ho jokes, ‘I might fall out of the aeroplane’. Anyway you know there were all sorts of strange reactions in the, back home his brother said to me, and I was obviously very friendly with the Germans, and I was, I was going to all sorts of places a did a big sort of tour giving talks in, not entirely in Germany, in Sweden and Finland and also Austria, and. [pause] Sorry I’ve lost my track again sorry I’ve gone blank I’ve dried up. [pause] Yes I was also very conscious of the fact that my my younger colleagues knew there had been a war, and I did didn’t think about it with them I just wanted to know Germany as Germany is known now, you know the recent programmes on on the on Germany by the Director of the British Museum, Neil McGregor. I mean he was really, that’s the kind of thing I quite liked, and so I my there wasn’t no dislike of Germany and all this had been sort of coming up over the years. And then I retired at in 2004, just after he died and came to live in Lincoln, because my daughter’s working here and I really like the city.
DE: So you were away at boarding school an awful lot during your childhood, what was your father like what were your memories of your father when you were at home?
FG: I, I mean it was a very very strong relationship, it was a great friendship, there wasn’t, all the disciplining really happened at school. And in a sense I’ve passed that on to my children that I haven’t disciplined them properly as they’ve all said, because you were disciplined at school and then you came home for the holidays and and had a good time. But he was always looking after me in a sense, he was sending me things, he was contacting me, they were always writing, they knew I was homesick. And we used to go for summer holidays to my grandfather once he’d retired from the Air Force, went to a small parish in Shropshire where he had this fantastic vicarage and we had wonderful holidays there. And that does bring back the war, because there were things like his flying jacket which he gave to a local farmer, and silk petticoats you know silk, parachute silk, was still around and people talked about it and that kind of thing the residue of the war was still there, this was ‘47/’48 you know. And he used to come up and we used to have these fantastic holidays, and he walked and biked and swam in the lake, and he had a, he had a complete costume, a one piece costume, and he swam the lake and caught a fish down it. [laughs] He was very, he walked a lot, he always walked a lot and he always swam a lot, because having been brought up in Southampton he liked the sea and he liked, they sailed, they all had they had sailing boats and things that they, and he rowed, he didn’t row when I knew him but he rowed as an undergraduate, but he biked and walked, he was quite fitness conscious.
DE: Did he ever talk to you or mention his time in the RAF?
FG: Very, very rarely. The subject would come up and it’s so difficult to recall because was it so much part of their lives. Like he had a friend Ken Kendrick, who appears in a lot of his photographs, and Ken Kendrick was my, and he was friendly with Ken and his wife Ara, and they were friendly right through my childhood and teenage-hood so Ken kept turning up so. And they used to sit and talk about Mildenhall, I think it was Mildenhall, I don’t know it might have been later actually, but they, and they went, they all had a reunion there. And they drove round the airfield and they were going sort of joking as they drove down the runway and they could see the church which you lined up with the runway and all that kind of thing. But nothing about, I think the more interesting things actually, I mean his engagement to my mother was incredibly important to him, I mean and it was only when she died that I realised you know, he was it was just the whole thing was, and how much it was influenced by the war which it obviously was. [background noise] [asking someone working a question]. How much it was influenced by the war I don’t know, in the sense that it that must have heightened the romance, or heightened the you know, that he you know he had this this thing which must have supported him in some way I think. Your question was what did he talk about the war? My mother said more probably, not about, I mean he never talked to me about flying, except well he never talked to me about it, in his dotage I got a mobile and [laughs] he’s sitting in a wheelchair in this in Chiswick Garden [?] in Chelsea and I gave it him to hold and to talk to somebody with and he used it just like an intercom [laughs], that kind of thing because he’d never used a mobile you know kind of you know.
DE: [Unclear] to his ear and left it there.
FG: But there was nothing really. Can I have another minute? There was you know the only thing I can remember was once they somehow got a Lancaster to Battersea Park, and I was about it must have been the time of about the time of the Festival of Britain[?] I don’t know what it was must have been a copy or something, but he was definitely there and there were RAF personnel showing people around so you could clamber in and clamber out, pretty sure it was a Lancaster. And he said to these men this was ’51 right ’52 something like that, and he said to these men, ‘I flew one.’ I’ve never seen him say anything like that, ‘I flew one of these’ you know, and you know they were impressed. And I was quite sort of surprised by him telling them you know, I won’t say bragging about it at all, just you know he was proud enough to say it you know, I can remember that emotion because you got so little of that you know most of the time.
DE: Right so that was an unusual thing for him to do yes?
FG: But what I was going to say was what my mother was said about drinking. They did drink and when I had my twenty-first birthday party they let me have our house and they disappeared somewhere, and apparently they, there was a basement you know come down steps and they came to have a look at what was going on if the house was getting totally damaged, they crept down I couldn’t I didn’t seem them and when they came back the next day or so they said, ‘Well that was a sober affair’. [laughs] And she was so you know how much she’d seen of people being carried out with darts in their kidneys and you know, and people swinging on, I mean them swinging on light fittings lit up, and that kind of thing. And he once, I don’t know, he went out to - this was when I was about fifteen sixteen - he went out to some cocktail party and he must have drunk quite a bit and when he came back he was quite drunk, and she just grinned and carried it through, and she was obviously used to it that was you know, she said he hadn’t been like this since the war, and I was you know, it’s a different personality, I couldn’t, it only happened once or twice after that at fifteen/sixteen, I’d never seen it before you know it was quite shattering.
DE: But you think it seems like it was a normal state of affairs during the war?
FG: I don’t know how normal, but she had obviously seen it before and could cope with it quite well, I don’t know how you know, I just don’t know.
DE: When were they married you say it was very important to him you think?
FG: Well they got engaged in, they were married in ’41 in June, and again he talked about the day of the marriage, I don’t know and when he bought the engagement ring and so on. It was important to him and he didn’t really let on until he was you know he was everything was cut from under him when she died. And the second time he got drunk was actually here, when he came up here after her death and he was you know he was grieving something awful, and I had to follow him back to his hotel that was a bit scary. [laughs] He walked all the way up Steep Hill without stopping he was eighty plus, and he also walked up to the roof of the cathedral at eighty plus.
DE: Crickey.
FG: With a stick so he didn’t do badly you know. But I mean there wasn’t a history of drink at all, and in a sense that’s why I tell the story because when you see the films of people drinking you can begin to understand it because she just gave me this brief insight into it you know of. And then there’s that story in that letter, I don’t know if you read it, that somebody had wrote after he died saying that he had an Australian who had, he had come up, my father had come up to this man who was in the bar drinking a pint and he said, ‘Are you flying tomorrow?’ And that was it, the man said he put the pint aside and that was it.
DE: Yes I have read that.
FG: And I thought it was was quite significant in a way.
DE: Suggests there was a time and a place.
FG: Yes.
DE: And it’s not before an operation.
FG: No. As if he was quite strict about it, and at that young age I don’t know how old he was then, at that fairly young age he could influence people like that without saying anything. I mean other things you know that aren’t relevant, was he had to write a lot of letters to people to the relatives of the dead, of those killed, and he found that quite a strain I think because he was very careful composer of text and letters, and he would put his best effort into it and I do remember him saying that was quite a strain and he actually got his mother to help him sometimes because he needed you know.
DE: Really.
FG: Which is quite interesting. He, later on in life, he I mean he went on fighting even though he’d stopped I don’t think, I don’t think he would have liked life in the RAF, I don’t think it was post-war, I don’t think it would have been interesting for him. I think there was no, I don’t, I can’t say fighting was, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been interesting enough for whatever reason, obviously he didn’t like fighting but you know I mean he’d commit himself to that if had to. But he had huge battles at the NEM where he reported, he reported somebody from the DTI for misbehaviour and you know. And then when I took that the case to the Industrial Tribunal he provided a huge amount of help to me over that, and he was right behind me, completely behind me you know, writing documents, having ideas and getting me to find appropriate lawyers and things like that.
DE: Yes, so he liked conflict through just cause?
FG: He did, he did yes, yes, very very much so. I think that’s something that I’ve inherited rightly or wrongly I mean I think I tend to be over the top sometimes I think I probably tried to emulate him. [laughs]
DE: That’s interesting. I think this sounds like seems like a good time to discuss the Imperial War Museum and your father’s photographs could you tell us a little bit about those?
FG: Well as everybody knows Cecil Beaton went to, not everybody but, Cecil Beaton went to Mildenhall in ’41 was it? He describes it in his diaries and took a lot of photographs of, what was as the number of the squadron?
DE: I can’t remember we’ll look it up.
FG: But it was that squadron wasn’t it? And they appeared in my childhood, and they were a big part of my childhood, those pictures, particularly the one of him and the co-pilot and so on, in the cockpit and all of them and we looked at them a lot. But that Cecil Beaton’s “Air of Glory” was a book we we looked at you know that was our father, and I think my mother must have encouraged us to look at that to be honest and to be proud of him. My mother and I went to the Coronation, we got tickets, my grandfather won a ballot for some tickets to the to sit in The Mall at the Coronation, and my mother and I went and she said, “Nobody would have medals like your father”. It wasn’t true I’m sure [laughs] you know she was, and that was still hanging round even then, um I’ve lost track.
DE: So you had a copy of a book of his photographs.
FG: And then it came to me by various routes, I mean I didn’t twig that he was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat and the and somebody else was sitting in the pilot’s seat and he’d been moved out of the pilot’s seat, I didn’t twig at all I just saw my dad. And then gradually over the years, I don’t know how, but it came to me that he had been moved out of the pilot’s seat and been replaced by this junior person, whom I later discovered was called Fisher, and I did get really upset about it, and am still upset about it I think because my father never ever said a word about it. I liked looking at those other photographs of him getting on the air you know, waiting to leave and so on, and I hadn’t really got a clue about what was involved. It was just this sort of black and white romantic pictures almost you know from the war, because he was still watching “The Dambusters” and things like that even after. [laughs] It gradually came to me, and not from my father, and I never discussed it with my father, that he’d been quote “demoted” and I was always very curious about the name of the man in the pilot’s seat. So he and my mother had been very friendly with this woman WAAF officer called Brenda Bolton, she wasn’t Brenda Bolton then she was Brenda Forbes, and she had been serving with my mother at the time the photograph was taken, and after they both died, my parents, I wrote to her and said can you tell me anything about this. And she wrote back and said yes, his name was Fisher I think it was Freddie, and we were all shocked and surprised by this demotion. So I tried to get the Imperial War Museum to tell me anything they knew about the way these photographs were taken, how Cecil Beaton had chosen who was to go where and so on, and asked them to please to if they were going to put some names on to name the people properly. And they seemed to miss what I was trying to tell them, which was that he my father was the pilot and was sitting in the co-pilot’s place, and that the somebody called the captain was not my father, and this man was probably not a captain I don’t know, and they and I tried to explain to them. And they told me they’d understood and he was going to be properly labelled when the pictures came up in a recent in a relatively recent exhibition, and when I got there [laughs] and there was this picture of this man apparently called Fisher labelled what flight officer, what would his rank then?
DE: I can’t remember.
FG: The Donaldson anyway and it wasn’t Donaldson anyway and it was very strange seeing somebody you were so proud of being completely mislabelled. [laughs] And then also at the at North West, the Imperial War Museum North West, where they put on an exhibition about the Lancaster they had this huge really big picture as you walked in of a version of this photograph and they’d completely cut my father out. [laughs] He was not there at all, there was just Fisher sitting there staring at me from the ceiling I was. [laughs]
DE: Oh dear.
FG: Wasn’t it sad. I’d driven all the way over from one side of the country from here [unclear]. But it’s the details that you get from the films about the Lancaster, how they pissed on the wheel before they got in, you know and after you never got anything like that, you never got anything about what it was like, or how cold it was, you know he never said anything about that at all. And I don’t, I haven’t really thought through why not, I don’t know why not, why he would never talk to me, he didn’t talk to anybody about it I don’t think, was it fear or if they did start talking it would never stop, or it was the old RAF thing that you mustn’t I mean tell people the facts as it were.
DE: So when did you begin to really sort of start researching about your father’s time in the RAF?
FG: Well I hadn’t really researched it, well I did that I mean, that wasn’t really research that was just trying to put the record straight. I hadn’t really researched it in any detail then, I mean a friend did a search on rural books and came up with references to his later war. He did talk a bit, I mean going back to that the operation research that I did, he did say that, and I never really paid enough attention probably because of those photographs actually, to his later war record and he did say they were using those techniques that sort of operational research, I mean not exactly what I was doing I was doing optimisation, but for flying formations and so on, they were using what they called operational research techniques in the war for the, in the for in the latter period of the war.
DE: I see.
FG: But the only time you’d get to talk to him ‘cos I was looking at that and I saw FIDO.
DE: The log book?
FG: Sorry yes the log book, and I saw FIDO and I said, “What’s that? What does FIDO stand for?”, and he told me, I don’t know now.
DE: Er its fog something dispersal isn’t it?
FG: Yes. Um Google it up or what.
DE: [laughs].
FG: [Unclear]. He did tell me that and he once said he’d been the thirty something person [?] to fly to to North America when he went on earlier in the war, and he went to collect Hudsons from the United States, he landed in Canada and I think flew home from Ohio via Iceland because they couldn’t fly back. And things like, I would ask him things like, how many, what was the maximum number of nights he went on, every night, I’d said that you know fact.
DE: Yes.
FG: And he told me five, I think it was, which is quite a lot. [laughs]
DE: Yes.
FG: And then I asked him about what was the longest flight you did and that was the trip to Gdansk which I think was eleven hours.
DE: But nothing then to do with feelings or emotions or?
FG: He would comment on other people’s, occasionally I can recall him commenting on other people’s failings but not in any critical way, it was people who had just cracked up or. And I think I do remember him saying that awful phrase “lack of moral fibre” he really hated that, and it was something that he abhorred, I remember.
DE: Right. So what would he comment, he said he heard about somebody else that had cracked up what sort of things would he say?
FG: I can’t remember.
DE: Did your mother talk about the war any more often than your father?
FG: Probably not. I remember once I made a big mistake, I’d come here to stay with my daughter and that was probably, what’s the anniversary of the Armed Forces Day, so Sunday they had services in the cathedral I think it’s Armed Forces Day. Anyway they had a service in the summer and I went and stood outside and I get really wound up about men in bowler hats with umbrellas pretending their still in the armed forces, and I really get [laughs], and I started to take the piss out of them a bit, and my mother went absolutely mad, and actually that did it bring it home to me she said, ‘You just don’t know what it was like you have no idea how awful it was’. And the way she said it, and it really shut me up forever on that you know, taking the piss out of something like that, it was, it was quite interesting that.
DE: She was in the WAAF wasn’t she?
FG: Yes.
DE: What was her role?
FG: Mmm, god I forgot she pushed you know she was a —
DE: A plotter.
FG: A plotter, yes she was a plotter, yes.
DE: What are your thoughts about how Bomber Command has been remembered over the?
FG: Well here again I’ve been really influenced by him you know, he never got upset about it, about them not being recognised. I mean everything I heard about that I heard from elsewhere never from him, he never got upset about it so I didn’t really get upset if you see what I mean. And then I saw criticisms of you know, and also all my friends you know were always talking, well colleagues, were talking about Dresden and the damage the bombing did and so on and I absorbed a lot of that. And you know there was no medal, there was no, and we never talked about the huge casualties either there were casualties. And when you read these stories that your, you know, I’m transcribing now, the matter of fact way in which they talk about death and people being killed, and people being lost and so on. And my father did that occasionally, that you know ex went missing or something, and the the coolness in which they talk about it, I find it in many of these documents, and in the kind of things he said, and so all that went on in a way. There was never, he never, he never said that bombing was a bad thing and he always said people often said to him, ‘Did you bomb Dresden?’ And his prompt and instance reaction was, ‘No but I would have done if I’d been asked to.’ Bang that’s it. So I think when the Piccadilly Memorial was went up I was I was very keen to see it, and I found it emotional, I and in a sense I was pleased that it was there, it was time it was there. But I had a very, very strong feeling about them not being recognised, and I realised it was almost entirely political and not to do with the sacrifices they made and what they went through, and even as I say even when that one went up I wasn’t, I was pleased that something had at last been recognised and put in such a very important place. And I liked the figures, I found them, am not sure, I will see how time progresses, how I like them in the future I don’t know, I’m not too keen on the surround it’s a bit, I don’t know anyway. I did like the figures they were, they really stirred me, but only again that’s me and him, and me and my childhood and all that kind of thing so not really about Bomber Command. When the spire went up yes that, then things changed a bit, I think now I do feel that they were, and I’m reading more and you know and more aware of particularly the latter part of the war, and I feel I’ve neglected that in a sense you know because of those I was going to say damn photographs. [laughs] You know I wish I knew more about the one hundred and stuff, and I am I would be quite keen to have a greater a better look at that because of what it was about, not just the silver foil, but also the jamming, and the going out to detect the radar you know, which I’m only just beginning to learn about.
DE: The damn photographs were they just in the book or were there pictures around the house?
FG: No.
DE: Just in the book?
FG: No way, no way, no way. We all had our wings.
DE: Oh really.
FG: Oh yeah, my mother often wore them, my grandmother, I read my I read there’s one sheaf of letters which were all congratulations to him on getting his the bar[?] to his DSO, and from his mother, and from all sorts of people and that was very interesting, because I don’t think he got quite so many for the other awards but this they were all over the top about that. And my grandfather was offered, his father was offered an OBE, I think, and he turned it down because he said he wasn’t going to stand in the queue at Buckingham Palace with people like they did. And um I’m lost sorry what was I on?
DE: Um.
FG: Yes, the damn photos, yes there not the damn photos, I’m saying the reason I’m saying the damn photos is because they biased my view of the war they they somehow inhibited me from looking at other parts of it which would be much more interesting, and there not damn photos at all. [laughs] I’m just trying to explain why I didn’t know, I knew so little about the latter part of the war.
DE: Yes I think it’s very understandable I think yes.
FG: I’m very fond of those photos don’t misunderstand me. Oh yes and the wings I was talking about the wings, and my grandmother, I went and bought it, I went and bought a huge one with twenty diamonds in it which is quite interesting, and at one point I had five because they were left to me, and I wore one to somebody’s wedding when I was you know that big, and I’ve given them my each of my one children one now so I haven’t got that many now. [laughs] There quite nice brooches actually, I forget about them, there not always appropriate but I did sometimes wear them.
DE: I’ve just got a couple of other things I think which came out from talking to you before we started the interview you mentioned that your father declined to speak at your wedding could you explain that for the benefit of the tape?
FG: What are you trying to say my speech is so [laughs] awful and needs explaining?
DE: We didn’t get it on the tape.
FG: No we didn’t no. He was never, I think he would definitely agree that we was never a very good public speaker and if you listen to the recording of the BBC tape he did in 1941, a propaganda tape on a raid on Turin, while his accent is what I am sure it was then, am absolutely convinced there is overlaid to that a nervousness and a desire to enunciate words very carefully so that they come over carefully. So there’s two things there, there’s the sort of 1940’s accent, plus this nervousness and care with enunciation. And I think that nervousness went on and he never liked making public public statements and when it came to our wedding he refused to, he got his brother to make the the bride’s speech, and he also told John my husband that he shouldn’t he wasn’t to make one. And at the end my father’s brother had ended up the speech with something, some joke like nil desperandum, I’m sorry I’ve forgotten he was a blossomer[?] and not a classical scholar, and John came back with, he did make a speech, he made one statement he said ‘I am homo sapien’. No he would never, he was very nervous, he hated it.
DE: Well obviously managed to get into the aeroplane and do all the countless operations. The other thing which I’d like to expand on if we can his attitude to Germany which you mentioned earlier when you were travelling to Germany, but of course he’d visited Germany in the late thirties do you think that there is any relevance perhaps?
FG: Any relevance to?
DE: His thoughts about?
FG: Germans, Germany no I think I mean he was a straight thinker really. I the only I knew he’d been to several biking tours, one to France that may have been a different one when he went to Germany, and he took the photographs of the, he took a photograph which you can see of the German bunting, Nazi bunting if you like, which is quite shocking. His younger brother Norman does mention that David found this a bit alarming. While the war was on they did, my mother had actually been in Germany when just before the war, she had been there as sort of an exchange student and said how it was the club of all classes [?] and she stayed with somebody and this woman interestingly came to see them after the war, very long after the war and they were they never she said, ‘We didn’t start it it wasn’t our fault’ to them. Erngart [?] her name was, and they were furious, and they that they didn’t hate Germans they just found this very difficult to take, I mean it wasn’t late 1950’s/’60 and so. But they didn’t, they never expressed hatred to Germans in that sense, but this woman they were furious with her saying that it wasn’t the Germans fault that they started the war but they were furious about that. And when I started to go to work in Germany for several sabbaticals, and he was very interested I think, but there was this sudden sort of lapse. [laughs] As I left for the first time to visit Freiburg, or no I think Dresden, and he said as I walked out the door, ‘Remember they’re still the enemy.’ I walked out of the door absolutely shaken, I couldn’t understand what he was talking about, and I reminded him several years later that he’d said it and um he couldn’t remember having said it. And certainly my Germany friend she came to stay with me and when we’d been talking about Anglo German friendships relationships and so on amongst older people, she said she never noticed a thing I mean he was always completely friendly with her, and interested in her, and you know they got on very well, there was nothing at all there. And I don’t think there was with my mother either, you can’t, and I don’t think they did, but they did take a bit of time to get over it. His brother once said to me when I was going a lot he said, ‘Do you like them?’ And I said, ‘Yes’. [laughs] At one time he was very very left wing. [laughs] Have they embarrassed well you know it was very complicated business you know, you’ve got a left wing German friends whose fathers’ fought in the army, you know, it’s it’s it is quite difficult to sort of start a conversation with them because they were in the army throughout the war, and you don’t know, they tell you about what their fathers’ did, so they tell you much more about what their fathers’ said about the war much more. You know I had another German friend, and her father worked at Peenemünde and they fled to Alabama, and they lived in a sort of German enclave in Alabama, that’s another interesting story because she didn’t know anything this contemporary of mine, and they just lived in this enclave where they didn’t know anything. And when she came home, they came back, and she got some, only quite recently I think, some quite nasty shocks because she didn’t know.
DE: No very interesting. I think I’ve ticked all the things that I had jotted down to talk about and we’re approaching fifty minutes of it.
FG: Really thank you very much for listening to me.
DE: It’s been marvellous thank you. Unless there’s any other thing that’s sort of niggling in the back of your mind.
FG: No there’s a lifetime so you know, a whole lot one big niggle. [laughs] It is a lifetime.
DE: Well I shall end it there.
FG: I’d like to thank you for raising all this with me actually I mean it’s aroused my interest in it and I’m very grateful for the opportunity.
DE: We are very pleased that you’ve donated all these things to be scanned.
FG: Well I’m also doing the transcribing. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Frances Grundy
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
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
2015-07-07
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGrundyAF150707
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Second generation
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:49:05 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Frances Grundy was born in Dorking in 1942 whilst her father was serving as a pilot with the RAF. She describes her earliest memories of growing up during and post war and the special relationship she had with her father. Her father continued his career as a solicitor in London after the war but never spoke about the operations he took part in with Bomber Command. Frances talks about her life, and the research she has carried out from her father’s days as a pilot and recounts some of the memorable items.
heirloom
memorial
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/581/8850/AHearmonPC160317.1.mp3
357fd317f299351fbd3b3b83ddd33699
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
Hearmon, Peter Charles
P C Hearmon
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hearmon, PC
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Charles Hearmon (b. 1931, 2507699 Royal Air Force). He served as a pilot with 55, 58 and 61 Squadrons between 1951 - 1971.
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
2016-03-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and we’re here in Milton Keynes with Peter Charles Hearmon who was a peacetime pilot and navigator and this is a sequel to the RAF’s activities in the war and we’re going to talk about his life from the earliest days and to joining the RAF and his interesting variations. Peter, where do we start?
PH: Well my father was a London fireman and he was stationed at Euston Road Fire Station so I was born in University College Hospital which was in Gower Street just across the road. My earliest recollections are of a flat because in those days firemen lived on the premises and my earliest recollection is a flat at Clerkenwell Road Fire, not Clerkenwell, yeah Clerkenwell Road Fire Station because my father had moved by then and my grandmother Nanty lived with us. And I can remember as a kid of about six or seven, strictly forbidden to but we used to slide down the poles ‘cause that was the way the firemen got to the, to the ground in those days and they, I don’t know if people realise it, it wasn’t a continuous pole. It just went two floors. Well this, otherwise they would pick up such a speed they’d break their bloody legs when they got to the bottom. No it wasn’t a long pole, it was, you know. Anyway, then we, my father left the fire brigade in about 1938 and we moved to a council flat in Lewis Trust in Amhurst Road, Hackney from which we were bombed. And I was evacuated initially in, I should think, before the Second World War started in about the August. I was one of those kids with a gas mask in a brown box with a label saying who I was and I was evacuated to a place called Toller Porcorum which is in Dorset, a small village but we lasted three days. There were three Cockney lads, seven or eight billeted on some poor old dear well into her nineties and we all, well in those days they, they allocated, they just said to one of the local councillors, ‘You’re the allocation officer,’ and they just went around and knocked on doors and said, ‘How many rooms you got?’ ‘I’ve got three rooms.’ ‘Oh you’ve only got one kid. You can have two evacuees.’ It was as simple as that. We lasted three days and we all ran away back home and I was variously evacuated to Exmouth in Devon. I got an eleven plus and that was, we were, I went to Westminster City School which was billeted with Tonbridge High School in Tonbridge. That was during the Battle of Britain and that was a good thing because all, we were being rained on and bombed on and then I was re-evacuated to Devon and then back to, I think eventually back to London during the V1 V2 campaign because there was nowhere is England that was any different by that time. We’re talking about 1944/45. The Germans were raiding ad lib as it were, you know. Indiscriminately. So London was as bad or as good as anywhere so I went back home and the school came back to London, Westminster City and I left in 1947 with a good clutch of O levels especially in languages. French and Latin. Didn’t do German in those days. And due to a friend of my mother’s I got an apprenticeship with a firm called Princeline in the merchant navy and I did three and a half years but decided it wasn’t for me and I left. Couldn’t get a job really because although I was, I was over nineteen I was still national, liable for National Service by then because having been in the merchant navy, the merchant navy was a reserved occupation but because I’d left so I wrote to them and asked to be called up and I was called up for the army and I went to a place called [Inacton?] I forget what it was. Selection centre. The Korean War was on and I went, I went in front of the naval chap who said I could join the navy. They only took twelve National Servicemen a year and I said no thanks. The army chap was, said to me you can join and with your educational qualifications even as a National Serviceman you’ll probably get a commission but then for some reason, I forget why, the air force chap interjected and said, ‘We’re looking for aircrew,’ and he did some dickering with the army chap and that was how I joined the air force. I was literally sort of called up, you know. Went to Padgate and that was a laugh because the, the instructors were all acting corporal, National Servicemen who’d done a six week course or somewhere or the other and given a couple of stripes and in fact our, our hut commander was an acting corporal who was quite frankly illiterate. I used to, used to get one of my guys to read him from the Beano, to read to him from the Beano. You may laugh but it was the God’s honest truth, you know. Anyway, went to Hornchurch selected for pilot, navigator and I think gunner or gunner something like that. And I then accepted and we were offered at that stage the choice of staying as a National Serviceman or becoming what they call a short term engagement where you got regular pay so I opted for short term engagement. Went to nav school at Hullavington and when we first arrived at Hullavington my course were all suspended pilots with wings which rather upset a lot of the staff pilots because we were all officers and they were only sergeants but eventually we were told to take our wings down so we had to take our wings off. So I then qualified as a navigator. Spent five, six months at St Mawgan because there were no vacancies in the Navigation Training Scheme flying Lancasters so I did some Lancaster flying there. And then I went to Lindholme, that’s right, for the air observer’s course on Canberras. Didn’t do any, in those days the pilots and navigators went through Bassingbourn together. The set up or bomb aimer or whatever you like to call them did six weeks at Lindholme and then joined the crew on the squadron which is what I did. That was at Upwood and when I arrived I think we only had about four or five, there was only about four or five aircraft. That was when you had squadron leader COs as well but we slowly but surely got aircraft from Short’s. I think Short’s made some Canberras and I think we ended up with something like eight UE and twelve crews. Sounds about right. I think it’s something like that. We were chased out of Upwood eventually by, no, sorry Wittering, it wasn’t Upwood, it was Wittering. We were at Wittering. We were chased out by the arrival of 148 squadron Valiants and we then went, then went to Upwood which I think by that time we ended up with something like four Canberra squadrons from Scampton or, I think, well it was 61 squadron. 40 squadron. I can’t remember the names of the others. I think there was four ‘cause at one time in the air force I counted there were forty eight Canberra squadrons in the UK, Cyprus and the Far East. I think [I was more or less?] was astounded when I counted. Yeah. I mean, I don’t think there are forty eight squadrons in the air force at all at the minute is there? You see we had Canberras at Upwood, Scampton, Waddington. What’s the one further north? Binbrook. Wyton. All had three or four squadrons. I think I’m talking of the days when there were a squadron leader CO and I was, I was a flight commander as well. I was acting flight commander as a flying officer. [cough] excuse me. Anyway, let me go and get a drink of water. Sorry.
CB: Ok.
PH: Talking.
[Recording paused]
CB: We’re re-starting now to recap slightly and go to the initial training that Peter did and just take us through that.
PH: When I, when I, is it going?
CB: Yeah.
PH: When I was called up in 1951 I went to Padgate where we didn’t do very much at all. I was there for about six weeks. We really got kitted out. That’s where we got our uniforms or up to a point our uniforms. Some of it. Some of it. It was, it was very odd because at times there were groups with wearing their own jacket but air force trousers and air force shirts and air force berets or whatever but anyway after about six weeks at Padgate we went to Hornchurch for aircrew selection which and I was given pilot. I don’t think I was given navigator believe it or not. I think I was given pilot, gunner, engineer. We then went back to Padgate and we awaited and we got, I got posted to Number 3 ITS at Cranwell and that was a six month ab initio course doing square bashing, PT, customs of the service. Mathematics. Physics. We had a lot of National Service teachers in those days of course who had done their, because in those days at eighteen you could either opt to do your National Service straightaway or you could defer it until after you’d been to university. And a lot of these guys had been, had degrees and were just doing their National Service after university so they were in their twenties normally. They only wore hairy battledresses because they weren’t issued even though they were officers they weren’t issued with anything else so that was it. So we did six months at the ITS and I think there was, there was, if I remember there were four ITSs at Cranwell. At Cranwell alone or [as of anywhere?] and there was over a hundred on each. The chop rate was about fifty percent so at the end of the course of the six months there would only be fifty of you left and these, these were pilots, navigators and gunners and then from there you went to your specialist training and I went then to Feltwell and I did my flying training on Prentices, then Harvards. Got my wings, as we said on the time and went to Driffield on, on Meteors. And then from there I went to Chivenor on Vampires which I didn’t get on with and of that course of fourteen because the Korean War ended seven of us were suspended from pilot training.
CB: So when you went doing your training at Driffield. What did you do? It was a two seater Meteor was it?
PH: Two seat. Yeah. The Meteor 7.
CB: And so what was the programme that you had for that?
PH: Well you -
CB: ‘Cause it was the first jet really.
PH: You flew, you flew nearly every day even only for a short time. Say an hour or so if that. A with an instructor and eventually I forget, it will tell you in my logbook you. Eventually went solo and because you went solo that didn’t mean, you still, you still did dual trips for various other things like aerobatics and things like that. And then eventually you did your final trip as a flight commander you were passed out you know as having satisfied. I got a white card at Driffield but then I went to say Chivenor and there were fourteen on my course at Chivenor of which seven were suspended and I was offered the choice. By that time I was a regular of course and I was offered the choice of finishing my National Service, I had about a week or so to do or retraining. By that time I was married. I was married in the previous year so I decided I rather liked the air force so I decided to retrain as a navigator. And so then I went to Hullavington and I had my pilot training. Actually my pilot training stood me in good stead because I finished about second or third on the course you know because a lot of the navigator and pilot training, especially the ground school, they were the same, you know, the meteorology, all that sort of thing was pretty good so I’d already done it. Most of it. But they were, in fact the course I was on at Hullavington were all chop pilots and I think as I mentioned earlier we were, we were forced to take our wings down eventually.
CB: Only temporarily.
PH: Well no we never got them back again because we then had, we then got navigator brevvies and the law of the Royal Air Force was you wear the brevvy of the trade in which you are practicing.
CB: Ok.
PH: Well we, our brevvies were virtually removed permanently. We were told we could no longer wear them. Right. Ok.
CB: Ok. So you did the Hullavington course.
PH: Yes.
CB: And you then got your new brevvy which was –
PH: Correct.
CB: The navigator. So then where did you go?
PH: Went to St Mawgan as the assistant flying adj because there was no vacancies for Canberra training at the time and I was there for six months. Did quite a lot of flying in Lancasters.
[phone ringing]
PH: Which one was that? Or was it –
[Recording paused]
PH: In training.
CB: Right. So –
PH: But because, because I was a navigator and I got on well with the squadron leader flying –
CB: Yeah.
PH: He said, ‘Pete, come and fly with us,’
CB: Yeah.
PH: So off I went. You know.
CB: So we’re talking about using your time at St Mawgan.
PH: Correct.
CB: And you got –
PH: Went to Gibraltar two or three times.
CB: Right. As the navigator on the –
PH: As the nav. Yeah.
CB: On the Lancaster.
PH: On the Lanc. And believe it or not we used to take down in the bomb bay bundles of hay because the AOC there and the brigadier they had a cow because they couldn’t stand Spanish milk. Have you ever tried Spanish milk? Spanish milk is bloody awful.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
PH: Anyway, they had a cow so in the bomb bay of the Lanc which is quite large we used to take bales of hay for the, for the AOC’s cow and bring back things like Christmas trees or potatoes and things like that you know.
CB: Yeah. Any wine?
PH: And wine. Yes. Of course.
CB: Ok. So you had six months of this.
PH: About six months.
CB: Time.
PH: And then I went to Hullavington and did the nav course.
CB: Oh this was before. This, was this after the nav course or before it?
PH: What?
CB: No. This being at St Mawgan was after –
PH: Oh no that was before, that was after getting brevvy, between getting a brevvy.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And actually getting, no it wasn’t the nav course. No. Start again.
CB: Yeah.
PH: I’d already completed my nav course.
CB: Exactly. Yes.
PH: And I had a brevvy.
CB: Yeah.
PH: I went to Hullavington. I went to St Mawgan.
CB: St Mawgan.
PH: On, all of my nav course there was no slots available.
CB: No.
PH: And we all got jobs and went to all sorts of places as, I don’t know –
CB: Just a holding position.
PH: A holding yeah.
CB: Yeah.
PH: A holding post. Some went as MTs. Some went as –
CB: Right.
PH: If you could drive they made you MT officer, you know.
CB: So, so what was the unit that you were supposed to go to after that?
PH: Well it was the flying, it was the, I was, it was the flying wing, just the flying wing.
CB: Ok.
PH: ‘Cause Hullavington at that time was the School of Maritime Reconnaissance.
CB: Right.
PH: MRS. And it was, they used Lancasters prior to, to the chaps training on Shackletons because typical of the air force the MRS was at St Mawgan which is in bloody, you know, Cornwall and the OCU was up in Scotland. So the guys did their course and they had to go all the way up to Scotland to do, to convert to Shackletons. They used, ‘cause of course the Shackletons as you know was a development of the Lancaster.
CB: Sure. Ok so you went back to Hullavington in order to get ready to go on to what aircraft?
PH: No. No. From, from, from St Mawgan I then went to Lindholme.
CB: Right.
PH: Ready to go on to Canberras.
CB: Ok.
PH: And we did the six week bombing course and then I joined 61 squadron direct at Wittering and as I said earlier on the pilot and navigator, plotter he was known as, they called them the plotter in the, in the Canberra and I was the observer. The plotter, they went to Bassingbourn together and the observers joined straight from Lindholme which was the Bomber Command Bombing School. BBBS.
CB: Ok.
PH: So, I didn’t do a conversion as such. Conversion was done on the squadron.
CB: Right. Ok. So, now you’re at Wittering.
PH: Yes.
CB: 61 squadron. So what happened there?
PH: Well we were there for about a year and then they decided to move us to Upwood because of the formation of the first Valiant squadron which was coming to Wittering. 148 squadron. Tubby, Tubby Oakes, something like that was the guy who ran it. It was quite amusing because when we were doing the major exercises, I forget what they were called now, where we used to fly right up to the Iron Curtain and then all turn left as it were. We used to have to take off on the peri tracks because the mock, the invisible Valiants were using the main runway. That’s the honest truth. There were no, we didn’t have any Valiants there but they were, we had to get used to, I mean the peri tracks, if you know Wittering.
CB: I do. Yes.
PH: There was a big runway and there was a big peri track so it was quite funny. I’m trying to think of what they were called. It will be in my logbook somewhere.
CB: Ok. So –
PH: We used to do these operations quite regularly.
CB: So when you were at Wittering you were in Canberras and where are you flying? Are you on your own or do you go out as a formation?
PH: Sorry. Say again.
CB: You’re at Wittering.
PH: Yes.
CB: And you’re now on operations.
PH: Yes.
CB: Effectively. Do you go off as a formation or did you go off as -?
PH: No. No. We’re still using the World War Two tactics. Stream.
CB: Right.
PH: You didn’t, I don’t think I ever done, I can’t ever remember doing formation. Did at Wyton eventually but only as a practice. It was never used operationally.
CB: Right.
PH: The Canberras. The Canberra was a night bomber really and it was, and of course we had Gee.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And GH and you did a minute stream. A minute stream.
CB: Yeah.
PH: We all flew one after the other up to the Iron Curtain and then all turned left you know. It was just to stir, stir up the Warsaw Pact. That was what it was really all about.
CB: Yeah. Quite predictable. Always turning left.
PH: That’s correct. Yes. That’s right.
CB: Ok.
PH: And then we’d probably go to Nordhorn or somewhere like that and do some bombing or whatever.
CB: Yeah. So, in Norway.
PH: No. Nordhorn is in Germany wasn’t it? I think.
CB: Oh was it?
PH: Yeah.
CB: Oh so you were flying that way as well as going up to the –
PH: Well we’d go out direct to the Iron Curtain, turn left.
CB: I see.
PH: Come back via Nordhorn which was -
CB: Yeah. Ok.
PH: In the northern part of Germany.
CB: Ok.
PH: In fact I’m not sure. It’s one of those islands that are off Sylt. Somewhere like that.
CB: Ok. So, yeah. Right. Ok.
PH: This is a long time ago now.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Fifty years ago, you know.
CB: So, when you were bombing what were you dropping?
PH: Twenty five pound bombs.
CB: Ok.
PH: When we, when we were using the bigger ones. The thousand pounders we tended to do that at, in Malta. Filfla. There was a bombing range. There was an island there that was used as a bombing range in Malta.
CB: Right.
PH: For daylight bombing we always used to deploy to, to Luqa for about a month at a time and use the bombing ranges in Libya which of course was not part of the empire but I don’t know, we had some, I forget, we had some interest in it.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And the Americans had some interest in it when they kicked out whatever his name was. I’m trying to think.
CB: Yeah. Well the airfield there was El Adem wasn’t it?
PH: That was one of the airfields. Yes. There was Benghazi. And there was another one the Americans had which had been called King, it was called Idris. That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Yes.
CB: Ok. So when you went on a sortie how did the sortie run?
PH: Say again.
CB: When you went off on these sorties how did the sorties run? Did you go on a dog leg or directly or how –
PH: Well you were given a timing to time on, TOT, Time On Target and you may have to dog leg if you were a bit early but usually you were late [laughs]. You were urging the, urging the pilot to put a bit more steam on.
CB: Ok.
PH: It was just a, I mean if that was Germany and say that’s the Iron Curtain there was a stream like and when you got there you turned left and went off to various places. Theddlethorpe, Nordhorn or sometimes back to base. That’s interesting. That’s right. We had something called to recover at base. You had something called a Trombone and the idea was to keep secret. You didn’t transmit or anything and they used to, your base would give a time. They would give a time. They would say whatever it was and you in your individual aircraft had a plus. So many minutes for your overhead so they had something called a Trombone and I know from Wittering on several occasions my Trombone ended over Liverpool ‘cause you had to lose thirty minutes or some bloody nonsense you know. This was so that when you landed you were landing in, I don’t think they, you see I don’t think although we were a minute apart in the bombing thing landing was a different ball game. They had to have a gap of about two minutes or three minutes which meant of course that the further back you were in the stream the longer you had to lose. In other words to land.
CB: So when you were actually doing the bombing the space time between aircraft doing the bombing is one minute. Is it –?
PH: Something like that. Yeah.
CB: The same for everybody was it?
PH: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
PH: But then after that as I say because you couldn’t land at minute’s slots at night you see.
CB: Yeah.
PH: During the day possibly. Excuse me [cough]. So you had to, as I say I had this Trombone where you flew down the Trombone to lose whatever minutes.
CB: Lose time.
PH: You had to. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Ok. So how many planes are going up at a time on this sort of thing?
PH: Oh I would have thought, well I was, you know well you say four hundred out?], a couple of hundred at least. Half. Every, every airfield, every Canberra airfield would have to send up about fifty percent of their aircraft.
CB: So –
PH: There would be a lot of aeroplanes in the air at the time.
CB: We’re in the dark as it was the case in the war.
PH: That’s right.
CB: And how were you aware or otherwise of the other planes on the stream?
PH: Never. [laughs] Didn’t see them. I think we flew with lights up to a certain point and then I can’t remember. I’m sure we flew with lights up to a certain point. Then they were switched off. I mean there were, there were mid airs as you can imagine.
CB: Mid-air collisions. Yeah.
PH: Correct.
CB: Fatal.
PH: Well I presume so yeah I mean let’s face it they didn’t advertise it too much as you can imagine.
CB: No. Ok. So you were at Wittering with 61 squadron. How long were you there?
PH: I’m trying to remember. Only about a year I think it was. Then we went to Upwood.
CB: Same squadron.
PH: Same squadron. Yes. I think, that’s right, I’m trying to remember. There was 61 squadron and I’m trying to think, there was, was there another squadron came from, yes there was another squadron came from, from Wittering. I can’t remember its number. There was 35 squadron and 40 squadron which came from somewhere like Scampton or Waddington. Somewhere like that. They ended up with four squadrons at Wittering if I remember right.
CB: Ok. And what about overseas detachments? How often did you do those?
PH: Oh yeah. We used to go to Malta, oh I should think every three months for anything up to, up to a month at a time. Some two weeks to a month doing visual bombing either at Idris, not Idris, I’m trying, Tarhuna, I think was the range in Libya.
CB: In Libya. Ok. And I’m just thinking of the envelope you were operating in. So you take off. What height would you cruise at?
PH: Anything between thirty six and forty thousand feet.
CB: And what speed would you be doing?
PH: Are you talking about airspeed or ground speed? Air speed would be about –
CB: Take air speed.
PH: Four hundred and sixty. Oh no. Not air speed, no. True airspeed about five hundred. I can’t remember. Two hundred and twenty knots. Something like that.
CB: Oh you were quite, quite –
PH: Something like that. Your true airspeed is twice your indicated airspeed.
CB: Ok.
PH: Something like that.
CB: Right.
PH: I don’t remember the figures.
CB: The indicated air speed would be?
PH: Well the indicated air speed would be, well about two hundred and twenty knots you see.
CB: Right.
PH: That was what you saw on your dial with your back –
CB: Yeah.
PH: Because we didn’t have GPI on 61 squadron.
CB: GPS. Right.
PH: GPS.
CB: Ok. So your, the actual speed that you’re going is what? Over –
PH: Four hundred and eighty knots.
CB: Four eighty. Ok.
PH: Something of that order.
CB: And you’re at variable heights. How was the height decided?
PH: Well I can assure you in 1955/56 there wasn’t a fighter in either the allied or the Warsaw Pact that could touch a Canberra flight. We could turn inside them you see.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Of course that really broad wing. I mean if we turned inside a Hunter it fell, it fell out the sky.
CB: Yeah.
PH: So did Sabres.
CB: Sure. So how often did you do fighter affiliation?
PH: Not that often. Not that often. Not true fighter affiliation. We, I can’t, I don’t remember doing any actual fighter affiliation with the RAF. Fleet Air Arm yes. I’m trying to think. Was it HMS Albion? What was the carrier they had in those days?
CB: So this would be in the Mediterranean or in the North Sea.
PH: No. In the Mediterranean. Yes. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
PH: When we were at, they used to ask us to come down five thousand feet –
CB: Ok. Did they?
PH: Because their fighters couldn’t reach us. I think they had Venoms –
CB: Yeah.
PH: Or something on board didn’t they?
CB: Then Sea Hawks. Later they had Sea Hawks.
PH: Oh and Attackers.
CB: Then Attackers. Yeah. So now the bombing run so where would the bombing run start?
PH: I’m not with you.
CB: So you’ve got a target.
PH: Yes.
CB: And you’ve transited to the target.
PH: Yes.
CB: But how would you handle the bombing run? Would you be higher? Lower?
PH: Well that was, that was when you were sort of vulnerable because you had to be, fly straight and level for at least twenty miles before the target.
CB: Right.
PH: So then you had to stay straight and level. In fact we developed a technique, the Canberra squadrons developed a technique called the late bomb door opening because if you opened the bomb doors way back it made it very difficult. It made the aircraft wobble.
CB: Yes. Yeah.
PH: So we I think it was seven seconds before target, before, not target, but before actually dropping the GH bomb.
CB: Yeah.
PH: I mean, don’t forget you’re way back aren’t you?
CB: Yeah.
PH: I mean you’re about thirty miles from the target. I can’t remember the exact distance but you’re well back because of the forward throw of the bomb.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. Well it -
PH: It had a different –
CB: Depended on the height and speed as to just how –
PH: Yes, exactly. Yes.
CB: Far you were letting go in advance?
PH: We had, you had a set of, you had a set of figures which were quite amusing. This is a true story. You’ll like a true story. You had a set of figures which you set up on your G set.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And when they [clashed?] the bomb went automatically.
CB: Right.
PH: And we were, we were first in the stream, that’s right, it was when we, Squadron Leader Hartley so it must, we were, it must have been soon after we arrived at Wittering because we were still a a 8UE squadron. Squadron Leader Hartley was the boss who got killed subsequently. Anyway, we arrived back to be greeted and this was on a night exercise and I should think it’s in the book. They used to do them, we used to do them regularly. About at least once a month. Let me have a look and see. See if I can get the name.
CB: So we’re looking in the book now but –
PH: Well I’m trying to see what –
[pause]
CB: Well what we could do Peter is come back to that.
PH: Well yeah anyway.
CB: Because –
PH: There used to be, used to be an exercise, an operation so and so. This is what I was talking about where you flew to the, I’ve lost the thread now. Oh yes we were first in, we were first at Nordhorn and I dropped the bomb. Fifty yards I said. I said, ‘That’s the fifty yards [two hours down?]. We landed. We had this enormous bloody greeting. Station commander. Squadron commander. ‘What did you do Pete?’ ‘Well what did I do?’ ‘Well your bomb dropped two thousand yards short in the woods, set fire to the woods and the whole exercise had to be cancelled’. So I said, ‘Well I don’t understand that.’ And they said, ‘Can we see?’ And what had happened was the nav leader had typed the wrong, one of the digits wrong in my G set. So it wasn’t my fault.
CB: No.
PH: It was the nav leader.
CB: This was before you took off.
PH: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
PH: You had a set of digits.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And those are the ones you put in your GH set?
CB: Yeah.
PH: And he’d, he’d typed them up in a hurry or whatever and he’d got one of the digits wrong and it was two thousand yards out. So I was, I was exonerated and he got his bum kicked.
CB: Yeah.
PH: You can imagine.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
PH: Well the whole exercise had to be cancelled ‘cause we were the first ones through. ‘Cause I mean, I had the, I was the best bomb aimer in Bomber Command at the time.
CB: Right.
PH: Allegedly you know.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
PH: Done on results.
CB: Yeah. Right. So just going back. Here we are on the run in.
PH: Yes.
CB: And –
PH: That’s when you’ve got to fly straight and level.
CB: You’ve got, straight and level. Would you normally be at a higher or lower level than your cruise approach when you actually did the bombing?
PH: Do you know I can’t remember?
CB: Ok.
PH: No. I’ve got an idea that you tended to fly around at the height you were going to bomb at.
CB: Right. So the practicality is we’ve got the pilot and then we have the navigator and –
PH: The plotter. Yes.
CB: Plotter as well so there’s three of you in the aircraft.
PH: Correct.
CB: Who did the bombing?
PH: I did. The, the set up.
CB: Right. Ok.
PH: So you had, the navigator had in front of him, he had his radar screen.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And I had a GH screen up there.
CB: Yeah. So you’re sitting side by side in the back.
PH: Yes. That’s right.
CB: How did you get through to the front?
PH: Well you climbed on the, there was a, only, only fifty percent of the back, I mean all the instruments were there and there was a gap.
CB: Yeah.
PH: You had to go under the, you know you had to –
CB: So you’re crawling down to the –
PH: This was only for visual bombing.
CB: Yeah.
PH: You had to go in to the nose.
CB: That’s what I meant.
PH: For visual bombing. For GH bombing you did it in your seat.
CB: Ok. That’s what I’m trying to get, differentiate here. Sometimes you’d do visual bombing would you?
PH: Correct.
CB: On what circumstance would you do visual bombing?
PH: Well they did a lot during the Suez campaign.
CB: Ok.
PH: When they bombed because it was in, the Gee and GH didn’t reach that far.
CB: No. Right. So you were practising visual bombing.
PH: Correct.
CB: At any time.
PH: From forty eight thousand feet sometimes.
CB: Right. Ok.
PH: Used to have, there was a strike barge at Wainfleet and I think there was another one at Chesil, Chesil beach.
CB: Right. In the south. Yeah.
PH: These were, these were the old invasion barges painted black and yellow and they used those as targets. And there was Theddlethorpe, Nordhorn but some, I think Theddlethorpe and Nordhorn were GH I don’t think they were visual. I can’t remember.
CB: Right.
PH: I think they were straight GH.
CB: So here we are flying along on your final approach to the target.
PH: Yes.
CB: The pilot and you are coordinating the activity.
PH: Completely yes.
CB: Who is actually running the plane at that time?
PH: Oh the pilot. The pilot.
CB: Right he’s still running it.
PH: Yeah.
CB: Who is pressing the –
PH: Unlike some of the American aircraft where the bomb aimer actually had physical control of the aeroplane. The Brits never went for that.
CB: No.
PH: You always used to say to the pilot left a bit, left a bit, steady, steady, steady.
CB: Sure. Yeah. And then you pressed –
PH: You pressed the bomb.
CB: Right.
PH: The pilot had to activate, had a switch to activate the, the –
CB: The release.
PH: The bomb aiming equipment.
CB: Yeah.
PH: But the bomb aimer was the one who opened the –
CB: Oh the bomb aimer equipment. Ok.
PH: Who did that?
CB: Ok. So you physically had to press the button for it to go.
PH: Correct. That’s visual bombing only.
CB: He, right, so on GH how did that happen?
PH: It was all done automatically.
CB: Ok.
PH: When the bomb –
CB: So effectively when the crosses merged.
PH: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: The lines cross.
PH: Yeah.
CB: Then it goes. Right.
PH: Correct.
CB: And it’s been programmed on the ground on the basis of what the wind –
PH: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
CB: Is expected to be. Now what about circumstances where you have to approach at a different height for some reason? Would that happen? So you had a planned height of say forty thousand.
PH: Well I think on the GH side you’d have to throw it away because you you wouldn’t have the necessary coordinates you know. On the visual side we’d [play?] off the cuff.
CB: Right. Ok. So a lot of this is practical stuff in training.
PH: Yes.
CB: So Suez comes along.
PH: Yes.
CB: How did you get involved in that? What? Were you still with 61?
PH: Well I was never involved in the actual bombing of Egypt but I was involved in, I was in, I was at Nicosia and my crew were involved. My son was born and then they, they didn’t send me abroad. Our crew spent, George [Cram?], myself and a chap called oh, I should think Roger Atkinson, we were transiting carrying three, thousand pound bombs from the UK to Cyprus via Luqa.
CB: Right.
PH: It was a bit hairy. We had three thousand pound bombs on board.
CB: Makes a heavy landing does it?
PH: Yeah. Well of course they, I mean they were dropping, it was thousand pounders. The Canberra could carry thousand pounders of course and also nuclear weapons later on but originally the actual iron bombs were the thousand pound.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Which we used to drop, practice dropping on Filfla which is just off Malta. Big island off Malta.
CB: Right. So how many thousand pounders could it carry at one time?
PH: Three.
CB: Ok.
PH: Two and one.
CB: Right. Two side by side. Yeah and one behind or below.
PH: Below.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Below.
CB: Ok. Right. So we’re on 61 squadron and you’re occasionally going on your detachments.
PH: Yes.
CB: Where did you go after Wittering?
PH: Ah well what happened was I was on what was known as an eight and four at the time and when 61 squadron packed up I was, I only had about eighteen months to do in the air force [allegedly?] so I was posted to 58 squadron at, at Wyton as by that time they had, the squadrons had a full time adjutant. And I was posted there as the adjutant with no admin training [allegedly] but I was, but because it was Canberras again I did a lot of flying and I went to Christmas Island during the H bomb tests.
CB: Ok.
PH: It’s all in the book.
CB: Yeah. So the H bomb is what size in relation to the iron bombs of a thousand pound?
PH: I’ve got no idea. Never seen one.
CB: Oh you didn’t see one there.
PH: No.
CB: Ok.
PH: Well Wyton was PR you see.
CB: Right.
PH: It wasn’t, it wasn’t bombers, it was, we had PR7s.
CB: Ok. PR7s. So the photographic reconnaissance Mark 7s.
PH: Yes. That’s right.
CB: So what did, what did what did you do there?
PH: Well I was, my full time job was adjutant.
CB: Ok.
PH: Squadron adjutant. A chap called Colin Fell. Wing Commander Fell.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Nice chap. Ended up as an air commodore. Navigator. One of the, you know at that time one of the few navigator squadron commanders.
CB: Yeah. So how long were you at –?
PH: Eighteen months.
CB: Right. Then what?
PH: Well, I happened because I was the adjutant I always read the DCI, Defence Council Instructions and one came. I was into judo, I was a judo instructor and then and one of these DCI’s came around saying that there was vacancies to learn Japanese so I put my name down and I’m trying to think. [North?] Lewis. [North?] Lewis was the CO and he said, ‘Oh no,’ sort of thing but there was a caveat on the Defence Council Instructions saying that all applications had to be forwarded regardless of whether they were approved or not by the CO so mine was forwarded. I was called to London for an interview. Sat in front of this large group of men and as soon as I walked in and sat down they said, ‘Well of course we’re not, we’re not teaching Japanese.’ So I sort of almost got up to go and they said, ‘Sit down. Would you like to learn Chinese or Russian?’ And I said, ‘What’s the role?’ They said, ‘Well if you learn Chinese you go to Hong Kong for a couple years.’ And I was married at the time so, well I was married. ‘And if you learn Russian you go to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London and as I’d recently bought a house in Edgeware I thought I’ll do that because by then I’d accepted a –
CB: PC.
PH: A permanent commission.
CB: Right.
PH: So I went to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies for a year. That must have been about ‘58/59. I then went and stayed with a family in Paris for ten months. A Russian family. Emigre family. Did the Foreign Office interpreter’s exam and got a, I got a second class pass which is not bad really. I mean very few people get a first class pass. I then went to a place called Butzweilerhof in, in Germany.
CB: Germany.
PH: Cologne. Where for a time I was CO of the intercept, the intercept section.
CB: You were a squadron leader by now.
PH: No. Still a flight sergeant.
CB: Right.
PH: And from there I went back to flying on Victors at Marham, tankers. As navigator.
CB: Ok so –
PH: And then I was short toured deliberately by the, by, despite my, despite my AOC saying that, ‘He’s part of a crew, a five year crew,’ and I was only three years, I was short because of my Russian and I went to a unit called BRIXMIS in Berlin. British Commander in Chief’s Mission to the Group of Soviet Forces and I was an interpreter with the Soviet forces in Germany and met lots of Russian generals. And my boss was a chap called Gerry Dewhurst. Have you ever come across Gerry?
CB: So in practical terms what are you doing at brexmas, BRIXMAS?
PH: Sorry?
CB: What were you doing at BRIXMAS then?
PH: Spying.
CB: Right. So –
PH: In practical terms. We used to tour East Germany.
CB: In cars.
PH: In a car.
CB: Yeah.
PH: With cameras to make sure that they weren’t building up their forces.
CB: This was part of the agreement with the Russians.
PH: Correct. They had SOXMAS.
CB: They watched you and you watched them.
PH: Yeah. They had, they had a similar unit at a place called Bunde.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And the Americans and the French, we all had, I mean I got on very well with the Americans and the French and we used to, we used to you know talk to each other about where we were going to go and make sure we weren’t double you know. We made sure that we didn’t, I mean one stayed out all night sometimes on an airfield and God knows what.
CB: Didn’t [know]
PH: Because, see what happens was the Soviets, the Russians because East Germany was, you know, very delicate, sensitive they always put their new kit there. So, I mean, you know we had army tourers and air force tourers and we got some of the first photographs, good photographs of the MIG, the MIG 21J which was very early on. But I mean it’s surprising Janet, when I was doing the, when I became a volunteer of RAFVR and I was doing the air, air. Well analysing the air side because intelligence you try and pretend you’re the enemy really because you give your, your boss what you think the enemy is going to do so you put yourself in the enemy’s place. At one time the Russians or the East, sorry the Warsaw Pact had twenty eight divisions in East Germany. Twenty eight divisions, the Brits, the Brits had one, the Americans had one, the Germans had about four. Three or four. And the French had one and they had nearly three hundred aeroplanes, three hundred, sorry what am I talking about? Two thousand aeroplanes and I think we had about three hundred or four hundred. I mean when I used to do the briefings for the, for the war, you know, for what was it called? There was a –
CB: The war games.
PH: Wintex. Wintex was the big, they say the generals they’ll be at the, they’ll be at the coast in, they’ll be at the channel coast in four days. That was why you know they had the tactical nuclear weapons.
CB: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
PH: I mean you know that was the truth. There was no good, no good denying it. There was no way. You know.
CB: No. So you were doing that from ‘50/60.
PH: Well I did that from, let’s think. That must have been ‘67. ‘67 to ’70. Something like that.
CB: Ok. Right. Just –
PH: Then I came back to MOD and I was going to be posted to Uxbridge as gash supernumerary but a chap, I’m trying to think of his name in MOD, who I knew very well. He used to, he was a great fixer. He got me posted to the Foreign Liaison Section to finish my time in MOD and because I was a Russian speaker I was given the South American desk [laughs] of course.
CB: Good service logic isn’t it?
PH: Sorry?
CB: Good service logic.
PH: Yeah. Well I mean that was vacant and that was, you know, he got me in and I was quite pleased with it because I still met the Russians and more cocktail parties than you could shake a stick at and I’ll tell you a thing. The poorer the country the more ostentatious their cocktail parties and social events are. Some of these African countries that were starving their ambassadors used to throw these champagne fuelled caviar and Christ knows what, you know.
CB: Amazing. Right.
PH: And by then I was, and I was lucky enough to be asked if I wanted, when was leaving I was to ring a certain telephone number which I did and I got a job and I did another twenty two years with a, an organisation which I think the last letter of its number was five.
CB: I can’t think what on earth you’re talking about. Right [laughs] Right.
PH: Am I allowed to say these days?
CB: Yeah.
PH: At one time we weren’t.
CB: So –
PH: Which I thoroughly enjoyed.
CB: Yeah. The South American desk. In practical terms you were doing something useful but what was it?
PH: Liaising with anybody, any, I mean –
CB: Anybody in South America.
PH: No. No. Anybody, anybody across the board.
CB: Right.
PH: But I did, I remember one occasion that’s right. Yeah mainly South America but I mean you didn’t have to speak, they all spoke English anyway.
CB: Yeah.
PH: But I always remember I had to introduce new attaches to the chief of the air staff and I’m trying to think at the time who it was. [unclear] Oh dear. It will come to me in a moment and I know that the guy, the guy I introduced was Peruvian Air Force. He was lieutenant colonel, no lieutenant [stress] general and they kicked him out because obviously he was probably involved in some sort of coup. Jesus [Gabilondo?]. His name was General Jesus [Gabilondo?] and I remember I introduced him to the, said to the chief of the air staff who sort of almost said, ‘What.’ [laughs]. I said, ‘Sir, this is General Jesus [Gabilondo?].
CB: Yeah.
PH: Nice chap.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Flying Canberras ‘cause we’d sold Canberras to the Peruvians if I remember right.
CB: Absolutely. Yeah.
PH: So we did have something in common. Nice chap.
CB: Just going back –
PH: But that rank. I mean, you know, that incredible rank to be, to be a military attaché really.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. Just going back to your Victor times at Marham.
PH: Yes.
CB: So here we have a tanker squadron.
PH: Yes.
CB: So what were, you as the navigator in one of the aircraft there.
PH: Yes.
CB: How did that work? You were linking with [pause] nice picture on the wall.
PH: There I am in the –
CB: What was the typical day? You were up fuelling fighters.
PH: Well we were very very busy because what happened was the Valiant packed up as you know. The Victor was brought in in a hell of rush. In fact what I was initially on 55 squadron which only had the two point tanker.
CB: Right.
PH: They borrowed or stole or whatever it was from refuelling pods from the navy.
CB: Oh.
PH: Which were put on the wings.
CB: Right.
PH: And we did something called Operation Forthright which was flying between the UK and Cyprus to bring back, believe it or not, Lightnings that were stranded all around the Middle East ‘cause with the demise of the Valiant they couldn’t get back because as you know the Lightning, Lightning, the early Lightnings only had a range of about seventy bloody miles. They were terrible. Unless we, the lightning 6s were a bit better but I mean the original Lightnings had to be, they had to be refuelled as soon as they got airborne virtually.
CB: Yeah. Right.
PH: I mean they were designed to go up, shoot down the incoming and come back.
CB: And come back again. Yeah. Right.
PH: But that was Forthright. So we enjoyed that. We were doing a lot of flying. Unusuall. I mean I was doing something like sixty hours a month which is really double what the air force normally. I mean thirty hours used to be the norm wasn’t it really?
CB: So this is in two sections really. There’s the overseas deployment.
PH: Yes.
CB: And there is the UK. So on the UK you’re flying from Marham which is Norfolk.
PH: Yeah.
CB: Where are you flying and what are you doing?
PH: Well what we did mostly and I shall think of the name of it. What did you call it? Between the Wash and Newcastle and we used to refuel. They used to practice refuelling. We used to go around like that for about four hours.
CB: So you’re flying in an oblong shape are you?
PH: Yeah. I have the thing, just one moment
CB: And what are you refuelling? Only Lightnings?
PH: Anything.
CB: Only Lightnings or Americans.
PH: Let me just tell you in a moment. Let me look.
CB: Yeah. Ok. We’re just stopping, stopping just for a mo.
[Recording paused]
PH: For refuel.
CB: So you’re flying an elliptical circuit.
PH: That’s right.
CB: Effectively so that just, how does that work then?
PH: And we called it a Tow line.
CB: You called it tow line. And how did it work?
PH: Well you just, they called you up and said, you know, we, they knew we were there and the Lightnings from Leuchars or wherever. Coltishall. I think there were Lightnings at Coltishall. They knew we were there and for them to practice refuelling.
CB: Right.
PH: And we just, I mean it was quite boring. I mean just went around in this elliptical shape. As I said, tow line.
CB: So as the navigator what was your role in that?
PH: Virtually nothing because the guy doing the refuelling was the co-navigator. Two navigators in the Victor. One was the nav, one, I was the plotter and he was the other guy was the set up.
CB: Right.
PH: A chap called Pete [Hall?] and he was the set op around the radar but he also controlled the refuelling setup. I believe latterly they transferred it to the co-pilot.
CB: Right.
PH: But I mean in those days it was done by the –
CB: The nav radar.
PH: The nav. Nav radar. Nav radar. Yeah.
CB: Yeah ok. So did he have a means of looking backward?
PH: Yes. The telescope.
CB: They’d put a telescope in specifically for that.
PH: Yeah.
CB: Ok. So how did it work? So you’re flying straight and level. What sort of speed would you be flying for the refuelling?
PH: Well depending what you were refuelling. Normally about three hundred knots.
CB: Ok and so you’re straight and level for specifically a period.
PH: We’ll all the time straight and level. Well until you turn, you turn and come –
CB: Yeah.
PH: I mean the leg would take probably fifteen or twenty minutes.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Each –
CB: And what speed are you going?
PH: Well around I think.
CB: Three hundred knots you said.
PH: Yeah. Well no about two hundred and forty air speed.
CB: And, and height?
PH: Anything between thirty two and thirty eight thousand feet depending on the, how bumpy it was.
CB: Yeah.
PH: We would try and find you know the smoothest level we could, we would and then we’d settle down and they’d transmit what height we were at.
CB: ‘Cause in practical terms the air force system was to run a drogue line.
PH: That’s right.
CB: Effectively.
PH: Yeah.
CB: With a –
PH: He had, he had a nozzle.
CB: A nozzle in the back.
PH: And we had a drogue.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And that was it.
CB: Right.
PH: And once and it was, there was a set of rings and things and when it connected it wouldn’t float.
CB: It held it.
PH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
PH: But of course when you withdrew when it withdrew there was always a spurt of fuel came out you know which which could blind the pilot sometimes.
CB: Yeah.
PH: ‘Cause it could go on his windscreen.
CB: Yeah. Well yeah. So the fighter is coming up and getting fuel on.
PH: Correct.
CB: And is trying to negotiate the drogue.
PH: Correct.
CB: And –
PH: You had to fly, you had to fly –
CB: Into it.
PH: Depends where the drogue were. I think on the Lightning it was above them.
CB: His nozzle was above his head.
PH: I’m trying to think, I’m trying to think. What was the other one? We did refuel the odd one.
CB: Phantom.
PH: Phantoms, I think, yeah. Yeah.
CB: Buccaneer.
PH: Buccaneers. That’s the other one. Yes. Yes.
CB: Right.
PH: Buccaneers.
CB: What about the Americans? Did you do any of those?
PH: I personally, I didn’t but I know the squadron did eventually but the Americans had a different system you see.
CB: Yeah.
PH: The Americans –
CB: Theirs is a guided.
PH: They had a drogue operator who fed the drogue on to the –
CB: Yeah.
PH: On to the other aircraft.
CB: It was a long bar wasn’t it?
PH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Well is. Yeah. Ok. Right. And did you refuel other Victors occasionally?
PH: Eventually because as I pointed out originally it was only a two point tanker because they hadn’t, they hadn’t yet got the hoodoo. The hose drum unit.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Known as the hoodoo.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Which eventually was –
CB: In the centre.
PH: Fitted into the bomb bay. Once that was done because the wingspan of a bomber you couldn’t accommodate it on a wing –
CB: No.
PH: Refuelling pod but then oh yeah we did what we called mutual. Victor to Victor.
CB: And you could do two fighters at the same time.
PH: At a time.
CB: Could you?
PH: But only one large aircraft.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
PH: Other Victors we had Victor to Victor and then we had Victors to whatever was available.
CB: Ok. So that’s UK. Then when you went overseas how did that work? You were based in Cyprus or where were you?
PH: Normally in Cyprus yeah. That was, they were called Forthrights if I remember right. Operation Forthright. That was taking Lightnings backward and forwards between because we didn’t have Lightnings based permanently in Cyprus at that time they were always on detachment from the UK squadrons and they would be out there for a couple of months and then changed over.
CB: So would they fly the whole distance non-stop or would they pop into Southern France. In to Orange?
PH: Oh no we tried to take them all away.
CB: You did. Right.
PH: The trouble with the Lightning was as soon as it landed it bloody went u/s.
CB: Oh right. So you’d want to keep it airborne.
PH: So they kept it airborne [laughs] Yeah. I mean they, well it didn’t take, it only took about five or six hours to get to Cyprus from the UK.
CB: Sure. Yeah. Because they’re, they’re transiting quite fast.
PH: Yeah. I, yeah and I enjoyed being a nav because my responsibility was not just looking after the Victor but looking after the Lightnings as well just in case they had some form of malfunction like breaking a probe which did happen. They had to make sure that the refuelling, they had refuelling brackets enroute. I had to make sure the refuelling brackets, if something happened instead of dropping into the sea they could divert somewhere you know.
CB: So the refuelling bracket is a period, a space over the route.
PH: Yes.
CB: Certain areas where you would do it.
PH: These were pre-determined –
CB: Right.
PH: Between, you, you had a special map which had what they called refuelling brackets and that was where –
CB: Right.
PH: You actually did the refuelling.
CB: So were you stationed in Italy sometimes as part of the -?
PH: Say again.
CB: Would you sometimes have your Victor in Italy in order to be able to deal with the brackets.
PH: Personally no. I know that, that, no after I left the squadron because of, what’s his name, Mintov they had to use Sigonella in Italy but, because he, he banned the RAF from Luqa but we always used Luqa.
CB: Right.
PH: What happened was we would have on day one a Victor would go to Luqa.
CB: Yeah.
PH: On its own with a crew and that would be refuelled and everything ready and then on day two the Victor with its two Lightnings would take off from Marham. The Lightnings would join, go via Luqa. You’d call up when you were approaching Luqa. [cough] Excuse me. He would get airborne, take over your slot and you would then go into Luqa.
CB: Right.
PH: And depending on what was going on you might well stay there and do the same thing as he’d done the day before. Refuel. And the next pair through you would take on to Cyprus.
CB: Right.
PH: It was quite complicated. It was quite well thought out.
CB: Ok.
PH: And occasionally if we were going further we’d do a Victor to Victor refuelling at height because like, like the Lightning the Victor used nearly half its fuel getting to height.
CB: Yeah. So how long did it take to get up to height with a full –
PH: What? The Victor? Forty minutes.
CB: Did it?
PH: Lightning did it in three. [Laughs]
CB: Yes. [Laughs] Going to stop there for a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: So we’re just re-starting. Are you due to have your lunch shortly?
PH: No. I’m ok.
CB: Ok.
PH: No problem. I’m eating this evening so I shall just –
CB: Right. Ok
PH: Have a cup of soup at lunchtime.
CB: Right. Ok. So one of the interesting things here is that, two things, first of all in the war the pilots who re-mustered to do other things maintained their wings.
PH: Oh I see.
CB: You didn’t.
PH: No. The law, the regulations state –
CB: How did you feel about that?
PH: You wear the brevvy of the job you are doing.
CB: Yeah. So how did you feel about that?
PH: Well as a youngster I was a bit miffed but you know it was a fact of life. You do as you were told.
CB: And once you got in to being a navigator.
PH: I enjoyed it very much. The navigator on Victors was the best job in the air force.
CB: In what way?
PH: On tankers.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Well because you were in control really. I mean the pilots did exactly what you told them. I mean they did anyway but I mean in that particular context I mean, you were, the two navs ran the operation completely.
CB: ‘Cause you’re running a pattern.
PH: Yes.
CB: And you’re also doing a task that is very intricate.
PH: Correct.
CB: Right.
PH: Not like sitting on your backside you know on QRA for God knows how long waiting for the –
CB: Yeah.
PH: We did do a QRA at one time. The Victor tankers because of the way we could stay airborne for quite a long while. There was a phase that the NATO went through where they were simulating that all the, the, shall we say the, let’s get the, war headquarters etcetera had all been wiped out by the Warsaw Pact and by getting a tanker airborne with a senior officer in it he was the, he was the one who could control what was going on and we did that for about a year and that was, that was a type of QRA where you set the aircraft sat at the end of the runway and you were in a caravan in your flying kit ready to get airborne if you were told.
CB: Yeah
PH: We did, we did simulate it once or twice but it never came to anything.
CB: Just to –
PH: The concept was you’d end up with a group captain sort of determining whether or not you were going to obliterate bloody Moscow, you know, quite frankly.
CB: Right. So just to clarify that. QRA is Quick Reaction Alert.
PH: Reaction alert. Yes.
CB: You’ve got a bunch of aircraft at the end of the runway.
PH: Correct.
CB: That can, can –
PH: Get airborne –
CB: Start off.
PH: In three or four minutes. That’s right.
CB: And move quickly.
PH: Correct.
CB: Yeah. Ok. Next bit is the difference between the wartime experience with the family and peacetime is that wartime the families were banned from the airfield and its environment.
PH: Yes.
CB: But in peacetime.
PH: Oh yeah. We lived in quarters.
CB: You had quarters. So what was it like -
PH: Yes.
CB: For the family?
PH: Well enjoyable. I mean we enjoyed living on, on station. Plenty going on. Social life in the officer’s mess you know. Kids went to decent schools.
CB: So, in Germany the children –
PH: My oldest son was at boarding school when we were in Germany.
CB: Where was he at school?
PH: He was at Wymondham College.
CB: Oh yes. Yeah.
PH: But the others were with us because my last son Anthony was born in ‘64. By that time we were back in the UK.
CB: Right.
PH: Semi permanently.
CB: Right. So the others didn’t go away to school.
PH: No. Not really. They stayed with us. ‘Cause in Germany the schooling was quite good. The British education system was quite what they called –
CB: Yeah.
PH: BF, British Forces.
CB: BFPO.
PH: No. Yeah. British Forces education. BFES or something.
CB: Education yeah. Ok and on the airfields what sort of, what were the quarters like?
PH: Cold [laughs]. Cold. At Marham we didn’t have central heating and we, we couldn’t use the dining room ‘cause it faced, faced north east and you know when you’ve got that wind in from Norway or the North Sea all you had was a radiator or something you know. No central heating.
CB: Electric radiator.
PH: Yeah. Something like that.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Yeah.
CB: Right. But the quality of the building and the furniture was ok was it?
PH: As far as we were concerned they were ok, you know.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Oh no. That’s right. Marham. Yeah, that’s right. No. At Marham we had a lounge which had a door directly into the lounge which if you opened it you stepped into the mud in the garden.
CB: Oh.
PH: And I’m told, we were told that it was an architect had made a note for a door instead of a window. It should have been a window but in fact they put a door in there for some unknown reason. I mean who would have a door directly in to the lounge? I mean we had a front door and a back door. I mean they were nice quarters. They were but they were cold. These days of course they’ve all got central heating but in those days there was no such thing.
CB: No. So these are all traditional airfields. Expansion period airfields.
PH: That’s right yeah.
CB: The ones you were based in.
PH: Marham. We weren’t in quarters.
CB: Wittering.
PH: We lived on a caravan sight at Upwood and at Wittering. We had a caravan there.
CB: Oh. Because the quarters were all full were they? The quarters were full?
PH: Yes they [might have been?]. I was fairly junior at the time, you see.
CB: Yeah.
PH: There used to be a waiting list.
CB: Yeah.
PH: But then you got to a frozen list eventually.
CB: Right.
PH: If you were lucky.
CB: And in Germany what were the quarters like there?
PH: Very good. Excellent. Central heating. The lot. My wife said to me after we’d lived in one of those, ‘When you leave the air force Pete I’ll live in a shed but it’ll have to be bloody centrally heated.’ [Laughs] Having been in quarters in the UK which were bloody freezing you know.
CB: So in Germany what was the life like there?
PH: Excellent. Local overseas allowance and all sorts of things you know.
CB: And did you, was everything centred on the airfield or did you tend to get out much?
PH: I wasn’t flying in Germany.
CB: No.
PH: They were both were ground tours.
CB: I was wondering if you got out in to the hinterland much.
PH: I did in, in Berlin. Yeah. I was touring East Germany.
CB: Yeah.
PH: My wife often said our tour in Berlin was, our three year tour was the best ten years of our lives. The social life was incredible.
CB: Yeah.
PH: I mean I was almost a diplomat you see.
CB: Yeah.
PH: Virtually had diplomatic immunity. And I mean you know it was very difficult. The Americans were always throwing enormous parties, you know. My kids loved going to the Americans. They used to have forty gallon bloody drums of ice filled with coca cola and Christ knows what you know. Just helped yourself.
CB: Yeah. Extravagant with everything.
PH: Absolutely.
CB: But very hospitable.
PH: Absolutely. Yes. Very difficult to, to reciprocate.
CB: Yeah. And on a professional front then how did that work?
PH: I’m not with you.
CB: Well from the air force and intelligence point of view how did the working together –
PH: We were told by –
CB: Operate.
PH: RAF Germany that the intelligence we produced was invaluable. I think I said we got the first pictures of the new MIG 21J.
CB: Yeah.
PH: All the new tanks [unclear] yeah.
CB: So in when you went out on these sorties, forays in to East Germany you weren’t staying in airfields there ‘cause they didn’t let, you were driving around all the time were you?
PH: Well no. You camped up with luck. If you get in undetected on the landing side of an airfield.
CB: Right.
PH: Which, of which one had heard there was particular interest.
CB: Right.
PH: ‘Cause what you were after was photography.
CB: Yeah.
PH: And especially if an aircraft had got its gear down and its undercarriage open and then it’s you know the technical boys can tell a lot from that apparently, you know.
CB: Right. Yeah. Good. Ok. I’ll just stop there again thank you.
[Recording paused]
CB: So you’re out in East Germany winter and summer so –
PH: Yeah.
CB: What sort of things was that like?
PH: Well go back to square one. What you’ve got to appreciate is that the west did not recognise the east. The Soviets called it the Democratic Republic of East Germany. The west called it the Soviet Occupied Zone of Germany and this was the protocol.
CB: Right.
PH: And you know the diplomacy sometimes is childish because I would have to go sometimes to a meeting because we’d been called because of an infringement or something and they’d produce this protocol which said so and so so and so happened in the Democratic Republic of East Germany which I then had to cross out and write Russian Occupied Zone of East Germany and initial it and then they would cross it out [laughs]. But that was, that was the situation. So basically if you got into trouble in East Germany we weren’t allowed to discuss it with the, with the Volkspolizei. We had to call for a Russian officer. And that was the situation.
CB: So were these engineered incidents were they?
PH: Oh yeah. Absolutely yeah they I mean they, they I mean we would take pictures. We used to be, I used to have one and I lost it unfortunately when I moved. A big sign said, what was it -? “Presence of Foreign Liaison Missions Forbidden” in German and in Russian and in English [ unclear] and if you went [?] what we would do, quite often we would take the sign down and throw it in the nearest bloody river. If you wanted to get near to an airfield. Which they had no right to do you see.
CB: Right.
PH: Allegedly. But they’d come and put another one up and then you’d get, you’d get nicked you know by the Russians because you were behind the sign as it were you know and then there would be a protest and that was where I would have to go with my boss because there had been a protest that flight lieutenant, always referred to me you know, Flight Lieutenant Hearmon was caught speeding at such and such a place and I’d have to deny it you know and say no, it wasn’t true you know but quite often it was true but sometimes it wasn’t. It was just fabricated by the Volkspolizei, the East German police. It was quite amusing at times. Yeah.
CB: So you’d camp out.
PH: Oh yeah. I had a little tent and a very good sleeping bag. An army sleeping bag. You know one of those ones that zips up with arms.
CB: Oh right.
PH: You know the sort I mean?
CB: Yeah. Yeah. So it was quite cold sometimes.
PH: Yeah. Oh yeah but you know one slept ok. You’d wake up sometimes with ice all over your bloody face.
CB: So how low would the temperature go?
PH: Minus twenty two. I think that was the lowest one we ever had.
CB: Summertime. What about summertime?
PH: Well that would be ok. It would be hot.
CB: But not too hot.
PH: No. No. You’d do about one, you’d do about two tours a month. That was all because you had to write everything up as well you know and that could take two or three days.
CB: So you’d come back. You’d write things up. How did the debrief go?
PH: Well the debrief was done by you. I mean it was all, it was a question of matching up. You would give a narrative about the photographs etcetera etcetera and then that was all sent. It was looked at by our own ops officers. Usually an army chap and then it would go to, what do you call it? RAFG. Royal Air Force Germany. Second ATAF intelligence. Yeah.
CB: So were you verbally debriefed by your seniors after these trips?
PH: No. Not really. Just asked, ‘How did it go?’ Because you know they might look at your report before it went off but you know they knew what you’d, they trusted you shall we say.
CB: Yeah and you were able to practice your Russian regularly were you?
PH: Yes. Yes.
CB: So you got even more proficient.
PH: I did at one time but don’t forget we’re now talking about twenty, thirty years ago.
CB: Sure. Yeah. So when you eventually retired.
PH: Yes.
CB: What did you do?
PH: I went for an organisation that’s number ends in 5.
CB: Yes.
PH: For twenty odd years.
CB: And after that what did you do?
PH: Retired [laughs]
CB: Ok. To Milton Keynes.
PH: Yes. Well we’d already moved to Milton Keynes while I was still working in MOD. Well we lived in Amersham and we had quite an old house that wasn’t double glazed, wasn’t double skinned and it was quite cold and we couldn’t afford, well the new houses they were building in Amersham at that time I should think that the lounge was about that size, you know. Remember they went through a phase of building houses with rooms that I mean I had four kids. We couldn’t have all get in one room together.
CB: Crazy.
PH: I mean they showed you around and they had undersized beds and undersized wardrobes and Christ knows what in the various rooms because they were, they were tiny. Whereas the house we had in Amersham was, Milton Keynes was very comfortable. I like a decent sized room.
CB: Yeah.
PH: I’m a, I mean this room’s quite pleasant isn’t it, really?
CB: Yeah.
PH: Nice aspect.
CB: This is brilliant. Yeah.
PH: That balcony goes all the way around by the way.
CB: Right. And your children they left school. Then what? Any, any of them go in the forces?
PH: My eldest son went in the army for a while but then he became a policeman. He retired. He retired three years ago as a policeman. He works for an organisation that is on contract to the Home Office escorting undesirables back to their own countries. He’s been, he’s been all over the world. China, Italy, Peru. Oh God. And if you excuse me I’ll tell you. They took this rather, what’s his name, he was a China man who didn’t want to go back so he was being a bloody nuisance and they found, realised afterwards why he didn’t want to go back. He was wanted in China for something or other, being deported, escorted, they had to go via Moscow. They got to Beijing and Pete, he was in handcuffs ‘cause there were two of them with this guy in the middle in handcuffs and they got to, got to Beijing and they were met by a Chinese police lieutenant who spoke English. He’d worked, he’d served in the UK or something and he came out and he said, ‘Mr Hearmon. Yes we’ll take him.’ Pete said to him, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘He’s been a hell of a problem. We’re quite happy to leave you the handcuffs. Here’s the keys.’ ‘No. No. No. No. No.’ And he said something to this chap who went and sat meekly in a corner. And Pete said, ‘What did you say to him?’ He said to him, ‘If you don’t go and sit down and behave yourself I’ll f***ing shoot you,’ and he said, ‘I meant it Mr Hearmon and he knew I meant it.’
CB: How amusing.
PH: ’Cause the Chinese, you know.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
PH: I mean they’d charge, they’d charge the family for the bullet or something.
CB: What did the others do?
PH: Sorry?
CB: What did the other children do?
PH: Oh well my second, well my second daughter is retired. She lives in Lincoln. My other son is also retired. He’s married to a Channel Islander and lives in Jersey. My youngest son is the only one who’s working. He’s not married and he lives in London and he’s, he comes and sees me about once every three weeks. He works for the local council. He’s in to environmental things of some sort.
CB: Right. Right.
PH: But even he’s, I mean he was born in, let’s see, ‘52, ‘56 ‘64 so I mean he’s coming up to his fifties quite soon.
CB: Your eldest son, what did he do when he was in the forces?
PH: Sorry?
CB: Your eldest son. What did he do when he went in the forces what did he do in the army?
PH: I’ve no idea. He was just in the infantry. That was all. He was just a soldier and then when he left he joined the air force, er joined the police and did twenty eight years or something in the police.
CB: Right.
PH: And he wasn’t an officer. He was just a soldier of some sort.
CB: We’ve had a really interesting discussion. Thank you very much indeed.
PH: Good.
CB: And we’ll stop it there.
PH: Good.
[Recording paused]
CB: When you were at Driffield.
PH: When I was at Driffield.
CB: Yeah.
PH: We had an instructor there called Flight Sergeant [Chalky]. This is God’s honest truth. Flight Sergeant [Chalky] double DSO DFC. Been a wing commander during the war and a friend of mine said he was, he was at the, he was the adjutant. He was in the air force. He was a National Serviceman but he became a navigator eventually as a regular but he went out. At the time he was in the secretarial branch and he was the adjutant of the reselection unit in MOD and when people, they were recruiting people back into the air force and they offered him the lowest thing they could get away with you know and this guy apparently had gone to, had gone to MOD and they said come back but we can only make you a flight sergeant. He accepted and Dave Kinsey said he should never have done because what he should have done was, ‘You must be joking.’ Gone away. A fortnight letter he’d have got a letter saying we’ve changed our mind you can come back as a flight lieutenant.
CB: Yeah.
PH: But he said yes. He was obviously desperate to get back and he was a, and he, the sad thing was he was killed as a result of a mid-air collision at Driffield at the time.
CB: Was he?
PH: Yes. And he’d gone through the war as a DSO double, wing commander double DSO. And we had DFCs and other things you know.
CB: Yeah. Pilot.
PH: Pilot yeah. Oh yeah. No. He was an instructor.
CB: I think one of the sad situations I don’t know what you’d call it the number of people who actually who were killed after the war in accidents.
PH: Well don’t forget when I joined the air force in ‘51 still there was an awful lot of ex-wartime guys still around you know with double, double medal ribbon you know. DFCs and God knows what. I mean when I was at Marham the wing commander flying there Mike Hunt, that’s right, yeah I think he was a DSO DFC you know. He’d been, he ended up as station commander at Leuchar I think at one time.
CB: Amazing.
PH: I can remember as I say at Marham there were certainly, no at , sorry there were certainly guys, Tubby Oates who took over the, I think it was Tubby Oakes, a name like that, took over 148 squadron as a wing commander. He was ex-wartime you know. Well decorated. DSOs and God knows what.
CB: Right. I think that covers a lot. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Peter Charles Hearmon
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-17
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHearmonPC1600317
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Second generation
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:17:26 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Peter was born in London and evacuated for part of the war. For National Service, he was taken on by the Air Force for a short time engagement and subsequently accepted a permanent commission.
After RAF Padgate, Peter was selected as pilot/gunner/engineer at RAF Hornchurch. He was posted to Number 4 Initial Training School at RAF Cranwell and then went to RAF Feltwell. He trained on Prentices and Harvards and became a pilot. RAF Driffield followed and Meteors. Afterwards at RAF Chivenor, Peter flew Vampires, which he did not particularly like.
Peter re-trained and received his navigator brevet at RAF Hullavington. He took a holding post at RAF St Mawgan, the Maritime Reconnaissance School. He trained at RAF Lindholme, Bomber Command Bombing School, on Canberras before joining 61 Squadron at RAF Wittering. He was at RAF Wittering for a year before they went to RAF Upwood.
Peter describes his overseas detachments, and outlines and contrasts visual bombing and Gee-H bombing.
For the last 18 months, he was posted to 58 Squadron at RAF Wyton as adjutant. He flew the PR.7 variant of the Canberra for photographic reconnaissance.
Peter then learnt Russian and passed the Foreign Office interpreters’ exam. He went back to fly Victors at RAF Marham as a navigator. Peter talks of Operation Forthright, flying between the UK and Cyprus bringing back Lightnings. In the UK, they practised refuelling.
Peter subsequently went to the British Commanders-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Berlin. He took photographs in East Germany, particularly of airfields. He then went to the Ministry of Defence South American desk and worked for the Security Services before retirement.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Devon
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Norfolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Cheshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany
Russia (Federation)
Cyprus
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
61 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
fuelling
Gee
Harvard
Meteor
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
perimeter track
pilot
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Chivenor
RAF Cranwell
RAF Driffield
RAF Feltwell
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Hullavington
RAF Lindholme
RAF Marham
RAF Padgate
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Upwood
RAF Wittering
RAF Wyton
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/585/8854/AHopgoodPA160215.1.mp3
6ad151db1a38b91f0efb4ca94a994f53
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
Hopgood, Philip David
P D Hopgood
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hopgood, PD
Description
An account of the resource
Four items in main collection, plus photograph album in sub-collection. An oral history interview with Peter Andrew Hopgood about his father, Flight Sergeant Philip Hopgood (1924-1999, 1673132 Royal Air Force), his memoir, log book, service record and photograph album. Philip Hopgood trained as a pilot and later as a flight engineer.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Hopgood (1673132 Royal Air Force) and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: Right, my name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 15th of February 2016. This is number eleven of the proxy interviews, the purpose of which is really to record the experiences of deceased World War Two aircrew and also some of the people who are still around but are not well enough to be able to participate. It is important that these stories are added really to the live ones from aircrew at the moment. The background is that we need to remember that a lot of veterans weren’t happy to divulge their experiences in the war to their immediate offspring, or even to their other halves, and the horrors that some of them went through. However there are some people who were prepared to talk to their offspring. And so today I am speaking with Peter Hopgood whose father 67, 1673132 Hopgood PD, Phillip Hopgood joined the RAF in 1942. And trained as a pilot but then was diverted to become a flight engineer. So Peter can we start with your, what you regard as your father‘s earliest recollection of family and then go through how he came to leave school? What he did before joining the RAF, where he joined the RAF and his experiences through that and afterwards?
PAH: When you say his earliest recoll—
CB: Recollection of family?
PAH: Of family?
PAH: So where he went to school, what his father did?
CB: Right, sorry erm, he, so the earliest I remember is secondary school. I remember him talking about secondary school where he went to the Holt which was a grammar school in Liverpool and he matriculated from there. Not sure when forty one or forty two or something like that and he was very good at chemistry. He was hoping to go to university and study chemistry, but there was a war on so that didn’t happen. Then I remember him talking about the bombings around Liverpool. So that would have been I think it was 1941 round about the time. When he was about sixteen anyway, fifteen, sixteen and I don’t know whether this prompted him to join the Air Training Corps or whether that had always been a passion. There are photographs of him with model aeroplanes, so I guess that he had always wanted to be a pilot, as I did and he joined the Air Training Corps. The war had been running a couple of years by that stage so I suppose this was the channel in for lots of boys getting them into the idea that they were going to have to go to war and this was the part of the indoctrination if you want to call it that or something. Just getting them used to the idea of authority, and the things that they would have to do. He, during the bombing raids on Liverpool, there was a story told by my grannie of a bomb which dropped in the allotments. Probably less than half a mile away, so certainly within walking distance. And they were aiming at the railway line I think at the bottom of the road which was two hundred yards away from where they lived. And er, and they were on their way into Liverpool and into the docks as well, so the bombs were scattered all over the place. And there are records of deaths from the bombs in roads very nearby. This would have been a further prompt for my dad to join up and get his own back, ‘cause that was the sort of attitude that my grannie and grandad had. That reflected in what he felt as well, I think. So in, before he was eighteen, he registered to be joined up. I don’t know an awful lot about this part particularly and that is why I have done the research and the document that I have put together is from other people’s stories. I’ve gleaned, movements from Liverpool to recruitment centres to, and all the messing about that they had to do for medicals and things like that. And it is a very similar story although not necessarily my dad‘s story. Because he went, had his medical, went to oh just outside Manchester to be recruited and have his interview. And then went off to Lord‘s which was the, where they got everybody together, the initial training. Just forgot a little bit I suppose, prior to that he was in the Air Training Corps as I said but he had a professional certificate part one. Which then meant that he was recommended for commission and for training as pilot,observer. ‘So where do we go from here Chris?’
CB: Well, really he signed up initially and went to Lord‘s where they did all their getting their kit and getting their jabs and everything else. And then they went on to initial training —
PAH: Oh sorry, missed a bit, which is the time between when he signed up, he, that was—
CB: Because he was too young.
PAH: That was February ’42 before he was eighteen, he would be seventeen and a half, signed up. And I remember the little RAF Volunteer Regiment badge that he, you know the lapel badge. I found that in and amongst bits and pieces so he had that. And there is a photograph that I have of him somewhere wearing that on a blazer. And they had that to prove that they weren’t shirking their responsibilities. Because in Liverpool I think people were, would be tarred and feathered if they weren’t volunteering to do their duty and protect the country. And particularly protect Liverpool which was having a hammering of the bombings. And so he had that at seventeen and a half. And then he was only called up to go down to Lord‘s in March 1943. So again he would be eighteen and a half at that stage. In between time he worked in the Liver building in Liverpool I think it was for the Ministry of Supply, but he worked there as a clerk. Just filling in time I think ‘cause otherwise he would have been taking A Levels, well our equivalent of A Levels and going onto university which is what he wanted to do. Which is something he always regretted, because he loved his chemistry and didn’t get to further his studies in that area.
CB: Then he went to the Initial Training Wing and that was at Babbacolme?
PAH: Yes, again I don’t know a lot about that and the story that I have written down was a similar story from somebody else. But they did sort of physical training and a little bit of flying training, erm —
CB: This was in Cornwall?
PAH: Yes, yes Torquay wasn’t it? No, in fact, actually no he didn’t go there first, he went to Shillingford, Shollingford[?] near Shrivenham. And they put them up in aeroplanes just to see whether they would be actually trainable as pilots.
CB: Ok.
PAH: And this was just to, they weren’t piloting but they were taken up by flight sergeants, flight lieutenants, flying officers, I guess to see whether they were suitable. Because there is a test at the end of that of twenty one days flying —
CB: And this is an aptitude test for pilot training.
PAH: CF 1.
CB: Mm.
PAH: Yeah which he passed.
CB: Which is shown in his log book.
PAH: Yeah it is that one there isn’t it, I think?
CB: His log book has got some entries at the beginning which is before he started flying training, seriously, as a pilot.
PAH: This is before he got his log book in elementary flying training, I think; in Canada because those people there, people that signed him off here are Canadians.
CB: Right, so he had his initial training wing and then he went to have his initial training for aptitude -
PAH: And then he went to —
CB: Then they thought that was okay and they sent him to Canada is that right?
PAH: Yeah, so he went to flying training.
CB: Yeah.
PAH: In Shellingford, then he went to the ITW in Babbacombe.
CB: Yeah.
PAH: For the physical and all the other stuff and then he went to Canada after that.
CB: Right.
PAH: So that was the Sixth Elementary Flying Training School where they were bombing about in Tiger Moths and —
CB: Cornells.
PAH: Cornells, yes erm, and spent a lot of time on link trainers and et cetera, et cetera. So they got over there by boat from Liverpool and then took the train from Monkton. They spent a couple of days, a couple of weeks there, I think, in Monkton acclimatising, getting their winter kit I would imagine. And there was a long, long train journey through Quebec and down the side of Lake Superior et cetera, which he took photographs of. Ended up at Prince Albert initially that was the elementary flying training school and doing a lot of flying around there. And then, they seemed to have holidays when they were there as well because they went out and stayed with Canadian families, for a break. I have seen some photographs of that where they are out riding ponies and driving cars around and generally mucking about, and so that was a bit of a holiday. He always said that in Canada it was so cold that you had to eat ice cream because you might as well have been cold inside as well as outside. [laugh] He kept the flying jacket, I don’t remember ever seeing a full sheepskin but it certainly had a sheepskin collar, yeah.
CB: So he was at two places there, he was at Prince Albert -
PAH: Yes, so then he moved onto the four, number four, what was that, Secondary Flying Training School.
CB: For twin engine flying.
PAH: Yeah for multiple engines, so he was on twin engined planes.
CB: Okay.
PAH: Er, what were they? Cranes and Avro Ansons and then they had a bit of a holiday on the way home, because there were photographs of him in uniform in New York.
CB: Let me just interrupt. Where did he get, did he get his wings then at the end of, his pilot‘s wings at the end of the experience in Saskatoon does it say?
PAH: 1944, 27th of October—
CB: I will stop it just for a moment. [tape stopped]
PAH: So at the, what do you call it, the SFTS, Secondary Flying Training School in, this was in Saskatoon in Canada where they were training on multiple engine planes, the Crane and what did we say? The Avro Anson. He gained his wings and became a pilot on the 27th of October 1944. Gained his wings and have got photographs of that. And then they, he came out of Canada on a ship and came back to UK. And shortly after that became a sergeant on the 31st of December 1944 and classified as a Sergeant Pilot at that stage. And then on the ship back he must have caught something pretty bad, because he was in hospital for a week in Forward Military Hospital near Preston, don’t know why. Then went from there to the School of Technical Training that is at St Athan, number Four School of Technical Training where they were working on Lancasters mark 1 and 3 and he has got a certificate in his log book or stamp anyway to say that he passed the flight engineer course.
CB: So he’s a pilot but because they were short of flight engineers, is that right?
PAH: Well I think so, he didn’t really talk much about this, this time, but I guess that’s why that happened. Because he, he really wanted to be a pilot and was happier flying than doing anything else. But to get in, the most important thing for him was to be in a plane. So if it was as a flight engineer then that was better that not being in a plane at all, I guess. He passed out on the 14th of March and then there is a bit of a gap in his log book between there and going to various bases around and about. He seemed to spend a lot of time at Harrogate, but he was at various air bases, referring to the list.
CB: This was a time in the war when they had lots of aircrew who were unallocated to squadron tasks.
PAH: Mm.
CB: But he then moved onto heavy bombers?
PAH: Yes that’s right, so he did his flight engineers training then went to 1651 Conversion Unit at Woolfox Lodge. That’s where he was flying as second pilot in Lancasters and doing various training exercises. And after that seems to be where his flying stops, in Lancasters anyway.
CB: Yeah.
PAH: June 7th ’45.
CB: Well, with the heavy bombers the engineer joined the aircraft when the crew had already been formed at its operational training unit.
PAH: Oh okay.
CB: He would have been there as an engineer but because of his skill as a pilot he could do both tasks.
PAH: Right okay, so pilot number two is the flight engineer is it?
CB: It is but he always kept, they always kept their pilots wings.
PAH: Yeah. So then there were a number of sort of short stays at various different places. From Woolfox Lodge he then went to— [papers rustling]
CB: This is because the war in Europe had ended.
PAH: Yes. He was then in Harrogate in June number 7PRC, then RAF Acinos, Akin [?] A-C-N-C-O-S Locking, July to August. 7PRC, Harrogate for a couple of weeks in August. Then Cottesmore for a couple, a week or so in August to September. Then back to Harrogate in September to October and then was at Cliff Pypard 29EFTS, October 1945 to February 1946. Seems that they were just flying around in Tiger Moths just to keep up their flying time I would imagine. But he would be the pilot or second pilot on those. But I do remember him admiring the countryside and probably getting lost in flying and ran out of petrol on one occasion. Landed in a farmer‘s field which nobody was very happy about. [laugh] After flying in Cliff Pypard he went off to Wheaton Aston near Stafford. That is a pilots advanced flying unit, no idea what they were doing there and no flying time shown. He was there for about three weeks and then went on to, number 7PRC, Market Harborough. Then ACA, Aircrew Allocation Centre at Catterick in March 1946 for a week. Then number 4ACHU Cranard, Cranage in March to April 1946 again at an aircrew holding unit so, not really sure what they were doing there. Then went to number 1 Gliding Training School in Croughton that’s a couple of weeks in April 1946. Then to number 4 School of, I think it is Airframe Training but I am not entirely sure at Kirkholme, Lancashire for about six weeks. But I think it was a demob centre at that stage. So they would be learning how to live in civvy street. After that he went to 2051MU in Bristol June to August 1946. Where there were lots of motor vehicles, I don’t know whether he went there to learn to drive. Or just move vehicles around, not really sure. Then had a little spell in number 30MU Sealand August ‘46 to February 1947. That was a maintenance unit. Then went to number 101 Personnel Dispatch Centre in February ’47 for a day. That was the end of his service, that’s Wharton Aerodrome in Lancashire. And then came out of the RAF at that stage.
CB: It just shows the difficulty they had in allocating trained people to useful tasks didn’t they?
PAH: Yes, I think so.
CB: And also that they were doing a staged demobilisation so that the civilian world wasn’t saturated with people.
PAH: Yes, yes.
CB: But it must have been quite soul destroying, did he ever talk about the peripatetic, soul destroying process?
PAH: No. [laugh] I think he just wanted to get out. Either fly or get out.
CB: What did he do after the war?
PAH: So after the war he worked for Dunlop at Speak Airport. Erm, and working in scientific labs, looking at the bonding between metal and rubber. And I guess his engineering training, flight engineering training would have helped there. And maybe some of the stuff at the maintenance unit that he went to may have led him into that. Because it was very much a, an aeroplane suspension system I suppose, well like an engine mounting unit type thing, which is rubber. And they used them in aeroplanes, which is why he was based at Speak Airport. So they would be using those, the things that they were dealing with in the aeroplanes that were coming for maintenance there. Yes, he spent quite a few years there and that’s where he met my mum. They got married, so he must have been there for about six years probably, something like that. Maybe even longer six or seven years and then decided that he wanted to get out of Liverpool and have a job which paid a bit better than being a scientist, couldn’t see the job going anywhere so he became a salesman for Avery Scales. So again the technical side helped because he was a technical sales rep. Started off in Liverpool and then he was transferred to Cumberland, lived in Carlisle after that.
CB: And then worked there until he retired?
PAH: For the rest of his life.
CB: So when did he retire?
PAH: He retired at age sixty four on ill health because he had multiple sclerosis.
CB: Oh dear, and when did he die?
PAH: Nineteen seventy, oh no nineteen, ninety nine.
CB: Okay, good, thank you very much. I think that is a really interesting insight into the sort of things that went on. Where people who had really good skills as in a pilot and engineer were not able really to use them during the times of hostilities.
PAH: Er, yeah.
CB: But it worked out alright in civilian life.
PAH: Yes I think so, good training.
CB: Thank you very much Peter.
PAH: Okay. [recording paused and restarted]
CB: Peter just as a supplement to that. My father never spoke to me about what he did in the war really, but in your case you got quite a bit. Were there parts that he was more, found more comfortable in talking about or did you have to tease it out? How did it work?
PAH: I think erm, back in the sixties there was quite a big thing about ‘well, what did you do in the war dad?’ And I seem to remember adverts on the television and things like that. Because there was still a stream of being against people who were conscientious objectors at that stage. Because there were wars coming around, there were other events after the Second World War, which they needed forces for, and so it was a way of making sure that people volunteered as necessary or joined up as necessary. Because there was quite a big drive for joining the forces when I was at school in the sixties and seventies. But he was always reticent about talking. He said he had a jolly good time and probably wished he could have stayed in, but that didn’t look possible because there were, as you said, there were so many pilots. So many people with skills, that they could only choose a few of them for whatever reason. They graded them and he wasn’t to be one of those that stayed in, and I don’t know if the moving around was at his choosing. Or whether he was being put into different places to see if he fitted any particular place to be assigned to after the war. But that wasn’t to be, he always acted like a flight sergeant. [laugh] So the discipline was passed down to everybody else. And my mum always said. ‘Oh blooming, still thinks he is a sergeant.’ [laughs] Sergeant major and telling everybody what to do. But that would have been drilled into him, I think in the training that he had. So it was very difficult to get rid of that. My grandfather wasn’t like that at all, he was a very easy going chap. But my dad was very regimented as it were, yeah. What were we talking about?
CB: Okay, so just an extension of that there are all sorts of anecdotes and some things people don’t like talking about. I have had situations where they have said. ‘Turn off the recorder while we talk about such and such.’ But a sensitive topic that is called a different title now which is battle stress in various ways. There was a feeling, well a title called “LMF” which is lacking moral fibre. Did he ever make any reference to that to you?
PAH: That he didn’t have any moral fibre or — ?
CB: No, no that he came across people who had been graded or branded or —
PAH: No I don’t think so.
CB: Described as people who failed to do their role when they were flying.
PAH: No.
CB: Because of fear amongst other things.
PAH: I don’t think he ever mentioned that.
CB: No.
PAH: And partly because they never, I don’t think they ever faced any action as such. Although there was the one story, of where they went out in a Lancaster and dropped a bomb in the North Sea, because they couldn’t find where they were going to. But whether that was a bomb or whether that was a training exercise I am not really sure. It could just have been a dummy, it could just have been waste that they were trying to get rid of, I don’t know. But er, no I don’t think there were any instances of people that weren’t up to the tasks as you mentioned.
CB: Okay thank you.
[recording paused and restarted]
CB: In terms of flying hours it’s interesting to see that the log book of Phillip Hopgood showed three hundred hours he had done by the beginning of ’45, by the beginning of ’46 it was at three hundred and sixty five so he’d done quite a substantial amount of flying during that period.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Peter Andrew Hopgood
Description
An account of the resource
This interview is with Peter Hopgood, who relates the experiences of his father, Sergeant Pilot Phillip Hopgood.
Philip Hopgood lived in Liverpool and after matriculation he registered for the Royal Air force as he was a member of the Air Training Corps. Too young to be enlisted, he worked as a clerk in the Ministry of Supply.
Called up at the age of 18 in March 1943, he was given pilot aptitude testing and basic training in England before travelling to Canada as part of the Empire Training Scheme. There he completed his pilot training at 6 Elementary Flying School at Prince Albert and 4 Secondary Flying Training School in Saskatoon, flying Ansons. Leave was spent being entertained in the homes of local Canadians.
He became a pilot in October 1944 and returned to England. Phillip spent time in hospital and on discharge was sent to 4 School of Technical Training at RAF St Athans where he was trained on Lancaster aircraft as a flight engineer. Phillip was posted to various stations before being sent to 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Woolfox Lodge flying as a flight engineer on Lancasters.
The war ended and he spent time at various stations, then 29 Elementary Flying Training school at Cliff Pypard flying Tiger Moths. Here he made a forced landing after running out of fuel.
After various aircrew allocation centres, he spent time at 1 Gliding Training School at RAF Croughton before being sent to a number of maintenance units.
Finally in February 1947, he was discharged and worked for Dunlop at Speak Airport in the laboratories, and then as a salesman for Avery Scales.
Phillip Hopgood died in 1999.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-15
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHopgoodPA160215
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:30:23 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan--Saskatoon
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1943-03-18
1944-10
1947-02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
T Holmes
Carolyn Emery
1651 HCU
aircrew
Anson
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
RAF Cranage
RAF St Athan
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/678/9226/PAsshetonJJ1701.2.jpg
c3d238893eeb38ea9b88a618d2c5124b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/678/9226/AAsshetonJJ170510.2.mp3
5cf1e2f8b43c6c23f973dbf74b34085e
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
Assheton, Jacqueline
J Assheton
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Jacqueline Assheton (b.1939) and three photographs. She is the daughter of Air Chief Marshall Arthur Harris.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jacqueline Assheton and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Assheton, JJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: I think it must have done.
Other: Can you rewind it?
CB: I did it just then and it because that’s why I looked at the counter which I should have done earlier. Right.
JA: What do you want to do now?
CB: Do you mind if we restart?
JA: Yes, do —
CB: Can we do that?
JA: Yeah.
CB: So, my name is Chris Brockbank and today is 10th of May 2017 and I’m in London with Jackie Assheton to talk about her life and times as the daughter of Bomber Harris. So, what are the earliest recollections you have of your life Jackie?
JA: Well, my earliest recollections really are, which was the Bomber Command house in Buckinghamshire near High Wycombe where my pa was stationed and working for the last three years of the war. And that was just a lovely childhood in a big garden with nice friends next door and I wasn’t involved really in what was going on except, ‘Please be quiet your father is working.’ Or thinking [laughs] And everybody in uniform. And that’s really, I don’t really have there was nothing particularly special about it. Occasionally there was some Americans. Rather nice Americans. In uniform again. Who would bring the odd bottle of bourbon, I think. Not for me but for my pa and dolls for me which I didn’t like. I stripped them of their clothes and dressed my teddy bear as far as I remember. Nice things like chocolates. Hershey bars. They appeared. And that was really it.
CB: What didn’t you like about your clothes of the children? The —
JA: What? The dolls?
CB: The dolls.
JA: I didn’t like dolls.
CB: Only teddy bears.
JA: I only liked teddy bears. Yes. So they got dressed up.
CB: And —
JA: The dolls were given away at the local fete, I think.
CB: And your friend next door.
JA: Oh, Posy Johns was a great friend next door. Yes. So, we’ve now been friends for seventy five years having met through the hedge and so that was, we had great fun together. And I don’t think I went to school. No. I don’t think we had, I don’t think there was a nursery school. I imagine possibly my mother was trying to teach me to read.
CB: There probably weren’t schools —
JA: No. I think I was a slow reader.
CB: For under-fives in those days. So, father was CnC Bomber Command.
JA: Yes.
CB: At that time.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Where had you been before then? He’d been, and you?
JA: Oh, in Washington for about eight months I think when he was, before America joined up and I think it was to do with the lease lend. Sorting out the aeroplanes and the people, whatever was coming over. I think that was, he was busy sorting it out and came back after Pearl Harbour.
CB: Right.
JA: And took on Bomber Command.
CB: Right.
JA: So, I was what? Two when I come back. I don’t really remember anything about Washington.
CB: No. So a lot of it is second hand but in the family.
JA: Right.
CB: You know about, there were things going on. So, to what extent did father engage with you in conversations?
JA: Well, never about the war but just what was going on at the time, you know. He was great with young and the children and [pause] but I just didn’t discuss the war. I think particularly by the end of the war he really didn’t talk about it. I think he’d had enough of it. He took to ships. Africa, where we ended up. And life went on from there.
CB: Yes.
JA: So I wasn’t really at all involved in the war.
CB: Just taking a step back when you went out to Washington.
JA: Yeah.
CB: How did you travel?
JA: Oh, we went out on HMS Rodney which I think was a bit of a shock to the captain and —
CB: Which was a battleship.
JA: It was a battleship. Yeah. My poor mother was very seasick. Suffered from claustrophobia so I think she was probably very frightened and I was running around which can’t have been easy. I’ve still got my little life jacket.
CB: Have you really?
JA: Was it called the Mae West?
CB: Yes.
JA: It’s upstairs on my teddy bear and I think it was stuffed with kapok. I think it’s the sort of thing that when it gets wet you actually sink rather than float but luckily I didn’t have to try it out. And then we came back on a, I believe it was an armed merchant cruiser which must have been another slightly frightening journey. But I don’t remember that. I just remember Springfield.
CB: What were your father’s activities as relaxation?
JA: Oh, cooking was his main thing. Probably to the annoyance of the cook during the war because he’d come straight back and interfere in the kitchen and, no he loved cooking and carried on cooking until the end of his life. Loved it.
CB: What sort of speciality did he have?
JA: Well, he was a very good meat cook in that stews and things were his speciality really and roasts. Wonderful gravy. But he did exotic things. Not always appreciated. I do remember squid cooked in their own ink sitting around in South Africa. Nobody would eat them. He was quite cross. Did look awful in the glass jar I must say. And Boston baked beans. We had rows of pots of Boston baked beans in America. Nobody was very keen on those either I don’t think. But no. He was an adventurous cook. He loved it. Is it working now?
CB: It is. Yes. And your father was running Bomber Command until the end of the war.
JA: Yeah.
CB: What do you know about his feeling about the end of the war and the treatment of himself and bomber crews?
JA: Well, he was only really concerned about the treatment and the recognition of the crews and I think he was very upset that they weren’t given more recognition at the time for the crews that survived and for the families of the ones that didn’t. I think that annoyed him a lot. I think he was very relieved to leave the whole situation behind and take to ships. Cargo shipping instead of aeroplanes. I think he’d had enough of it.
CB: Yes.
JA: Not surprisingly, by then.
CB: Because —
JA: But he did mind very much about the boys. As did his last boss. The Queen Mum.
CB: Right. And that prompted him did it not to refuse a peerage?
JA: Yes. And I think I only heard him once saying that he considered it was a job that he’d have to do as he was going to end up living in South Africa. It wasn’t something he was prepared to take on and, no. He wasn’t keen to do that at all.
CB: So, before the First World War he’d been in Southern Rhodesia.
JA: Yeah.
CB: At the end of the Second World War why did he go to South Africa and not Southern Rhodesia?
JA: Well, because he’d been offered this job in cargo shipping by his American friend Henry Mercer who was running States Marine which was a cargo shipping company and they wanted to set up an end in Africa. So, South Africa Marine known as Safmarine was now going strong still in the Cape. So he got back as far as Cape Town. Not as far as Rhodesia which probably quite lucky. I think he would have been very upset to see what’s happened to it now. He was a bugle boy in the Rhodesian Regiment at the beginning of the First World War and then he wanted to, a very long march across South West Africa, he decided then he wanted to finish the war sitting down and so that’s how he ended up in the Royal Flying Corps.
CB: And then had his whole career —
JA: In the Air Force.
CB: In the RAF.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Yes. Well, first of all Royal Flying Corps.
JA: Yes.
CB: And then RAF.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JA: So Janny Smuts was quite a friend of his because he was a great supporter of the Air Force being an independent service, I believe.
CB: Yeah.
JA: I remember him staying with us during the war. I do remember that.
CB: South African general.
JA: Yes.
CB: Yes.
JA: Yeah. And prime minister.
CB: Yes. And what do you remember about being in South Africa as a child?
JA: Oh, well that was lovely because that was pure heaven for a child with the sea and the dogs and the country. The wildness of it. Lovely. I loved that.
CB: And whereabouts was that?
JA: Behind Table Mountain. Wynberg was one of the, near Constantia. And one of those lovely old Cape Dutch houses which was heaven.
CB: And that was, that area was the headquarters of Safmarine was it?
JA: Well, Cape Town was.
CB: Cape town. Right.
JA: Yeah. And the three original ships were [pause] get it right, they were Liberty ships.
CB: Right.
JA: Which I think, I think my pa got that organised in America through Averell Harriman. And they were done up and went out to the Cape and that was the beginning of Safmarine.
CB: So, Henry Mercer was in the States.
JA: Yeah.
CB: What did that, how did that affect your family life?
JA: Well, they were great family friends. We lived in New York but we used to go and spend weekends with them when we were out there and, no so that, that was wonderful because the end of the war my pa was looking for a job and so that all fitted in very neatly.
CB: And did you travel between South Africa and America quite a lot?
JA: Yes. On and off on the cargo ships. I missed out on a bit of schooling here and there. Yeah. And that was very few passengers and quite long journeys in those days. I think it was a couple of weeks to get from New York to Cape Town. No. I enjoyed that too.
CB: When did you return to Britain?
JA: In ’53 and we spent some time living in Cornwall looking for a house and then ended up at Goring nearer London which was probably lucky because it was, my father’s American friends always had itineraries with very little time on them. They got to Goring. They wouldn’t have got to Cornwall. So —
CB: What was he doing when he returned to the UK?
JA: He didn’t have a job. Cooking. Building bridges in the garden. Doing anything practical like that. Oh, and driving a coach and four horses for his old friend who had a collection of old carriages and large Dutch horses and we used to go around the countryside in those exercising them. I think we showed them once at Windsor. He was very keen on that. Then he got rather a bad back and decided it was unsafe sitting up on top of the carriage so he stopped doing that.
CB: And when he returned —
JA: Yeah.
CB: Then he had a baronetcy conferred on him. What was the origin of that?
JA: Well, he’d refused the peerage and the baronetcy. I think actually it was early. I can’t remember the date. Early ’50. Yeah.
CB: Oh right.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Ok. And you’re, on your own side as you got older then what did you do?
JA: Well, after school we went out to South Africa again and then I went to Winkfield. Did my cordon bleu. Following along in the long cooking line [laughs] And, and then I got married rather early and after that I was with my family and children.
CB: So, you had three children.
JA: Grandchildren.
CB: Yes.
JA: And now great granddaughter.
CB: And what did your husband do? Nicholas.
JA: He was a stockbroker and then a banker and then worked for the Queen Mother for a few years.
CB: And did he manage to sort out a lot of things for the Queen Mother?
JA: Well, I think he said it was very well organised already. He didn’t really have to do much sorting out but he very much enjoyed working at Clarence House for nearly five years. She was great and she was a great supporter of my pa. She unveiled his statue.
CB: Excellent and when —
JA: At St Clement Danes.
CB: Yes. And when the children had grown up then did you find yourself involved more with your husband’s activities?
JA: Not his work particularly, no but just running his life. Running our life. A few charitable things like Riding for the Disabled. Doing the church flowers. Nothing stunning at all.
CB: How did you —
JA: It just kept me very busy.
CB: How did the Riding for the Disabled originate?
JA: Oh, well a great friend who was my son’s mother in law was running it at Knightsbridge Barracks and very efficiently she ran it [unclear] and so I used to go help with that. Not with the army horses. With ponies. That was very interesting and that was great.
CB: So, looking back over the years being the daughter of a very famous person who for some people was controversial created a good deal of attention in certain ways. How did you feel about that?
JA: Well, I’ve got nothing to compare it with really and I think my family were very good at protecting me when I was small from it and I kept very much out of controversy since then and very pleased to see the Memorial at Green Park. That’s the one thing that did come in to my life.
CB: The Bomber Command Memorial.
JA: The Bomber Command Memorial. Yes.
CB: Yes.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
JA: So, I’ve been really very uninvolved with Bomber Command and so it’s very difficult to fill in the background for you.
CB: Sure. What would you say was the most memorable point about your father’s involvement in the RAF?
JA: Goodness. Well, I suppose the Bomber Command years. That was probably the most traumatic for him and probably for my mother and, but it’s always very nice to meet what he called the old lags. Why they were called the old lags I don’t know. He loved his reunion dinner parties at Grosvenor House and talking to the old boys. And I think that was a great encouragement and support for him. I never heard a word of criticism from them.
CB: But he was always well supported by your mother. How did she feel about the strain? Stresses and strains of her husband’s activities.
JA: Well, again, I mean, she didn’t talk about it. I think it’s a modern thing isn’t it to talk about things and dash off for counselling. Nobody really talked about it.
CB: No.
JA: It would be mentioned but not of any great sort of concern or worry. Again, for the details just go back to Henry Probert’s book.
CB: Yes. Absolutely.
JA: And my life just carried on really without being influenced by the Bomber Command years.
CB: Yes.
JA: And so I haven’t really got any exciting stories for you on that line.
CB: But do you get requests occasionally to attend —
JA: No.
CB: Certain events.
JA: No, only your lovely invitation through, well Posy —
CB: Yes.
JA: Organised that.
CB: Did she?
JA: So, that was great. Yes. That was great.
CB: The Aircrew Association.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
JA: But, no. No. It’s all a long time ago, isn’t it?
CB: Yes. It is.
JA: Yeah.
CB: But it needs recording.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Accurately. Yeah.
JA: Well, you can shorten that down.
CB: Ok.
JA: To about five minutes.
CB: Thank you very much indeed.
[recording paused]
JA: My pa was a brilliant speaker and it didn’t worry him at all making speeches to any number of people. I think the last Bomber Command reunion dinner there was something like, could it have been nine hundred people in Grosvenor House?
CB: Possibly.
JA: It was something massive.
CB: Yeah.
JA: Yeah. And he got given a little gavel by the, oh my goodness the guys in the red suits who always take charge of ceremonies and dinners for the best speaker of the year.
CB: Right.
JA: I’ve still got it in the safe.
CB: Have you really?
JA: Yes.
CB: Excellent. Yes.
JA: No. He was a great storyteller. Animal stories and things for the children and more serious things. No. He was always very interesting to listen to.
CB: That’s an interesting point. I wonder what the topic would have been for his military dinners. In other words, Air Force dinners but they weren’t just Air Force.
JA: Oh, well I mean his support and his thoughts about Bomber Command and his great admiration for the crews and everything they did was always I know deep in his thoughts and heart.
CB: Because after VE day then the government changed and what did that do for his association would you say?
JA: I think we’d gone to America by then so I don’t think it affected, affected him at all.
CB: No.
JA: No. But that really, again I have a badge that said, “I like Ike.” [laughs] So we were probably more in to American politics than —
CB: Eisenhower.
JA: English ones by then.
CB: Yes.
JA: Yes.
CB: Yeah. Dwight D Eisenhower.
JA: Yeah. Went to see him in the White House when we had tea with him. And so that was rather exciting for me.
CB: Cookies and Hershey bars.
JA: Do you know when we got to America the Hershey bars didn’t taste the same. I didn’t like them any longer. All I wanted was steak and chips with butter on both. I do remember that. That was heaven.
CB: So, by this time we’re talking about —
JA: Oh, the steak and the chips. That was when I was five or six and we were in New York setting up Safmarine and I couldn’t believe that I could actually get a hold of butter. That was the big treat. Didn’t want the ice cream. Wanted the butter.
CB: Who do you remember about rationing in Britain?
JA: I remember sitting in the back of the official car eating a whole lot of cold butter off the block of butter and it was a disaster apparently. I think it was the whole week’s butter ration [laughs] for everybody. I didn’t like eating in those days apart from butter so it didn’t worry me.
CB: And chips.
JA: Didn’t get chips during the war. No. I think the rationing was still going when we came back in the 50s. Meat. Petrol. Yeah.
CB: Till ’54. Yeah.
JA: Til ’54 yeah. No. I’m more interested in food now then I was then.
CB: Do you enjoy cooking now still?
JA: Oh yes. Luckily. I had to do quite a lot of it. Yeah.
CB: And did you induct your children in correct cooking?
JA: Oh, they’re all, particularly my son is a very good cook and very good at his, running his coffee shop and his café.
CB: Inspired by his grandfather.
JA: Probably, yes. Very keen on his grandfather. They all were.
CB: So, there was a good relationship there.
JA: Oh, very much so. Yeah. And we went down there at weekends and holidays to Goring and he cooked for them. Complained he was nothing but a short order chef because they all wanted different things. He kept going until he was nearly ninety cooking.
CB: Did he really?
JA: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Ninety.
JA: Ignored everything the doctors told him and cooked happily away. Lots of butter and meat and delicious things.
CB: Yes. All the things that are really good for you.
JA: He did quit smoking sixty Camels a day which he smoked during the war when we got to New York. He was told by a heart specialist that he’d better stop so he did. Being strong minded he stopped dead. Never smoked again.
CB: American doctor.
JA: Yes. We were in New York.
CB: Yes.
JA: I think he took a turn for the worse and was told to stop smoking so he did. My mum couldn’t.
CB: Did she —
JA: I think he had one [unclear] on Christmas day after that as a sort of celebration. I think they came out of the same packet so eventually he pronounced them disgusting.
CB: [unclear]
JA: And threw away the pocket. Yes. No. No. He was great.
CB: Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: I see on the mantel piece there’s a V&A card. What do you do with the V&A?
JA: Oh, I’m in the V&A on Mondays. I do, I’m on the Information Desk and it’s a great museum. We’ve got a great new director and I enjoy that very much.
CB: How often do the exhibitions, well how often do the exhibits change?
JA: Oh, that varies. There’s usually one or two main ones on at a time. At the moment we’ve got Pink Floyd coming on.
CB: Just right.
JA: Yeah. Balenciaga is the next one, I think.
CB: Right.
JA: No. It’s, it’s a great place and Tristram Hunt was the Labour MP in Stoke.
CB: Yes.
JA: And he’s fantastic.
CB: Is he?
JA: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Good with people.
JA: They all feel he’s really part of the team. And —
CB: That’s his real interest.
JA: Yeah.
[recording paused]
JA: That’s why I —
CB: Rightly or wrongly your father is well known in the context of Dresden and the bombing of it.
JA: Yes.
CB: How did you appreciate that?
JA: Well, I do remember him saying that I think he didn’t want to bomb it at all. It was too far away was one of the main things. But what people don’t realise is he did what he was told to do. Depending on the weather and what was on the list he had to send the boys off to go and do it and it wasn’t the final choice of where, I suppose but it was on the list, you know. I don’t suppose he enjoyed it any more than anybody else.
CB: It's, it’s a —
JA: He did what he was told.
CB: Yes. It’s a bone of contention in many ways from all sorts of aspects but to what extent do you rub against that, up against that with the V&A?
JA: Not at all. Never mentioned. And I didn’t mention it to the last director either.
CB: Right.
JA: You’d best not.
CB: The reason I ask is because there is a Dresden Society which is active in a variety of ways and is to do with the rebuilding of Dresden.
JA: Probably is.
CB: In an, an architectural context.
JA: Yeah.
CB: Apart from other things, and I just wondered whether you got involved in that in any way.
JA: No. No. I mean, I really haven’t been involved in anything to do with war. Bomber Command since the war. I think I was protected from it during the war and it continued from there
CB: Sure.
JA: And so I can’t fill you in on any more. But I know the V&A there’s a few holes in the wall that the Germans left. They’re still in Exhibition Road. I notice they’re still there although they’ve redone that wall. No, the V&A doesn’t.
CB: There isn’t enough money to cover all repairs in these things.
JA: Probably not. No. There’s a great new extension that’s up there about to open. Do you know the V&A?
CB: Haven’t been for ages.
JA: Sorry, that’s the one. No, it’s great.
CB: And —
JA: It’s a delightful museum.
CB: They run a special briefing for you on the desk beforehand, do they? So, that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet at the V&A.
JA: Oh yes. We have so many emails. So many that we don’t really get around to reading them all. No. I think there are big changes now. It’s getting more and more efficient in that way. My only worry is that it’s more and more based on the computer which I’m not very speedy at operating and so they probably have younger people taking over from us old folk quite soon.
CB: What sort of age range do you have of the public coming in?
JA: Oh, everything. Every age. And I, they are encouraging a lot of children to come in. There are lots of activities at the weekends and holidays which is great.
CB: Yeah.
JA: No, it’s a great museum.
CB: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jacqueline Assheton
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-10
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AAsshetonJJ170510, PAsshetonJJ1701
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
South Africa
United States
Germany--Dresden
New York (State)--New York
South Africa--Cape Town
Washington (D.C.)
New York (State)
Description
An account of the resource
Jacqueline Assheton discusses her father's career in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force and his post war work establishing Safmarine shipping line and his friendship with Jan Christiaan Smuts. Her father did not talk about his wartime career, but enjoyed cooking. He enjoyed talking to Bomber Command veterans and wanted them to have more recognition for their role during the war. She discusses her role as a volunteer with the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:28:13 audio recording
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
memorial
perception of bombing war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/666/10071/AAkrillM-A171204.1.mp3
4daf19c66760c9cf4b943a4befded3d8
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
Akrill, William
Billy Akrill
W Akrill
Description
An account of the resource
132 items. The collection concerns Sergeant William Akrill (1922 - 1943, 1436220 Royal Air Force). He was a navigator with 115 Squadron. His Wellington was shot down by a night-fighter on an operation to Essen and crashed into the Ijsselmeer 12/13 March 1943. The collection contains his photographs, letters, and cartoons as well as an oral history interview with Michael and Ann Akrill about their uncle. There is also a subcollection of letters written as a teenage boy to his father in hospital. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Michael and Ann Akrill and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. Additional information on William Akrill is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/200183/" title="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/akrill-we/ ">IBCC Losses Database</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-04
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Akrill, M-A
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JL: Ok. Ok. I’ll just do a quick introduction.
AA: Yeah.
JL: And then we can just talk and you can go through it. Right. This is Jeremy Lodge on behalf of Collingham District Local History Society and the International Bomber Command Centre on the 4th of December 2017 talking to Ann and Nick about —
MA: Michael.
JL: Michael.
MA: Michael please.
JL: Why have I put you down as Nick?
MA: Well, I don’t know.
AA: Perhaps you put Mick.
JL: Probably. And Michael. We’re going to talk about their Uncle William.
AA: Yeah.
JL: Who was in Bomber Command during the Second World War. So, do you want to introduce yourselves for the tape and then I’ll let you talk.
MA: Yeah. Well, I’m, I’m Michael. I’m the only one of, myself and my siblings who actually saw Uncle Billy but I can’t remember him because he was lost the week after my first birthday. But the story goes that he was on leave the week before my birthday and he offered me either a penny or a florin as a birthday present and I took the florin. I suspect it was because it was shiny and the other one wasn’t but maybe I was just greedy.
AA: Probably that’s true [laughs] I’m Ann Akrill and I never knew my Uncle Billy as he was known but in the family there was always a picture of him on the wall at grandma, granny and grandad’s house and they always talked about him.
MA: And at our house.
AA: And at our house. We had a picture of him as well at our house and granny and grandad and his sister Auntie Mary always constantly talked about him in our childhood. He was a very, very big figure really, wasn’t he in our childhood. He —
MA: He was.
AA: He was always there. He was always around.
JL: Where was he born and where did he live?
AA: He was born in Billingham, Lincolnshire in 1922 and they had a farm there. They were actually tenant farmers. They farmed one of the farms that belonged to the castle and I can’t remember what their names were now. Anyway —
MA: Doesn’t matter.
AA: Doesn’t matter. But anyway, they had a farm there and, and he did go to school there for a while but then in 1931 they moved to Collingham. To Bolting Holme Farm on Swinderby Road and then in 1932 for whatever reason, I don’t know why, they, maybe they didn’t want the —
MA: Decamped.
AA: Like the farm, or they had to move but anyway they moved in 1932 to Potter Hill Farm on, well, I think it’s called Potter Hill Lane. I think it’s technically Station Road but everybody calls it Potter Hill Lane which is where I was born in the farmhouse.
MA: And where I was born in the farm cottage.
AA: Yes. That’s right. And then in nineteen, yes 1931 to 1936 he went to Collingham Boy’s School where he was taught by Mr Evans who thought he was wonderful according to all accounts. And then in 1937 he went to Newark School of Art and was taught there by Robert Kiddey.
JL: Oh right.
AA: Who is quite a well-known, well he’s a sculptor really. I think he was, but he did do some art and we have got some, a picture that he did which is a kind of a silhouette of Robert Kiddey which the Newark Town Hall Museum was rather excited about when I took it in to show them. And then in 1939 he went to Regent Street Polytechnic, in London to study commercial art because he was a very very talented artist. He did many many drawings most of which, an awful lot of them I’ve got in my possession as the only person whose got room to put them I think [laughs] But he was a really really talented artist. I mean, he, and he was also a very, he had a very inventive sense of humour and he did lots and lots and lots of cartoon type drawings which started [pause] Well, the first lot we’ve got that he did were in 1935 when his father was in hospital and he wrote letters to him which all, half the letters were drawings and cartoons of the goings on that happened at Potter Hill at the time and for, in 1935 how old would he, oh thirteen.
MA: He would have been thirteen.
AA: He was thirteen and the stuff that he did it was not only, it was not only that he was a good artist but his sense of humour was, well —
MA: I would suspect —
AA: Overdeveloped. Overdeveloped.
MA: I was going, I was going to say very well developed for a thirteen year old.
AA: For a thirteen year old.
MA: At that time. Maybe not now but —
AA: Yeah. Yeah. And his letters.
JL: Oh yes.
AA: They were all, he never wrote a letter without putting lots of drawings and silly little things in it. And then in nineteen —
MA: Well, then war broke out.
AA: Yeah. Then war broke out and at the end of the 1939 he came home and he didn’t quite know what he wanted to do. He toyed with the idea of being a conscientious objector but he didn’t quite get that far. And then in 1940 until September 1941 he was employed by Smith Woolley and Co in their drawing office at Collingham which he didn’t enjoy shall I say. He hated it actually but he still, I mean he went there and he did the job that he was supposed to be doing and they all had a really good time because there were four or five young men who were all waiting to be either, to either join up or be called up in to wherever. The Army. The Air Force. Wherever. Oh one of them went in the —
MA: Fleet, well the —
AA: The Fleet Air Arm.
MA: Fleet Air Arm. Yeah.
AA: His best friend went in to the Fleet Air Arm because he, he failed his medical because of very poor eyesight for the RAF when he went with Uncle Billy. They both went together. David got knocked back because he had very poor eyesight which he’d no idea he’d got very poor eyesight and then, so he came back home. Uncle Billy got accepted and joined up. David came back home. Thought he’d try for the Fleet Air Arm and they said there was absolutely nothing wrong with his eyes at all. So, it’s assumed that there was somebody who went to join up to the Air Force who had appalling eyesight but they’d mixed up their, you know.
MA: Records.
AA: Their records because David’s eyesight was spot on apparently according to the Fleet Air Arm. So, he joined. He went off to the Fleet Air Arm and they used to compare notes in their letters about the Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm.
MA: I think the other thing about Smith Woolleys was that it gave him a lot of fodder for his cartoons, didn’t it?
AA: It certainly did.
MA: Because there are a lot of them of well particularly the older guys that were working in the office who you can obviously make more humorous comments about as far as drawings are concerned.
AA: Yeah. He did lots of cartoons and for a long time the cartoons were actually on the wall in the Smith Woolleys office. And then I don’t quite know what happened to them in the end but we’ve got copies of all of them that he did. And you can see. I mean, the likenesses are just incredible. Because a lot of the people who were on those cartoons, we knew them in later life.
MA: In later life. Yeah.
AA: You know, there were a lot of Collingham people that we knew and they are so much like. You can see exactly who it is. You don’t have to be told who they are because you can see who they are and some of their children are still around in Collingham and you could see the likeness to them as well, you know. [laughs] Oh yeah, that’s so and so’s son. Yeah. So, I mean he did loads of really, you know all these funny little cartoons about Smith Woolley but he really didn’t like working there because he wanted to get in there and get to the Air Force.
MA: Get at them.
AA: Get at Hitler basically. That was what he was aiming for. And then he joined the RAF. So, he joined the RAF in nineteen, 15th of September 1941. He went to London, to the Oval as a lot of them did in those days. They went to the Oval and they all got sort of signed up and you know all sorts of things went on and he had all these letters that he’s written. He didn’t have a very high opinion of the powers that be in the Air Force because he thought they were all a bit, you know. It was —
MA: Above themselves.
AA: A lot. Yeah, and a lot of what they were doing really was a bit ridiculous. But anyway, and then he went through various episodes and various, he went to lots of different places. He went to, I think from London he went to Aberystwyth. And then from Aberystwyth he went to [pause] where was it he went? Oh, from Aberystwyth they went to somewhere in the Cotswolds I think it was. And that was when he went to the flying school bit which unfortunately he didn’t pass to be a pilot which is what he really wanted to do. So then he went off to Brighton. And then to —
MA: Eastbourne.
AA: Eastbourne. And started training to be a navigator which after, when he started training to be a navigator he realised that actually pilots didn’t have to be very bright at all. Anybody could fly a plane but not anybody could be a navigator. He did have a fairly high opinion of himself I think [laughs] And then he went from oh it was near Reading. That’s where he went to.
MA: Theale.
AA: Yeah.
MA: Theale, it was called.
AA: Somewhere like that. Yeah.
MA: Yeah.
AA: Near Reading. That was his, where he failed his pilot’s test. And then he went to —
MA: Well, Eastbourne.
AA: Eastbourne.
MA: And he was at Eastbourne for quite —
AA: He was at Eastbourne when his bomb, was bombed. And he had little cartoons of him hiding or having a near miss with a Heinkel or a —
MA: Whatever. Yeah.
AA: Something or other.
MA: Yeah.
AA: You know, one of those German bombers.
MA: And he got quite involved in Eastbourne, didn’t he?
AA: Yeah.
MA: Because I think a couple of times he was asked to preach at the Methodist Church and this, that and the other.
AA: Oh, no that was —
MA: No. I think he, I think he —
AA: Did he there? He might have done then. Yeah.
MA: I think he preached at Eastbourne.
AA: He spoke to the young people and things like that.
MA: Yeah.
AA: He was very involved with Collingham Methodist Chapel when he was there. And then from [pause] from there he went to —
MA: West —
AA: West Freugh.
MA: West Freugh.
AA: In [pause] Is it in Ayrshire?
MA: Whichever one.
AA: On the west coast.
MA: Yeah.
AA: Of Scotland.
MA: Near Stranraer anyway.
AA: Near Stranraer. And that was where —
MA: Well, I don’t think it was near anywhere.
AA: That was where he did his final navigation training and they, they used to go out, you know, pretend bombing and things like that and he was a navigator. And that was when he got his navigator’s —
MA: Ticket.
AA: Ticket, and his sergeant’s stripes. Because they all became sergeants once they got their navigator’s thing. And then from there —
MA: And I think they flew over Potter Hill a couple of times.
AA: Yes.
MA: On training runs.
AA: Well, yes. Well, no he did that more from —
MA: The next one.
AA: The next one.
MA: Ah yeah. Probably.
AA: He came down from, back from there and went to [pause] what was it called? Oh. What was it? No that’s West Freugh. I’ll tell you in a minute. I can’t remember. I know. I know it very well what it’s called. But I can’t remember the name of it.
MA: Was that the place that there were three RAF bases with the same name in different parts of England?
AA: No. No. That was the final one.
MA: Oh, that was the final one wasn’t it?
AA: That was the final one. Yeah.
MA: Apparently, one bloke took [laughs] took a week to get back from leave to the base because he went to all the other three first.
JL: Good excuse. Good excuse.
MA: And got away with it.
AA: Oh, what was it called? You know the place in the, it wasn’t the one in the Cotswolds.
MA: Oh yeah. Yeah.
AA: Yeah.
MA: Of course. Yeah. Upper Heyford.
AA: Upper Heyford.
MA: Upper Heyford.
AA: That’s right.
MA: Upper Heyford.
AA: Upper Heyford or Lower Heyford.
MA: Well, one —
AA: Anyway, there was an RAF base.
MA: The base was at upper Heyford which later became an American, an American base.
AA: Yeah. It is still there I think now.
MA: It is. Yeah. I took a photograph of it.
AA: Yeah.
MA: A year ago now.
AA: Yeah. And then they, that, that was when they did the final training and they got paired up with all their, you know, their crew. And from then —
MA: Well, that’s where he really became involved in the community isn’t it?
AA: Yes. That’s right. He met up with a, he was involved with a Methodist Church there and there were some very nice people who were the bakers in the village and they took in, they would, you know sort of adopt —
MA: I think they had —
AA: Airmen who were away from home and —
MA: They had one sergeant and his wife and little boy billeted with them.
AA: Billeted with them. Yeah. That’s right.
MA: And two or three other of these guys who were Methodists used to spend nearly all of their spare time —
AA: And he spent their Christmas there with them as well.
MA: With the Bates.’ Yeah.
AA: Yeah.
MA: He spent his last Christmas with these people.
AA: Yeah. And I think granny sent, sent them some things, you know. For Christmas.
MA: A pack of butter or something.
AA: Yeah, because obviously —
MA: Yeah.
AA: They were on the farm so they had, you know a bit more of the finer things in life to eat.
MA: Yeah.
AA: And they, they used to write to each other for a short time because you know she was so pleased that they were looking after him and, you know all that sort of thing. And then he went off to, well he came back off leave and got sent to this place which was, well, Honington was the main base that they were supposed to be going to which was somewhere in Suffolk. But there are lots of Honingtons.
MA: In the Brecklands sort of thing.
AA: And they all had, they were all, they all had Air Force bases. All these different Honingtons.
MA: And there was also an American base there wasn’t there?
AA: Yes. Yes. He eventually got to the American base. No. I think the Americans were there. That’s right because, and this was a little satellite place where he ended up in which was a place called East Wretham in Norfolk. In Thetford Forest really and he was there for not very long.
MA: Not very long.
AA: Was he? Not very long. I can’t remember when they actually went there. Should be able to find it in here. Yeah.
JL: Was that still a training posting?
AA: No.
MA: No. This was —
AA: That was, this was the real thing.
JL: Yeah.
AA: That was the real thing and yeah, here we are. Oh, there’s one, a letter here from him, “Somewhere in Norfolk or Suffolk. Goodness knows where. I don’t.” That was February ‘43. Yes. “Nobody had been sure which Honington to go to. My bombardier had gone all the way from London to Honington near Grantham, found it was the wrong place, gone back to Grantham where he found two more fellows on their way so they all came back to Bury St Edmunds. They’d heard my pilot and another pilot were also on their way to Honington, Lincolnshire.” So, you know it was all, but when they were there they had a good, this, they arrived at this place in Norfolk or Suffolk which was an American Air Force base, “And we had a good breakfast and a marvellous dinner. The best I’ve had in the Forces. Some wonderful American stuff which you’d thought had disappeared since the war.” And then they got sent off to East Wretham which is just near Thetford and it’s right, the Air Force base I’ve never been able to get to it because it still belongs to the MOD and you have to make an appointment or, and see if they’ll allow you on. They do, it’s where sort of Dad’s Army Country. You know, where they filmed Dad’s Army and all that. But he went, so he’s now then at the RAF station at East Wretham, Thetford in Norfolk. So, he arrived there in February ’43. Mid-February ’43 and then he went out on one raid. One, one flight the first flight he went out on they were dropping mines.
JL: Do you know which squadron it was?
AA: Yes.
JL: Which aircraft.
AA: 115 Squadron and it was a Wellington. And it was at the time when they were just, they were, they were all waiting to go and be converted to Lancasters. And he was hoping that if he was converted, going on a conversion course which they promised them they would be doing in two or three weeks time he would be at —
MA: At Swinderby.
AA: Swinderby, which was like a hop, skip and a jump from the farm where he lived so he was hoping that he would be able to spend some time with —
MA: The rest of them.
AA: The rest of them.
MA: At this stage he hadn’t let his parents know that he was operational. He was going to do three, four, five or something.
AA: Yeah.
MA: Just so as he could say, ‘Well, look —
AA: I’ve done all these.
MA: I told you it was safe. I’ve done them all. I’m right.
AA: Yeah.
MA: But —
AA: So, he did, he did the, he did the one where he went, they went out. I’m just trying to see where it says it and then on the 11th of, 11th of March it was his twenty first birthday and he had lots of lovely presents from people. People had sent him all sorts of things. And on the 12th they went off to bomb the Krupp’s factory in Essen and didn’t come back again [pause] And that was it. So —
JL: That was his first, that was his —
AA: It was his first actual bombing.
JL: Bombing run. Yes.
AA: Yeah.
MA: Yeah.
AA: That was his first one.
MA: They’d laid mines but that was —
AA: And they’d, I’m trying to see [pause] Oh yeah here we are this is, he wrote this book that I’ve got here. It’s got the letters that he wrote to his parents and it’s got the letters that he wrote to his friend David —
JL: Yeah.
AA: Who was in the Fleet Air Arm and they’re very different letters because with his parents it was all, yeah, jolly. This is great and everything’s going fine. With David he sort of laid himself bare and told him what was the same sort of things that David was going through as well. And so he’d written to David and they’d had, I think four of their, his colleagues, four of the other planes they, four of them had gone out on one night and only two came back and then in the morning all these what they called the erks who were the powers that be, you know. The minions from the —
MA: Ministry. The men from the Ministry [pause]
AA: Yeah. That’s right. Those.
MA: Not quite.
AA: They would just come in and just sweep away everybody’s belongings who hadn’t come back and come in, sweep everything up and go out again. So, he’d written about that and and they were, he said they were all a bit [pause] he said [pause] they were all very shaken up about this because and he’d, he’d written, he’d written letters to all the parents of the boys that had gone out and hadn’t come back again. So, I think he was sort of, you know the chap in the group that —
MA: Did that sort of thing.
AA: Did that sort of thing.
MA: Yeah.
AA: And, and then he did, he did write a letter saying to David, saying to him, telling him how he was feeling and said that he wasn’t, he wasn’t worried about going because he’d got to go and there was a job to be done and whatever happened that was, it was ok. He was going. But please tell them at home what I’m, you know that that’s how I feel because if I don’t come back I want them to know that. And he didn’t come back. So [pause] it was all quite [pause] Well, it was very traumatic wasn’t it?
MA: Yeah. Yeah, it was.
AA: Granny and grandad never recovered from it. We can’t, none of the three of us can remember seeing them smiling which is a bit sad really isn’t it? and that was I mean granny lived till nineteen ninety something didn’t she?
MA: Ninety three.
AA: No. Ninety. No.
MA: No, sorry eighty.
AA: Nineteen seventy something.
MA: Nineteen seventy. Yeah.
AA: That’s right. Yeah. Grandad died in the 1960s.
MA: She was ninety three when she died.
AA: We can’t remember them smiling and you know she just, he was their world really even though they had two other children as well but, you know. He’d gone.
MA: Who they loved dearly but —
AA: Yeah. That’s right.
MA: But he was, well, A) He was —
AA: The youngest.
MA: Six years younger than dad.
JL: Right.
MA: So, he was —
AA: The baby.
MA: He was considered the baby of the family and I guess you look after the baby.
AA: Yeah. But he was, he appeared to have a very, he was a special sort of person. You know, there are some people that are just like, there’s something about them that everybody loves. Well, he was that sort of person or so it would appear. We don’t know because we [pause] but everybody said how lovely he was. You know, everybody we’ve met who knew him said what a wonderful person he was. So, yeah.
JL: It's shocking how sudden it is.
AA: I know.
JL: I was watching you leafing through—
AA: Yeah.
JL: The letters. Thinking oh, there’s only two or three pages left.
AA: I know. Yeah. And well, that’s what everybody said when they read it. They’ve really enjoyed reading it but they all know that they’ve got to get to the end.
JL: Yes.
AA: And they know what the end is because it says so on here. You know. Yeah.
JL: What happened to David? Do you know?
AA: David survived.
JL: Right.
AA: And he used to come and see Auntie Mary and, and my grandparents as well I suppose.
MA: Yeah.
AA: But I never met him. We’d never met him.
MA: I never did meet him.
AA: You never met him. I, when my auntie died we found a letter from him and both my other brother and I, my other brother lives in Cardiff. I was working in Newport at the time and this letter from David [Iliffe] was, had the address was from them somewhere Carleon, which is about what ten miles ten miles from Newport. And I thought —
MA: Oh.
AA: Oh. And we got all these things that we’d found because all, all the stuff, all the letters, all his paintings and drawings. Nobody knew that they existed until Auntie Mary died. We had to clear the house out. Went in, up in to the attic and there were just, there was all this stuff. There were suitcases full of all these letters and things which nobody knew. My mum didn’t know they were there. Nobody had ever said anything about them and there was all the artwork and there was all, all these letters. They were all in the envelopes still. All put together in a suitcase. And nobody had ever seen them so I thought hmm I think I’d better find out about this.
MA: This chap.
AA: David Iliffe. So, I looked in the phone book, the Newport phonebook and I found somebody called D [Iliffe] but he didn’t, he wasn’t living in Caerleon he was living somewhere not far away but he was, he was in that phone book. So, I rang him up and I said, ‘Hello. I’m trying to find a Mr David [Iliffe] who used to live in Caerleon.’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s my father.’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, my name’s Ann Akrill.’ He said, ‘Oh, you must be Akey’s family,’ or nephew, niece or anyway to do with because they always called him Akey. David always called him Akey and he had always talked throughout his whole life, he’d talked to his family about Akey as if, almost as if he was still alive. You know, he told them all about him because they were such close friends. So, he was living in, still living in Caerleon so I went to visit him and he was just, well he was so, he was so thrilled that we got in touch. And that’s where half of these letters came from because he had kept all of Uncle Billy’s letters as well and he’d transcribed them all himself and had a file of all these letters which he let me have. So they all went in here, in this book as well. And we kept in touch with him and I kept, I went to see him several times when I was down there but all his family knew all about Uncle Billy because he’d constantly talked about him really. And there was a lovely drawing that Uncle Billy had done of David as well in his, in his Navy uniform which was really nice. But you know he died, it must be probably about —
MA: I don’t know. Don’t look at me.
AA: About ten years ago probably David died. Now I don’t whether his wife is still alive. We have over the past year, we always used to get a Christmas card from her or mum always got a Christmas card from her. But I don’t think we got one last year. But he’s got, he had three sons and I could get in touch with, with one of, with those sons to see if he was still alive which I ought to do really to let him know that —
MA: Yeah.
AA: Mum died. Yeah. But yeah, I mean it was lovely to see him because he obviously was so fond of Billy you know and Uncle Billy was also, also always used to go and visit his family. His parents and his —
MA: Sister.
AA: David [Iliffe’s] brother in law had been lost previous to that and he’s on the Collingham War Memorial as well. His name was Jack Chell. C H E L L. And his daughter, if you are of an age or maybe you have children of an age who used to watch —
MA: Blue Peter.
AA: No. No.
MA: No. Not Blue Peter.
AA: Not Blue Peter. Jackanory. Was Carol Chell —
JL: Oh right.
AA: And she used to be on Jackanory and that was David [Iliffe’s] niece.
JL: So, David was from Collingham as well.
AA: Well, he lived in Collingham. Yes.
MA: Not originally.
AA: They weren’t originally from Collingham.
MA: I don’t know where they came from originally.
AA: No. I don’t. They weren’t originally from Collingham.
MA: But where —
AA: But his father worked for Smith Woolleys.
MA: Yeah.
AA: And so David worked at —
MA: Mr Chell was at Smith Woolleys too.
AA: No. No.
MA: Mr, Mr [Iliffe]
AA: Mr [Iliffe] Yeah. They lived in the corner house in Collingham which is, I think is it the corner of Church Lane or, as you’re going into Collingham you go past the [pause] and you go past the Low Street turn. I think it’s the next one.
MA: It’s the next one which isn’t Church Lane.
AA: It’s the big house on the corner with a wall around it which is called the Corner House. They lived there. But then after a while they moved to a house because they were renting it from Smith Woolleys probably, you know. They moved to a house which is either on Low Street, right at the far, near the office anyway. It was oh. It’s [pause] I can’t remember what it’s called now. But there’s a farm and there’s a house that have both got the same name and I can’t remember what they’re called. Just around the, if you —
MA: [Manor?]
AA: No. No. it’s What’s it called?
MA: [unclear]
AA: No. It’s right near Smith Woolley’s office. You know. On that corner. By the —
MA: By the tree. By the Stocks.
AA: By the tree.
MA: Yeah.
AA: By Stocks Hill there. I can’t remember. I can’t remember now what it’s called. But that’s where David’s family lived in latter years. They moved there. They moved from the Corner House to I think it was a slightly smaller place.
MA: Yeah. I can’t remember ever having met them. Whether —
AA: No.
MA: How long they stayed in Collingham, I don’t know.
AA: I don’t think they, because I don’t think David lived in Collingham after.
MA: After the war.
AA: After the war. Because he met, he met his wife, she was in the Air Force as well, I think doing, well they weren’t in the Air Force as such were they? They were —
MA: Fleet Air Arm.
AA: No.
MA: Oh.
AA: Yeah.
MA: Oh, the WAAFs.
AA: I think she might have been in the Air Force but they weren’t called [pause] They was, they had another name.
MA: The WAAFs.
AA: They weren’t officially in the Air Force then. It was the Women’s Voluntary Auxiliary. Women’s Auxiliary or something. Anyway, I can’t remember what they were called and he met her during the war and then they got married and I’m, I can’t, I’m not sure where they lived because David carried on as a surveyor and all the stuff that they were doing at Smith Woolleys. He carried on in that profession because I think that’s what his father did.
JL: Yeah. Smith Woolleys, for the tape are land agents in Collingham.
AA: Yeah. And they became more than that didn’t they? They were more than just land agents after.
MA: I don’t know.
AA: Yeah. They were.
MA: Yeah.
AA: Yeah. They were surveyors and all sorts of things.
MA: Well, I mean —
AA: I suppose that’s probably —
MA: And before that they were still a very important family wasn’t it because —
AA: Yeah.
MA: Smith Woolleys was —
AA: Yeah. Smith Woolleys have been around for years, haven’t they? Yeah.
MA: Yeah.
AA: Yeah. So, and really that’s, that’s our story of Uncle Billy.
JL: Ok. That’s great.
AA: Although we’ve got loads of photographs. We’ve got loads of artifacts and bits and pieces, haven’t we? Which —
MA: But I haven’t still got the florin that he gave me.
AA: No.
MA: I suspect mum took that and put it straight in my piggy bank.
AA: Or in your bank account even.
MA: Well, in my bank account maybe.
AA: Well, no. You probably didn’t have one in those days.
MA: I probably didn’t have one when I was one.
AA: Yeah. Yeah.
JL: Shall I switch it off?
AA: I think that would be —
JL: Ok. That’s brilliant.
AA: That will be alright. Yeah
JL: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Michael and Ann Akrill
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jeremy Lodge
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-04
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AAkrillM-A171204
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Michael and Ann Akrill talk about their uncle, William Akrill. He grew up in Lincolnshire, and studied art in London and under the tutelage of Robert Kiddey. He considered becoming a contentious objector, but volunteered for the RAF and after training, he served as a navigator with 115 Squadron. He wrote many letter home which focused on the more light hearted episodes of training but the letters to his friend in the Fleet Air Arm reflected his concerns. He wrote about how upsetting it was as crews who did not return had their belongings swept away before a new crew took their place. William celebrated his 21st birthday on 11th March 1943 and on the 12th March set off on his first operation. He did not return. His family stored all his artwork and letters and kept his memory alive with constant reminiscences of the time he had been with them. They discuss the likenesses to real people in his cartoons and his training, his brief operational service and the impact his loss had on their family.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-09-15
1942
1943-02
1943-03-12
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:34:06 audio recording
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
115 Squadron
aircrew
arts and crafts
bombing
home front
killed in action
navigator
RAF East Wretham
RAF Honington
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/933/10728/ABurleyE-BennettL180618.2.mp3
8758e6a5b208de4a52be129c1cd954e6
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
Lord, Billy
W C J Lord
Description
An account of the resource
50 items. An oral history interview with Eunice Burley and Leonard Bennett, about Eunice Burley's uncle, Billy Lord (137385, Royal Air Force), an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2010">album</a>, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 619 Squadron until he was killed 3 January 1944. <br /><br />Additional information on William Charles John is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/114242/">IBCC Losses Database.</a> <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Eunice Burley and Len Bennett and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-18
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lord, WCJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: Its the 18th of June 2018 and my name is Heather Hughes for the IBCC Digital Archive, and we’re sitting at Riseholme Hall with Eunice Burley and Leonard Bennett who are the niece and nephew of Billy Lord. And Eunice and Leonard have kindly brought in Billy Lord’s papers this morning for us to digitise. Thank you so much for coming all this way from Surrey and it’s wonderful finally to have this collection and thanks also for giving us this opportunity to record your stories. I wonder if we could start by talking about you yourselves and where you grew up and what kind of home you grew up in and something about your parents.
EB: Right. Well, we were born in Shirley which is just outside Croydon to Lilian and Stan Bennet. I was born in 1950.
LB: I was born in 1947.
EB: We had a very happy childhood. A lovely home. It was a sort of a brand new estate that was built just before the war so it was, everything was lovely. We had a very happy childhood, didn’t we?
LB: Yeah.
EB: So —
HH: What did your dad do?
EB: Well, do you want to say?
LB: Well, we had a horticultural wholesale business. We were, they started off in 1772 as broom makers for the Royal Gardens. Birch brooms or Besom brooms as they were known as and then we diversed in to coach business and we had two coach businesses.
EB: Yeah.
LB: Shirley Coaches and one called John Bennett’s in Croydon. And eventually it was all sold and where we had our premises is now housing isn’t it?
EB: It was the oldest firm in Croydon.
LB: In Croydon at the time.
EB: At the time but it was sold. It had two, over two hundred years. So that was quite sad really wasn’t it?
LB: Yeah. I’ve lived in Shirley all my life. I was born in Shirley.
EB: Yes.
LB: I still live in Shirley so —
HH: Gosh.
EB: And we moved to Warlingham which is nearer to Redhill in 2008 from Shirley so but yes we were all born and bred in Shirley.
HH: And did you go to the same school the two of you?
LB: Yes. We went to Benson Junior School.
EB: Yes, we went to Benson Junior School. Well, yeah, and then you went to –
LB: Shirley —
EB: Shirley High School and I went to Lady Edridge which was a Grammar School in Thornton Heath. Very near Crystal Palace football ground so [laughs] which isn’t there anymore.
LB: And when you come to read the letters in quite a few of them Billy says, “Send my regards to all those in Sandpits.” Well, Sandpits was where we had our business and I had, or we had two uncles living there and the other nan.
EB: Yes. Yeah.
LB: All lived in this little Sandpits Road which is a cul de sac. And our premises were at the bottom of it and he often wrote in his letters —
EB: Yes.
LB: “Send my regards to all at Sandpits.”
EB: And there’s also, I don’t know if you want to know this but there’s also one bit in the letter, one of the letters that says, “Can we have some petrol?” So, because my dad, well my dad was in the war but his family had lorries and coaches. They had petrol. So, he could get down from Woodhall Spa to Shirley but they had to have petrol to go back again so he often used to get some petrol from them.
HH: From the —
EB: But that’s in the letters. Yeah.
HH: From the family. Yeah.
EB: Yes.
HH: So, let’s, let’s talk then about your Uncle Billy because you wouldn’t have had a personal —
EB: No.
HH: Connection with him in terms of having known him personally.
LB: No.
HH: How did you know about your uncle, Billy Lord?
LB: Well, from my nan. Our nan at the time and from our mother. That was the only way we ever, nan used to tell us stories about her son and mum used to tell us stories about her brother.
EB: Yeah.
LB: As I’ve said before the only thing I think sometimes mum used to get a bit confused with her stories.
EB: And also, when I look back I think mum was quite [pause] a bit jealous because my dad’s family had, he had brothers and sisters and uncles, aunts and nans and grandads and the firm had been going for so long and she had no one. Only her mum and dad. And I do think she used to get quite upset about —
EB: That the —
HH: She’d lost her brother.
EB: That she had lost her only brother. Yes. Yeah.
HH: So, I think this is probably a good moment to give us a little bit of detail, just basic detail about what happened to your Uncle Billy.
EB: You mean just about how he died or —
HH: Well, a little bit about the squadron he was in.
EB: Right.
HH: And, and —
EB: Ok. Well, he was, well you know a bit more about him wanting to be a pilot. I mean I didn’t know any of that.
LB: Yeah. He wanted to be a pilot. As I say he was a pilot officer and then for some reason he never, it didn’t materialise.
EB: Yes.
LB: And the story I’ve always been told by my mother was because, or nan, he had one leg slightly shorter than the other one. That’s why I was hoping Peter might be able to tell us when that photograph was taken. I’d like to know where that was and when it was. But apart from that that’s the only thing I remember about the squadron.
EB: He was in —
LB: There might be, but he went all through training for it and then got turned down or ejected right at the last.
EB: So, he was in 619 Squadron which was based at Woodhall Spa and he was a wireless operator. I think he became a wireless operator because he —
LB: Worked at Cable and Wireless.
EB: Worked at Cable and Wireless which was all —
HH: Before the war.
EB: Yes. Which was all to do with things like that wasn’t it? I don’t really know about and, yeah I mean its awkward because I was much younger and I didn’t really know much. I just used to know that there was a photo of him on the piano and he was always there and it was, ‘Oh that’s Uncle Billy,’ and, you know.
HH: What did he mean to your mum?
EB: Oh, he, they were very close. Very close. And it’s only now that I get, as I’m getting older I realise how terrible it must have been for her because also at the time my dad was a prisoner of war for five years. So, although she was married she never saw him for five years. My mum, my nan and grandad had lost their son and she was sort of caught in the middle trying to be a good daughter and give them support but no one was there to support her. And I only realise that now as I’m older what she must have gone through really. Not having anyone apart from her very best friend.
LB: Yeah. Auntie Peggy.
EB: Auntie Peggy. But, because she worked at, Billy got her a job when he went off to work at Cable and Wireless as well. So they, her and Peggy both worked at Cable and Wireless so, so yeah I think she was very attached to him and very, I think they were very close as children growing up from what I can, she said. Although, he, he did get married earlier on so he must have been very young when he got married and obviously I don’t know where he lived.
LB: No. No idea.
EB: I’ve got no idea where he lived when they were —
LB: They used to go to the Lyceum, dancing.
EB: Yeah. And they used to go to, when he worked for Cable and Wireless they used to go to, up to London and do all things like that and they were very, he was quite a Jack the lad I think and liked dancing but then my mum did so, and Peggy used to go with her to these places with her and join in with them. So, but yes. So —
HH: Now, there’s a particular connection that I think it would be worthwhile mentioning and that is your name and how you came to have it.
EB: Oh yes [laughs] Well, after he, he got divorced from his first wife. I don’t know her name. I don’t know anything about her. None of the family liked her. That’s all I can say. That my mum thought she was awful and then he met a girl called Eunice and they got engaged while he was training at Andover and her name was Eunice and I’m named after her. I do know that after the war when obviously he had died she met, she married an American but whether he was in the Air Force, Army I’ve got no idea and went to live in America so we’ve never seen her since. I did try and look up her name on Ancestry.co but I didn’t find it.
LB: You didn’t know her surname or something.
EB: Well, mum did tell me it was something but again this is the, that’s the trouble. You don’t ask these questions when your parents are young. You only wait until they’re in their nineties and then their memories are going anyway.
HH: So, as you were both growing up what sorts of stories did your mum tell you about your Uncle Billy?
LB: Well, she told me but I don’t know. We don’t know again if it’s true to not. She told me that he was shot down and crash landed on the Yorkshire Moors but, and he was missing for two days and they had a telegram to say that he had been, he was, we put assumed missing in action but then he turned up. So, I don’t know. You never know when the truth ends and fancy starts but I’m not sure if that was true or not.
EB: I don’t know.
LB: No.
EB: You see I’ve never heard that.
LB: No. And it —
EB: Because, yeah.
LB: And the other one was she said, well nan told me this so it must be true.
EB: Oh, so it must be true.
LB: Yeah.
EB: Yeah.
LB: That someone who he was very close to in the Bomber Command came down to see my nan after he was shot down but there was, and he said he was in the next plane to him and he said he wouldn’t have suffered. He said, an almighty explosion and the plane just disappeared. I don’t know who it was but I remember nan telling me all this at the time. Well, not at the time but when I was old enough to understand what had happened. And it’s only sort of stories that I’ve —
EB: Yes.
HH: But, but she obviously must have spoken quite a bit about, about him. Did she? And there was that presence of the photograph.
EB: Yes. Well, my nan was very Spiritualist. She was a Spiritualist and she used to go to —
LB: Spiritualist Church.
EB: Spiritualist meetings and Spiritualist Church. Yeah, so they didn’t have a séance they, it was a proper church in West Wycombe in Kent.
LB: I took her to a thing up in London once.
EB: Yes. Yeah. And, and I do know that my mum went once. Mum wasn’t. She was more just a normal Church of England but nan was very in to it. Now, whether that was because she’d lost her only son, you know. You don’t know what you would do would you in the circumstances. And she was very that way inclined and she used to say that Billy often used to come through to her and tell her to be all, you know, everything was fine, he was happy and, but I do know that my mum went once and I was doing my O levels at the time and the lady said, the spiritualist lady said that she wasn’t to worry. That I would do ok and, because Billy was watching over me from the photo. Because I used to do my homework in the same room as the photo. But nan never, nan never spoke to me much about Billy. Did she speak?
LB: She spoke to me more about it I suppose.
EB: Yeah.
LB: I remember taking —
EB: And Grandad, he never said anything.
LB: He never spoke about it at all.
EB: No. Never said anything about it.
LB: That was his father.
EB: Yeah.
LB: He, he didn’t speak [unclear]
EB: No. No.
LB: I remember taking her up to somewhere up in London. There was hundreds of people there for this —
EB: Spiritualist.
LB: Spiritualist meeting. And the guy who was doing it said, ‘I’ve got a pilot here.’ And asked people to put up their hand up if anybody lost somebody in the war. And nan put her hand up and then this person whittled it right down and actually came up with the name. I’ve never been to one before or since but it’s quite scary. The fact that she, it was a woman I think, she actually knew. I was about nineteen at the time. Just driving wasn’t I?
EB: Yeah.
LB: When I took her up there. Whether or not it was true.
EB: Well, you don’t know do you?
LB: Or whether it was insider information from the Spiritualist Church she went to that tipped someone off but as I say there were literally hundreds of people and —
EB: But then you don’t know because I mean nobody knew that we had a picture on the piano.
LB: No.
EB: Of Uncle Billy. So why would you suddenly say that? I can understand people saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got a pilot.’ Let’s face it.
LB: Well, an airman, wasn’t it?
EB: An airman. Yeah. Lots of people died in the, in the war so that’s a pretty safe bet isn’t it? But [pause] but anyway, so but grandad never used to say anything. I never heard him speak of Billy at all. Nan used to and my mum used to and it was always happy. They were always doing things and going out together and being a very close, her and Billy were very close. I could imagine, you know and that’s why now I realise that how she came to be quite bitter knowing that my dad still had all his family. They, she didn’t, and I think now when I look back and think well yeah, I can understand.
HH: Yeah.
EB: How she must have felt.
HH: Sorry about the background noise. It’s —
EB: That’s ok.
LB: Our family lost two people in the war. We lost Billy and we lost my dad’s cousin whose name was Leonard.
EB: Yeah.
HH: And I’m named after both of them.
EB: Named. Yeah.
HH: Ok.
LB: Leonard William Bennett.
HH: Gosh.
LB: Yeah. Leonard after —
HH: So, you’ve both got names that —
EB: Yes. Yeah.
HH: That are quite meaningful in that sense.
LB: Leonard was in the Navy. He got —
EB: He was on a Destroyer that got sunk outside —
LB: When it was invaded.
EB: Normandy. Yeah.
LB: Yeah. Normandy Landings. He got sunk that day.
EB: Yeah.
LB: And Billy got shot down. So —
EB: Yeah.
LB: That’s how I got my two names, Leonard William.
EB: Yeah. Leonard William.
HH: Now, Eunice, you particularly and maybe Leonard as well have, you’ve done a bit of research about your Uncle Billy, in, in recent years.
EB: Yes. Yeah.
HH: Explain to me why you wanted to do that or needed to do that.
EB: Well, it all started, I started doing just research on the Bennett family because we’d known that went back a long long way and then I thought we’d do mum’s family which we didn’t know so much about because also they came from Bermondsey up in London and then moved to Shirley. So, we were the only people from my mum’s family living in that area whereas —
LB: Well, they went to Dagenham first.
EB: Yeah. Well, whereas the Bennett’s were always in Shirley. So, and so I just started looking it up. I looked. I went as far back as I could which was about, to about eighteen hundred, wasn’t it? They came from Cambridgeshire. And, and then I sort of got to mum and dad and nan and my mum and Uncle Billy and we sort of, I found out when he was shot down and I thought oh I’d like to find out a bit more about that and I found out the date he died and everything because I never actually knew the actual date he died and, and then I was very lucky. I went, because you can go into the Armed Forces Records but unless you pay extra you can’t see their record. It only tells you their rank and number and when they died. And I don’t know why I did it but I went on to Facebook and I just put in about 619 Squadron. I just put, typed in 619 Squadron and this very nice man came back and said yes, he’d got all lots of records and if I wanted to find out a bit more and I put, told him who my uncle was and what have you and he told me all the crew, where he was shot down and everything and then, well —
LB: You’ve got those details haven’t you?
EB: Yes. You’ve got all the details that he sent us and, and since then he’s also told us how they died and what have you and all his flight operations. And where they were stationed and that’s sort of what started it really. But that was only two or three years ago and then we decided to come up here and look for more of it and what have you. So, yeah.
LB: I did go to the grave when I was in Hamburg.
EB: Yes. You’ve been.
LB: Yeah.
EB: To Billy’s grave. Yeah.
LB: At the time it was only a village apparently outside of Hamburg but as Hamburg grew it became consumed by outer Hamburg and I actually got an underground train to it.
HH: Gosh.
LB: Yeah. Well, overground underground. And the actual War Graves is a massive place. I went through the gates and you go in to the room, information desk looking for this grave and there was about two foot of snow on the ground. It was terribly cold. It was in January wasn’t it? And they, they said, ‘Well, you’ve got to go right up there until you come to British one.’ I walked and walked and walked and I got there, got to the chapel. I mean, the graves, you’ll see in the photo there’s only about that much of the tops of the gravestone above the stone level.
EB: Through the snow.
LB: So, I couldn’t see which was his grave.
EB: Oh, right.
LB: So I went to the chapel and left the flowers I brought in the chapel but —
EB: My nan went.
LB: She went, yeah.
EB: Yes. With the Red Cross. They took them but it wasn’t until 1970s, was it?
LB: No. No.
EB: Because grandad had died by then so it was just her. She went with the British Red Cross to see the grave where her son had died. Well, you know. Which was quite nice for her. I haven’t been yet so —
HH: Do you hope to?
EB: Yes. Yes, Roger and I hope to go out there one day and have a look. It’s sort of combining it perhaps with our —
HH: And when you came to the IBCC last year there wasn’t the building there but you were able to find his name.
EB: Yes, his name was there.
HH: On the Memorial Wall.
EB: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Which, I mean, we were so lucky that day. It was, I mean I was telling Len about it. I mean we, I didn’t know it existed. That’s, you know, we were coming up to Lincoln just to go to Woodhall Spa. I knew he was stationed there and I just thought, oh well and we’d seen a documentary about that East Kirkby Lancaster and we thought well we’ll go to that.
I didn’t even know the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight was stationed up here either. So, we, that’s what we were going to do and we went to the East Kirkby place and got some pamphlets like you do when you’re there and it happened to mention about the IBCC. And I thought oh and I happened to phone up and I spoke to —
HH: Sue or Nicky probably.
EB: Yes. Yeah. And she said, ‘Oh, well, we’re not open.’ And I said, ‘Oh well, never mind.’ And she said, ‘Can you, its not opening —’ and I said, ‘Oh no, we live the other side of London.’ And she said, ‘Well, why don’t you come along? We’ve got some other people that are coming.’ So if it hadn’t been that I, you know it was all —
LB: Meant to be.
EB: Meant to be. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, so —
HH: And that’s how we met.
EB: Yes.
HB: And got to talked about the letters.
EB: That’s right. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
LB: Yes. Yeah. You said to me, ‘Have you got anything?’
HH: It’s so wonderful to have them.
LB: Yes.
EB: Yes.
HH: And to be able to digitise them.
EB: But we didn’t, I don’t know, we didn’t notice, know we had any letters did we until mum went.
HH: How did you discover those?
EB: Well, because mum went into a nursing home about three, three years ago.
LB: Five years ago.
EB: Yeah. Three or four years ago and obviously we had to clean out the bungalow that they’d lived in and we sort of came across them then, didn’t we?
HH: And you didn’t know of their existence until then.
LB: No.
EB: No. No.
LB: But lots of things went missing because I did know that nan had a telegram about Billy being shot down.
EB: Yeah. We haven’t got that. No.
LB: So I don’t know what mum’s done with that.
EB: No. No.
LB: I never, we never found it.
EB: No. No.
HH: Where had she kept these papers? These last few.
LB: Just in a drawer in a cupboard, wasn’t it?
EB: I think they were in the drawer in her bedroom. Yeah. And it wasn’t until I was going through it systematically, sitting on the floor like you do and I thought what’s all this and yeah, I think it was in a metal box, weren’t they? Weren’t they in that funny little cranky metal box that had a dent in a middle? And it looked really and I just said, ‘Oh,’ you know, ‘What one earth are these?’ And started reading them and realised.
HH: What they were.
EB: But the funny thing was I never found any letters from my dad to my mum and he obviously sent her loads. I’ve got letters from her, him to his mum and dad that he sent when he was a prisoner of war but we never found any to mum, did we?
LB: Well, I did see some.
EB: But where are they then?
LB: I don’t know.
EB: I haven’t got them.
LB: She probably, because there was a lot of censorship in it.
EB: Yes. Yes.
LB: Where they’d gone through with a black line.
EB: Yeah.
HH: It’s so interesting what people choose to discard when they move on through life and what they choose to keep.
EB: Yes. Yeah.
HH: And these clearly were very precious to her. These —
EB: I think also a lot of the time she was quite cross with my dad to think that he’d gone off for four or five years and was a prisoner. I know it sounds stupid but in her mind she’d lost her brother and my dad wasn’t even there to help her. And he was a prisoner of war the whole time. So —
HH: Yeah.
EB: Because, I mean he was captured in 1940 and spent the —
HH: Spent the rest of the war in —
EB: Yeah. Didn’t come back
HH: As a prisoner of war.
EB: He escaped from Italy and then was picked up again and taken to Germany so, yes. He didn’t —
LB: Finished up in Czechoslovakia.
EB: Yeah.
LB: That’s another story anyway. So —
EB: Yes. That’s another story. So —
LB: But the impact on her would have been quite profound.
EB: Yes. And also having your own firm, when he came back he had to knuckle down and make the business, well he was the brains behind it.
LB: His brother was —
HH: What happened with, how did it tick over when he was away?
EB: Well —
LB: Well, his father was still alive.
EB: Yeah.
LB: And he had two brothers who didn’t go in to the war. I bet they were too old.
EB: They were old. Too old I suppose.
LB: A bit too old.
HH: So, they kept the business going. The family business.
LB: They kept the business going, yeah. Because dad was the youngest.
EB: It was only ticking over. Dad was the cleverest one of the family and it was his brains that made it. Took over.
LB: Yes. He was a [unclear]
EB: Bennetts Coaches which were very big in South London at the time and, and diversified from just making, we used to make John Innes Compost and then, and do the brooms and he —
LB: One of the biggest manufacturers in the country at one time.
EB: Yes. Yes.
LB: In compost.
EB: Yeah. And then it obviously got bigger and obviously he was very busy, never there, you know and I think that’s why she was even crosser with him at times. Although they stayed together for sixty odd years, didn’t they? So, yeah.
HH: Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
EB: Yeah. So —
HH: So, what is the story knowing what you now know. I mean what does the story of Billy Lord mean to you now?
EB: Well, I just wish I’d known him because —
LB: We’d have loved to have met him.
EB: Yes. I think we would have got on really well.
LB: He was also a good rower apparently.
EB: Oh, I didn’t know that.
HH: A rower.
LB: Yes.
EB: I didn’t know that.
LB: He used to row on the Thames in this club. Well, his father, grandad did as well.
EB: Yeah.
LB: And Billy did that as well.
EB: I didn’t know any of that.
LB: Yeah. And at Andover.
EB: And he was a boxer, you said.
LB: And he was a boxer.
EB: Yes.
LB: In that box we brought up there’s some medals. Is there a box of medals in there as well?
EB: No.
LB: Oh ok. He won some.
EB: No. We didn’t bring that.
LB: He won some belts. I don’t know where.
HH: Well, Bomber Command squadrons had boxing teams.
EB: Yes. So, he might have done it in —
LB: It might have been there. I don’t know. Never said —
The medals he’s got at home were before that because we looked a couple of days —
LB: Yes. I think you’re right. Yeah.
EB: Before we came up. They were nineteen, like ‘36 so he obviously did box so he might have well boxed up here as well. So, but yes, I just, I just wish he’d been alive and I think my mum wishes he’d stayed alive obviously and I think she would have been happier and I think it wouldn’t have been such a one-sided family. We grew up with —
LB: I’d have like to have sat down and talked to him about his wartime experiences.
EB: Yes. Yeah.
LB: We learned lots from my own dad about his war experiences but everything else we get is second hand, sort of.
EB: Yes. Yeah.
LB: All the time.
EB: Yeah.
LB: Which is a shame.
EB: And, of course now it’s too late because mum’s gone as well. So —
HH: But the important thing is that you have carried on telling the stories that you learned long, from long ago and you supplemented those stories with research that you have done.
EB: Yes. Yes.
HH: So that in a sense your family can pass those on for the future.
EB: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
LB: Oh yes.
EB: Well, it’s funny actually because my daughter, my youngest daughter who’s got two little boys, seven and six, they’ve been sent homework home this week actually saying they would like, they are doing the Armed Forces Day on the 29th of June and could they bring in all information from their, any relatives that were in the Second World at War. First or Second World War. So, we’ve got lots to do with my dad but they’ve also got lots, they’re going to take out everything I’ve got about Uncle Billy as well so it’s going to be passed on to the next generation which is, I think is lovely.
HH: Yeah.
EB: And Michael, the seven year old, he knows that he’s had a great uncle who was a pilot and he said he was in the war and he, he gets quite proud of it. The fact that,, I think it’s that fact he was in a plane and what have you but they don’t realise that the consequence of war do they at that age? So —
HH: No. But that’s how you pass the stories.
EB: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
HH: From generation to generation.
EB: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: Isn’t it?
EB: And my daughter actually, Helen, my dad, I know it’s nothing to do with Billy but dad wrote all his memoirs down of being in the Prisoner of War camp and she got it all and put it in a book.
HH: Wonderful.
EB: And she had, gave one to everybody, didn’t she? And its called, “My [Gas] in the War.” by Stanley Bennett. And yeah, so his, that will be remembered forever. So it’s all what he wrote down and how, what have you and we got him on tape as well haven’t we? Talking.
LB: Yes. Somebody came down and interviewed him.
EB: Yeah.
LB: I don’t know who it was.
EB: I don’t know.
LB: I’ve got the tape at home.
EB: Yes. And well, we put it on to a CD and it’s so funny because he said he was driving this truck in the Libyan desert and they don’t know where they’re going. They just were told to take some bombs to some other depot.
LB: [unclear]
EB: And travelling along and lo and behold seven tanks were coming along the same road and they just, he said, ‘I got off there pretty quick.’ But he didn’t, they didn’t, they just went and they were fine so —
HH: There are some weird situations.
EB: I know.
HH: In the middle of a war.
EB: Yeah.
HH: Yes.
EB: Yeah. But so, yes it will be all remembered and I’m pleased that Billy will be remembered and I’m, I think that’s why I wanted to do it. because I’m sorry that I never thought to ask lots and lots of questions but —
LB: Well, there’s more you could have asked but you have got to be careful as well, haven’t you? Because —
EB: Well —
LB: You start digging too deep and they get upset.
HH: I think the other thing is that when people are traumatised and that upset often they don’t want to talk.
EB: No.
HH: And that would have been much more the prevailing way of dealing with things. To bottle it up.
EB: Yes.
HH: Nowadays, I think we’ve changed how we deal with these things.
EB: Yes. Yes.
HH: And we tend to be encouraged to talk it out.
EB: To talk about it. Yes.
HH: Whereas in those days I think people were told that, you know the sense of the situation was that you just kept it to yourself and you just carried on and, yeah.
EB: And I suppose people, there were so many people that had lost people.
HH: Yeah.
EB: You know.
HH: It would have been very different.
EB: Difficult yes.
HH: Yeah.
EB: You can’t —
HH: Yeah.
EB: Yeah, so but —
HH: Well, thank you very much —
LB: So, what I can’t, sorry I was just going to say —
HH: You carry on.
LB: One of the things that we still can’t understand is he had, at the end of the war an Canadian or an American pilot.
EB: There was, he was an Amer, Canadian. He was an American.
LB: He was an American flying for the Canadian Air Force.
EB: Yeah. Because he couldn’t, yeah.
LB: Yeah, but before that as far as I can ascertain he only became the pilot for that last flight. Is that right?
EB: I don’t think so.
LB: Well, in one of the letters it said that whoever was the pilot got moved to another plane for some reason and they got this new guy come in.
EB: Oh, Heffernan.
HH: Yeah.
EB: I don’t know.
LB: I thought he —
EB: I thought he was with him the whole time.
HH: In fact, what happened during the war was that because America stayed out for so long Americans who wanted to volunteer for the RAF or where ever else presumably crossed into Canada.
EB: Yeah.
HH: And they served with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
EB: Yes.
HH: And then when America did enter the war they were given a choice to join American squadrons or to stay with the Canadian ones.
EB: Yeah.
HH: And many of them elected to stay.
EB: Yes.
HH: Because the thing about Bomber crew was that the crew themselves formed incredible tight bonds.
EB: Yes. Yes.
HH: Incredibly tight bonds.
LB: But he decided to stay obviously.
EB: And I didn’t realise that man that I spoke to, David Young on the 619 Squadron Facebook he said that they all went to, after they did their basic training they eventually went on to two bomber, two engine bombers to train with those and then they went on to the really heavy Lancasters and they sort of were practically sort of put in a big room together and they made their own crews that —
HH: That’s right.
EB: People they got on well with. You know, obviously, you had to have a pilot but they sort of, a lot of them —
HH: It was a deliberate —
EB: Yes.
HH: It was a deliberate strategy to, to try to ensure that crews got on with each other.
EB: Got on with each other.
HH: It was their responsibility to get on.
EB: Yes. Yes.
HH: It was nobody else’s responsibility.
EB: No. Yes. Yeah.
HH: They had to —
EB: Yeah.
HH: Make a go of it because they were so dependent on each other.
EB: Yes. Yeah. Now, whether he was with another person in the Wellington crew before they got on to the heavy Lancasters but he was with Heffernan the whole time.
LB: That’s what I don’t understand because in 1942 he was at Andover. Then he went to Scotland and he wasn’t killed until nineteen—
EB: ‘44.
LB: ’44.
EB: January 1944.
LB: And yet if that thing is correct he only did about twelve flights.
EB: Well, twelve or thirteen flights before.
LB: Yeah. But according to that he was on a second tour.
EB: Well, I don’t know.
LB: Yeah.
EB: Perhaps, he did a tour with Wellingtons. I don’t know, love.
HH: Well, it’s, yeah you could probably, you could probably find the Service History from the Operational Record Books in the National Archives.
EB: Yeah.
HH: At Kew.
EB: Yeah.
HH: That’s where you would go to find.
EB: Ok.
HH: That detail.
LB: Yeah, I know.
HH: Unfortunately, what most people would be able to have is the logbook. Each person’s logbook but quite often when somebody was killed —
EB: That was, yes.
HH: The logbooks —
EB: Didn’t survive.
HH: Sometimes didn’t be, they weren’t reunited with families.
EB: Yes. Yeah.
HH: So, but you would be able to piece together quite a lot of the story.
EB: Yeah. Well, perhaps we’ll go to there then and ask because also don’t forget the man I was speaking to or on Facebook David whoever. He was from 619 Squadron. So presumably before they were in Wellingtons, when they were training on Wellingtons that wouldn’t have been 619 Squadron would it?
HH: That would have been the final after the Heavy Conversion Unit.
EB: Yes. Yes.
HH: He would have been posted to 619 Squadron.
EB: So, what he did in the others I don’t know, Len. This man was only —
HH: You know, it was very, it was [pause] no two peoples training was identical.
EB: No.
HH: I mean, some were taken across to Canada for training, some were sent to Southern Africa for training.
EB: Oh crikey.
HH: Some were sent to various points in this country. Wales, Scotland, for training and sometimes training could last for a few months and sometimes it went on and on and on. It all depended on circumstances.
EB: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
HH: And so it can be —
EB: Yes.
HH: Quite a confusing picture to piece together.
EB: So, we have to go to the National Archives at Kew. Ok. We’ll do that then, Len.
HH: That’s another day’s outing.
EB: Yes, it is, isn’t it? That’s not far from us. Well not that far. Yeah.
HH: Well, thank you so much both of you for sharing these memories and these stories and it will be wonderful to be able to put these stories that you’ve told us in to the collection in the Archive. Thank you so much.
EB: Well, thank you for having us, Heather.
LB: It’s been a pleasure.
HH: Thank you.
LB: Most enlightening.
EB: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Eunice Burley and Leonard Bennett
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Heather Hughes
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
2018-06-10
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABurleyE-BennettL180618
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:35:54 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
William [Billy] Lord volunteered for the RAF and having worked for Cable and Wireless before the war he served as a wireless operator with 619 Squadron based at RAF Woodhall Spa. He had one sister with whom he was very close and who was the mother of Eunice and Leonard. Billy’s aircraft was shot down by a night fighter over Berlin. In this interview Eunice and Leonard recall the effect of the grief on the immediate family and on their own growing up years.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01
619 Squadron
aircrew
faith
RAF Woodhall Spa
superstition
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/754/10752/ACoulsonW180207.2.mp3
0e9d5b6e44f81a7e472aa3fe9680857b
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
Coulson, Bill
William Coulson
W Coulson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Tony Coulson about his father, Warrant Officer William Coulson (1921 -2018). He flew operations as an air gunner with 138 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-17
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Coulson, W
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TC: Right. We’ll do some of the stories. The, the [pause] the ones that do the personal bit and then let me just think. I need to do the Clarkson story. The Duraglit one and the, my mother’s and the, my mother’s and that would —
MG: Ok.
TC: Some of the incidents that Bill has told us through the years concern, and reactions to the flights or the operations that he’d been on. And one particularly bad operation coming from Norway they’d been beaten up by a lot of flak and they managed just to scrape into an emergency runway in, on the coast of England. They got there and they were debriefed, and they were sent to the mess to get something to eat and they were eating there with their aeroplane, you know being rescued from the mess that it was in and they went in to the mess, ate and Bill Clarkson thought I’d like some more bread. He said to the other lads, ‘Anybody else want some more bread?’ And some of them said yes. So he went up to the young WAAF who was on the counter and said, ‘Excuse me, can I have some more bread please.’ And she looked at him and looked at the lads and then said, ‘More bread? Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ It took the rest of the crew about ten minutes to calm Bill Clarkson down and to inform the young lady that yes indeed they know. The did know there was a war on. Another incident that occurred was when they were sent out to take a spy over to France and they were returned because of bad weather. The operation was cancelled and [pause] Sorry. It wasn’t France. Another operation was when they were sent to send a spy over to Norway and the operation was cancelled due to bad weather and so they had to fly and they ended up in Kinloss. They had their flying gear on and they were received until the, everything went well until the next morning when they’d taken their flying gear off and they were standing by the Lancaster and a particularly officious Red Cap came along and said, ‘Why is that guy in civilian gear?’ Because obviously he was a spy and he’d been dressed to land and blend in to the Norwegian background. ‘Where’s his papers?’ And obviously being a spy he didn’t have any. And so then they mustered the guard to come to this aeroplane and it took all of Heck’s persuasion and finally pulling seniority and phone calls before they were able to fly off and take the spy back where, to Tempsford where he’d come from. Another one concerns my dad’s marriage to my mother in February of 1944 [pause] They got married on February the 8th. February the 8th 1944. Sorry. Another story concerns my dad’s marriage to my mother in February 1945. They got married in Scunthorpe. The crews came up to Scunthorpe and helped with the celebrations and my mother was walking along again with a pilot on each arm and about fourteen young men surrounding her going to the dance hall in Scunthorpe saying, ‘I can’t decide who I’m having the first dance with.’ And my dad piped up, ‘Yes, you can. It’s me.’ And later on they honeymooned in London, again with both crews because they were all on leave together and it didn’t seem unusual that they should all stick together even on their honeymoon. And previous to the trip out in London my dad had said to my mother, ‘Oh, it’s important I get some Duraglit. I’ve got to actually clean my uniform and so she said, ‘Right. We’ll do that and make sure. I’ll remind you later.’ And so the two crews are walking down a side street in London and they see a barber’s shop. And above it was the legend, Durex, which was a well-known prophylactic. But in my mother’s rather confused and maybe over excited mind she’d mixed that up with Duraglit and so she piped up, saying, ‘Bill, you said we’d need some of that for later.’ Bill’s comments to me on the event was, ‘And you know neither of those crews ever repeated that story to me for the rest of the time that I knew them.’ Yes. Another rather tragic bit of that story was the second week. Dad was at Tempsford and it was obviously a secret aerodrome. Even people in the area didn’t know about its existence and my mother knew that.
[ringtone – interview paused]
Another sad aspect of that honeymoon was the second week that my mother spent in digs near Tempsford. Sorry. [unclear] again. Sorry. I’m not thinking.
MG: That’s not a problem.
TC: Another sad aspect of that honeymoon was mother was staying in digs near Tempsford which was obviously a secret aerodrome. They were dealing with SOE and other nefarious organisation and so the locals, many of them didn’t even know it was an aerodrome. Many of them just thought it was a farm. Or at least that’s the story we were told. She was going to the market in town and she got on the bus. Now, out of the window she saw a Stirling on training exercises. Now, she knew that my dad was on training on that day and this was February 1945. The 14th. And so she thought, ‘Oh, that might be Bill up there on training. There were only three of the Stirlings on training that day so she knew Bill might be one of them. Unfortunately, an American Mustang pilot at the same time who’d been involved in the training exercises decided to try one last attempt at a low-level attack on the Stirling and he misjudged the timing and actually took the tail end of the Stirling off as he crashed into it. And both aircraft fell to the ground and were, nobody survived obviously. My mother was twenty one, married for a week and she’d just witnessed a tragic accident that meant that possibly she had a one in three chance of having lost her husband. You can imagine how distraught she was. Furthermore, there was no way that she could get in contact with the aerodrome because it was a secret aerodrome and therefore had no contact with the public whatsoever. And so she had to wait until 6 o’clock that night to find out when my dad came out of the camp to see whether he was alive or not. One interesting story with that was that as the bus went along and my mother was in tears and being comforted by some other stranger that she didn’t even know was the local bobby was riding on his bike to investigate the accident and he flagged down the bus and put his bike on it and said, ‘Take me to Tempsford.’ Right. That’s two stories. What’s the name for it. Do you want just the last one of course. I’ll just finish. Right. Bill’s war career must have been an extraordinary event for a young lad from Scunthorpe. Never been out of town. No formal education. Left school at fourteen. And it was something that I know did shape him as a person but something also that he didn’t ever really talked about other than at the ludicrous level when, when I used to ask him as all little kids did, ‘Dad, what did you do in the war?’ And he said, ‘Well, I used to fly in aeroplanes and me and Churchill used to have a cricket bat and used to fly over Germany and hit people on the head.’ I said, as I grew older I said, ‘That’s ridiculous. Come on. Tell me.’ He said, ‘Well, I used to drop mail and supplies.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t mind dropping the supplies but the mail was difficult. Especially when they had the lower letterbox.’ And it was that kind of facetious attitude that dad had all the way through until about twelve, fifteen years ago and he’d reached eighty odd. We’d taken him to RAF Duxford for his eightieth birthday and he just wanted another flight. So he paid all his birthday money. In fact, quite tragically he said, ‘I know you’ve given me this money. Do you mind if I spend it on this flight?’ And it was a 36 de Havilland that was doing joy rides around Duxford. And we said, ‘No. Of course not.’ And he went up there and that kind of triggered things, the trip to Duxford and he did start talking more and more about it. And even then when he went to work part time, at eighty he was working part time at Scunthorpe United on the gate and he used to tell some of the older gate men some stories and he became affectionately known as Gunner Bill. And even to that day I still work at the ground and they ask me about, ‘How is Gunner Bill doing?’
MG: Ok. Thanks very much Tony. That’s been really helpful and obviously thanks to Bill for allowing us to be, to be here with him and I’ll stop now.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Tony Coulson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Michael Grant
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
2018-02-07
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACoulsonW180207
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:12:07 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Clarkson was flying on operations from RAF Tempsford dropping agents and supplies over occupied territory. On one occasion they were recalled due to bad weather and had to return with the agent on board. Obviously, he was in civilian clothes and caused a security incident at the aerodrome. On another occasion when the aeroplane Bill had been flying on had been badly damaged and they had been forced to make an emergency landing. When Bill and his crew asked for more bread with their meal they were met with the incredulous words of the WAAF, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on.’
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-02-08
1945-02-14
138 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
crash
Lancaster
love and romance
RAF Tempsford
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/730/10756/ACrozierH180216.1.mp3
88e4c998b4fef8844c1a1f0fa0dfe4c7
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
Burkitt, William Frederick
W F Burkitt
John Burkitt
Description
An account of the resource
16 items. A photograph album, photographs and documents concerning Sergeant William Frederick 'John' Burkitt (1922 - 1944, 1320846 Royal Air Force) He flew operations as a flight engineer with 9 Squadron from RAF Bardney. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Hilary Crozier about her uncle. <br /><br />Additional information on William Frederick Burkitt is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/103229/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Hilary Crozier and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-26
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Burkitt, WF
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RP: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Rob Pickles. The interviewee is Hilary Crozier. The interview is taking place at Mrs Crozier’s home in Cornwall on the 16th of February 2018. Also present is Trevor Crozier. Good afternoon, Hilary and thank you for inviting me to your home. We’re here to discuss your uncle, William Frederick Burkett. Perhaps you could start by telling us when and where he was born, some of his background and when he joined the RAF.
HC: Ok. Yes. Well, he was christened William Frederick but everybody in the family called him John. He called himself John so I will refer to him as John during the course of the interview if that’s ok.
RP: Yes. That’s fine.
HC: Right. He was, he was born in North London. He was the third child with two older sisters. Desperately need, wanted a son. My two grandparents desperately wanted a son and he came along quite quickly after the second daughter was born. My grandfather was a master carpenter and he’d been in the, sorry [pause] he’d been in the Royal Flying Corps during the war and not flying but I think he was there doing maintenance. But he was caught in a mustard attack, a mustard gas attack and he was never fully healthy after that and I think it was a bit of a problem within the family afterwards. But anyway, when the war broke out John was seventeen coming up eighteen. Engineer, mechanic or whatever by trade. I think he was in a Reserved Occupation but I don’t know what he was doing exactly. So he didn’t actually have to sign up and volunteer. My mother recalled some disagreements between him and his father because John was desperate to, to join up and sort of join the effort. Join the RAF. And his father was very very set against it and, you know they had quite a few debates I gather about this. But his, eventually his father said to him, ‘You will not join. You will not join up. Over my dead body will you join up.’ And sadly in March 1943 at the age of forty nine he died. My grandfather. And —
RP: Was that as a result of bombing or natural?
HC: No. No. He was ill. I mean, he never really fully recovered. He had a heart attack. He never, never really fully recovered from the mustard gas —
RP: Oh right.
HC: Attack. And so he just, he just sadly had a heart attack and died. That was in March 1943 and by October ’43 John was at Bardney. You know. Sort of preparing to fight the war. So sadly it was over his dead body really. John himself was a lovely chap actually from what I gather. He was very well, very popular, very well loved by everybody. My mother and her sister Irene, Rene we used to call her, they were very fond of him and it was a terrible terrible loss when he eventually died. To the whole family. But he loved tinkering around with mechanics, engineering, doing that sort of thing. He had the motorbike which he spent hours working on and just generally he was a happy, cheerful, nice man as I gather. So his, yeah their upbringing was quite comfortable really I think initially. My grandfather being a master carpenter he used to build pianos and somebody else did the work. He was in partnership. But then in the ‘20s the Depression came along and things got hard and he turned his carpentry skills to making coffins and he became an undertaker. Did both really. And my mother used to recall the children coming home from school in, in you know after school and they’d be sitting on half-finished coffins eating their tea in the kitchen.
RP: In the coff [laughs]
HC: It was. Yeah. So I mean they didn’t think anything of it really.
RP: No. No.
HC: I don’t think.
RP: Yeah.
HC: But it was just the life. The life that they knew.
RP: Yeah.
HC: But anyway I think he was a respected man, their father, in the community and he was quite popular as well. But sadly as I say his health never recovered from the war, the First World War and he died very young. And so that was, that was them really.
RP: So, when John had joined then do you know his sort of his history at Bardney? The numbers of sorties and —
HC: Well, I’m not entirely sure. He joined up in, he actually arrived at Bardney on the 11th of October in 1943 and his final mission was on the 22nd of March 1944.
RP: So when he arrived at Bardney he’d obviously been through training.
HC: Yes. Yes.
RP: So he must have joined quite, almost —
HC: Yes. Almost immediately after my grandfather died I imagine.
RP: Yes.
HC: He joined because yeah, they had the, they had their initial training, didn’t they?
RP: Yes.
HC: And then went on to another training —
RP: Yes. They trained.
HC: Centre.
RP: They trained as an airman.
HC: Yes.
RP: Then trained for the particular skill you have. Yeah.
HC: That’s right. And so he went to his, the second part of the training and that was when they selected, where the crews were selected.
RP: Yes. They have —
HC: Self-selected as I always think.
RP: That’s right. It is If you sort of liked —
HC: Yeah.
RP: The look of the guy who was a navigator you spoke to him and —
HC: Yes. Yes.
RP: If you gelled I think that that’s how they went about it.
HC: That’s right. And my understanding is is that Flying Officer Manning and Flying Officer Hearn, John and another sergeant called Peter Warywoda. Warywoda. He, the four of them formed the core of the crew. Other people came and went but those four were the initial sort of heart of the crew if you like. There was others joined them a little bit later. John Zammit who was possibly from America. We’re not entirely certain about that.
RP: I have heard it. Yes. He’s referred to as from the USA but —
HC: Yes. Yes.
RP: Someone might be guessing of course.
HC: Yes. I mean, I mean the only thing I’m saying is, or the thing that makes us wonder a little is Marcel who was, Marcel Dubois, the plane eventually fell in their in their little village really and he has been doing a lot of investigation to, in to the last flight of the LM4.
RP: So, Zammit is a Maltese name.
HC: Yes.
RP: Zammit is a Maltese name, isn’t it?
HC: Yes. That’s what Marcel was saying was that he’s gone to, he’s contacted many people in Malta. Many people in New York.
RP: Yeah.
HC: Where there are quite a lot of Zammits as well.
RP: Yes. Yeah. Because they would have emigrated of course.
HC: But he never had any response. He never had any reply so he doesn’t really know who, you know sort of where he came from.
RP: Has he tried the War Museums in Malta? Because they —
HC: I think he’s tried everywhere.
RP: Tried them all. Yeah.
HC: He’s been very extensive.
RP: Yeah.
HC: The interesting thing is that after they, after they died they were all buried in the, together in the cemetery in Brussels, Evere, and subsequently Zammit, John Zammit was actually, actually exhumed from that position and moved to the American War Cemetery. But after a while, I mean I don’t know why they did it but after a while he was re-removed from the American Cemetery and put back.
RP: Dear oh dear.
HC: In to Brussels. But unfortunately there’s now a complete crew between him and his crew. So, so they didn’t put, you know he wasn’t put back where he came from.
RP: I wonder if that was because they proved he wasn’t an American.
HC: It may be that they thought he wasn’t an American.
RP: Yeah.
HC: So, we don’t really know really.
RP: Ok. But tell me a little about your friend Marcel then. He seems to have been instrumental in finding out the information of John.
HC: Yes. Yes. It, I mean we didn’t know much more. We had a photograph in one of the bomber squadron books which had a picture of the crew including John out, behind the famous Johnny Walker Lancaster. We didn’t really know any more, too much more about what had happened. And then completely out of the blue in the mid-90s, around about ’94 ’95 I think it was we received a letter from the council, the North London Council where my, John’s family home had, well had been. And it was about, Marcel was trying to find people who were relatives of the crew of LM 430 which was the last mission for John and his crew. And the council were very good because by that time my mother had died, my aunt had died and the house had been sold. So somebody from the council went to the location and then they knocked on a few doors and fortunately they found a friend of my aunt who was still alive and still living there just a couple of doors down. And she happened to have our details and so they were able, the council were able to get us in contact with Marcel Dubois. Now, Marcel was thirteen years old as I understand it when, I may not have that exactly right but I think he was about thirteen when the plane came down in his small village in Belgium. And some of it fell in, it was broke into two big parts and a number of other parts and of course it fell into various gardens and some of it was in his aunt’s garden and some of it was, I think in his. I’m not entirely sure about that. But he just then became fascinated by the crew and what happened to them and their last mission. And in the ‘90s he very painstakingly tried to build up a view, or a picture of what happened, the last crew. Where they went. The last, sorry the last mission. Where they went and how the flight sort of came to its end really. And he was very successful.
RP: So I assume they, they’d bombed Frankfurt. They were on the return leg. Yeah?
HC: Yes.
RP: Yeah.
HC: Yes. Yeah. That’s right. They had. They left at, he had all the timings. I mean he was, and he’d actually worked out a little plan about their exact route and everything so we’ve got maps and things for that. So he did an awful lot of work. They, they left Bardney at ten past nine in the evening. Sorry. Sorry. Ten past seven, 19.10 in the evening and flew as though they were making for Hanover rather than Frankfurt and then, because I think they were trying to put the Germans off a little bit as to their route. And then they then diverted to Frankfurt as they got a bit closer but of course the Germans apparently already knew where they were going. By ten to ten they knew that. But they, they John’s plane was a little bit unfortunate that they’d sort of drifted slightly off course. So they were supposed to arrive for the bombing mission and I think the main bulk of them did arrive almost on time. I think Marcel said they were a minute late which was pretty good going for, for the main run. The main run. But John and his crew were a little bit later. They arrived a bit, a little bit afterwards so they were a little bit on their own which is not a good position to be in.
RP: No. No. Which is why you get picked off, I assume. Yeah.
HC: Yes. Yeah.
RP: Which is a very —
HC: Well —
RP: Just a twist of fate, isn’t it?
HC: Yeah.
RP: You’re a few minutes late and, but that’s you’re, that’s what happens.
HC: That, that’s right. Yes. Yes.
RP: Yeah.
HC: And they managed to, they managed to jettison all their bombs bar they had a crate of phosphorous bombs. Or a carrier of phosphorous bombs. They couldn’t, they couldn’t get them, get them to go. It was jammed or something. Now, under normal circumstances they, they would have just jettisoned the whole thing but there had been an order that very afternoon. That very day when they had had their briefing that they were getting short of these bomb carriers and that they should not unless they absolutely had to jettison them. They should bring them back.
RP: Oh right.
HC: Now, Marcel could never work out whether it was an order from the Bomber Command itself from higher up or whether it was just a local thing and Group Captain Pleasance had made that [pause] you know the station commander had made that order. So that subsequently was going to have some disastrous results for them.
RP: So they were carrying phosphorescent bombs. They’re hit. Which it just adds to the fire I guess.
HC: Yes. As far as I understand they had one crate. Just the one crate of these bombs but they didn’t, they did not jettison them. Together with the normal crew I haven’t mentioned that but the actual, the group captain on this particular occasion had joined them for their flight. I think it’s, and they weren’t really supposed to do that but anyway he was there. George Caines, who was the w/op the wireless operator in the crew he said that he actually didn’t really interfere with them. He sat behind the pilot and didn’t, was quietly spoken and didn’t really say anything or didn’t interfere with the actual mission really. So not, nobody sure why he went or what he went for or what the reason was. I understand he’d been two or three other times in different aircraft. So I —
RP: So do you know how many sorties John had done before that? The last one.
HC: No. I don’t. He, his first mission, he arrived on the 11th of October in Bardney. Their first mission was a few days later. I thought it was that same day but actually I realise now I’ve re-read it and it was a few days later and they got quite badly shot up on that first journey. And that first, their first mission and they lost their rear gunner and, who was, who was killed and another gunner, I think it’s the middle turret gunner, I think —
RP: Mid-upper. Yeah.
HC: Yeah.
RP: Yeah.
HC: He was quite badly injured. But they got the plane back safely. They then I believe and again this information from what Marcel found from George Caines when he interviewed George Caines. He, they were then shot up again sort of a day or two later. So they had a pretty sticky start really to their, their flight. The four original crew members who we originally mentioned were still together but they started to lose a couple of other. I mean obviously the rear gunner was killed and the other one was injured so they had to be replaced. And the wireless, the original wireless operator who was not George Caines he, well he sort of had a little bit of a breakdown. He’d had a tough time of it and so he was sort of quickly removed from the vicinity. I understand they didn’t like —
RP: No. They tended to —
HC: Lack of moral fibre I think they called it but —
RP: Yeah. Yes. They tended to be posted to a particular area in Scotland, I think.
HC: Yes. Yes. He was [pause] So, so the rest of the crew were coming and going and they said there were another, another ten missions before I think it was they [pause] I think that might have been before Zammit, John Zammit joined them. So I really don’t know how many missions he did. In the one archive it says possibly twenty but to my mind that doesn’t seem that many for an experienced crew in —
RP: It depends how, the frequency because they might fly the sortie and then have two days off and —
HC: Yes.
RP: Or if the aircraft had been damaged it could be another a week or so.
HC: Right. Yes.
RP: But you probably, you would expect probably maybe three or three or four a month at least I would have thought.
HC: Right.
RP: Possibly.
HC: About right then because it was five months.
RP: It depends on the serviceability of the aircraft.
HC: Yes.
RP: And as you say if there was a crew member had been injured and they can’t get another one.
HC: Yeah.
RP: Although towards 1944 yes they were starting to feel the pinch in getting crews I think.
HC: Yes.
RP: Because so many of them had died. I think that was the problem.
HC: Yeah, that was the thing I think. That’s, that was right.
RP: So training. They still kept to the same training regime so they still had a fairly lengthy training period.
HC: Yes. Yes. So that may well have been right then. Twenty in five months.
RP: It was a possibility. Yeah.
HC: It would be possible wouldn’t it?
RP: You mentioned someone actually survived the crash. Did they bale out?
HC: Yes. What happened, let me tell you what exactly happened.
RP: Yeah.
HC: And then —
RP: Please do. Yeah.
HC: And so, so they, they arrived at the, where they, at Frankfurt a little, a little bit behind the others but not much. They jettisoned all their bombs bar this crate of phosphorous bombs. They then decided, well obviously returned, wanted to return as quickly as they could and they thought that they could catch up with their other comrades really and the other, the other aircraft and they didn’t think there was that much time, that much gap between them. That they could make, make the time up. But unfortunately again they wiggled off course slightly. They just drifted again off course. It was quite bumpy I gather. It was a bit rough up there I think that, on that particular time. Night. Whether it had any difference, made any difference I don’t know but anyway they were still slightly off course. One aircraft on its own a little bit away from the others was fairly easily picked up really and they were flying back. They were just around about the Halle area of Belgium when they suddenly got hit by what they thought was flak. It got the bomb, the crate of bombs that they hadn’t jettisoned because of the instructions. Whether, they would have done had the group captain not been on board the plane. They may have done. We don’t know. But anyway, this what they thought was flak hit the plane. It then, the bombs exploded, caught fire. Immediately what they thought was flak had hit them the pilot, the skipper, Manning he said to them, put your, told the people to put their, put their parachutes on. Told all the crew which they did. And then before jettisoning oh before jumping out he thought he could try and put the flames out. So he did the —
RP: Yeah.
HC: Fast manoeuvre that they do but still thinking it was flak he didn’t, I don’t think he took evasive action. He just did the, I think he just did the, he flew fast to get the flames out. But unfortunately what he didn’t realise because it was the phosphorous bombs, that the air in the phosphorous it just made it worse and the flames then licked along the undercarriage of the aircraft, caught the fuel tank. But also, and the fuel tank exploded. Now, the assumption was it was either more flak or the, you know the fuel tank just got, just exploded because of the fire but what had happened in fact was that one of the German top night, well I think he was probably the top fighter, night fighter ace, Schnaufer was his name had actually come up underneath the aircraft and shot them. The first shot seemed to hit the phosphorous bombs. And then he hung around and then came in for the kill and he shot them a second time. So whether it was the flames that got the fuel tank or whether it was the, you know Schnaufer’s guns I don’t know. So, that was what, that was what happened. The plane then broke in half. Nobody obviously by that time, nobody could get out really. It was a bit too late. Perhaps they should have jumped immediately. I don’t know. But they didn’t. And as I understand from Marcel that because of the way the Lancasters were built, the very large bomb compartment it’s a weakness. It has a, as he called it a bit of a weak backbone. And so where the wireless operator which was George Caines sat was right at the beginning of the bomb bay. So the plane split open and George Caines fell out. Fortunately, he had, as I said they had their parachutes on and George, he was sort of semi-conscious but just enough to be able to pull his ripcord, and so he fell out. The parachute didn’t fully open but he landed in amongst the trees which broke his fall. And then he said by the time he got to the ground his parachute had gained sufficient air just to sort of not kill him really. He was injured but not critically badly as far as I understand it. I mean, I don’t know what his, the full extent of his injuries were but I do know he had a dislocated knee but I don’t know what else had happened to him. And he was picked up by a local chap from the village. A man called Mr Pissens and he took George into his house and he was able to eat a meal so he obviously was sort of sufficiently ok. And George stayed overnight with Mr Pissens in his house. Mr Pissens then went to look at the plane and all the other, the others were all were all dead. I’ve seen two accounts. Marcel mentioned that they were all still strapped in their seats.
RP: Yeah.
HC: And they had probably died very quickly. Lost consciousness with the oxygen depletion. But some other people, there was another report that their bodies were outside the plane. But I don’t know. I don’t know which is correct. But anyway all of the others died very quickly as I understand it. Anyway, the following, George stayed overnight in Mr Pissens’s house. The following morning a detachment of Germans arrived. They were billeted in a farmhouse fairly close by and had been searching and they picked up George Caines and he was then a prisoner of war for the rest of the war. And the rest of the crew were removed from the aircraft and taken to Brussels where they were buried on the 24th of [pause] it may have been the 25th but they were buried a couple of days later in Brussels.
RP: So, the chap who rescued George Caines. Did he get in trouble then for hiding him?
HC: Well, I don’t, I’m not, I don’t think so. There was, there was, I saw one report that said he had been arrested but I don’t think he, I don’t think so. He may have been temporarily. I don’t think he got into bad trouble. He just held him overnight. I mean he gave him up immediately in the morning when the Germans arrived. I don’t think it was in his mind to try and hide him but I don’t know. I can’t give you [any information] about —
RP: So George Caines survived the war as a prisoner.
HC: George Caines survived the war and he lived until 2011. So —
RP: Oh, that’s good.
HC: Yes. Marcel was able to track him down, trace him and he interviewed him on the 20th of, sorry not on the 20th, in the year 2000 and so he got a lot of his information —
RP: Oh, that’s good.
HC: From George Caines so it’s as accurate, I think as we can make it.
RP: Yeah. Yes.
HC: But interestingly enough nearly all the records say that the plane was shot down on the 23rd of March but it was, which was the following day but it was actually the 22nd of March. The day they flew out. It was shot, the plane was shot down at ten past eleven in the night. And we have evidence of that because of Schnaufer’s logbook. And there was somebody, I think he was called Rumpelhardt was his co — I don’t know. I don’t think they called him a co-pilot but the, the other person who was in the plane with him and perhaps he’d be a navigator. I’m not sure. But he, they both in their logbooks had recorded the shooting. The time that, they weren’t sure whether it was a Lancaster or a Halifax but subsequently it was obviously it’s the Lancaster. And there was some other correspondence, some other information as well that confirmed that from the radar I think. The German, sort of radar people. So it was, it was actually the 22nd that they were all shot down and not the 23rd. Which was a bit, a bit sad really.
RP: Yeah. It is.
HC: Yes.
RP: So it’s a fairly comprehensive report though because you don’t always get that when someone’s been shot down. It’s always hard to find out information.
HC: No. No. It’s just, you were just shot down. I mean, in a way you don’t want to know.
RP: That’s right. Yeah.
HC: I mean, you know it feels so tragic because there was, I mean there was, you know the drifting off course didn’t help.
RP: No.
HC: Not being able to release their phosphorous bombs clearly didn’t help. The pilot being a little unsure and trying to put out the fire with oxygen and air which would actually cause the phosphorous bombs to burn more. You know. It was just [pause] The group captain being on board the plane. Did that make any difference? You don’t know. I mean we just can’t. We just don’t know. And so it was yeah quite a —
RP: It would be interesting to read the form 540 of the squadron to see why the group captain went and what the explanation is in there.
HC: Yes. Nobody’s been able to find out. Marcel, I’ve seen a, because he writes, I’ve seen something he’s written on the internet as well and he says he’s got his theories but he’s not saying what he thinks his theory is. So, so we don’t really know what that is. But I mean how much impact it had or how much you know sort of him being there we just don’t know. We don’t have a clue really, do we?
RP: No.
HC: And it may have had no significance at all. I mean I wish to heavens they’d jettisoned their phosphorous bombs but, you know right at the scene. You know. But they didn’t.
RP: No.
HC: And that was that. Which was a shame but having said that Schnaufer was the top fighter ace and they probably wouldn’t have stood a chance regardless anyway. But, yeah which is a great shame really. Yes. I think Schnaufer ended up with a hundred and twenty one kills which it’s, it’s a lot of people.
RP: It is.
HC: Yeah. Yeah. They used to, it was a technique that he was very skilled at was actually sort of creeping up underneath the aircraft because they were blind in the middle.
RP: That’s right.
HC: Sort of in the belly of the aircraft. It was just a technique that he perfected. And he just was able to shoot down so many planes. And the other interesting thing is when Marcel interviewed George Caines even in 2000 he still believed that they got, that they were caught by flak. He didn’t believe that it was a night fighter ace until Marcel was able to provide him with the evidence and there was the information then that they were actually shot down by Schnaufer and not unluckily caught by flak. But my understanding is and George, I think George Caines sort of indicated it when he was speaking to Marcel was that the [pause] they mostly chose to think it was flak. I suppose they didn’t really like to think there were these aircraft because they were pretty lethal. It was a pretty lethal thing if they were got from underneath like that.
RP: I don’t think they ever solved the problem to be honest.
HC: No.
RP: Because it’s got such a large bomb bay you can’t have a really a mid-lower observation post.
HC: Yes.
RP: It’s just because that was the point of the Lancaster. It was one big bomb bay.
HC: Yes. Yes. So, so I think it was easier to think that you were randomly hit by flak than actually there’s people stalking you from underneath and coming up and shooting you dead. I mean it’s just a, yeah, it’s a, a terrible thing to have to think about each sort of when you go out.
RP: So have you been able to visit the cemetery to —
HC: Yes. Yes. We, we I mean Marcel has been fantastic and I think he, you know sort of so much credit should go to Marcel for everything that he’s done really, and yes I acknowledge what he’s done. He, he what he did in the end he found, you know he sort of that he got as much information as he could about as many of the crew as he could. There’s just one outstanding and that was somebody called Albert Finch who was the rear gunner on the night. He can’t find any information about him and, but he’s still trying. I mean Marcel must be you know sort of well into his eighties now I suppose but I still communicate with him occasionally on email and whatever so —
RP: Yes.
HC: He’s still —
RP: Yeah. Its unusual. Even if they’ve not registered interest or no one in the family.
HC: Yeah.
RP: Has researched him there won’t be any information about him that’s the thing.
HC: He’s still searching. Still searching. So, but anyway what he decided to do and it was a wonderful gesture they had a plaque made with all the names of all the individuals of the individual crew members who had died that night. And they they’ve fixed the plaque on to the side of the wall of one of the nearest house to the main part of the aircraft that crashed and we actually had a, just a wonderful visit there. Marcel had arranged it all. And it was like the grand opening of the plaque. Or the grand unveiling the plaque I should say and, but first of all though he organised a service in the Cathedral and there was many of the dignitaries from Halle in Belgium were there. 9 Squadron was represented by the squadron leader then who was a man called Watson. Squadron Leader Watson. And there was somebody from the Belgian, I think it was the military attaché I think from the Belgian [pause] government I suppose, isn’t it? Really.
RP: Yes. Must be. Yeah.
HC: Yes. And he attended. There was many local people and all the old veterans had turned out. Probably a little bit like our Royal British Legion, I think. And so we had a very moving service there. We went to the, to the cemetery and we spent time with the, at the coffin and you know accompanied by all these people. And then we went back to the village and there was the grand unveiling of the plaque and the local people had provided a really nice tea for everybody and it was just, it was just a wonderful occasion.
RP: That’s very good of them, wasn’t it?
HC: Yes. It was tremendous.
RP: Amazing.
HC: And they’ll be remembered now forever more.
RP: Oh yes. Well, thank you for that. I think we’ve probably covered everything there but it’s amazing that you’ve had, you’ve had so much research done.
HC: Yeah.
RP: It’s great.
HC: I think it’s Marcel really. Everything we know is down to him and his sort of just doggedness really. And yeah, we just, well we just you know sort of feel as though his contribution should be acknowledged but you want to acknowledge the contribution of the, the sort of the people who died. I mean they were so brave going out night after night, weren’t they?
RP: That’s right.
HC: Doing this job.
RP: Well, hopefully through this, you know the IBCC with the digital archive will have, you know many interviews like this you know about all the crew.
HC: Yes.
RP: Various people.
HC: Yes.
RP: And that’ll be there. So his name, John’s name will be remembered and we’ve obviously mentioned Marcel.
HC: Yes.
RP: In this interview so that will be —
HC: Yes.
RP: That will be remembered.
HC: That’s good. I’m pleased about that. So, yeah I mean there’s one other very, well a great irony. I always consider irony of life that on the, at the age of twenty two on the 22nd of March John’s life came to an end. For me at the age of twenty two on the 22nd of March —
[recording paused]
HC: For me on the 22nd of March my life started. I got married. It was, I mean what a coincidence.
RP: Twenty two.
HC: Yeah. I was aged twenty two. On the 22nd of March I got married.
RP: Goodness me.
HC: On the 22nd of March at the age of twenty two John died.
RP: Amazing.
HC: It’s terrible.
RP: It’s strange, isn’t it?
HC: Yeah. Dreadful irony.
RP: Well, thank you very much for talking to me Hilary, it’s been fascinating. I appreciate your time. Thank you.
HC: No. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Hilary Crozier
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rod Pickles
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
2018-02-16
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACrozierH180216
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:34:31 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Hilary’s uncle, William Frederick Burkitt (known as John), was born in North London. He joined up in October 1943 and after training as a flight engineer, was sent to RAF Bardney. During their first operation they were badly hit and the rear gunner was killed and another badly injured. On another operation the crew had to jettison the bombs, apart from one crate of incendiaries. Their aircraft, LM 430 was hit, and the incendiaries and fuel tank exploded: John and all the crew, except one, were killed on 22 March 1944 crashing into a house in Belgium.
Marcel Dubois was a child in Belgium at the time and because some wreckage of the aircraft landed in various gardens in his village he became fascinated with the crew and extensively researched them and the details of their last flight. The station commander had also been on the flight.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Belgium--Brussels
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10
1944-03-22
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
crash
flight engineer
incendiary device
killed in action
Lancaster
memorial
prisoner of war
RAF Bardney
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/808/10789/ADyerT171127.2.mp3
6fb0d2543054636a20b7d5674abbb557
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
Dyer, Tony
T Dyer
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Tony Dyer (1939). He grew up in Reading during the war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-27
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dyer, T
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Claire Monk and the interviewee is Tony Dyer. The interview is taking place at Mr Dyer’s home [buzz ] on the 27th of November 2017. Mr Dyer, thank you so much for agreeing to speak to us. Can you tell me about your childhood and the events that you’ve seen?
TD: Yes. I’ve a story to tell. I was born in 1939, in January, before the war started. The Second World War. I was born in Reading, I now live in Lincoln and my parents were at home and dad was in the Army. The Royal Engineers. Ok. And we used to look after the WRAF locally based in Shinfield Park, which is another place of the RAF which is now probably closed. Consequently I being the youngster, dad being away, mum being busy I was often child minded by my grandparents. Ok. My grandparents lived towards the middle of Reading. We were on the outskirts of Reading in an address called Alpine Street. And I can still remember that quite well. My granddad was probably involved in the First World War. I’m not sure how old he was at the time but in 1943 I think it was, 1943 I was being baby sat by my grandparents. And my grandfather had a job because he was long past his serving date and his job was to be commissionaire at the cinema in Reading High Street. Broad Street it was called. And I think the name of the cinema was Vaudeville. Ok. Fine. One of the things which they must have done was, was to as I say I don’t use the expression farm, farming out perhaps [laughs] But obviously he took me under his wing one day and I was given a freebie in to the cinema, would you believe? How about that? And I think my age at the time was probably about four and a half. And that was his way of child minding me at that time. Ok so far?
CM: You’re doing brilliantly. Keep going.
TD: Well, the memory that I have which I want to record and it’s still vividly with me now and its one of those things I can’t remember much of my childhood but this day I can remember particularly well is that I was sat in the cinema. A freebie of course. I didn’t pay. He got me in. And we were watching the cinema. I can’t remember what film was on but I do remember what happened next because we were watching, I think they called it the Pathé News. The Pathé News was being broadcast and what actually happened then was, was that I was looking at the Pathé News, and I can see it now very clearly. There was a bomber going across the screen. I’m not quite sure if it was left to right or right to left but the bomber was going one way and there was a tank coming the other way. And what happened then was that the bomber dropped a bomb and I’m not sure what the bomber, where the bomber came from but, nor the tank but what happened was that on the Pathé News they animated the bomb. The bomb came down bump bump bump bump bump bump, hit the tank and there was a big explosion. And it wasn’t just on the screen there was a big explosion but in the cinema there was a big explosion as well and all the lights came on would you believe? And this is what I remember so clearly because there was obviously a lot of panic and commotion, and I was taken [pause] I made my way out of the cinema and we [pause] I must have been with my granddad. I can’t remember him being with me at the time but I went to the High Street and it was utter utter devastation all down the High Street. What had actually happened on that, on that particular day was, was that two Dornier aircraft from the German Air Force had come and bombed a place called, it was called the People’s Pantry. And it was, it was one of those places they used to feed people up I suppose. It was called the People’s Pantry. I knew it very well. It was probably about four hundred yards down the High Street from where I was. Broad Street it was called in Reading. And I understand a lot of people were killed. And my sister in law has given me some reflections from the archive in Reading recently to say that there were thirty nine people killed by two Dornier aircraft which flew over and dropped bombs. And there is a, there is a little story about when one of the pilots was seen to smile and wave as he went past as well would you believe? And as I say that, that memory has stayed with me for a long, long time and I think, I don’t know if it’s worth recording but that’s what I wanted to do.
CM: Absolutely. Did it change the way that your grandparents looked after you?
TD: I honestly can’t remember actually because I really can’t remember. I can remember vividly where we were. I can’t remember what they did with me other than that. They probably walked me around by the river. There was a river close by. And I just remember that particular day. And as I said, I was, I was born in ’39. This happened in ’43. In, I think it was Wednesday, the 10th of February. Yeah. When? 1943. And that, that bombing raid was actually targeted. What they’d done actually was to, as I understand it they were bombing the Railway Station probably. And the Railway Station was probably to the north of where they hit Reading so they were a bit off target and they hit the People’s Pantry instead. And another four hundred yards they would have hit me as well. So, so as I say thirty nine people were killed on that occasion. And I think Newbury suffered as well on that occasion as well. But both aircraft were eventually shot down anyway. So, that’s it really.
CM: Fantastic. Do you think that incident affected, changed the way people in Reading were afterwards? Were they more cautious? Were they quite care free until that point?
TD: Well, its, I don’t know. You know, I was very, I was very young. That’s the occasion. I can, I can remember going back home. I can remember the WAAFs being in my house because I can remember being in the, under the staircase when there was an air raid warning. I can remember the, the shoals of aeroplanes flying over my house in Reading. There were hundreds of the things, you know. So it was all a bit scary but I mean being, being a young kid it probably didn’t affect me as it did, as it would have affected my parents. And dad was away of course. He was an engineer so I’m not quite sure where he was but he was. So, so there you go.
CM: Fantastic. Did, when we spoke on the phone —
TD: Yeah.
CM: You said you had gone into Bomber Command yourself.
TD: Yeah.
CM: Do you think that, was that through National Service or was it that’s where you felt that’s where I’m going to go because it’s a reflection of this?
TD: Well, my, my background now has been, yeah, has been through Bomber Command. I did National Service. I went out for two years. Went back and did another twenty in the Air Force. I was involved with Bomber Command. To a point I suppose with High Wycombe and also overseas as well, Northern Ireland particularly when the Troubles were rife. So that was a bit of a scary time for everybody. And yeah, and I’ve worked with the Vulcans on Scampton, Waddington and places like that. So, so I have a background with Bomber Command in a way. So that’s how.
CM: Fantastic. And you, so now you’re retired.
TD: Yeah.
CM: Even though you don’t look a day over twenty one.
TD: Thank you very much.
CM: Pleasure. What are you doing with your life now?
TD: Well, I do, I do one or two things. I still do voluntary at the hospital. I’m a member of the British Legion. We do some fund-raising for the British Legion. We want to do some fund-raising for the Bomber Command Memorial at some point which we’ll talk about later on perhaps. And I do sessions with, music sessions with people who suffer dementia and things. And that would involve quite a lot of ex-service people as well. Not only men but obviously women as well because that’s the way it is. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m an active volunteer.
CM: Fantastic.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Tony Dyer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claire Monk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-26
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADyerT171127
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:11:14 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Tony Dyer was a three or four year old child when his grandfather took him to the cinema in Reading on the 10th of February 1943. As Tony was ironically watching the animation of a bomber and a tank on the Pathé News segment a bomb hit the nearby People’s Pantry. The bomb was dropped from a Dornier aircraft. Another bomber went on to bomb Newbury.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Reading
England--Berkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
bombing
childhood in wartime
entertainment
home front
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/810/10793/AEdwardsM180621.1.mp3
b7de32541c9e2101b84c4b3d9b8dfe83
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
Edwards, Frederick
F Edwards
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection concerns Frederick Edwards (b. 1923) and contains his log book, maps, navigation charts, service documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 101 Squadron. There is also an oral history interview with his son, Martin Edwards.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Martin Edwards and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-14
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edwards, F
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JH: My name is Judy Hodgson and I’m interviewing Martin Edwards, son of Frederick Edwards for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Mr Edwards home and it is the 21st of June 2018. Thank you, Martin for agreeing to talk to me today. Can you tell me about, you know, your father? His date of birth, where he was born and early years that you know.
ME: Yeah. Sure. That’s not a problem. Dad was born on the 20th of June 1923 in Belvedere in Kent which is now a part of Greater London. The family house. We had a farm and he was one of eight. He was the second son. Second eldest son. His eldest son was Harry. Yeah. And he went to St Augustine’s School in Heron Hill in Belvedere and then on to Brook Street School in Erith. His brother Harry got a scholarship and got to the Grammar School. But the family couldn’t afford to send more than one so dad just stayed at school and did the General Certificate or whatever it’s called, of education that they took then and then left at fifteen. I don’t know what he did after work but he ended up, I think he was an office boy at a company called Sloggett’s which was a builders. Now, whether that was before or after the war I don’t know. But he definitely worked with Sheila Hancock. She was a secretary there so she probably doesn’t remember him. And then he, he started his active service in 1943 and he, he trained to be a navigator which he got sent to Canada to be a navigator. Then he came back in to the UK and was in 101 Squadron for thirty ops and bombed Dresden. Part of them, but Ludwigshafen, Berchet — Hitler’s bunker. He bombed that as well. And one of his proudest claims is that the people he flew with, or his crew they never lost a single person. They came back and everyone came back safe. Always. He has some funny stories to tell. He had some funny stories to tell. One of the, one stories he said, he’s told me was, was when they’d flown to the target and it was fog bound so they had to come back and dump the bombs in the North Sea. And the pilot, who it appears he had the same pilot all the way through, a Flight Officer Brooking, he said, ‘Well, where can we bomb, Fred?’ And he said, ‘We’ll go and bomb the Frisian Islands.’ So they plotted a course to the Frisian Islands and bombed the Frisian Islands and then flew home. And the commandant or whoever it is said, ‘Any successful? Anyone successful mission?’ Everyone said no except for dad who said, ‘Yeah. We bombed the Frisian Islands.’ ‘Ok. Fair enough.’ Other funny stories. There’s lots of funny stories. They used to, because of the trip they’d taken and France was already being, they were already fighting in France when he was flying so they’d fly over to France and then up through France over the trenches and then up in to their target in Germany. And as they crossed the trenches what the rear gunner would do they’d take all sorts of rubbish out the, out the mess and they’d throw darts and anything they couldn’t down on to the Germany trenches hoping to at least hit one or two Germans. But the rear gunner used to take a bottle of wine with him with a cork and then he used to drop the cork and then the bottle of wine and they said, ‘Why did you do that?’ He said, ‘Well, Fritz is sitting down there in the trench, the cork hits him on the helmet, he looks up, ‘Was ist das?’ and gets the bottle in the face.’ That was the theory anyway. In practice they were probably miles apart. But that’s not the point. The biggest disappointment I think was Dresden because he felt very upset that people seemed to indicate, and over time that they went there to intentionally burn, burn Dresden. Which they didn’t. He just went to bomb his, bomb his targets and come back and the fact that the wooden houses, they caught fire was an unfortunate result but he was very upset that it seems now being diverted that, or the impression is that they went to Dresden to burn it down and they didn’t. Although those deaths were very unfortunate but he really didn’t like that. That people were sort of saying, ‘Oh, well, you know, you were nasty,’ sort of thing. Amusing stories. The rear gunner who shot a cheese sandwich. Sorry the upper gunner who shot a cheese sandwich. This is the one story that all my family remember. And they had a bomb aimer, not a bomb aimer, I think it was the radio operator who didn’t like cheese sandwiches. So every day you’d fly off and you get your cheese sandwiches because that’s all you’re going to get. And he goes, and he really had not a good time of it or whatever so he threw his cheese sandwich out the port in the roof where dad took his mirrors. And as it flew past the upper mid-upper gunner he shot it. A big burst of fire. He said, ‘What was that?’ ‘Well, I don’t know but it was going really fast.’ So when they came back to land, ‘Any hits?’ He said, ‘Does a cheese sandwich count?’ ‘Fine. Never mind.’ Other stories. The hung up bomb. He, they flew out and one of the bombs was hung up. It was stuck in its cradle. So they opened, the bomb doors were open and they opened the hatch. There’s an inspection hatch or something in the plane and they were holding on to my dad who was only five foot three. And he’s trying to kick this bomb out while you’ve got the bomb doors open and everything like that and they couldn’t shift it so they came back. And they flew to the airport and they let go of the flares which, because the radio gear had been shot out. They sent the necessary flares out to say that they’d got a bomb hung up. They came in to land. They were given permission to land. They were waved in and went straight in to the hangar where everyone was and two wingless wonders as dad used to call them came down and went, ‘Didn’t quite understand the flares, old chap.’ He said, ‘Oh, we’ve got a bomb hung up.’ ‘Oh f —.’ And everyone was diving for cover. Sorry. Sorry about the language but [laughs] so everyone was diving for cover because they’d got this bomb that could have gone off at any moment. You know. So no problem. So it didn’t go off thank goodness. So that was, that was that. Other stories. I’m trying to think. There was, there was the bomb aimer. He, you always used to get a prism. The bomb aimer would get a prism in a bag. He’d have to sign for it and go out and then he’d put it in to the necessary hole in the plane to lay the bombs. And they were going along and they’re reaching the target and the bomb aimer had lined everything up and he turned away to check that the bomb doors were open and everything was right. He turned back and the prism was absolutely shattered. The ack ack had hit the prism and it shattered. So had he been looking in the prism it would have smashed his face up. But just by doing the checks, safety checks he got away with it and so when they got back they go, you know to return the prism he goes, ‘Shh,’ and just lets out loads of glass shards over the bloke’s desk. ‘There it is.’ He goes, ‘Oh thanks. Yes. I don’t think I can fix it though.’
[recording paused]
ME: Well, I’ll sort of go back to the beginning. His service record which you would probably be interested in. He started. He’s got a summary. Well, I’ve got his logbook. That’s the point. I’ve got a lot of his stuff which will be on the, on the site. There’s the map when he flew to Dresden. The actual map he plotted the course and came back. Plus all his notes. The logbook. What he did. Where he did it. Where they crossed the coast. What times it was and everything like that. So he started his service in, on the 30th of the 9th. 30th of September 1943 and he ended it on the 30th of the 9th 1946. Right. He completed thirty operations. The last three which I’ll talk about later because they are important to me. But he bombed Ludwigshafen which I’ve been there. This BASF lives at Ludwigshafen and he’s bombed them twice so [laughs] I thought of going to tell them but I don’t think they’re very keen. And he bombed Hitler’s bunker as well. So he did, he did quite a few of the right sort of bombings. So, yeah I mean we could go through the ops but these are all recorded. So Essen, Ludwigshafen, Kirn. Standard Hanover, Hanau, Bottrop, Kleve, Dresden. There we go. Dresden. The 13th of the 2nd 1945.
JH: Right.
ME: That was his mother’s birthday. The 13th. And he died in the 13th of the 2nd 2015. Seventy years. The anniversary of him bombing Dresden. Or being navigator that bombed Dresden. In the plane that bombed Dresden. Which is just incredible. So, yeah. Bottrop, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen it’s all there. Kirn, Dessau, Misburg. Bombed. Sixteen bombs. Air test. Oh, air test bombing. That wasn’t an operation obviously. His last three operations are the ones I really want to talk about. And that was his sandbag dropping. All that sort of thing. Positive. And again Berchtesgaden which is where Hitler was.
JH: And he kept the same —
ME: That was the last. Last op. Twenty six of them. That was the last op that he did. Bombing.
JH: The pilot was the same. Yeah.
ME: Oh Brooking. Brooking. Yeah. His pilot. Brooking, all the way through. The same pilot. A Mr Brooking. He got promoted quite a lot. Started as a flight officer. Whatever his name was. Oh, one of the things he used to say with crash landings. He said, you fly back and it would be on automatic pilot and he said you get almost to the end, seven minutes to landing and he would go and wake the pilot up and say, ‘Seven minutes to landing, skipper.’ And he’d go, ‘Where do you want? What’s the heading?’ He’d give him the heading and they’d go and land it. And he said most, most of the crash landings they had were due to pilot error. Forgot to put the undercarriages down and other things like that. Lock them down. Because they’d just woken. It had been a ten hour flat. The bloke. And he said when he was, when he was flying the skipper said to him once, ‘Why don’t you come up the front and have a look what’s going? How can you sit back there and not know what’s happening?’ And he said he went to the front of the plane and there’s tracer bullets and the wings were like only a foot apart on the planes and there was things diving everywhere and he said, ‘I went back and sat down,’ he said, ‘I’d rather not know.’ But you can imagine the pilot. The stress the pilot must have been under. So coming back, automatic pilot, once you got over the trenches and you’re back switch the automatic pilot on and he had a kip. Then he’d wake him up. Seven minutes before landing. ‘Seven minutes to landing, skipper.’ ‘Alright. Heading?’ And then he’d take them in. Incredible.
JH: What planes were —?
ME: They were Lancasters.
They were Lancasters. Yeah.
JH: Yeah. Yeah.
ME: Yeah. Lancasters. They were all asleep. Dad was the only one that was awake. He went to Whittlesford on his eightieth birthday. My uncle took him. Uncle Harry. Well, Sally and Harry. Harry and Elsie took him to Whittlesford. 101 Squadron were still there. And he was going through the plane and the guide, one of the ladies, the girls who did the guides he said they didn’t know what, there was a hole in the floor right by where he sat and they said, ‘What’s that for?’ And he said, ‘Oh that’s where you drop the flares out.’ If you wanted to, you know send up flares you didn’t. You dropped them out there. You lit them and you dropped them out that hole. And they didn’t know. And so he’s trying to explain things to this guide and all the other people on the trip are going, ‘Come on, we’re going,’ He goes, ‘No. No. No. He can stay as long as he wants. He’s one of us.’ You know. So she let him prattle on forever. But yeah that was his eightieth birthday so that would have been 19 — quick calculation 1993. No. 2003. Yeah. Eighty. Twenty. Yeah, 2003. Yeah. So it wasn’t that long ago.
JH: No.
ME: But they’ve just shifted from Whittlesford. 101 Squadron. It’s only just moved. Well, was moving then sort of thing. So I think that’s why he was taken. But, yeah the last three trips. The last operations he did was sort of, [pause] turning the page, the Manna droppings. And this is, when I was a kid he used to say, ‘Oh, we’d fly the plane and we flew it so low that you could look up to people on hay bricks.’ You know, haystacks. You were that low you were looking up at haystacks. And I thought, oh yeah. Right. Yeah. Blah. Blah. Blah, you know, ‘Yes dad, I believe you. Not.’ He said, ‘Yes. We had to do this low level flying.’ Right. And then later on when I was older he told me about these Manna droppings. And I said, ‘What were those?’ He said, ‘Well, basically Hitler was, well the Germans as well were starving. They were still occupied. Holland was still occupied and they were absolutely starving, and they couldn’t. No food or anything so we, we dropped food for them. For the Dutch to eat.’ The freedom Dutch fighters or whatever, the Dutch people to eat. And he would fly in, they would fly in low level to a designated place only a couple of foot off the ground by the sounds of things, and they open the bomb doors and chuck everything. And everything would drop out. So no crates. Loose foods in tins. Well, the eggs would have broken I guess. But I think it was tinned. Dried eggs.
JH: Dried. Yeah.
ME: And he said they banked as they flew in there was no one there they couldn’t see any bodies. As they banked and flew away all the food had gone and they still couldn’t see anybody. They just had to clear the field really quickly so they must have been hundreds of people waiting for this to drop and just dropped it. No crates. No nothing. Just dropped it out. and then they flew away. And they did three of those. And that’s, and years later my cousin, Harry’s daughter had married a guy called Phillip and dad died and when dad had died I was talking to him afterwards and I told him about this Manna thing. The Manna drops. And he said, ‘I wish I knew because he saved the lives of my family.’ And he and that too me should be what is lauded about what happened in the war. That’s the thing that people really should. That’s the just incredible act of bravery to fly in that low to save people’s lives. It’s completely the opposite of killing people. Saving people’s lives. It’s just an absolutely brilliant story. And to actually know somebody whose family had survived because of it. just incredible. Even though he bombed the Frisian Islands.
JH: Yes.
ME: [laughs] Which I’m sure they’ll forgive him for. I mean, I guess that’s where the, anyway after that he did his thirty services. Never lost a man as I said. They never had the same crew but he obviously had the same pilot. And I wonder where he is. I wonder if he’s still alive. It might be nice to meet him. Anyway, that’s and so then he went in to, went over to serve the rest of his time over in Egypt and flying bodies to the central, to the crematoriums and what have you. One of the funny stories. When I was at school I was learning German and I came back and said, ‘Oh. I’ve started to learn German,’ and dad went to me, ‘Oh, fish paste is best.’ And I goes, ‘What?’ He said, ‘That’s German for what time it is.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not. It’s wie spät ist es. Not fish paste is best.’ So these are the phrases they were supposed to learn in case they were shot down. I don’t think he would have got very far, do you? [laughs] And again when he came back from Egypt some Arab came over or something oh [unclear] ‘What?’ And these are the phrases they picked up while they were out there. So they were, yeah just ferrying bodies left, right and centre. Get them all back. You know, from the desert and everywhere. All the fighting. So they were getting them all back to the cemeteries in Libya and wherever. Egypt.
JH: And what were they flying? What planes were these?
ME: Oh, they were flying Dakotas.
JH: Oh right.
ME: Yeah. American planes. One time he was out there it snowed and he said it was the funniest sight he’d seen because all these Egyptians thought the end of the world had happened because it was snowing. It doesn’t snow [laughs] and they’d never seen snow before and they were all praying to Allah and running around in circles. It was just a bit of snow. It didn’t settle but it was snowing. So he just thought it was hilarious. Then he came out, left, and he came and he met mum. Well, that, that is a romantic story in itself.
JH: Oh, tell us.
ME: Yeah. It’s a romantic story. I mean mum’s still alive but she’s not well bless her. But she, he was, I’m a DJ right. I’m a mobile DJ. I’ve been a DJ since I was seventeen. He was the first mobile DJ. He would put his wind up gramophone in a wheelbarrow and his 78s and wheel it down to the local Youth Club and wind it up and play the records. And they were all jive records. You know the old. And the Royal Air Force Band and all sorts of things like that. So him and mum were great jivers. But that’s not the story. Mum went back to my gran one day and said to gran, ‘I’ve seen the man I’m going to marry.’ And gran said, ‘Well, what’s his name.’ So, ‘I don’t know his name. I’ve just seen him.’ And she’d seen him wheeling his wheelbarrow. And she cornered him and obviously ended up marrying him [laughs] Fought off all opposition and ended up married. So we guys haven’t have much chance at all. We’ve, I’ve decided that. And they were married sixty five years and they were in love. Oh just the stories I could tell about that is just —
JH: And when did, what year would they have married then?
ME: They married 1949.
JH: Ok. Right.
ME: And they built their own house. Dad was, as I said working in construction so he went to Night School and became a surveyor. Taught himself basically. Went to Night School. Paid for himself to go to Night School. Learned to be a surveyor. And where we lived, Belvedere was bombed out because I mean one of my ex-girlfriends her grandparents were bombed out seven times because we were south of the Thames. So the planes, the German bombers would come up the south of the Thames and just bomb everything because the arsenal was there. And they didn’t know where it was exactly but they knew it was south of the Thames so they just bomb along south of the Thames. So when I was a kid I used to play in these bomb holes and pretend they were bomb holes. And when you grow up you realise they were bomb holes [laughs] So you played war in actual bomb holes. But no, they got a bombed out site, boarded site. A house. Dad, dad designed the house. They dug the, mum dug the foundations and then he employed builders and they built the house. Family house. And so and my sister was born 1950. So they were married in ’49. So just checking [laughs] And it well just he was a surveyor and ended up working for several companies and ended up at housing construction in London where he was a quantity surveyor. So basically his job was to price. If you were building a housing estate which they were he would price up the housing estate and they’d invite tenders. And they’d all come in. He’d lock them in a drawer and then he’d go out and price the job up and come back and find which tender was closest to what he estimated the cost to be. Not the cheapest. The closest one to what he estimated it to be. But the corruption in the, there was so much corruption there he said because they had this little box that said percent discount which was always empty when he put the tenders in to the drawer and when he got them out it had already been filled in so that it was, percent discount was closest. But we won’t go into corruption in government because that’s just too much because he was as honest as the day is long. He would not. He hated it. The corruption was just too terrible for words. But —
JH: Was he working in that right through to retirement then?
ME: Yeah. Yeah. I mean he basically took early retirement. They shut County Hall down. He just took early retirement. So he retired at fifty six and moved down to Kent. In to this lovely village called Woodchurch. It’s got two pubs, one church, one cricket square and a windmill and it’s just archetypal, and you just go in, drive around and go out again. It’s not really. Jan Francis lives there. You know, Jan. “Just good friends.” Jan.
JH: Yeah.
ME: See, name dropping everywhere. Sheila Hancock. Jan Francis. Just loads of them. But a story he did tell about in the war, the Windmill Theatre. Very famous theatre in London which was open twenty four hours throughout the war seven days a week and it had naked women in there. And there were always naked women. They weren’t allowed to move. They just stood on the stage while the acts were going on and what have you. And he told me of what they called the Windmill Steeplechase. And I said, ‘What’s that then?’ And he said, ‘Well, basically the guys in the front they would stay there for ages and if they, once the act ended or whatever they would leave and the people in the seats behind them would jump over to the seat in front and the people behind them would jump over the seat in front. So everyone would move one forward. So the people at the back would slowly move down and then you go home. You’d probably spent all forty eight hours rest. All your R&R was spent in the Windmill Theatre jumping over seats. But the Windmill Steeplechase. Now, no one’s ever heard, no one’s ever told me about that since. Dad was the only person that told it to me. So that was quite amusing. The Windmill Steeplechase. But no, I mean he had, he had a great life. He just really was honest. He enjoyed his golf.
JH: Is that what he did in retirement really?
ME: Yeah. I mean he was.
JH: Golf and —
ME: Golf was basically his passion but mum joined him with golf as well. She couldn’t, if you can’t beat them join them and they just used to go on holiday and just play as many golf courses as they could. Just go somewhere in the UK and play as many golf courses as they could. But I mean the rows, the only rows they ever had, the only rows were well when one of them played more golf than the other in a week [laughs] It was like, ‘You’re playing more than me.’ ‘So.’ So they used to play three or four times a week. But no, I mean it was they were incredibly in love. I mean I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean I’ve never been married because I could never compete with how in love they were. Dad would come home from work and snog her face off before we could have our dinner. I was just like wow. She’s, yeah it’s just incredible.
JH: Well, thank you Martin for allowing me to record this interview today and, yeah I’m sure everyone will enjoy all the memories that you’ve been able to record about your dad. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Martin Edwards
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Judy Hodgson
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
2018-06-21
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AEdwardsM180621
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:23:14 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Martin Edwards recounts the war-time stories of his father, Frederick Edwards. Frederick was born in Kent in 1923, and lived on the family farm. He joined the RAF in 1943 as was posted to Canada for training as a navigator. On his return to England, he finished his training and joined 101 Squadron where he completed his tour of thirty operations in Lancasters. Martin tells several humorous stories told by his father, including the time the mid-upper gunner shot down a cheese sandwich. On another occasion, when the aircraft had a hung-up bomb, Frederick tried to kick the bomb free without success, and as their radio had been damaged, they sent flares upon their arrival and were directed straight into a hangar, where they told senior officers and everyone scattered. Often on the return journey, the crew went to sleep after they left enemy territory with the aircraft on autopilot, except for Frederick, and it was his job to wake the pilot up seven minutes before landing, to take control. During his time on operations, none of his crew were killed, although the bomb sight was hit by anti-aircraft fire whilst the bomb aimer was looking away. Frederick told Martin that he was disappointed in the reaction he got from people after the war about the bombing of Dresden. His final three operations were Operation Manna food drops over Holland. He was then posted to Egypt where he flew C-47's carrying bodies of servicemen to the cemeteries. He finished his service in 1946.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
North Africa
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Germany--Dresden
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1946
101 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
C-47
Lancaster
navigator
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Elsham Wolds
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/812/10794/AEllamsSD170825.1.mp3
b0ffbbb061e351d003bc492ea0b449ee
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
Ellams, George
G Ellams
Description
An account of the resource
60 items. An oral history interview with George Ellams the son of Wing Commander George Ellams OBE (b. 1921), and documents and photographs concerning his fathers service. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 223 and 199 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stephen Ellams and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-06
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ellams, G
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Ok. So, it’s Friday the 25th of August 2017 and today I’m with Steven Ellams in Manston in West Yorkshire. And we’re here to talk about Steven’s dad who was George Ellams, Bomber Command, and lots beside. So, I’m going to just stick that on the floor somewhere. That’ll do. And what I’m going to ask you Steve I know that you said your dad was born on the 16th of May 1921. So, what do you know about his early life? Where he was born. What his parents did.
SE: I did a visit to Liverpool a couple of years ago to trace his background and the family. And he was from Toxteth in Liverpool. And I’ve got his original school reports. I know he was in the Boy’s Brigade and I know that he was, on his signing up papers registered as a shop fitter.
AM: He was a shop fitter.
SE: And when I looked at that a bit closer it turns out it wasn’t quite what I thought. And the title shop fitter was more that he dressed dummies and that. So, I learned that my father was a window dresser come whatever else. Anyway, so the family, the Ellams family. It’s pronounced Ellams but Ellams people pronounce it different ways. They come from the Liverpool area and the Wirral. I’ve traced the family background. The two brothers which he had were both in the RAF at some stage and we traced that the elder brother was given the freedom of the City of Chester for being able to trace the family name back to 1066 or thereabouts. So, it’s quite a well-known ancient name. So, he being the younger of the brothers joined the RAF in 1938.
AM: Can I just wheel back a little bit?
SE: Yeah.
AM: Do you know what his parents did? What his, what his father did?
SE: Yes. His father, his father was a publican. Ran some different group of pubs in the Liverpool and particularly in the Birkenhead area. I’ve done a little bit of background on that and he was in the Merchant Navy. So, he, we’ve never been able to find exactly that part of his background particularly well but the part of the mother’s side which was extremely traumatic and something that we learned quite early on was that she committed suicide when he was fourteen. So, my father — and he found her hanging in a wood. So, we knew there was some really traumatic episode there. Now there have been other family members that we’ve traced since and there has been one of the family members has done quite an in-depth search on the rest of the family and the Ellams Printing Company have been part of that group and there are quite well documented, you know pieces in newspapers and that in the Liverpool area. And I’ve actually got the write up on his father’s death which was about 1967 I believe. So, we’ve got one or two pieces there. But the, the earlier background there was always the suggestion that his mother was Irish and his father was English but we’ve never quite been able to trace that. So, I’ve never gone back further than those bits of information.
AM: I’m trying to piece the dates together. Did you ever meet him then? Your grandfather?
SE: No. No.
AM: You didn’t.
SE: No. I never met them. Well, I certainly, obviously never met the mother. My father interestingly enough did seem to be adopted by a lady who, where she fitted in to it again we’ve got photographs of this lady but I think it was simply that she sort of took the boys under her wing when the mother disappeared. There was something there. But certainly, as far as the publican side is concerned, we’ve only got one photograph of the father in this particular pub and I have since traced that pub and that pub still exists in Birkenhead. In Wallasey. That’s where they went. And the school report and the details of that are all from the Boy’s Central School, New Brighton, Wallasey, and —
AM: So, that’s where he went.
SE: Yeah. And there’s some good information in there as to what his sort of level of education was like and he was obviously showing a little bit of technical skill at that time, I think.
AM: How old was he when he left school?
SE: I think he was about seventeen, eighteen. Something like that.
AM: So probably would have done school certificate then.
SE: Yes, he did. I think he did.
AM: He did it.
SE: Yes. I think it’s in there. Yeah. And then obviously he seemed to go straight into the RAF. Now, I believe it was his brothers —
AM: Via the window dressing.
SE: Yeah. I think it was his brothers that encouraged him to do that and certainly I haven’t been able to trace much other than his middle brother was, was a sergeant in the RAF. And the elder brother, and the one that got the Freedom of the City of Chester he ended up as the senior representative, chairman, call it what you like of the Prudential Insurance in Liverpool. So, he had quite an interesting career and he does come up in one or two searches when you google the name. And his name was John. The same as his father. So, both the senior brother and the father were both called John Ellams whereas the middle one was called Walter.
AM: Right. And then, yeah you knew that he went as a — so as a seventeen year old he joined the RAF and he went to Cranwell.
SE: Yeah. This has always been a bit of an anomaly as well because most people would know that if you went to a technical part of the RAF you would go to what was Cosford, Halton, St Athan.
AM: Yeah. Absolutely.
SE: And various other places and I always used to think it was a bit odd that he ended up at what would be the equivalent to the RAF’s senior —
AM: And that —
SE: Officer training. So, having then found loads more documentation. This was fairly recently when my mother died that we found that there was some paperwork to say that there were a group of individuals who were signed up to that college. And how or why it came about I don’t know but the list he actually kept so that he could trace some of these characters and you went as an apprentice, a craft apprentice, a technical apprentice to —
AM: To Cranwell.
SE: Cranwell. And you then went on to whatever station. And Aldergrove in Northern Ireland seems to be the station where he went immediately after that as a wireless operator. Obviously, Cranwell doesn’t do, do apprenticeships now. And of course, when I got to talk to Peter about this I said that he was always very proud of his hat band which was a particular type of colouring or squares or whatever the colouring was. Because when he was the senior training officer at RAF Cosford he used to go on about how he went to Cranwell and they were always sort of like, ‘Well, wait a minute. How could you have gone Cranwell if you weren’t a pilot?’
AM: Yeah. Why would you be?
SE: So, there were all these sort of anomalies in there. But I’ve actually got the list now of the apprentices that went to Cranwell in those years and I think Peter’s copied that now.
AM: Right. Yeah.
SE: Or I hope he has because that document must be pretty rare.
AM: It will have all been copied.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Did he ever speak about then? So, he left school with school certificate. Window dressing seems a bit —
SE: I know.
AM: Left field.
SE: I got the shock of my life when I got the documents from Innsbruck in Gloucestershire saying what his original occupation was.
AM: And you just don’t know. It might have just been the temporary job.
SE: Absolutely.
AM: Earn a little money.
SE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
AM: And but did he ever speak about actually joining the RAF and —
SE: No.
AM: Where he would have gone to sign up?
SE: No. No.
AM: So, somewhere there’s a bit missing there where he would have, he would have signed up.
SE: Yeah.
AM: They would have looked at him.
SE: Yeah.
AM: To try and decide — ok.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Which bit of the RAF then.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And somehow they’ve picked him out as being technically minded.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Which is where you then go on to find out that he became —
SE: Yeah.
AM: You know — a wireless operator.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, how did, from your, from the records that you got how long was it? You said he wasn’t at Cranwell very long and then —
SE: It seemed about a year that the sort of apprenticeship they did. It didn’t seem to be much more than that because the first major entry or tracing I could come up with was sort of ’40, ’41. So, there’s a bit of a gap between the beginning of the war and leaving Cranwell and going to Aldergrove. So, there’s this Aldergrove connection in Northern Ireland that I can’t quite piece together and then it seems to be that around that time he was obviously showing some aptitude and it was the case then that he went for flying training. Now, I do remember him talking about that and that his claim was that he could take off but he couldn’t land, and that he basically got turned down for —
AM: Right.
SE: Flying training. And this was when he was re-mustered then as a W/op AG.
AM: Right.
SE: And that’s when that logbook starts.
AM: And that happened to quite a few of them.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Where they showed the aptitude but for whatever reason they dipped out of the pilot training.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then as you say were re-mustered.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Because looking at the logbook.
SE: Yeah. It starts —
AM: At you say it’s got —
SE: With Defiants.
AM: This one starts with the Defiants.
SE: Yeah.
AM: In ’42.
SE: Absolutely.
AM: So, you’ve still got a gap there.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Where he would have had to have done some training to fly as a pilot.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Before he got to the stage —
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Where they decided he weren’t going to be one.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And then he would have had to do his, his wireless op training.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, that was the beginning of the war. So he would have trained as an air gunner as well.
SE: Yeah. And that’s where it really starts for me.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Because he, he very early on I remember I was really into Airfix model making. And I bought a model of a Defiant. And that little brass one there is a Defiant. And he used to look at that and say, ‘See this thumb and you see those scars?’ He said, ‘That’s as a result of getting my thumb caught in the trigger on a Browning machine gun that’s on those turrets.’
AM: On the Defiant.
SE: And that’s when it starts there with the log.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And I’ve traced one or two of those aircraft. I think there’s one of them still, I’m not even convinced it’s not the one that’s at the RAF Museum. But I have done a bit of work on Defiants.
AM: Right. So, what’s, looking at the logbook which starts in January ’42. So, he was at Number 2 air gunner’s, Air Gunnery School.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And as you say was on Defiants.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And, and the remarks within the logbook are about the number of rounds hit.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Fired. And how long it took and what have you. All in Defiants.
SE: Yeah. I think the, as I understand it was the turret. In other words, depending on what aircraft you were likely to be posted onto you would learn and train on a similar type of turret. And I’ve been to the museum here in York where they’ve got a Bomber Command turret exhibition and they are quite specific these turrets. And they’ve all got different names and that and I do understand that’s where that came from. So, the high likelihood is you would then be posted on to an operational squadron which would have those type of turrets.
AM: That’s right. And yet —
SE: Or that’s as I thought it was. Whether that’s true I don’t know. But to go from there to Sunderlands.
AM: Well, yeah.
SE: I thought was a bit strange. And the other first aircraft you’ll see crop up there is a thing called a Lerwick and a Lerwick was a two-engine Flying Boat that had a very poor track record.
AM: That’s it so, so —
SE: So, he went to that first which was presumably the Conversion Unit, and then finally on to Sunderlands.
AM: Even just on the first page where he’s at the Air Gunnery School he’s in the Defiants. Quite a number of the pilots that he was flying with were Polish.
SE: Yes.
AM: By the looks of the names.
SE: Yes. Yes.
AM: And when he starts off you’re looking at the number of hits — one percent, six percent, seven percent.
SE: Yes [laughs] it’s not very good is it?
AM: And then the very, well then he had a go with no drogue.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So they’re not following it around anymore.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then all of a sudden he gets thirty four percent in two hundred rounds.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then it stops and then he moves to number 4 CO Training Unit.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And that’s when as you say he ends up on the Lerwick but then latterly on the Sunderlands. So —
SE: Well, one of, one of the interesting things about, which I do remember he did talk about that because as a kid you’d get into air guns and pistols and whatever. And again because he was senior training officer at RAF Cosford we had access to all the facilities so he’d say to me, ‘Do you want to come down to the range and we’ll get that rifle of yours sorted out?’ And I do remember him saying that, ‘You may have seen in my logbook about the target shooting and the percentage hits and that.’ And I said to him, ‘How did you ever know they were your bullets that were hitting it?’ He said, ‘You painted them.’
AM: Yeah.
SE: He said, ‘You had all different coloured bullets so that whoever was hitting it you could identify then.’ So, I said, ‘Oh,’ you know. And I then asked, you know about the, the success rate, and he said, ‘Oh, I was never that good,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘You got passed out on anything that was reasonable.’
AM: And actually depending what plane they were on you talk to lots of gunners and they never actually fired a gun in anger.
SE: Probably not.
AM: They never needed to.
SE: Yeah.
AM: They knew how to take it apart.
SE: Yeah
AM: Anyway.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, back to your, your dad. And in, in March — so February to March through to April he was on the Sunderlands. Did he ever talk about why? Why did he end up on Sunderlands?
SE: No idea. That one’s always been a bit of a mystery. I think the fact is that he was showing an aptitude for the radio side and the radar side and the Sunderland was a very good platform to put lots of equipment on. And it’s obvious through the log that he was learning a lot of stuff.
AM: Yes.
SE: And finally became the squadrons signals officer and was again on various courses and bits of upgrade. Came back to the UK for, again upgrades on different radios and wirelesses. So, I think there was an element there that they were starting to see again that he was moving more —
AM: Yeah.
SE: To the technical side than he was either the flying or the ground side.
AM: Because in, in that whole period most of it is exercises with valves.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Two way, all the way, so we’re talking about radio stuff.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And there’s only one air to air gunnery. A hundred and fifty rounds fired. Nil stoppages. Everything else is about —
SE: Yeah.
AM: Wireless. The wireless side of it.
SE: There’s one entry there which I I will tell you about because I think it’s the most fascinating thing is an entry coming back to the UK from West Africa and it says specifically that they were attacked somewhere over the Bay of Biscay.
AM: Is that later on you’re talking?
SE: Yeah. They were attacked by an ME110. Now, the captain of that aircraft, it gives his name there. And I thought what’s the chances of this chap being alive still? And I then went to the Sunderland Flying Boat Association which is run by a chap who’s written many books on the subject and I contacted him and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this, what’s the chances —’ He gave me the current list of live pilots from that time. This is going back about ten years now. I rang the number. The guy was still alive. He was ninety two. And I said, ‘I’m Steve Ellams. I’m the son of what would have been Pilot Officer Ellams in those days,’ And he basically said, ‘I remember that trip,’ he said, ‘We got absolutely shot to bits. Nothing was below the water line. We landed at Calshot which is on the south coast,’ and he said, ‘Everybody got off, looked at each other and said that was a close one.’
AM: Yeah.
SE: And as I said it’s in the log there that he read. He remembered it. The pilot. Again, my father not being alive to verify any of this so I can only go by what he said.
AM: Absolutely.
SE: On that particular occasion.
AM: Because then I’m still looking at the logbook. April ‘42. Now, he’s posted.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But not on Sunderlands.
SE: Yeah. He did about eighteen months I think it was.
AM: Yeah. And I’m looking at the different pilots he flew with.
SE: The most significant is the early bit where you see he is on L5805 for about a month.
AM: He is. Yeah.
SE: And L8, I’ve checked this. I’ve got the records. L5805 disappeared in the middle of an operation in nineteen, was it ’41 or ’42?
AM: ’42.
SE: ’42. And the pilot is a, is a chap called Pybus.
AM: Pybus, yeah.
SE: And he was a New Zealander. Now, he has a memorial to his name in Auckland in New Zealand.
AM: Right.
SE: He and the whole of that crew disappeared. But you’ll note my father wasn’t on the crew that day it disappeared. Now, I believe this is where he has, or had this thing about Sunderland Flying Boats because if you look at the dates you’ll see the aircraft and the crew don’t appear for a month. Now, you’re in West Africa. Where are you? What are you doing?
AM: Yeah.
SE: Now, we know he suffered malaria all his life and we think, I’m not certain, I haven’t got his RAF medical records but I’m pretty convinced he got malaria. He didn’t go on that trip. The crew disappeared.
AM: And he was in hospital.
SE: He was still there. And I think he’s had a little bit of a sort of thing about that ever since.
AM: Right. Because as you say he was, he was in the Mediterranean by then. He joined 95 Squadron. He was posted to 95 Squadron, 14th of April ’42.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then in terms of thinking about where he went —
SE: Yeah.
AM: The significant one is that after three days of engine tests they went from Calshot to Mountbatten to Gibraltar to the Mediterranean.
SE: Yeah.
AM: To Freetown.
SE: Which is —
AM: So they were —
SE: British West Africa.
AM: Yeah. Absolutely.
SE: They operated there for most of that. Yeah.
AM: All over that area.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Escorting the Queen Mary.
SE: Yeah, they had, they had quite a chequered background but according to most of the material I’ve read on 95 they were, they were just doing fourteen hour sorties into the middle of the Atlantic. It was an extremely boring time.
AM: Yeah. Because some of the, apart from the transit ones that were getting them —
SE: Yeah.
AM: From somewhere to the somewhere else.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: They are quite short. Relatively anyway. Short flights.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And so from May ’42 he was the second wireless operator.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then from mid-May became the first.
SE: Yeah.
AM: WOM.
SE: Yeah. And the main, the main aircraft that seems to have survived right through with his time was EJ 144. Now, that aircraft was finally written off some time in ’44 after he’d left the squadron. But I’ve got pretty good records from 95 via John Evans, as I say. He’s the guy who’s done all the books on the Sunderland and he’s got a very good record of this lot. And it just seems to be that apart from a couple of crashes that they had and they’re mentioned in there where they’ve had one or two issues and I’ve got those photographs and those photographs have been published in, in John Evan’s book. And, I think in one or two other aviation books as well. So, again he never mentioned Sunderlands. He never mentioned crashes. He never mentioned this business in the middle of the Bay of Biscay with the ME 110.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And you sort of think but having visited the RAF Museum and clambered aboard the Sunderland they’ve got there and realised that this thing that you can see above your head as well was a pretty big aircraft and that you can sleep on it. You could —
AM: Oh yeah.
SE: You had quite a nice little setup on there. You’d have bacon butties.
AM: It’s a lot bigger than being inside a Lancaster?
SE: Absolutely. It’s a huge thing. And I think that they had a reasonable time. But one thing I do remember is that [pause] oh, it’s my chair. I wondered where that squeak was coming from. One thing I do I remember — when we were in Singapore we found an abandoned canoe on a beach. And he said to me, ‘We’ll have that, do it up, and we’ll call it Archimedes the Second.’ And I thought, so where’s that coming from? Not realising ‘til many, many years later that Archimedes the Second was EJ 144.
AM: Right.
SE: So, he called it after the particular Sunderland Flying Boat. And we got a close up of the hatch on EJ 144 on a, we got a photograph up on it and we pulled it in and sure enough you can see it. And according to John Evans it’s one of the very few Sunderlands that actually had a name.
AM: Right.
SE: So, somebody named it Archimedes the Second.
AM: I’m looking at carrying on at the other stuff that he was doing. And then August, September and October was spent on the ground as a squadron, as the squadron, you mentioned, squadron signals officer.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. So again going technical more and more.
AM: Yeah. You can see where it’s heading, can’t you?
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And then back to his Sunderlands.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Through December. I should know this but I don’t. Where’s Mountbatten.
SE: Mountbatten. It’s just —
AM: Gibraltar to Mountbatten.
SE: It’s just off the south coast. It’s at Calshot. It’s the, it was the RAF Sunderland Flying Boats.
AM: Right.
SE: Yeah.
AM: EJ. There we are EJ 144. So, all the way through 1943 we’re back in around Gibraltar. Back to Bathurst doing lots of escort duties.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And he describes himself as gunner signals at that point.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. And occasionally he’d be navigator as well I think.
AM: Yeah.
SE: On one or two trips. So they obviously had a grounding in most of the sort of basics and flying was obviously something that he was never going to pursue after that early knock back I suppose you’d call it.
AM: Do you know you look at it and — so into March ’43 and on Sunderland EJ 144 now with the same pilot throughout now.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, we’re now with flying officer [Calcut?]
SE: Yeah.
AM: Having had a number of different —
SE: Yeah.
AM: Pilots until then.
SE: And he went on to become the commanding officer. And I, believe it or not met the guy when we were based at RAF Brampton. So we’re talking 1968, 1969. This chap came into the officer’s mess. My father looked at him and said, ‘My God, I haven’t seen you since — ’ whenever. And he introduced him. And I thought wow there’s a Sunderland connection for the first time. And again —
AM: So, how old would you have been then?
SE: I was about seventeen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
AM: Yeah. Ok.
SE: Maybe I was a bit older. Eighteen. No. I was just about going off to university.
AM: Right.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Because I mean you look, you just look at some of the entries and think I just wish I could ask him about this one.
SE: Yeah.
AM: The ten hours fifty plus during the day. Plus two hours ten at night, anti-blockade runner patrol.
SE: You realise that, you know we do a trip from here to Hong Kong. It might be what ten, twelve hours and we think that’s heavy going. But you’ve got your drinks and you’ve got your meals whereas these guys are fourteen hours in the air.
AM: Absolutely.
SE: Out in the middle of nowhere and nowhere to go.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. There’s some. There’s a couple of fourteen hours. Twelve hours.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: See the last one on that page.
SE: Well, you think you’d go do-lally just looking at the sea all the time.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
SE: I mean, the Atlantic is the Atlantic however you play it out. And you’d think gosh if you were out over there for those numbers of hours it would be quite exciting to see a submarine or something surface.
AM: And just looking at that date. That’s March. So he was out virtually every day. Virtually every day.
SE: This is why I’ve always queried that gap in the log when that crew disappeared because you couldn’t possibly be on holiday or just sitting on the ground. So, I’m convinced that that’s when the malaria got him.
AM: And the submarine attacked one.
SE: Yes. There was one or two occasions they did actually get to do something.
AM: Yeah. Anti-submarine patrol again. Oh, see, you look at that one. So, we’re in April 1943 now. On the Sunderland that he was on for ages and ages with Flying Officer [Calcot?]
SE: Yeah.
AM: “Searching for survivors we sighted lifeboat.”
SE: Yeah.
AM: But we don’t know whether they actually found any.
SE: We know there’s lots of stories about Sunderland crews landing to pick up people. We’ve got some fantastic stuff in John Evan’s material about even a Sunderland being towed by a ship back to base. There’s some fantastic stories with Sunderlands. I mean, they were such a versatile plane. And to be able to put one down in the Atlantic and get off again must have been almost impossible with, you know the rise and fall of the waves alone.
AM: We’ve got April ’43. The port outer seized and the prop stopped.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. There’s the, I’ve got the photographs of some of the crash landings and there’s one with a wing tip gone and another one with a chunk out the tail. And John again has put together the photographs I’ve sent him with the squadron records and said this is what happened. And so I’ve been able to piece it together from that.
AM: Yeah. Because that one where the — so when the port outer engine seized and the prop stopped and then the very next day engine change.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Full engine change. Straight out again.
SE: Yeah. Absolutely.
AM: Even though there was a small oil leak.
SE: Yeah. And learning again more about Sunderlands you know that they could actually get these gantries over the wings and lift the engines off. And of course the worry, as I then learned is that if an engine seizes and the prop keeps spinning or whatever it just literally just shakes the engine apart and can do more damage if you don’t get it sorted.
AM: Well, yeah. 26th of May, convoy escort OC 5. Didn’t meet them but crashed on landing.
SE: Yeah.
AM: The port float was written off at Port Etienne.
SE: Yes. I suppose quite symbolic and I think that’s the one I’ve got the photographs of. One of those, you know, things hanging under the wings there.
AM: Yeah. I’m looking up at the model you’ve got.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And these are the floats.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Under the wings.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: So —
SE: They’re quite big. I mean, you know. They’re quite sizeable objects. They’re made in presumably lightweight metal but I’ve seen one or two in various museums.
AM: Right. I’m just flicking through the Sunderland ones now because I’m interested to see what he then moves onto. So, there’s lots of the same. I’m sure it wasn’t the same at the time but [pause] because then we get as far as August ’43 and he was posted. So, he wouldn’t have been doing operations counted in the way that they counted them in Bomber Command at the time.
SE: Correct. Correct.
AM: However, it’s clear that they were out virtually every single day.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Doing quite long flights.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, I don’t know, maybe you do. Was there a point at which they said, right you’ve done x number of hours now, that’s it? You’re off. So, so in Bomber Command it would have been, ‘That’s it. You’ve done a full tour.
SE: Yeah, looking at the way the personnel seemed to change it seemed to be based on exposure and experience. So that I’ve always taken it as read that it would be the numbers of hours that, not maybe in the air but using the equipment.
AM: Right.
SE: So, his expertise would have been building up now on radar and various forms of electronic communication and that would be the reason he was posted on. To then go on to do more training which appears to be the case before he goes back to flying again.
AM: Well, yeah. I mean following, not the usual pattern but a pattern that quite a few followed then they would have finished their tour of operations or however you described it and would become an instructor. They’d end up at an Operational Training Unit.
SE: Correct.
AM: Training.
SE: And that seems to be the case because he goes to OCU.
AM: And that’s what he’s got.
SE: With Sunderlands.
AM: Yeah. It’s number 4 COTU.
SE: Yeah.
AM: At Alness.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Where was Alness?
SE: Somewhere up in Scotland.
AM: Is it?
SE: I think it’s up Oban way. Somewhere up there.
AM: So, we’re August, September now. And straight away he’s instructing. And describing the exercises he does and who with but then another one where pupils not found but I’m fit to go solo. I’m adding a few extra bits there.
SE: Yeah.
AM: He doesn’t say I am he just says fit to go solo.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So then in to December ’43 still an instructor on Sunderlands.
SE: Yeah. So, for somebody who had so much time on Sunderlands its, it’s remarkable —
AM: Yeah.
SE: That he just never spoke about them.
AM: Yeah.
SE: I mean his nautical side he did speak about because they used to, you had a captain of a Sunderland not, not a pilot. And he used to talk about mooring up and you know there was a definite sort of leaning towards that side. Whenever we used to go out on a boat or whatever he would say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that.’ So, I think he took to that side of it. But the actual Sunderland. The aircraft. The stories. All the stuff that’s in that book. Nowhere did he ever talk about it.
AM: Just, no.
SE: No. Even when I made the model he just sort of went, oh.
AM: Alright then. And now here we’re coming to January and February ‘44 and this is the first time radar’s actually mentioned by name.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: But, but he also does an air to sea rescue duty but no trace of survivors. So, there were —
SE: Well, I think what, what, again from John Evans, John Evans’ material that it appears that when you were on an OCU of some sort you were still, if you were in the air and something took place you would be sort of commandeered.
AM: Still operational.
SE: And you’d be expected to go.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And help out as it were.
AM: And by April ’44 qualified to operate and instruct pupils in Mark 3 radar equipment.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And just before that he’s done his radar instructor crew courses [pause] Which then takes us onto [pause] from Scotland.
SE: Out to the Caribbean.
AM: Out to the Caribbean.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Nassau.
SE: To be re-mustered again.
AM: Yeah.
SE: To join up with the crew. Now, I’ve got the photograph which Peter will have of the crew that they joined up with. And according to the archivist at 223 he was able to name all those characters but in one or two of the publications they’ve got the notations wrong or they haven’t got the right caption. Because, I’ve queried how come my father’s not listed on some of the photographs but he’s on them and vice versa. So, we’ve got a little bit of an anomaly with the record keeping as to which crew he was with. That’s pretty clear in the, in the documentation. But on the photographs, and apparently this is a common thing that they get a photograph from somebody. They haven’t quite got the caption right or the names are wrong or something like that.
AM: Yeah.
SE: So, he ended up on coming back from being re-mustered or crewed or whatever they did out in the Bahamas. The photograph’s there, and then came back to 223 at Oulton.
AM: Yeah. So, he goes to Nassau. To Number 111 Operational Training Unit. So, we’re coming back to going on operations again.
SE: Yeah.
AM: One, oh the transit is on a Dakota. Yeah. So, that makes sense. Off we go in a Dakota. And then he’s on Liberators.
SE: Yeah. Now, again why Liberators? I don’t know. I could see the connection between Sunderlands and Stirlings because they’re made by the same people — Shorts. So, I would have thought that you would again keep people on similar. It’s a bit like saying you’ve always been with British Leyland.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Or you’ve always been with Ford. That’s how I understand it. And so it means that you would be familiar with a lot of the equipment and the things that are on those planes. But Liberators? American. Don’t know where that would fit in to be honest.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Just presumably where they did their training and its obvious from again the way its reading that there was —
AM: Well, and if you think about when it is. I have absolutely no idea if this is relevant or not but we’re after D-Day now.
SE: Yes. I wondered. And that’s, again he never ever mentioned about, again the period of the war where I always thought well he must have been involved in D-Day. As you would anybody that was in the forces but you see there that he was well clear of that.
AM: Yeah. There’s because the gap is —
SE: Yeah.
AM: That he did his final instructor crew the 1st of May ’44.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then the next entry is the 15th of June 44. So that period —
SE: Yeah.
AM: Of getting ready for D-Day and —
SE: Yeah.
AM: D-Day.
SE: Well out of it.
AM: And then all of a sudden he’s on American bombers.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting. And again, it could be and I would like very much to get hold of his medical records from the RAF.
AM: Yeah. Could have had the malaria again.
SE: Yeah. I think again there’s been, something happened in and around that time that’s knocked him out because there are these gaps where you’ve thought well what were you doing for that period?
AM: And at such an intense period.
SE: Yes. Exactly.
AM: When they’re not going to send them all home doing nothing are they?
SE: No. Not at all. Not at all. No.
AM: Yeah.
SE: No. And then from RAF Oulton where he didn’t seem to be there long before again he’s recruited to go to another training establishment or course or whatever. And then from there he’s bounced on to North Creake. Now, being as both those squadrons are Special Operations Squadrons with 100 Group you can see that there would be a progression then to where ever you can do the job. Train at the same time. Use the expertise. Now, again I never understood what RCM meant in the logbook until somebody pointed out it was Radio Counter Measures and Radio Counter Measures being anything to do with throwing metal bits out of the aircraft to doing signal —
AM: They dropped the —
SE: Signal, yes. Or as I now understood that a lot of it was putting —
AM: Windows.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Sorry.
SE: Was it Windows? And putting out a lot of duff gen. So, in other words they were sending signals out within the main bomber formations to say we are actually something else. And it wasn’t for some considerable time did I put all that together and realise that these Stirlings were a pretty clapped out aircraft in amongst the main formations.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Doing all of this.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And they were doing it in patterns. And I’ve now managed to acquire three publications on the subject and it’s fascinating because we’ve now been able to trace the main pilot. We can see he was the guy who he was with most of that time and they did these like figure of eight patterns in the sky.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Or did a box or whatever out into the North Sea over the particular target areas. Sometimes they weren’t involved in actually bombing. They were just up there, you know messing about if that’s the right term. Whereas where you’ve got an entry that’s in red with a target then they were bombing, so —
AM: Yes.
SE: We know then that some of them were involved in actually dropping munitions and others weren’t. And again he never mentioned it. He never used to say oh we dropped all these bombs on so and so but through those publications I’ve learned a tremendous amount of what they were up to.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because he was posted. So, he was posted to 223 Squadron.
SE: Yeah.
AM: On the Liberators. And as you say by October some of it is in red now so we’re on operations. Just, “Patrol as briefed” operations.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So we don’t know what the patrol was.
SE: No.
AM: And then [pause] and we’ve got a gap again. October ’44.
SE: That’s when I think he was another signals course.
AM: Right.
SE: Going to —
AM: Oh yes. Yeah.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. Quite right.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, posted for a signal leader course.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Which takes us to January ’45.
SE: Yeah.
AM: 199 Squadron, North Creake.
SE: Yeah.
AM: As you say, Stirlings.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And now we’re out over Germany.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So —
SE: Yeah.
AM: We’re out, we are within Bomber Command as support. Stuttgart. Metz. Eindhoven. Liege.
SE: Yeah. One of, one of the things that we learned as well from the archive of 199 is that according to that logbook they flew the last operational sortie.
AM: Right.
SE: And the aircraft was N-Nan. And we’ve got the photograph in the album which Peter’s got where it’s, the caption says, “Last op,” and “A dusk take off.” And I always thought that was significant. And that tallies with the operational records from that squadron to say that they were on the very last operation actively, with Stirlings at 199.
AM: Yeah. It’s just all described as bomber support. You desperately want to grab him and say, ‘Yeah. But what did you do? What did you do?
SE: I mean I don’t know whether his Morse code was sending out or whether they were doing it verbally or what they were doing. But I would assume that the, the duff gen as I call it or the disinformation would be giving wrong positions, or saying that the formations heading to — where ever.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Or I just don’t know what they were doing other than —
AM: Because for everyone else it would be radio silence.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So —
SE: Yeah. And radio counter measures. It makes you think oh they’re bouncing signals back or they’re, you know, defending something somehow. But I really just really don’t know what all that was about and I know, as I said earlier that he was fluent in Morse code. I mean he could tap out anything.
AM: And with Flight Lieutenant Lind. Did you ever —
SE: Ray Lind. We’ve got photographs of Ray Lind. He got a DFC and bar. He was quite an accomplished pilot and he went on to stay in the Air Force for a while. And there is some correspondence between him and Ray Lind so they were obviously quite good pals. But whether he’s still alive today I don’t know. He may well be because he was about a similar age. And let’s be honest if he’d have, if he’d have lived he would have been now the same age as Bill Barford. So that would take him to ninety [pause] wait a minute, ‘21 ‘til now.
AM: What would your dad be? Ninety — your dad be ninety six if he was still alive.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. Bill was, yes. Bill was ninety five, ninety six. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: So, bomber support. And that finishes then in March ’45.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. And the war ended not long after that.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then he ends up just after the war.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Signals officer.
SE: Yeah. And then the, the real sort of career takes off where he is now re-categorized for major aircraft. That’s anything with four engines from what I could see where he became a VIP crew man. So, in other words, according to all of that — and there’s some very interesting names in that logbook. There’s people like Sir Pirie. Oh, wait a minute. What’s his name? What would have been equivalent terms today of the Minister of defence or various other VIPs and you’ll see later on in the logbook that they were flying all over world. They were flying important people. And he, having this particular category as a wireless operator, air gunner, signaller, whatever. And I’ve got, which I only really looked at today for some reason. I’ve never really paid any attention to it before but there was a little diary thing here which was in amongst a lot of his other affairs. And this is called, Aircrew Categorisation Card. Wireless operator air. Now this dates from — the very first entry is the 7th of March 1946. And it’s saying, qualified VIP on all types of service aircraft and equipment. And it basically goes on that each time there was some other aircraft or whatever then you can see that it goes on where you’ve basically got a record of you are one of the number one people now for taking VIPs around. And you’ve got, and if you look at the very back of the book there’s a, there’s a little sheet in the back cover that says — it’s almost like saying if you stop me I’m the person that you should be paying attention to because I’m the person who knows what I’m talking about. I’ve never seen that before.
AM: Pretty much. Yeah.
SE: I’ve never read it before. And I suddenly saw it today and I thought, oh wow, look at that, you know.
AM: Is — did I just see or am I [pause]
SE: And the range of aircraft that he ended up in.
AM: That’s exactly what I’m looking at now.
SE: Oh, it’s huge. It’s huge.
AM: That’s exactly what I’m looking at now.
SE: If you look at the back pages of the logbook you’ll see. It’s got — what aircraft type have I flown? That I’ve flown on. And I think it’s the last but one page in the back there. Go back. Go back further. Yeah. There.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And it’s got and then I think it goes to the actual aircraft there.
AM: Yes.
SE: And you start thinking wow that was a fair number of aircraft that you flew on there.
AM: And he did get to fly a Lancaster.
SE: On one. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Even though he never mentioned it. And when we were younger I’ve got photographs of me on the strip at Changi where a Lancaster landed that’s the very one that’s Just Jane. I’ve got a real association with Just Jane up at East Kirkby.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And I clambered aboard with him in 1965 when it came through on its way back to the UK. I climbed aboard again in the mid-70s when it was the gate guard at Scampton. And I had no idea until my wife bought me a present for, I think a fortieth, fiftieth birthday something like that to do a night flight over on Just Jane. And I was over there and I kept thinking there’s a bit of déjà vu going on here and sure enough it turns out to be the same aeroplane which I had no idea.
AM: Just shows you.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Have you actually counted up how many —
SE: No.
AM: Bomber command operations he did?
SE: No. No. Never did. I know there’s a, there’s one commendation thing in here which I’ll just show you which I thought was quite an interesting one which again is getting very friable now. This one. That one.
AM: Right.
SE: Now, that one as I say is quite a rare one. I’ve not seen one of those before and its getting quite thin on the, you know the print. But I think Peter picked up on that one.
AM: Yeah. I’m just trying to see a date on it but this was 199 Squadron.
SE: It doesn’t. I know. I couldn’t find a date on it either. I thought that’s a bit silly that.
AM: But this is for meritorious service and good airmanship.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And it’s, a full operational tour has been completed without having been involved in any accidents or ever having an unnecessary cancellation or abandonment of an operational sortie.
SE: Yeah.
AM: I’ve never seen one of those before.
SE: No. I’ve not seen that before. And that’s 199. So, again that that’s must have been the last trip or the last trips that he did.
AM: I wonder who that was signed by because it’s been approved by somebody for —
SE: Yeah.
AM: The Air Vice Marshall, Air Officer Commanding, HQ, 100 Group.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But I can’t read the actual signature.
SE: No. No. No.
AM: So, that takes us to the end of the war. So, obviously I’ve got this great big thick logbook here that goes on many years after the war.
SE: It explodes after that.
AM: So, tell me a bit about — I’ve forgotten when you said. You were born in ’52.
SE: Yeah. I was born at Ramsgate.
AM: So, but what do you remember before we come onto you. What — so what do you remember if anything about — they would have got to the end of the war.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, there’s two pathways for people to go then. They could either stay until they’re demobbed.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Or they can stay on. And obviously your dad stayed on.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Did he ever talk about why or —
SE: No. I remember he, he, obviously there was the connection with my mother and he was based somewhere around Manston.
AM: Right.
SE: Which is on the Kent coast. Where he met my mother. And obviously she was from Ramsgate so the connection there must have probably thought well I’ll stay in that area. And he got posted to, or he was the commanding officer of a secret radar station on the south coast called Foreness.
AM: Right.
SE: Again, you can see the connection with the expertise —
AM: Yeah.
SE: In radio or radar. So, that’s about 1950/51. Now, by then my sister was born and she was born in Singapore because he spent considerable years number of the years after the war in Singapore doing all this VIP flying. So, from the time that the war ended and him doing the VIP stuff they were in Singapore for three years. And there’s a lot of —
AM: Sorry. When did your mum and dad marry?
SE: They were, they were married in 1949.
AM: Right. Ok.
SE: So, between ’49 and ’51 they were in Singapore. My sister was born there and my mother was — no it may be even earlier than that because my mother said on many occasions that when she went to Singapore she was one of the very first wives to go back to Singapore after the Japanese occupation. And they still had Japanese prisoners of war as servants, and doing jobs. And my sister was born in Changi Hospital and she was the very first English, or white person to be born in the hospital after it was re-opened. Because if you know anything about Changi and you know anything about that hospital and the things that happened at that hospital —
AM: I do. I do.
SE: We’ve got quite a good history of that and I’ve got several books on the, on the history of Changi. Now, so, so they came back from Singapore ’50, ‘51ish or whenever it was. And then he went to Foreness and Manston. He was, he was sort of seconded from Manston to Foreness. I think Manston at that time was an American Air Force base so there was a connection there. And then at Foreness he had this challenge. My mother tells me about this challenge where he said to get the respect of his underlings he would have to climb the tower. Now, it was only last year that I had a connection with Foreness, from their archive people to say that this was true and that the tower existed and they sent me a photograph of the tower. And apparently he climbed this tower singlehandedly. Well, you had to to maintain it. So, he said, ‘Well, if you’ve got to maintain it I’ll get up and have a look at it.’ And I was sat on the beach as a six month old baby with my mother with this all going on. And I’m like — oh sorry love.
Other: I have to go.
SE: We’ve got to go have we?
Other: Yeah.
SE: Ok.
[recording paused]
AM: Right. Ok.
SE: What we can do. You can obviously keep that there and I can now do you a follow up to that. I’ve got one of those. And I can do the bit that’s missing if, assuming you want the up to date stuff. I wasn’t sure whether you really wanted to go that far.
AM: Yes. Ok. So, what we’re going to do we’re going to pause the interview now.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And probably recommence at some later point when hopefully you’ll be able to tell us about your childhood.
SE: Yeah. By all means. I mean —
AM: About your dad and the RAF.
SE: Yeah. I mean —
AM: And your dad in the RAF.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But also what he talked about to you and what sort of impression that made on you as a child.
SE: Yeah. I mean the sort of thing that I like to remember is the, the coming home in the evening in uniform. He’d come home and he’d say, ‘Do you fancy going down to the bottom of the runway? Because there’s a whole load of Mosquitoes down there that are being broken up. And you can go down there with a hacksaw and a chopper and go and get some wood and you can make yourself a model out of it.’
AM: Absolutely.
SE: So, I know as a kid I was vandalising aircraft.
AM: The wooden wonder. Chopping it to bits.
SE: Yeah. No. We could certainly do that.
AM: Did he ever talk about, you know the, the thing about bombing. Well, mind you he didn’t bomb then as such. He wasn’t, he was an operator. He was —
SE: No. No. No. He never mentioned it.
AM: He was on support wasn’t he?
SE: Never mentioned it. Never mentioned it. I mean it was only, it was only just recently when I, when my mother died that this parachute bag appeared. I mean this bag as I say it’s got his, it’s got his name on it as a, as a pilot officer and it just was up in the attic for, I don’t know how long, you can see the W.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Oh. Air Ministry on there. And, as I say, and PO. Now, that must go back to Sunderland days, and this is his parachute.
AM: Pilot officer at that point so —
SE: Yeah. So, this is his official parachute bag. So, you know they must have got on board each time with these parachutes and thought one day I might have to jump out. But anyway —
AM: Yeah.
SE: But, yes if, if that’s the case Jackie we’d better get a shift on.
AM: So, we’ll leave it there.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But I’m sure there will be a second instalment to come.
SE: Yeah. I’ll just show you this little thing. They paid me through you —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Steven Ellams
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AEllamsSD170825
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:53:06 audio recording
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Second generation
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Steve Ellams is the son of a wireless operator who flew in a number of different aircraft. During the war he flew initially in Sunderlands overseas before being posted back to the UK. He started operational flying in Bomber Command with 199 Special Duties Squadron.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
199 Squadron
223 Squadron
95 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
Defiant
Me 110
RAF Alness
RAF Cranwell
RAF North Creake
RAF Oulton
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Sunderland
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/820/10803/AFisherJ170124.2.mp3
af1ed094dce2d464caf521e9583889c4
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
Fisher, John
J Fisher
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with John Fisher. His father, Flight Sergeant George Bedwell, was a wireless operator with 9 Squadron. He was killed 1/2 January 1944. <br />The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.<br />Additional information on George Bedwell is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/101500/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Fisher, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is John Fisher. The interview is taking place at Julian’s home in Stafford. Also present is Ann Mullin, the subject of a separate interview. John, I wonder if you could start by telling us a little bit about your background. Where you were born and a little bit about your upbringing at that time.
JF: Yeah. I was brought up in Saxmundham in Suffolk. A little village on the A12. And that was seven weeks after my father was killed in the war. My first, I suppose early memory after that was probably only about a year later sitting in my pram and seeing tanks come across our driveway. And I often wondered what they were for but never actually at the time because I was only young and couldn’t ask it. I was brought up in a, obviously a house without a father. I’d never really asked why. Other children obviously had fathers. And children I played with and visited had fathers but I didn’t have one and I never asked why because I didn’t know what the question was. It must have just appeared natural and nobody ever told me why I didn’t have a father. And I suppose it was really, really only later in life, I suppose as late as late ‘50s early ‘60s when I really started to discover things about my father. Ann obviously knew. Ann Mullin, my sister obviously knew a little bit more about it because she was young when he was killed but I didn’t know anything at all. I think it was probably only when his medals arrived through the post unannounced that I started to wonder what that was all about. And of course I was probably, I don’t know, what was I? Thirteen, fourteen then. And started to ask questions of things like that. And then, I think about three or four years later his logbook suddenly turned up and it had obviously been in some water somewhere because it was very, very crinkled up. So I started looking at that. About that time there was going to be a pause of many many years because I’d met my wife [laughs] And that was in 1963. And three years later we were married and then we spent the next forty, thirty, forty years odd bringing up a family and making a living and all the other things you do which stop you doing the things you really want to do. So I suppose it was really about, just as the millennium turned really that I started to think what could we find out about my father. So I started asking a lot of questions. We have, had an Auntie Nancy who was really, who was my mother’s younger sister or middle sister. And she was able to fill me in a lot of things but she only knew so much and they only came out in little bits and pieces because they didn’t talk about such things and nobody talked about the war. My mother never talked about the war. And it was sort of a, not a blur but they obviously knew about it but I didn’t know where I fitted in. So just after the millennium we, my wife and I started to think because I’d got the logbook. And then we started to thinking about how can I find out a bit more about this. And that took then another two years. Because we’d still got a son at home who was heavily involved in the bank of mum and dad.
[recording paused]
JM: The pause was for a coffee break. John you were saying —
JF: Yes. So we, we started to think about what we could do to try and find out what, what really happened to my father. I knew he was buried in Hanover. And I think, I’m not sure, I think Ann may have visited the cemetery. Ann is sitting here by me so did you actually visit the cemetery? You didn’t did you?
AM: No.
JF: While you were in Germany.
AM: No. We were in the other end of Germany. Are you still on there?
JF: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. We were in [unclear] which was not, about forty miles from Munster. I think the next, I can’t remember what the next town was.
JF: Yeah.
AM: It was a long way away from Hanover. I know that. I didn’t really want to go.
JF: No.
AM: It would upset me too much.
JM: I think that’s an important point, Ann. When we met before you told me a little bit more about why you didn’t want to go.
AM: Yeah. I just —
JM: Could you say that again please?
AM: Yeah. I didn’t really want to go because I knew I’d get upset. And he wasn’t really there then wasn’t he?
JM: So, it was really —
AM: I always thought he was coming back. I used to say he’s just missing. He’s lost his memory. He’ll come back. All. Every time. Every time I had to had an argument with my step father I used to say he was coming back.
JM: I’m sure you must be speaking for many relatives of downed airmen. I’m sure you must. That’s a most important point.
JF: Yeah.
AM: I did remember him and, you know —
JM: Yeah.
AM: I remember going to tell Granny Bedwell that he’d gone missing. And I didn’t understand it all but she was upset so I thought this is something horrible but I couldn’t work out why. You know, you don’t think about it, do you? I was only about six. So —
JM: John, if you could carry on. Take on the story.
JF: Yeah. I’d talked before to my mother when we were on our own about visiting and suggested we ought to all go together to Hanover and she said she just didn’t want to go. And I assume it’s a similar reason to Ann really. She didn’t really believe it. I know she got married again and that, but that’s you know another story. But she just didn’t want to go. So I’m now sort of around 2000, 2002 and I thought we’re going to do something about this now. Try and find out. The first thing I did was to go to RAF Cosford which is just ten minutes away from us and ask people there what we could do. And they let me look at the book which said, yeah. They crashed. Missing over Weyhausen. And so my next logical step, being a nosy reporter was to find a newspaper in Weyhausen. The local newspaper. And try and find a journalist there who might be able to help me and they may have records or something. So, I found one in a place called, in near Weyhausen, in Gifhorn, which was the area. And it’s a guy called, sorry I phoned the number. I phoned the number of this newspaper and the first person who answered was a guy called Joachim [Gris] and, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Hello Joachim, I hope that’s how I pronounce his name,’ because I couldn’t pronounce his name. I thought it was Joachim and he said, ‘What can I do for you?’ And I explained where I was and who I was and that. He said, ‘You’re most unfortunate,’ sorry, ‘You’re most fortunate because I’m known around here as something of a World War Two buff.’ And he said, ‘I’m sure you know what one of those are.’ I said, ‘Yeah. We’ve got several in England who are the same.’ ‘Well, I’ll be very interested in this because it’s, it’s the sort of thing I like to investigate.’ So from that we had a natter and that and I gave him details. I emailed him with details out of my father’s logbook and all the details of the plane and things and the records from the RAF. And he then set about, which I didn’t know at the time he set about looking through Luftwaffe records to see if he could actually find anything. One of the early things he came up with out of his own paper in fact, was a photograph of a crashed plane which had appeared in there. It had been issued by, by the Luftwaffe. Presumably by their press office to show, look what we’ve just shot down. The plane was a little bit mangled. It was on the front page of their paper. And he thought that might be it because it was actually shot down the same night that my father’s plane was shot down and over Weyhausen. So I took this to RAF Cosford where they identified it as a Hastings.
JM: Halifax.
JF: Hastings.
AM: Halifax.
JF: Hastings. And they actually said, ‘No. This is a Royal Canadian Air Force plane.’ And they, they contacted a group of people who had been looking for this particular plane because one of the crew was an international, I say international, a nationally known radio broadcaster in Canada and they’d been looking for what fifty, sixty years for this plane. Or news about it. So they sent all the details to them and we assume now they will do the same. Go through records and they will find out what happened. According to the cutting the, all the crew perished in that so there wasn’t going to be a survivor anywhere. But of course it was a Hastings. It was a bit of red herring but it helped somebody else out of a problem. Meanwhile, Joachim decided to go to the National Records which is some miles away apparently. It’s about a hundred and fifty kilometres away or somewhere where they kept all the microfiche records. And eventually by keying in some key dates he found out that in fact my father’s plane crashed in another Weyhausen some miles away from where he was. I didn’t know there were two Weyhausens. And it’s the Weyhausen near the big Volkswagen factory which is still there at Wolfsburg and of course have a famous football team nowadays. Once he’d found that out he was able then to triangulate that with all the Luftwaffe pilot reports and eventually he came up with a guy called Wittgenstein, Prince Wittgenstein who was the Red Baron of the day. And Prince Wittgenstein actually downed eighty three planes during his short career. He’s also, I should say prince, he was a member of the royal family of Germany. And in fact he was related to our queen through Queen Sophia of Spain I understand. That may not be totally accurate but he has a, he has a relationship somewhere along the line with our queen. But then again they probably all are. They’re all related. He found out anyway. He’s the guy who came out of the clouds and shot my father’s plane down. The nasty story for him is that two weeks later he came out of the clouds to try and get another plane and crashed into it and he was killed. So he only lasted two weeks. Lasted two weeks after shooting my father’s plane down.
JM: John, I think I should pause here and ask you a difficult question. You found this photograph and this record of the man who had taken your life and the lives of many other allied airmen. What were your feelings about that?
JF: Initially, I think I’d like to throw bricks through his window [laughs] but not really. In reality it was a war. He was fighting a war just like our people were. I mean, we have to say my father had just bombed the hell out of Dresden. You know. Or my father’s plane. He hadn’t. He was a radio operator so he didn’t actually press any buttons but he was part of that. But we were fighting for freedom. We were fighting for our country. The German people were not necessarily fighting for their country. The German people were fighting for peace. That’s what they wanted. And they wanted to be rid of the Nazis. Whatever anyone said they were a cruel nasty lot and this is why when eventually we turned up in Hanover to stop with some people the first thing they did was to apologise for the war. And these were only a young couple in their thirties who had no experience of that war. And they just said, ‘We’re sorry about the war and we’ll help you any way we can while you’re here.’ And that was nice.
JM: Thank you. Did you find out whether Wittgenstein had any surviving family members?
JF: He has many, many, many surviving families. In fact, I trawled recently through the internet just to try and find out who his families were and there are Wittgensteins everywhere. You’ll see them mentioned in the last few weeks doing things. Either going to visit our queen, going to weddings, funerals of other Wittgensteins. And there seems there’s a whole lot of them. A whole lot of them.
JM: And have there been histories or biographies written about Prince Wittgenstein’s war service or the service of —
JF: Yeah. Certainly. There is a whole website devoted to Prince Wittgenstein who shot my father down because he was the Red Baron of the day. Nobody else had downed eighty three aeroplanes. And he, he was a night fighter. He, he was the probably their top night, well he was their top night fighter. He was the top, top fighter pilot and probably a big loss to the German Luftwaffe. But the one thing we realised is that they were very efficient. So when Joachim, Joachim came to look for the Luftwaffe records he was able to get out of those records the very docket which was signed on the spot. Noted on the spot of what the Germans found when they visited the site. And he was able to copy that and send that to me. And that clearly showed they’d found four, it didn’t, it wasn’t specific I think, they’d found four or five bodies in the aeroplane. The plane itself was intact and with the rear gunner still in place. Two others apparently had baled out, and either killed or died and were found in the top of a tree. But just to take that now a little bit back a bit. So in 2002, after two years Joachim had come up with the story. He’d found it was Weyhausen. He then contacted the mayor of Weyhausen and the mayor instantly said to him, ‘I have memories of this and I think there are people in the village that will have memories of this.’ And he asked around and found two people who were in the local school at the time and remembered the crash. And, and they even heard it. They heard it coming down. They remembered being taken to the site by their teacher the next morning and they were all gathered around this plane. And the name of the guy was Frederick Tager who, a very, very nice guy and still very young outlook and he remembered everything. He said the plane was there. The tail gunner was still there. Most of the plane was buried four or five feet in the ground. It had come straight down nose and ended up against an oak tree. They were cleared off by the Luftwaffe people and the military guys who came because they said there may be unexploded bombs in it. In fact, there weren’t. As it turned out there weren’t any. They’d dropped them all over Dresden of course. But they were cleared off and the Germans apparently because a lot of them still crept up in the trees and watched and the German people apparently stripped the plane of any useful things and some of it was taken away and the rest was buried. And that’s, that’s that. We visited in 2004. We were helped. My brother in law came with us. And his wife. The four of us went. Went to Hanover. Rented a car and seventy kilometres to Weyhausen and Wolfsburg. And we were met by the mayor. Had a reception. A nice reception. The mayor and various other people. And because Joachim was a journalist there was an entourage of ten journalists with him [laughs] because he was obviously making a bit of money out of it as well. He said he would from the start. And we had a bit of reception in the mayor’s parlour and everything and some drinks and things and a chat and the German press took some photographs and things. We were then taken to the site by this man who, one of the two men who originally remembered it. And it was in middle of a forest. It had all grown up and been replanted since it happened but the oak tree where the plane was was still there so he was able to identify it very, very clearly. In fact, there were still some gouge marks in the oak tree which we saw and he said they were almost certainly caused by the plane. And so we laid, we basically, we laid a wreath. Sorry about this.
[recording paused]
JM: We just had a short pause there.
JF: Yeah. The mayor quite kindly said he would pledge to lay a wreath every year on Remembrance Day. We should have gone back the next year to, to the Remembrance Day but I was ill unfortunately and so we couldn’t go. But we will go soon. And I’ve been ill off and on since but we will be going. We’ve said we will come back again. Meanwhile, the next morning we appeared in, on the front pages of about, I don’t know it was ten, twelve German newspapers and there may be a lot more who I didn’t know about which Joachim was responsible for. He’d also contacted our local paper, the Stafford Newsletter and eventually they came out to see me as well and we did some things. And we went, we’d previously gone to the Hanover Cemetery to see the graves of all the men and one thing I learned then was that in fact, this was from the curator or manager of the cemetery in fact all the remains were buried there. They weren’t just nominal graves. Which I hadn’t known before. I thought they just put them in a collective nominal grave and they didn’t. They were, that was all the bodies, they recovered them. They were quite efficient like that. The cemetery beautifully laid out. In fact it was on, on the garden programme the following week as one of the best gardens in Europe. It was a moving experience but it’s something we had to do. I don’t know what will happen. The plane. There’s quite a large chunk of the plane still there that I would think, we were told by the mayor there will be a lots of planes in that area and probably the only reason the night fighter was patrolling that area was because of the factories nearby. And that would probably have been normally been a safe route out from a raid because taking a large sweep round the north and coming back over the side of Spain and stuff. But on this occasion it wasn’t. He would have been patrolling there at the same time. I haven’t actually done a lot more about this since and I’ve sort of, that’s the one thing that I set out to do. It’s probably which I would never have done in my younger days. Most people don’t have time to do this sort of thing. And there must be thousands and thousands of people in the same boat who have lost somebody but won’t know anything about it. I’ve since of course become an interviewer for the International Bomber Command Centre and interviewed some flight crew myself and I’ve found out their experiences. And that also has been an experience for me to hear out what they got up to and how they survived. Some of them flew many, many missions. It’s, it’s, I would do it again.
JM: John, you’ve given us a very vivid story of this particular research journey. There are one or two questions that are in my mind. One of them is I wondered whether you’d ever come across relatives or friends of any of the other crew members from your father’s crew?
JF: I have tried and tried to find them. The reason I probably can’t — my father was the only married member of the crew. The rest were just young and he was the oldest at twenty four. The rest were eighteen, nineteen and I suspect they were the son of somebody and those people have now died since and nobody after that has had any memory of them because they weren’t married. They didn’t have children themselves so there is no one to keep their memory alive. I have tried looking. I’ve put messages on websites. On, on sites that relate to the war and relate to Number 9 Squadron even. But I have not yet come across a single person and I suspect I won’t. I will try again when the Centre is open because that, the information which is going to be on the Centre will have so much information about other people and things that some of those, it may just strike a chord. But I think there has been a greater awareness lately of the World War Two and of the sacrifice that people gave up. My father was looking after barrage balloons in Hyde Park and needed more money. Ann was on the way. And he took that extra shilling a week to become, to become air crew. That was —
JM: How do you —
JF: A high cost.
JM: How do you know that that was his motivation for remustering?
JF: I was told by my auntie, my mother’s sister that that’s what he did. Now, whether that’s right or not but somebody must have told her and I presume he told her at some stage. ‘I’m going to do this and I can get an extra shilling a week for this.’
AM: John.
JF: Ann may have heard this story.
AM: Yeah. I was just going to say my mother said he should have gone to Canada to do something but she wouldn’t let him. And I think she felt guilty then because, you know —
JF: Yeah.
AM: He was going on some course which he’d probably be here now. Well, maybe not now but, you know.
JM: So we have one of these situations where —
AM: A decision was made.
JM: A decision like that.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Had such a profound —
AM: Yeah. Made a difference.
JM: It really did.
JF: Yeah.
AM: She always wanted to go to Canada after that but she never got there.
JF: No. No. No. One of the things I think which we both know. He played the piano, didn’t he?
AM: Yes. He did.
JF: And a brilliant pianist and played in a band.
AM: Yes, he did. He was in a band.
JF: At, doing Glen Miller stuff and he probably would have gone on to be quite good because musically he was quite, he was really good. And I think that’s where my mother and him met. Is that right?
AM: I’m not sure. I’m not sure.
JF: Once again it was my Auntie Nancy who said all this.
AM: Yeah. Granny Bedwell had a piano which I used to go bang on.
JF: Yeah.
AM: Because I wanted to be like my dad.
JF: Yeah.
AM: I couldn’t.
JF: Yeah. We think my mother and father met at the Market Hall in Saxmundham.
AM: They used to have dances in there.
JF: We know that they had a first date in 1937 at the Picture House in Saxmundham because I’ve got the ticket.
AM: A picture of it.
JF: Yeah. I’ve got the ticket and I’ve given that now to the local museum. And I think probably eventually we’ll hand over the logbook and medals and everything to the local museum.
JM: Super.
JF: That’s it.
AM: I think that’s the ticket.
JF: Yeah. That’s it. Yeah.
JM: So what age was your father when he lost his life?
JF: Twenty four.
AM: Twenty four I think. I’m not sure. I’m not sure.
JF: Yes. He was.
AM: Twenty three. Twenty four.
JF: He was twenty four. Yeah.
JM: So a picture is emerging of the young man with family responsibilities.
JF: Yeah.
JM: With a sense of national commitment. And commitment to the national cause.
JF: Yeah. He’s got one daughter.
JM: He’s got one —
JF: And another one on the way.
JM: Yes.
JF: Me.
JM: Yeah. And makes this step to, to remuster as aircrew and he does a number of operations and then he loses his life.
JF: I think he did twenty four.
AM: [unclear]
JF: I don’t know that for a fact but I think that’s another thing which I gleaned from somewhere.
JM: Yes.
JF: Probably out of some records somewhere.
JM: Yes.
JF: We know nothing of his thoughts at the time of course. We just don’t know them because there’s no records anywhere. I did, while I was in Lincolnshire on my last visit there was a pub near where he was stationed and one of the, I spoke to someone who said, ‘Yes. Number 9 Squadron. They used that pub. And that’s where your father played the piano.’
AM: Oh.
JM: Because 9 Squadron was based at —
JF: And I hadn’t heard that one before.
JM: No. 9 Squadron was based at Bardney.
JF: That’s right.
JM: And there were two pubs based in the local village.
JF: Yes.
JM: Both within walking distance.
JF: Yes. That’s right.
JM: So it could have been one of those. I think one’s called the Black Dog.
JF: I think it was the Dog and Duck or something.
JM: Black dog, I think. Something of that sort. Yes.
JF: Something like that.
JM: Yes.
JF: And, and I was told then and I think actually that’s when we [pause] yes that was on the last visit. That would be for, I forget where it was now. A training session or something.
JM: Yes.
JF: Yeah. And, yeah, he said, ‘That’s where your father played the piano,’ because that’s where they all gathered.
JM: That must have been very moving. To have seen that.
JF: It was. Yes. I don’t think I can go there because it’s not there anymore. Something like that. Or it’s closed. It’s now a house. Something like that. Yeah. That’s my story.
JM: Yeah.
JF: And I would really love to hear of other people who would like to go through that same measure because if they follow what I did they won’t get Joachim now because I think he’s retired and gone off somewhere else. But there are loads of people who would help them and they, they shouldn’t sort of think oh, I don’t know, I’ve no idea where it is and I don’t know where I’m going to find it. It’s easy. It did take two years but it’s fairly easy.
JM: Well, we know that there are quite a number of privately published books available where families have —
JF: Yeah.
JM: Made researches of this sort.
JF: Yeah.
JM: But I’d like to think that the interview that you are giving today will encourage people who perhaps haven’t gone that far to take those first steps.
JF: I hope they do and I hope the children of those people do it as well because that’s further memories for them and that will show them exactly what they fought for.
JM: Yes. Yes.
JF: And you have to always remember that RAF people were volunteers and they didn’t have to do it. Ok the alternative then was ground crew. Ground forces —
JM: Yeah.
JF: And things, but it was a volunteer organisation.
JM: Would you say that this family research that you’ve done has that significantly affected your view of what Bomber Command did during the Second World War? I had the impression when you started out telling us although you grew up as a young man after the Second World War that you hadn’t really been totally aware of what had been going on and that this story has actually increased that awareness. Is that fair?
JF: No. I hadn’t really. Because you’re so busy growing up, aren’t you?
JM: Yes.
JF: There was only one incident that really came back to me about what war is all about. That was when myself and two neighbours. I suppose we were only nine and ten then or something like that and we used to go fishing in Saxmundham in a particular pool which was up a big steep hill. Past the church up a big steep hill and we’d go fishing there. And one day, on our way back we decided to stop in a copse which was very, very overgrown with ivy and everything. And we came across a well and we thought this is lovely. This well was covered in ivy but we uncovered the top of it and it had got a thick concrete top on it. A really massively concrete top about a foot thick. And we thought that’s strange isn’t it? You don’t put that on a well. So we played around on the top for a while and lit a fire on top. You always light fires when you’re youngsters. And then we started exploring the sides of the well and could see that a lot of the bricks around it after we pulled the ivy away were actually crumbling. So we got our knives out and that’s the other the thing you always carried when you were young, a knife [laughs] and started scraping away. We scraped away one brick and pulled some others out and then some others. Lit some bits of paper, shoved them down the well and we could see by the light of that before the flames went out that there was a lot of metallic things down there and didn’t know what they were. So we all, by this time we’d got a hole about two foot wide and being careful we didn’t fall down we all picked up bricks and collectively threw one each down this well. There was a massive explosion. A fire ball whooshed straight up in the air and we fell backwards. I lost all my eyebrows and a bit off the hair. Julian, my friend lost his and Christopher, his brother lost his eyebrows. And we fell backwards and we ran like hell and while we were running away, ‘Don’t tell anybody. We mustn’t tell anybody. Don’t tell anybody. Don’t tell anybody.’ And this is the first time I’ve ever told anybody [laughs] including my mother. Anybody. We gather because we did creep back later, it and they were all, there was lots of iron things and things around. I assume that they were incendiaries. But they appeared to have been very unstable.
JM: Yes.
JF: Now, there were other shapes of things down there which wouldn’t have been set off by the incendiaries. I can only assume, I can link these probably with the tanks that I first saw sitting in my pram after, just after the war rumbling by. I think they dumped all their surplus in that well because they would have been heading down that hill from the coast and I think that’s what happened. The bad news is that after many, many years that well became the garden of, on a new estate of a house. I visited it a few years ago and we couldn’t really find it but we knew where it was and it was still covered up in ivy and stuff. We assumed it was filled in. Julian, my friend, you’re Julian, asked somebody about it. He said, ‘Oh yeah. That was filled in and it was — ’ such and such. Now, I think the house belongs to somebody who I used to know in Stafford but I’m not sure so I won’t talk about him because the poor devil is sitting on a bomb probably. We did, we met up at a reunion of Leiston Grammar School about four years ago and the first thing Julian said, ‘Have you told anybody?’ And I said, ‘No. No. We wouldn’t do that.’ He said, ‘Perhaps one day we should do.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but not yet.’ So my mother knew that we lit fires in the woods so we said we had a flare up in a fire. We’d lit it with a, we used, used to get tins of paint from a local builders and off their scrap yard and used them to start a fire with, you’d like to find out. So we said it flared up, and we all got burned. That’s how we explained that because nobody would even believe us —
JM: No. No.
JF: If we said a well blew up.
JM: Right. Now, John, if I could ask you another question here. These researches that you’ve told us about they more or less coincided with the time when the, the perception of Bomber Command in the national psyche was changing. Leading to the development of the Bomber Command Memorial in London and the award of the clasp to surviving Bomber Command aircrew.
JF: Yeah.
JM: I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your views as to how Bomber Command was, has been treated.
JF: Yeah. I think what it is which I’ve ascertained since of course the proper, there was a lot of anti-propaganda around. The war was also very political and there were people in the military who decided for one reason or another that you could only fight wars on the ground and that there was no other way. Tanks. Tanks and men. And that attitude I think remained. The other thing was bombing or carpet bombing which is what we were really involved in then caused a lot of, a lot of ordinary people to die. Thousands upon thousands. Especially if you look at Dresden and places like that. And even Berlin and Hanover. They all suffered. So it wasn’t really very nice or courteous to talk about it and people didn’t. They forget that we were on the receiving end of such things as well and, you know deadly V bombs and things. There was no stopping them. They just killed masses of people. Not military stuff. Just people. And the whole point of all of that was to, to turn people against war and to disillusion them and to dishearten them and say, ‘Let’s give up. Let’s talk to Hitler.’ And it was the other way around as well, you know [unclear] And it was only really later in years wasn’t it and we’re only talking now after the millennium that things really started to change and people suddenly said, ‘Hey, these people actually did a brave job. They died for this country. Why shouldn’t we honour them?’ And, and the Memorial in London was, I suppose really the start of this new feeling. And now the International Bomber Command Centre has, has enhanced that really. And I suppose, and also I think the military or the people at the top used the excuse that the RAF was a volunteer organisation. Therefore it couldn’t be officially recognised. And so they didn’t do anything really. They just volunteered and they went out and bombed people and that was it. That was wrong. That was wrong because without the RAF Hitler would never have given in that quick. Because the, the country was demoralised purely by the bombs. We couldn’t have done that with people on the ground. We would eventually have probably but we couldn’t have done it that quick. And we have to remember our country at the time was bankrupt. We’d borrowed so much money off America and other places that we hadn’t any money left. So you know it was essential to finish that war quickly. And I think it would have gone on and on and on had it not been for Bomber Command.
JM: Thank you. Could I ask you another question, please? You and your sister are obviously direct descendants of your father. You’ve done this research. What has been the effects of this research on younger generations and on the family as a whole? Is there a discernible reaction?
JF: Yes. I’ve spread this around my own family. My own children. The grandchildren are still a bit young to understand but one of them is nineteen. They’ve all seen this. They’ve all seen it and they’ve realised what went on. My grandchildren are all in America, and my children and so they’re a little bit out of the war they were. Although America were involved later on but they were still a bit out of it. The general population didn’t get involved. But they’ve all seen the information which I’ve got and the press. The press cuttings and things. And they understand now what went on. Which is quite good. And I think I’ve read recently that our children are now going to be told about World War Two more as part of their studies. That I think is essential because the future of the world really can be only peace. War achieves nothing and it never does in the end. It’s a temporary solution. It doesn’t achieve total peace. We’re now at verbal war with the, with the EU. You know. That’s ok. Verbal’s ok. That doesn’t matter.
JM: Jaw jaw.
JF: It’s war and fighting that destroys the world and could well do in the end. Terrorism is something we didn’t have then. It didn’t exist. You fought a war. Went in and fought it and came out and there was a victor. That doesn’t happen anymore and its made war worse I think. And I think the younger generation are getting to realise this. That if we continue to have wars involving people and nuclear bombs and all the rest of it there will be no war left. No world left. Because that’s the, that’s the state of war nowadays and weaponry. Its, its so disastrous whereas before it was very very very directional. I don’t know. I don’t think I’d like to be a younger generation now because the future I don’t think is particularly good.
JM: Perhaps I could turn to you Ann now as we’re drawing to the end here. We’ve met before.
AM: Yes.
JM: You gave me a very full interview. And now you’ve heard what your brother has to say.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Has this changed your views at all? Has it added to your knowledge? Do you see things in any way differently?
AM: No. I knew it pretty well. I knew Johnny went to Germany and all that. You know. I was there but I mean the people we stayed with, the lady was lovely. We went, the first three weeks we were there we didn’t have army quarters. And the man there never spoke to us once and he watched war films on the telly in just black and white obviously in those, it was the sixties but he was horrible. But the lady was lovely.
JM: Just a different experience.
AM: He hated us. I know. You could feel it. But you know. We hadn’t done anything had we?
JM: No.
AM: You know.
JM: It’s an interesting contrast.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Because your experience of meeting German people was quite different from yours at that —
AM: Yeah.
JM: But perhaps, was it at a different time?
AM: Yeah. Sixties.
JM: Would the proximity to the war? So that might explain the difference do you think?
AM: ’63, ’64. No, ‘64 because I had Andrew then.
JF: We’re talking just sixteen years.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
JF: After the war and memories would still be very very much alive.
AM: I mean, you know —
JM: Yes.
AM: I got on quite well with the German people that I met. But not him.
JM: No.
AM: He was — and I’ve never lived anywhere like that before, you know. I’d only been married a few years then so —
JM: Do you think he might have served in the German forces?
AM: Oh. I think he had. Definitely.
JM: So that might explain his —
AM: Yeah.
JM: Reluctance.
AM: But he was just horrible.
JM: It’s been a fascinating, fascinating afternoon listening to you both. I realise that through my incompetence at the beginning of this interview I forgot to ask you to give your father’s full name and rank and where, where and when he was born. Could I ask you to do that now please just for the record?
JF: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JF: Over to Ann I think. George Kenneth.
AM: George Frederick Kenneth.
JF: Frederick Kenneth.
AM: Bedwell. And he was a flight sergeant. And I don’t know where. I think he was born in Kings Lynn.
JM: Right.
AM: Or it could have been —
JF: Oh, actually —
AM: I’m not sure.
JF: I’ve only just discovered this.
AM: Oh. Do you know where he was born?
JF: Yeah. He was born in Lewes. Sussex.
AM: Lewes? Where’s that?
JF: Lewes. That’s on his birth certificate.
AM: Oh. Oh. I never knew that.
JF: Yeah. Lewes. Sussex.
JM: Right.
JF: I don’t know why. We don’t know how.
AM: Oh.
JM: You don’t know anything about his parents.
JF: Oh, we know about his parents.
AM: Yeah. Granny Mabel. Granny Mabel.
JF: Yes.
AM: And Granddad Walter.
JF: His parents were living, we don’t know where. I presume they were living in Saxmundham somewhere. Or Leiston.
AM: I don’t know.
JF: But we don’t know. They may have come up from Lewes.
AM: Yeah. They were in Kings Lynn during the war.
JF: Yeah.
AM: Because we went.
JF: Yeah.
AM: We went there.
JF: They went off to Kings Lynn because his father was working. Got a job in a factory there for war munitions and then he was lodged up with our grandmother.
AM: Granny Bedwell.
JF: Yeah. Granny Bedwell. And that’s as far as —
AM: I think my dad lived with them.
JF: And the stepfather —
AM: Oh him. Yeah.
JF: Lived with them as well.
AM: Yeah.
JF: He came from a Dr Barnardo’s Home. That’s about —
AM: Emma’s still got all that on her phone ready to put, print out. Haven’t you Emma?
JM: But we don’t know, you don’t know where his musical talents originated from.
JF: We don’t.
JM: No.
JF: Absolutely. No. His job was a roundsman at the International Stores.
AM: Yeah. He used to drive, ride a bike didn’t he?
JF: Rode a bike.
JM: Yeah. We don’t know.
JF: He used to bike from Leiston every morning to Saxmundham which was five miles. And that was his job. But he —
AM: My eldest son’s inherited that. Andrew. He can. He just learned the organ and everything, didn’t he?
JF: Yeah. Yes.
AM: He still does it. He’s still in bands.
JF: Yeah. Ann’s son was a bandsman in the —
AM: The army. Yeah. He was in the army.
JF: What regiment was he in?
Other: The Queens Own.
AM: The Queen’s Own Highlanders.
JF: The Queens Own Highlanders. Yeah. And then he went on to form his own band in Sweden.
AM: He still goes. There’s a royal family in Sweden and everything. So yeah, he’s got it, I think.
JF: Yeah.
AM: I never got it.
JF: No. I tinker.
AM: I plonked away at a piano. I thought I can’t do this.
JF: No. We’ve no idea how he learned. We can only assume that his father and mother, one of them could play the piano.
JM: Yes. Yes.
JF: That’s the only thing.
JM: I know when I’ve met one or two other ex-wireless operators they have often told me that they, they were selected for that partly on the fact that they had been in the Air Training Corps. They’d learned the Morse Code. They had some interest. Some prior interest in radio. But I don’t get the impression that your father was like that.
JF: No. In fact, he —
AM: I thought he was rear gunner as well. Yeah.
JF: That’s right. He went in as a rear gunner.
JM: Right.
JF: He failed all the tests.
JM: Ah.
AM: He didn’t want to shoot people.
JF: No. He didn’t want to shoot. He failed them. Yeah. On the, they did a number of flypasts and shooting at targets and he failed. So he then went for training as a, as a radio operator.
JM: Right.
JF: And obviously picked that up quick.
JM: Yes. Had an aptitude for it.
JF: Yeah.
JM: You had to send and receive Morse at a certain level.
JF: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JF: Yeah.
JM: It wasn’t an easy task in any sense, was it?
JF: No. No. No.
JM: And the wireless operator was very often a sort of Jack of all trades in the crew because he would be needed to support other crew members as look outs or do whatever was needed as part of the team. But there’s no record really of your father leaving any evidence of that in his letters or —
AM: No.
JF: Nothing at all. No.
JM: No. No. No.
AM: No. I read all my mother’s letters at the time.
JF: Yeah. The last letter home we assume was the one where I was conceived.
JM: Good.
[recording paused]
JF: Just, just to end this, Julian. There are lots of unanswered questions I think. We’ve been able to piece together some of the answers but there are a lot which are not. But we’ve got enough to get a picture of my father and having been to the site where his plane crashed a lot of people have not been able to do that. They’ve just been told they were missing and that’s it. And of course those, rest of that crew were unmarried and over probably just a period of a few years they were probably forgotten about almost. There was nobody to remember them. But we’ve, we have answered a few questions between us. I hope it encourages more people to do the same.
JM: John and Ann, thank you very much indeed.
JF: Thank you.
AM: Thank you.
JM: Very good.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Fisher
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AFisherJ170124
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:47:55 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
John Fisher was born six weeks after his father was killed on an operation over Germany. He became more and more curious about what had happened to his father and finding out more about him and the events leading up to his death as he got older. John’s father had been a wireless operator based with 9 Squadron. John began researching with the help of RAF Cosford and made contacts in Germany to help fill in the gaps of his knowledge. He also visited the crash site and the graves of his father and his crew.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Hannover
9 Squadron
aircrew
childhood in wartime
final resting place
killed in action
perception of bombing war
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/865/10825/AGillRA-JT170930.2.mp3
ee2bdb54a700a6de722a519acf341d1e
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
Hazeldene, Peter
Peter Vere Hazeldene
P V Hazeldene
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. An oral history interview with Rachel and John Gill about their father, Peter Hazeldene DFC (b. 1922, 553414 Royal Air Force) and 16 other items including log book, memoirs, medals and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 106 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel and John Gill and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-07
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hazeldene, PV
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 30th of September 2017. I’m in North Hykeham with Terry and Rachel Gill and we’re going to talk about Pete Hazeldene, Hazeldene, who was Rachel’s father, and his experiences in the RAF. So we start talking to Rachel. What do you know about dad in his earliest life?
RG: Well, I know he was the eldest child of seven and he was born in Barry Island. Dad always loved the sea and I think this is, was because he was born near the sea. He had diphtheria as a very small boy and was in an Isolation Hospital. He was a member of the choir, sang in the choir and an altar boy. And then they moved to, to Cardiff. Dad enjoyed life. He loved camp. He loved to go and take, with his friend take his tent to the bottom of Caerphilly Hill. And —
CB: What did his father do?
RG: Oh, Grandpa was in a drawing office in Cardiff. Grandma stayed at home with all these children. Dad left school around about fifteen and was an errand boy for a jewellers but his love of the Air Force started when he saw a poster in a window offering to see the world from a different angle. And that’s when dad decided he would join the Air Force. Grandpa was against it because he wanted him to join the Welsh Regiment but dad was adamant and away he went. I’m not quite sure if grandpa signed his forms or whether it was Grandma. Dad joined the Air Force and came as a boy entrant to Cranwell.
CB: So this is 1939. Beginning of ’39.
RG: Yes.
CB: Although he’d showed his interest in 1938.
RG: Yes. Yes.
CB: Right.
RG: He was, he did the training in Cranwell as a, what did he do? Wireless operator.
CB: Just stop there a mo.
RG: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Doing technical training.
TG: Technical training.
RG: Oh right. Yeah.
TG: With a —
[recording paused]
CB: So, tell us a bit more about him leaving home.
RG: It was quite an adventure coming to Lincolnshire for dad because it was his very first time he’d left home and his very first time he’d actually been out of Cardiff. Out of Wales. And he got here as a sixteen year old and he never left Lincolnshire all his life.
CB: So, we’re going to get Terry to talk about the technicalities here because he came to Cranwell as a boy entrant in the days when they were doing that sort of training at Cranwell. So what do we know about that?
TG: Well, from what he told us and from the books we have that he wrote at the time, his technical notes, he was being trained on radio and electrical theory. And at that time of course he was too young to join aircrew but when the war did break out he did volunteer for bomber crew and he was accepted for that. He was sent from Cranwell to a Gunnery School at Upper Heyford and he trained on wireless op, as a wireless operator and he was trained in Morse Code. Subsequent to that training he joined or was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Finningley.
CB: I think as a wireless operator/air gunner then he went to an outpost somewhere to be trained in gunnery.
TG: Yes. He went West Freugh.
CB: West Freugh.
TG: Freugh. Yes.
CB: In Scotland.
TG: Yes. His first flight was from West Freugh in March I think it was. 1940.
CB: Right.
TG: According to his log book.
CB: So he would have just been eighteen then.
TG: He would. Yes. He’d just turned eighteen a couple of months before. And obviously he was successful and then was sent to Finningley.
CB: Right. Just stop there a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: We’re just going to go back to the Cranwell experience because he’s away from home and there are things there that are different —
RG: Yes.
CB: From being in Wales. So —
RG: Very different. His mum was a very good cook and there was always very good portions for the family but at Cranwell the portions were very small and obviously it didn’t meet dad’s appetite. So the only thing that he could fill up on was cabbage. Dad hated cabbage but he learned that, you know if he wanted to feel full cabbage was the way forward and eventually got to like it and grew them. Yeah.
CB: Extraordinary. But he was being trained in ground radio and electrical activities so most likely he then did some work on the ground.
TG: He did. I understand it was at Abingdon to start with before he was posted to Finningley.
CB: Before he did his gunnery course.
TG: Before his gunnery course. Yes.
CB: Yes. So while he was at Abingdon he, it sounds as though it was when he was there that he volunteered for aircrew.
TG: That’s right. He, after, he then attended a gunnery course and was posted to Finningley where he then flew as a wireless operator and air gunner with 106 Squadron.
CB: What aircraft were they flying?
RG: Hampdens.
TG: They were Hampdens at the time.
CB: Right.
TG: And he later, he was posted with 106 Squadron to Coningsby. And he did thirty operations with 106 Squadron. One of his pilots was a chap called Bob Wareing who on one particular raid they attacked the Schnarhorst and the Gneisenau in Brest and they were successful in putting that ship out of action. And the Scharnhorst. And for that raid I understand that his pilot was awarded the DFC and Peter was mentioned in dispatches. At the end of his thirty raids, thirty operations he, he was posted to Polebrook and seconded to the Americans. But I should add that whilst he was Finningley of course they used to occasionally listen to Lord Haw Haw who correctly broadcast that the clock in the sergeant’s mess was ten minutes slow. Which he often used to laugh about, didn’t he? Your father. That he was correct in Lord Haw Haw. But whilst he was at Polebrook with the Americans he flew in their B17s and he taught them wireless operations and Morse Code. And he flew quite on a few, on a few training exercises with them. One particular rather unsavoury incident took place when he took the class out, of Americans to a pub one night. Amongst them was a black crew.
RG: American.
TG: American crewman. And while in the pub the American military police came in and dragged the black lad out, beat him up and dragged him away because he was in the wrong sort of pub. They say. Your father couldn’t really understand it could he? Peter couldn’t. Pete couldn’t understand that. They charged, the barman charged your dad sixpence. Peter, Pete was charged sixpence because in the melee they broke a beer glass. But he, he never forgot that incident and he couldn’t really rationalise it. It was not what he had expected so to speak. On another occasion he told us that the flight engineer went berserk on the aircraft and in order to subdue him Peter had to, or Pete had to knock him out with an ammo box. I understand there was, and he was grounded for LMF afterwards. Not Pete. The flight engineer.
CB: The American. American flight engineer.
TG: No. No.
RG: No, this was —
TG: This was while he was at Finningley.
RG: Yeah.
CB: Oh, Finningley. Oh, right.
TG: Yeah. Sorry. I’m getting things out of order aren’t I, a little bit?
CB: Yeah. Right.
TG: Slightly. Doesn’t matter.
CB: Ok. So this is 106 Squadron.
TG: As far as I remember it was 106.
CB: At Finningley.
TG: Yes. On another occasion that they went on a couple of gardening missions which was obviously dropping the mines. But they’d got one on board still after this operation and they ventured into France to see whether they could drop this mine somewhere else. And they didn’t take much notice of it but a light aircraft gun opened fire on them and as far as they were aware nothing had happened but when they landed the rear gunner was dead and the thing was awash with blood. His area. And they could never get rid of that blood off that aircraft however much they washed it.
CB: We’ll stop there.
RG: Yes, I—
[recording paused]
CB: So, just going back to the gardening bit.
TG: Gardening of course was dropping mines into the sea and to do that one had to fly very low otherwise the mines would break up. So when they flew in over the land they would also be very low and in range of the, the light anti-aircraft gun that obviously caught the rear gunner.
CB: What sort of anecdotes did he have about training and what was going on there? So, on the airfield.
TG: Well, he did tell me on more than one occasion that he recalled two acts that appeared to be of sabotage when he was, I think training as a gunner. On one occasion he said, on one evening or one night five aircraft who weren’t parked together caught fire almost simultaneously. On another occasion he was on board an aircraft which, as it took off and it had taken off only managed to travel just over the perimeter of the airfield when they crash landed in to a field and the aircraft caught fire. They all managed to get out although Peter said he was burned a little bit. Such was the mark of the man. But when the aircraft was examined because it had failed to gain height the chain that operated the elevators had a, had a bolt inserted in to stop it from operating fully. What became of any enquiry into that he didn’t know and I don’t know. So that was a couple of sort of sad incidents, or suspicious incidents that he, he mentioned to us.
CB: What affect did the loss of the rear gunner have on the rest of the crew?
TG: He never said because —
RG: Dad passed out.
TG: Your father passed out, I think. Peter —
RG: At the sight of the blood.
TG: Pete passed out at the sight of the blood when they landed. But as I’ve already indicated that however much they tried to clean that aircraft the stains of that blood remained. But I rather think that was with 106 Squadron.
CB: And that would need a replacement. So how did the replacement fit in to the crew? Do we know about that?
TG: Peter never said. He didn’t elaborate too much on that side of the operations. He never really mentioned the losses he witnessed when he was on the raids. Although we do know that those losses and what happened haunted him for the rest of his life.
CB: Because this is the early part of the war we’re talking about here.
TG: Yes.
CB: So the Americans came in in ’42.
TG: Yes.
CB: That’s why they were getting help. So what else did he tell you about dealing with the Americans? Working with the Americans.
RG: One story was that dad had been on, I can’t tell you where he’d been on the raid but he was flying back and the aircraft had got minor damage and they couldn’t make it back to East Kirkby. So they had to fly and land lower down the country. Was it lower? Or upper? Well, he landed —
TG: South.
RG: Yes. And dad was doing the Morse Code. The colours of the day and who they were etcetera and he flew over an American base and they opened fire on them. And dad was firing away, not firing away, he was doing his Morse Code. Who he was and the aircraft. And eventually after they’d fired at them, eventually the penny dropped who they were and they landed. They were escorted. The crew were escorted by gunpoint to a higher level. Dad and his crew should have been in the officer’s mess but they weren’t. They were separated. Eventually the aircraft was made airworthy and they took off. And being as they were a whole load of young lads they raided the stores and filled it with toilet rolls. Filled the bomb bay with toilet rolls. They should have flown off and come home to East Kirkby but no. Young lads as they were the pilot did a turn around and as they flew over the airfield the bomb bays opened, the toilet rolls flew out and dad tapped away, you historically say, ‘You crapped on us [laughs] Here’s the bumph to go with it.’ When they got back to East Kirkby they thought oh my goodness we’re all going to be in trouble but nothing was ever said. So, yes. That was, and dad didn’t have a great love of the Americans.
CB: This is, this is later in the war we’re talking about here.
RG: Yes. Later. Yes.
CB: But it’s prompted by the earlier point about being at Polebrook.
RG: Yes.
TG: So —
RG: The Americans. Yeah.
CB: What else do we know about when he was there?
TG: After thirty operations which Peter thankfully survived he volunteered and was, as I say an instructor, went as an instructor to the US Air Force at Polebrook. Teaching them Morse Code and wireless operations procedure and I think we’ve already mentioned about this business about going to the pub haven’t we?
CB: Yes.
TG: Shall I read —
CB: What other, what other experiences did he have with them?
TG: Well, they, they used to fly all over the country of course but Peter at that time, I’m not sure if that time he was probably married to Olive which we’ll come to later but, who was at Spalding in South Lincolnshire and he used to persuade the Americans to land at Sutton Bridge which was only about fifteen miles from Spalding, when he’d been on a trip with them. And he’d disembark from the aircraft and he’d cadge a lift one way or another into Spalding to see Olive. So he was using them as a rather an expensive taxi but it served his purpose very well.
RG: Mum and dad met when dad was visiting a crew member who’d got badly burned in an aircraft and, I don’t think it was one of dad’s crew but it was a fellow RAF man. And he was at Stamford Hospital and I think they went on a motorbike, two of them to see, to visit this friend and they stopped back at Spalding obviously for a beer or two. And they went to the Greyhound down Broad Street in Spalding and my mum was, Olive was the bar maid there. And obviously there was some attraction and dad kept visiting. Yeah. But that’s where they first met. And if he hadn’t have wanted a beer and pulled in they would never have met. And mum and dad were married in April 1942.
CB: So, how did they keep contact during the war?
RG: I think it was dad visiting home. They lived at, with my nan in Little London which is very close to Spalding. I think it was just a question of dad coming and visiting and letters. That sort of thing. Yes.
CB: Ok. So at the end of his posting to Polebrook to assist the Americans.
TG: Yes.
CB: How long was that posting there? Do we know?
TG: Well, he, he volunteered for a second tour and he was posted in 1943. In November 1943 if I recall correctly to Husbands Bosworth where he trained with a [pause] with his second crew. A rookie crew.
CB: That was an OTU.
TG: Yes.
CB: 14 OTU. Yeah.
TG: But from February 1941 he’d been at Coningsby just to go back. He did his thirty raids. Then to Polebrook. And then by November ’43 he, he, he, he went to Husbands Bosworth and there he was crewed up with, as I say the new crew who were under training and the pilot was, flight well then he was flight lieutenant then, but a chap called J B P Spencer who was nicknamed Tuesday for reasons that Peter could never discover. Tuesday was from Durham and from quite a well to do family. They and the rest of the crew after they’d finished training were posted to East Kirkby in the run up basically to D-Day.
CB: And then what was the Squadron number there?
TG: It was 57 Squadron.
CB: Right.
TG: At East Kirkby at the time.
CB: Flying?
TG: Lancasters then.
CB: Well, normally there would be a link of a Heavy Conversion Unit between the OTU and the Squadron but it’s possible they didn’t have them operating at that time. When did he go to East Kirkby?
TG: In March 1944.
CB: Ok.
TG: That’s from memory but —
CB: Stop there briefly.
TG: I’m sure it is.
[recording paused]
CB: So we’re chopping and changing a bit but let’s just go back to Finningley.
RG: [unclear]
CB: So what, what, yes what anecdotes do we have about dad flying in Finningley?
RG: Well, I haven’t any recollection of dad talking about it at the time of that he was in there but later on life I and my husband went on holiday and we flew. It was then Robin Hood Airport and we flew from Finningley as it was and dad said oh, well his pilot, Spencer was rubbish at flying. Flying a plane. He would just throw it in to the sky and when he landed he would equally do the same. It was always a hit and miss affair whether they actually got down ok. Dad said that Finningley had got a crosswind and you had to fly, land it sort of diagonal. I didn’t believe him really but off we went on this holiday. And when we came back the wind was that strong that we basically had to fly as dad had said that his Spencer did. But it was typical. We landed and we were home. But yes. So Finningley has never got any better over the years. Or is it the pilots?
CB: Or is it the crosswind?
RG: Crosswind. Well, yes I suppose it’s how, how the airfield is. Mind you they don’t call them airfields now, do they?
CB: Well, it’s an airport now.
RG: An airport. Yeah. But to me they’ll be aerodromes.
CB: Home of the Vulcan. Yes.
RG: Yes. Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
CB: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: Ok.
TG: Right. From the OTU at Husbands Bosworth and at Market Harborough Pete then was posted to the HCU at Wigsley where they flew Stirlings. And then on to Syerston where he —
CB: Lancaster Flying School.
TG: Well, the —
CB: Finishing School.
TG: The Lancaster Finishing School, I beg your pardon at Syerston where I think they’d also pick up the engineer, would they not?
CB: They would have done that at Wigsley.
TG: Yeah. Sorry at Wigsley.
CB: Yes. But he doesn’t mention that in his tour because it’s expanding the crew to the final seventh man.
TG: I see. He never, he never mentioned much about some details.
CB: No. Then he went on to his second operational Squadron which was?
TG: 57 Squadron.
CB: Yeah.
TG: Where —
CB: That was, where was that?
TG: East Kirkby.
CB: Right.
TG: And that was in April 1944.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you.
[recording paused]
TG: The attrition rate was very very high.
CB: So he joined 57 Squadron in 1944.
TG: Yes.
CB: Early part of ’44. Didn’t he?
TG: With Tuesday Spencer as his pilot. And the rest of the crew, Clarke, West, Hughes-Games, and Grice and George I think his name was. And they flew twenty five missions and I think they were very intense at the time. The enemy fire and such. But they managed to survive it but at the end of the twenty five raids Peter was told by the commanding officer he could not continue to fly. He’d had, he needed a rest and he was stood down. And he went for about ten days leave and when he came back he discovered that the rest of his crew were dead or at least missing. And it transpired that they’d been shot down on the 31st of August 1944 after a raid on the railway yards at Joigny La Roche. About a hundred and twenty kilometres south west I think of Paris. And when he arrived back on base he was summoned to the station commander’s office where he was introduced to Tuesday Spencer’s parents who wanted to meet him as the friend of their late son. And —
RG: Twenty.
TG: Sorry?
RG: The lad was twenty.
TG: He was only twenty years old was Tuesday. And Pete was only a little bit more and they gave Peter five pounds to spend on a good night out.
RG: No. They sent him to mark his commission and his DFC five pounds.
TG: Of the —
RG: Because of their, yes that’s in here. Yeah.
TG: Yeah. And instead of spending it on drink because probably his first inclination would be to do he and Olive decided to spend this money on a pair of candlesticks in memory of the crew. And those candlesticks are still with Rachel’s elder sister. Pride of place on the mantelpiece no doubt. In memory of them. What happened to that crew was that from research we’ve carried out and what Peter was told at the time that the aircraft at least blew up returning from the raid. As far as we can work out. And from, again from records we obtained from the Public Record Office at Kew Hughey, Hughey Hughes-Games was the first to parachute out of the plane followed by Sergeant Grice who Peter didn’t know but was acting as Pete’s replacement while he was stood down. And the Germans later said a third parachute caught fire on the way down but no other men escaped the plane. And the Lanc which was called Q for Queenie ND954 burned out on the ground. Hughes-Games it transpired was taken prisoner of war as was Sergeant Grice and the rest of the crew were killed. And they’re buried at Banneville-La-Campagne near Caen. I might have pronounced that incorrectly. Sadly, Hughes-Games who was interviewed by the Red Cross and from some of the information I’ve given to you about it catching fire and whatever came from him he contracted meningitis and died in, Stalag 3 was it? And is buried in Poland. The rest of the crew as I say are buried near Caen. And I took Peter back there and we’ve been back to their graves several times. Sergeant Grice survived as a prisoner of war and I think he ended up back at home and he lived to be in his mid-eighties in Shropshire. But we never met him and Peter didn’t know him. So that was really the last of his memories of 57 Squadron and the loss of that crew. He did commence a third tour. Incidentally, the crew he lost at 57 Squadron were on their thirty first raid. And it’s commonly thought that thirty was the limit but temporarily it was lifted to thirty five around that time I understand. And sadly on their thirty first raid when they died.
RG: The only plane on that day to be lost from East Kirkby.
TG: On the 31st of July that raid went, basically things were a lot easier for the bombers at that time and it was the only aircraft lost on that raid, on that day from East Kirkby.
CB: How did he feel about the loss of his crew?
TG: Peter never spoke much about the experience he had until he retired from his business when he was about seventy. And I discussed it at great length with him and I took him as I say back to France, down to Kew, to Runnymede, St Martin in the Fields. All the Memorials because he started to open up but he never gave much detail about the bad side of it. He mentioned the crew had been killed and he was quite matter of fact about it but that was the surface.
RG: Say now about dad’s nightmares all his life.
TG: But subconsciously we know that he, he was greatly affected by, by his experiences. You’ve got to bear in mind that he, his flying hours exceeded a thousand. A thousand hours in these, in these terrible conditions. I mean they weren’t sitting back. They were bitterly cold, frightened to death and as he often told us more ammunition was wasted on the Morning/Evening Star than shooting at other aircraft because they were quite obviously tense and wound up. But when I met him and he was in his mid-forties then occasionally if we were staying there we would hear him in the middle of the night when he was asleep.
RG: [unclear]
TG: And also at our house in later life if he was ill he would start up talking to his skipper on the radio in his sleep. In talking almost as if it was happening. These episodes of talking to the skipper and warning him about approaching aircraft or, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ didn’t last for a few minutes. They would last for hours in, in the night. Where he would, he would start off and then ten minutes later he’d had another instruction to the skipper, the pilot to warn him of approaching aircraft. And this was when Peter was seventy five or eighty years old. This was forty years later. And it was obviously imprinted on his subconscious indelibly and whilst to talk to him it didn’t affect him if he talked about it a lot at a function when he was later in life because as I say he didn’t disclose much at all of, of the worst side of things but it was obviously there underneath. And if he, if he’d been talking to you now like I’m talking to you tonight he would have been flying again. In his sleep.
RG: In the mornings he would say, ‘Oh, my goodness. I’ve been flying all night. All night.’ Right up until he was in hospital and Helen went to see him, my sister and just before he died he was still flying.
CB: So, who used to go and see him in the night?
TG: We —
RG: Me. Usually me. Or when he was with mum, mum would.
TG: Mum.
RG: Yeah. But when he, after my mum died and he would be here with us it would be me.
TG: But he was ok the next day as a rule. The one thing I noticed about him and maybe many, many other bomber crew he didn’t have any friends from those days. Like some of the army chaps. Simply because there were none left. They had all been killed. All his crew had been killed hadn’t they? I think he stayed in touch with Bob Wareing briefly.
RG: Yes.
TG: Until he died. And about [unclear]
RG: He stayed, he stayed friends with a lot of the RAF people.
TG: But they’d not flown with him.
RG: Through his association with the Royal Observer Corps and the RAF Association.
TG: And the British Legion.
RG: And the British Legion. And also he was a member of Fenland Airfield and he loved to go and spend time down there.
TG: But he never knew or could talk to anyone who flew with him.
RG: Except —
TG: On those raids.
RG: Except —
TG: Except on one occasion at the —
RG: Metheringham.
TG: Metheringham. The reunion which was held, held every year of 106 Squadron he bumped into —
RG: Well, he nearly didn’t go.
TG: He nearly didn’t go. He was very ill. Quite ill at the time and it was not that long before Pete’s death. But we took him to Metheringham, to the old airfield and he bumped into a chap and they got talking and it transpired that on the Scharnhorst raid this chap remembered it clearly and had been in another aircraft on that same raid. And he remembered some talk of Peter shooting down an enemy aircraft. But Peter, Pete always said he thought, they thought he had originally but he never claimed it was him, did he?
RG: But he, this gentleman knew the formation. He said, ‘And your pilot pulled out of formation to go in again.’ And it was just listening to these two old gentlemen who were well into their eighties talking as though they were there that present moment. But for two old age people to be there just by chance on that reunion was amazing. Terry has that on video because we’d just got a new video camera. Yeah.
TG: That’s with IBC, they’ve got the copy of that. Well, we’ve got it here.
RG: Yes.
TG: But I video’d that conversation and it’s now been —
CB: Brilliant.
RG: Yeah.
CB: So we’re really talking about 106 Squadron when they were flying Hampdens.
RG: From Metheringham Airfield.
CB: From Metheringham.
RG: This one. Yes.
TG: He’s written Coningsby but it was definitely —
CB: Metheringham.
TG: Well, it was a satellite wasn’t it?
CB: Yes.
TG: He flew from there. He met, he once, he met Gibson once or twice and knew him. He wasn’t a very popular man, was he? Gibson.
CB: No.
TG: Very officious. But it’s not on there is it? Is that switched off?
CB: Yeah. No. No. It isn’t. We’ll stop there just for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: The matter of how to speak about these things was difficult for most war veterans. Aircrew particularly. Perhaps because of the high losses. But then there’s the effect on the families. So he’s speaking in his sleep in these times.
RG: Yeah.
CB: What affect did that have on you?
RG: Well, I was mainly concerned for Dad’s well-being really and I would go and chat to him. Although he was asleep his eyes would be open and he didn’t really know I was there. But obviously he did and then he would calm and then in the morning he would say, ‘Rachel, I’ve been flying all night.’ And I would say, ‘Yes, dad. I know.’ But he’d no recollection of me being there. But it was, it was quite upsetting to hear that he was, and he was talking and as though you know he was there, ‘Skip, they’re coming in at — ’ so and so, you know, ‘Do we fire now?’ And it was just as though he was there. But obviously, you know it was affecting his mind. And right up until the minute, well not the minute but the day before he died he was still flying. Yeah. It was —
TG: He was eighty one when he died.
RG: But as a child Dad the war was not spoken to about a lot but on the days when Dad would be slightly not well I was told that I’d got to behave because he wasn’t very well. And that was the reason. But yeah. But in the night he didn’t seem to be agitated by it. It was just as though it was happening and he was coping with it.
CB: So it’s no shouting.
RG: No.
CB: It’s just a conversation.
RG: Yes. Yeah. As though —
CB: As though he’s on the intercom.
RG: Yeah.
TG: As calm as you and I now. Controlled. And so and so’s happening, Skip.
RG: Just as though they were getting on with the job.
TG: A normal tone of voice as if and then an hour later or ten minutes later he’d give an update of some sort. ‘Let’s get the bloody [pause] out of here skipper.’ And that was it.
CB: Because he was acting as a lookout.
RG: Yes.
TG: Well, yes.
RG: Yes.
TG: Oh yes.
CB: As a child though you were told that he was, it was a bad day. So what did you feel as a child when you, he had these episodes?
RG: I just took it, I just took it as, as I’ve got, behave myself. I think I was a bit of reckless child but you know I just got to behave myself and that was it [pause] But no, he was, no. Just my dad.
CB: But he was always calm in what he was doing. It was —
RG: Just turn that off a minute.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
[recording paused]
CB: So how did your mother handle this?
RG: Well, very calmly I think. Dad would on, on what I now know was his sort of bad days he would be prone to picking arguments and probably doing a bit of shouting which was quite unusual for dad because he was quite a calm person. But in, you know he would be probably be shouting at mum but I just sort of took it as I’d just got to behave myself and that would be it. But mum always, when dad was like this was always very sort of calm, and well I suppose she was talking him down a bit. But it was never mentioned why he was like it and I just thought oh well other people’s dads shout and that, you know and that was it. But as a general rule he was such a calm sort of person. Took everything in his stride really. But on these occasions that, that used to happen. Yeah.
CB: To what extent do you think over the years he had spoken to your mother about his experiences?
RG: I don’t really know. I wouldn’t. I would imagine not a lot. It was, I wouldn’t, I never overheard them talking about anything but then I wouldn’t always be there but, no it was usually, if dad spoke about anything it wasn’t how it affected him. It was usually telling a tale of what he’d been up to. What raid he’d been on and different aspects of what they, you know, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t the horrors. It was more of the good bits. You know. Tearing about on a motorbike and that sort of thing as you would expect lads of that age to be doing.
TG: And he was only twenty or so.
CB: Yeah.
TG: When all this was —
CB: Yes.
TG: You know, that was the average age of these —
CB: Sure. Oh yes. Absolutely. So she was in the Spalding area.
RG: All the time. Yes.
CB: Surrounded by Air Force. They were married in the war.
RG: Yes.
CB: She continued did she in her bar work?
RG: Yes. She was a nanny and, to a family who had four children and they kept the Greyhound. So in the day mum would be looking after the children. Helping with that sort of thing. And then she would as and when she was required she would be the bar. The bar girl. Yes. So she stayed with the family. Well, they’re godparents to me and later John one of the sons went into partnership with my dad as a nurseryman and, but mum didn’t live always at the Greyhound. She lived with her parents in Little London. And then when my sister Helen was born she, she was with nan and then mum would be continuing to work and home as normal mum’s do. Yeah.
CB: The reason I ask the question is because to some extent she was programmed to the losses and the stoic reaction of the other crews.
RG: Yes. Yes. I don’t honestly know whether it was all talked about but no doubt it would be you know mentioned. You know. Particularly the loss of all the crew. The last, last one.
TG: I’ve mentioned Tuesday and then of course she had the incident with the DFC. Your mum was disappointed.
CB: So what was that?
RG: Well, dad was awarded the DFC. And mum saved all the coupons and my nan, all the coupons for a new outfit. Coat. A new coat was, I think she had it made and, and you know all ready to go to London, to the Palace and then the king was very poorly so of course it, they couldn’t go. And the DFC was given to dad by his commanding officer over the counter more or less at East Kirkby. And it was very, very disappointing for mum not to be going on that.
CB: I can imagine. Yes.
TG: The king did write. We’ve still got the letter of course.
RG: Oh yes. We, yeah.
CB: Not the same as having it —
RG: No. But no —
CB: Conferred on you.
RG: Well, in those days where they lived, a little village. Oh, you know. Olive Hazeldene. She’s going to the Palace, you know. And a new coat was got. You know it’s just, well, it was one of those things isn’t it? The poor old king.
CB: Well, people didn’t travel much in those days so —
RG: No.
CB: It was a major —
RG: It was a big thing.
CB: Task.
RG: Yes.
CB: We’ll pause there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: You were, so let’s just catch up on here.
RG: Do you know, I’m really, I’m really a very strong character but when I start crying I cry for days. Mr Panton, we were talking to him, oh I forgot what I was going to say. We were talking to him one day about dad.
CB: Just to that in to context the airfield was bought by the Panton’s for their chicken farm.
RG: Yes.
CB: And then they bought what is now called, “Just Jane.”
RG: Yes. Yeah. From Scampton. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So you were saying though that before that happened.
RG: No.
CB: We used to go there.
RG: No. No.
RG: Yeah. We used to go.
TG: Go back to the beginning.
CB: Dad would just go in.
RG: We used to go there, but we never used to speak to anybody because we were like trespassers trespassing and but we used to go and just like look and that was it and you know we girls would probably play hide and seek and that would be it.
CB: On the airfield.
RG: On the airfield. Yes. And then when after dad died we got the Memorial cabinet set up. We were talking to Mr Fred Panton one day and he was saying, and I said my dad would never come in the Lancaster. And he said that they had, when they started doing the taxi runs they had this gentleman who booked himself on one of the flights as they called it. He would come early, have a bit of lunch and sit there and then he would be ready, his flight would be ready, they would call him but he just couldn’t bring himself to get on it. And he said he did it numerous times. Not just the once. Numerous times. Where he really wanted to go on the taxi run but couldn’t bring himself to. And he was, like dad had flown from there.
CB: What do you think was the origin of that reaction?
RG: I would imagine that it would be bringing back all the horrors of, of going. You know, on these raids.
CB: In your case was it your father’s reaction of the loss of the crew without him being there?
RG: He never actually said anything about it but no if I mentioned, ‘Oh, shall we go on one of those taxi runs?’ ‘No. I don’t think so Rachel.’ And that was it but he did [pause] he got a tree planted just around the corner from the mess and in memory and he had a plaque put for his crew. You carry on. Oh dear.
CB: We’ll stop a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Even though —
RG: Even though dad never actually said how he felt about his crew he did have a tree, bought a tree, a big flowering cherry, had the tree planted and he had a plaque with the all the names of his crew and why we put it there. And now we’ve got, and now we’ve got one by the side of it for dad.
CB: This is a really emotional and emotive activity and task to follow up. But taking the bombing war itself what was his attitude towards bombing in general?
RG: He just, he just, he didn’t do too much commenting on it but I got the feeling that dad was given a task to do and they just went and did it. And didn’t give a great deal, no I was going to say a great deal of thought to what they were doing but obviously they were. But they were just following orders I think. That’s, but he didn’t, dad didn’t say too much. He was a very private sort of fella. Yeah.
CB: Terry, what do you think?
TG: Well, he told me that it was a job that had to be done and he did as he was told and he kept at it. It was the only way. Bearing in mind at the time the only people that were taking the war to Germany was Bomber Command. And he, I asked him sometimes why they’d not been recognised and he just said that’s just how it was. He wasn’t, he got to the stage where he wasn’t, he wasn’t bothered that there was no particular medal for Bomber Command in the war. We all know the political sensitivities about that but that was the way it was. He had a job to do, he said and he did it to the best he could. And he said he was just very, very lucky to have survived.
CB: We talked about his DFC. His navigator also had a DFC. Doesn’t look as though the pilot had a DFC. But what was the, his 57 Squadron pilot because his 106 had two DFCs didn’t he? Wareing.
TG: I think Bob Wareing, 106 Squadron had a DFC and probably a DFC and bar. Peter eventually got his. He said he got it because he was lucky to be alive. But read the citation. Continually went into some of the worst and most heavily defended targets. Sorry. You asked me what?
CB: Yeah. I was going to say what was the reason that, given for his receiving the DFC? Because it was a particular point.
TG: It was a non-immediate award.
CB: Right.
TG: And it was I think the citation and it’s around somewhere was continued enthusiasm and leadership going in to some of the, as I say the worst defended targets repeatedly again and again and again. When he was eventually put forward for it and he received it in 1944. Yes, it was 1944.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
TG: It was, it was some years or quite a long time after I had married Rachel that he even mentioned he’d got it. It wasn’t something that was a big thing with him.
RG: As a child dad was a member of the Royal Observer Corps. He was chief, Observer Corps at the post at Maxey, and on ceremonial occasions, on marches and Remembrance Sundays the medals always came out. So he was very proud of them, but as to talk about it that would be a different matter. But on an occasion where other members of the Royal Observer Corps and the British Legion and all that he would wear them with pride. Yeah.
CB: Now, his 57 Squadron tour finished at twenty five ops for him.
TG: Yes.
CB: What did he do after that?
TG: Well, he, he, he started a third tour at Syerston. From Syerston on Lancasters. But he did a few operational tours before the war finished.
CB: Which Squadron was that?
TG: I can’t remember.
CB: It doesn’t matter. But he was on operations. Not training.
TG: No. He was on operations. We see from his logbook he made at least one or two trips to Berlin. Four or five days after Germany surrendered.
CB: Oh right.
TG: And that was the end of his operational duties but I think he stayed on for another eighteen months or so before finally leaving the RAF.
CB: What, what — how did he come to be in the Observer Corps?
RG: My Uncle Bert. He was my godfather. He was a member of the Royal Observer Corps and dad went. Followed him sort of thing. Yeah. Got the Queen’s Silver Jubilee for services to the Royal Observer Corps. And he was chief observer at the Maxey post.
CB: Which is where exactly?
TG: Just outside of Peterborough. Between Peterborough and —
RG: Yeah. Market Deeping.
TG: Until, until it was disbanded.
RG: Yes.
TG: He, he stayed ‘til the end.
RG: He did all the talks on the, you know when the bomb, what was going off. I used to go with him on those talks. We talked to all sorts of organisations. I was in charge of the slides. You know. To show them. I felt as if I knew everything about it. Yes.
TG: I did talk to him about D-Day. I asked him if he’d been on an operation leading up to D-Day and in fact as his logbook proves he was. 5 Group went and bombed on the evening of the 5th of June 1944. Maisy Grandcamp and that area there. I asked him what he thought about it and what he knew about it. When he went on that raid he had no idea it was D-Day. He didn’t know it was D-Day and neither did anybody else but the top brass. As you probably know. And he said he thought it was funny because as he flew over the Channel, he thought on his screen there was a lot of Window. The silver.
CB: Radar jamming.
TG: The radar jamming stuff that was flying around but it, they did the raid and they got back and he went back and went to bed. And then when he woke up the next morning they told him it was D-Day and what he’d seen on his screen wasn’t Window. It was the boats. It was, it was the invasion fleet going. And that was the first he knew it was D-Day because of the secrecy of everything.
CB: This was on his H2S radar.
TG: Yes.
CB: He was seeing it.
TG: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
TG: But that’s, but that’s his recollection of that. But he remembered some, some raids and he’d tell me briefly about them. I think once they, shortly after D-Day they were detailed to attack Caen. The Germans there, and bomb at a certain point. But between taking off and getting this message our side, I think Canadians advanced further and I think there was quite a lot of allied troops killed by our own side in that raid. You probably know more about it than I do. Similarly we talked about the Scharnhorst earlier. That was a raid he told me that went slightly wrong. The plan had been, I think it was Poleglase was the station commander who led them in. But the plan had been for bombers to go in early at high level and get the bombs, the ships guns pointing upwards when Pete’s group would come in low and give them a good hiding. But I think the timing went wrong and they were waiting for them and hence the first three aircraft were shot out of the sky and then Wareing took that detour inland and came and got them from the other way. But these are the things that are probably not documented anywhere else.
CB: Now, the other major ship of course, capital ship was the Bismarck.
TG: Yes.
CB: So to what did he, extent did he have an involvement with that?
TG: He told us and it came to light after a chance conversation forty or fifty years later. Forty years later. With a chap in the Mail Cart pub at Spalding. But Pete told us that they knew where the Bismarck was heading but they didn’t quite know where it was as I understood it. So they went off to lay some mines in the Bay of Biscay and they were talked down as to where they should plant these mines by some of the Naval vessels. And that is what they did. And obviously a short time later the Bismarck was sunk by other means. But the chap in the, in the pub years later it transpired was on one of our Naval vessels and he was a wireless operator talking with the RAF and giving them instructions. So it was probably that Peter actually had spoken to this man before but never met him in entirely different circumstances than over a pint in the Mail Cart.
RG: Steward and Patteson’s.
TG: Yeah. So Steward and Patteson’s was a, that was another. Pete. Pete knew his beers. He knew them like no man I’ve ever met. And he could drink probably more than any man I’ve ever met [laughs] But when I first met him he used to take me to the Dun Cow at Spalding. Well at Cowbit. And he had this Steward and Patteson was one of the local brewers and Pete with his favourite pint but they used to grow barley in Norfolk for the beer, and they used to grow barley in Lincolnshire on the other side of the River Nene. And Pete could tell from the drink which side of the river the barley had been grown. Now, whether he was shooting the line.
RG: He would be.
TG: Which I’m sure he was but people believed him. So there you go. That’s, that’s the man. He was a very tall man, you know. About six foot two, wasn’t he? Very gentle. And he could speak equally to Prince Phillip or the Queen who he met a time or two.
RG: Garden parties.
TG: Or to the local drunk on his bike going past his nursery. Couldn’t he?
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
TG: Couldn’t he? He was at ease with anybody.
CB: And talking of nurseries. After the war how did he come to take up horticulture?
RG: Well, he went to work for Nell Brothers. Horticulturalists in Spalding. And he went as worker there. And then he went to Swanley Horticultural College and did a course on growing and all that sort of thing. And then he came back home. And then one of the Prestons, John Preston was of school leaving age and he thought he might like a career in horticulture. Growing type things. His father was loosely connected. And so they set up the nursery. They rented the land from Uncle Bert and they set up the business of Redmile Nurseries. John was the young lad and my dad was the expert as it were. And they worked there ‘til dad retired. You know. Quite a successful. Growing tomatoes, lettuce. The land had a bit of wheat on. They did lot of potato chitting. Cut flowers in the greenhouses. They expanded a little bit but that’s it. That’s where dad worked.
TG: He spent all his, his remainder of his working life.
RG: Yes.
TG: The Preston family that Rachel mentioned are the same ones that Olive was nanny too.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And who owned the Greyhound at Spalding.
RG: Yes.
TG: And in fact, John, his partner only died last week. He was eighty five.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: Do you want to just say that again.
RG: Yeah. Dad grew all sorts of veg and things like that. Tomatoes and lettuce. But he absolutely hated tomatoes. It was quite funny really. You grow them, you know and yeah. But he hated them.
CB: What was the origin of that?
RG: I’ve absolutely no idea really but yeah. Yeah. It’s [pause] yeah.
TG: But his —
RG: But we never ate tomatoes like they do in supermarkets now. Red. They’d always got to be firm and orange and they’d always got to be of a certain size. Other things like you have beef tomatoes and things nowadays they just went on the skip. It had got to be if I can remember pink, or pink and white. That was the grade of the tomatoes.
TG: If they were red they weren’t fit to eat.
RG: No. They were thrown out. They were only for frying.
TG: But of course Rachel does the garden. That’s been inherited from her dad I think.
CB: Looks smashing.
TG: Well, your other sister is a horticulturist.
RG: Yes. Helen is horticultural.
TG: In a big way big way down in Spalding.
RG: Yes. Yeah.
TG: Yes.
CB: Stop there again.
[recording paused]
RG: And they went on their honeymoon. The Preston’s had a bungalow at Surfleet Reservoir. And mum and dad went down there. I suppose it was all the time they’d got. They went down there for the honeymoon to the bungalow at Surfleet Reservoir. It’s where the river comes in and there’s a, there’s a sluice gate before it goes out into the sea. Surfleet Reservoir. In the day it was quite a nice little place to be. Yeah, and that’s where they went on their honeymoon.
TG: About three miles from home.
RG: Yes. Well, why not?
CB: Might have got recalled.
TG: Well, yes.
RG: Well, that’s always a possibility isn’t it?
TG: That was it. But —
CB: Stop there.
[recording paused]
CB: So, did you go back to France quite often? Where the crew were buried.
TG: Rachel and, Rachel and I went on holiday in France quite often and always drive. One time when we were coming back we went to Normandy where my father fought and went to some of the cemeteries at Omaha and others. And at the time I think I managed it was sort of pre-internet days really. But I managed to find where Peter’s crew were buried from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and on the way back we travelled to Banneville and to the Commonwealth and found Tuesday Spencer and Weston Clark and Anderson. Their grave. And we came back on the Tuesday and Peter had never set foot abroad. He’d left his mark. By golly he had in France and in Germany from high, from on high and I mentioned I’d been and I didn’t know really how to put it because I didn’t know how it would affect him emotionally. And I said we’d been and found the graves and he did say, ‘I’d like to go.’ So this was on the Tuesday. On the Saturday we jumped in his Rover and I went back to France with him and we had the whale of a time. We had a whale of a time. We not only visited. We visited some hostelries there and we visited Pointe du Hoc and Omaha, and I took him to the graves and he stood beside them and he signed the book. He was very quiet but he was completely controlled and he was able to speak quite easily of them. And so he did and we’ve got photographs of the graves and Peter with them.
CB: So what did he talk about?
TG: When he was there? He would talk about Tuesday. He was, I think the closest because he didn’t know anything much about other crews and that was fairly [pause] fairly part of the course wasn’t it? He knew his own crew but Tuesday had a motor bike and he’d got a girlfriend. I think he was having trouble with this girlfriend and I think Pete used to advise him a little bit on the, on procedure and protocols and things like that. But I think he also used to take Pete to Spalding to see Olive and that sort of thing and have a few pints.
RG: Dad put in here that he socialised an awful lot with Tuesday. He had a little bit more money than dad and if they went somewhere, probably go to London and he would put them up and I think dad quite liked that idea.
TG: That happened once. They made a forced landing somewhere down south and Tuesday had the money and he put the whole crew up in a hotel in London. And Pete was quite happy to participate. He put his back in to that evening I think [laughs]. Really put his back into so, and enjoyed that wouldn’t he? But having said that and between meeting him and Tuesday dying was only eleven months or so wasn’t it? So they were, they were, they were friends but they, they must have known that, well what was going through their minds having looked around you didn’t make plans for the future necessarily.
CB: No. You said he was asked to speak to Tuesday’s parents.
TG: Yes.
CB: What did he think about that?
TG: He described it as it was, didn’t he? He, he, they wanted to speak to him and he was summoned to the office. The station commander. When he returned after ten days or so. And they really wanted to talk to him about Tuesday and how he’d found him because obviously they knew or they had been told that Pete was his best friend while he was down there. I think all he could tell them was —
RG: How it was really.
TG: How it was. And when he’d last seen him and that sort of thing. He didn’t express any emotion at all.
RG: No.
TG: To me. He never expressed any emotion. He just told it how it was and that was all his experiences. The only clue you got to the effect was as we mentioned was the night.
RG: Nightmares. Yeah.
TG: The nightmares if you like to call it that. When he was flying at night. That was the only time he, you would know that there was anything amiss. That he’d been affected. He would talk about his drink. The drinking sessions and the good times. He’d talk about not being able to remember because they’d had just to blot it out. But the middle bit. The bit where it happened he, he didn’t go into any detail other than the funny bits usually. And occasionally obviously the rear gunner being hit. But he was, he was baled out twice. Wasn’t he?
CB: So why did he have to bale out of the aircraft?
TG: I think the aircraft made it back to the UK, in England both times. I think on one occasion he landed in a field and it was foggy. And I’m sure he told me that there was somebody had reported this fellow had come out of an aircraft and a police car was, was on the road and he was the other side of the hedge. And I think they thought he was a German or something to start with because he was running down this hedge side with the police opposite until they could sort of meet up and he identified himself. He did get some shrapnel in the backside once. Didn’t he?
RG: Yes. I think mum used to have it in her sewing box. I don’t know if it’s still there [laughs]
TG: It’s probably —
RG: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think it is now. Yeah. You always, when I was a kid that, ‘Oh, no. That came out of dad’s, dad’s bottom,’ like, you know [laughs]
TG: It had gone through the seat.
RG: Yeah.
TG: Wherever he was.
RG: And when he landed in the tree I think he ripped his leg. But that’s the only injury he got. Yeah.
TG: I think he landed in Norfolk on one occasion if not both. Then struggling back.
RG: The thing is though when you’re growing up you hear, and later on you hear these things and because you’re so engrossed with living —
CB: Yeah.
RG: You don’t take it on board. And then all of a sudden when you get older and you get interested in these sorts of things you think oh, I wish I’d learned more. I wish I knew more about my granddad because he was in the First World War and he, I just knew that he was a horseman but I didn’t know whether he rode a horse. I didn’t know what he did, but he was, he looked after the horse —
TG: A blacksmith.
RG: No. He wasn’t a blacksmith. He looked after the horses that pulled the big guns. You see, I didn’t know any of that.
CB: No.
RG: You know. I didn’t. I mean, ok apart from a picture at my nan’s of him in uniform I wouldn’t have thought. It wasn’t until later on that I’ve got some spoons and knives and things in there stamped with numbers. And they are my granddads and my great uncle’s that they took to the war with them.
TG: They’d be stamped and issued to them, wouldn’t they?
RG: With their, with their service numbers.
CB: No.
RG: I didn’t know. You know, I didn’t know any of that.
CB: No.
RG: And then of course when you get interested it’s too late because everybody’s gone then. Isn’t it?
TG: You see, we’d been across there a lot. Both to the Normandy and to Ypres and the Somme. I nearly lived there. Certainly, if you look behind you when you’re upstairs you’ll see books. I’ve got the 57 Squadron book. The, “57 Squadron at War,” which is very difficult to get a hold of now. I’ve got it. I’ve got it upstairs there but, when I go around to some of these places I mean I often go or used to go to Sleaford and one other, and Norfolk where they’re doing all these re-enactments and you think gosh these are really, because I’m really into these things as you probably gathered. And I start talking to these and they’re all dressed and they, when you actually talk to them they know very little. They want to get dressed up and do battle. They’ve never been to Normandy. They’ve never been to those. They don’t know about, they just want to get dressed up and look you know. They don’t get into it.
CB: They’re actors.
RG: Yes.
TG: Yes. But they’re just enthusiast who want to get dressed up and think it’s fun.
RG: I went.
TG: It annoys me. That they should go and look at those cemeteries, you know. And they’ve never been. I said, ‘What do you think to Omaha?’ ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Omaha.’ You know. Or, or, or Tyne Cot, or Passchendaele or some of these, you know.
RG: I challenged one at Metheringham Open Day one day. He was there and he had DFC things on, you know.
TG: He was dressed up.
RG: He was an officer and he’d got the DFC. You know, the ribbons.
TG: He was a postman. He’d never been in a —
RG: I said to him, ‘Oh, you’ve got, I see you’ve got a DFC there,’ you know. He did not know what I was talking about. I said, ‘That, that ribbon there. That’s a DFC.’ ‘Is it?’
TG: Yeah.
RG: And I thought, what are we doing here? You know. Yeah.
TG: If they’re going to do that they want to know more than I do.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And my dad was there and he, you know he was reported killed, missing in action to my mum on the 18th of June 1944. Fortunately, in the same post she got a letter from him. He was in Carlisle Hospital with a great lump of shrapnel in him. At Ranville, at Ranville, just up from, from Pegasus Bridge. He’d been smashed up. But as I say after three or four months he was fit enough to go back. That’s where he got this.
RG: I don’t know.
TG: He lived ‘til he was ninety six my father. Red beret and airborne.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And all this sort of thing.
RG: Before he died it was the, was it the seventieth anniversary or something. VE. VE Day.
TG: The week before he died.
RG: Yeah.
TG: My dad was in a home here. My mum died a few years before. And he managed to reach the seventieth anniversary of D-Day.
RG: Yeah. And at the home they did a big, a big thing. It was a Care Centre there. And they did a meal and everything like that.
TG: They got him dressed up with his medals.
RG: And he went and it was, it was a good day. He wasn’t quite sure where he was.
TG: It was his last Friday or Saturday on earth.
RG: Yeah, but he, yeah it was —
TG: He died the following Thursday.
RG: But he’d got his red beret on. And he’d got his medals up and he’d got the photograph sat on his knee all day. Clutched. Of him when he was a young man.
TG: A young man in uniform.
RG: And that. Yeah.
TG: And you couldn’t get it off him.
RG: No.
TG: He had it like this.
RG: He clutched it all day.
TG: He died the following Thursday.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Oh right.
TG: Two years, three ago.
RG: Yeah.
TG: Two and a half years ago now.
RG: But, you know a lot, a lot of people don’t know what you’re talking about when you say these things.
CB: They don’t. No.
RG: No.
TG: No.
RG: I mean, this film I haven’t been to see it. Terry went with some lads in the family.
TG: I went to see “Dunkirk.”
RG: Dunkirk. And I listened to a report on the radio and they, was it the radio? No. Wireless. Whatever you call it, you know. And they said that it’s been made because a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.
TG: They don’t know the difference between Dunkirk and D-Day.
RG: And people when they were interviewed them, and they said, ‘Do you know about Dunkirk?’ ‘No.’ You know. And I think to myself, oh dear. It is a shame.
TG: But they don’t know why they’re here.
RG: No.
TG: We, I’m ashamed to say that one of our friends we used to go to France and Germany a lot. Just jump in the car and book a ferry and go down the Moselle or whatever. Last time we went to Lille and Bruges. We ended up right on the coast at Dunkirk waiting for a ferry, I think we came back from Dunkirk.
RG: Oh, I can’t remember.
TG: But we came to the very end where there’s still some guns there. I don’t know if you’ve been on that coast. There’s still some German guns there. And Sheila, who is just a few months older than you and we’re talking Dunkirk and she said, she turned and said to me, ‘Is this where they all came up on to the beaches then? And the invasion.’ And I think, they weren’t going that way. I mean she’s seventy. I mean, I just think how can you go through life —
RG: Yeah, but don’t you think though like I’ve —
TG: Without knowing that it happened hundreds of miles away. D-Day. And they were coming — we were going up there.
RG: But I’ve grown up with Lancaster bombers. I’ve grown up with them, you know. And my girls they’ve grown up with them as well through granddad. And this is how we’ve been. And all, aircraft in the sky, ‘Oh look. There goes the Dakota,’ or whatever. I’ve grown up like that. But a lot of people just don’t know what you’re talking about. I know a few years ago I was at work and it was, it was a nice day and we were in the canteen and we’d got the windows open. And we sat there having coffee and I said, ‘Oh, listen. Oh, there goes the Lancaster.’ No one looked. They looked gone out at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. I said, ‘Listen. Can’t you hear the engines?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘It’s a bomber. It’s going over.’ ‘What are you talking about Rachel?’ I said, ‘It’s the Lancaster.’ I said, ‘It’ll be going back to Coningsby and do its circuit around the Cathedral.’ And they had no idea what I was talking about. Now, that is sad isn’t it? Yeah.
TG: The other thing your dad didn’t like to see and it must have affected him. I sometimes wonder about why he said it, is every time he saw an old airfield in Lincolnshire and he saw the control tower standing derelict he would say, ‘I wish they would pull them down.’ He said, ‘I wish they’d pull them all down.’ I think it was a reminder. He didn’t, he didn’t like to see them. Did he?
RG: No. Not derelict anyway. No.
TG: I mean, I didn’t know —
RG: He was ok at East Kirkby. You know, because it’s all been restored.
CB: It’s restored. Yeah.
RG: Yeah. But he always went to East Kirkby just for a ride. You know, ‘I’m just going to ride.’ Woodhall Spa. East Kirkby. That way on. But yeah. There we go.
CB: Just going back to the, your parents in the war people took very different views as to whether they should marry or not. So why was it that your parents married essentially in the middle of the war?
RG: Just turn that off a minute.
[recording paused]
RG: Wouldn’t like to hear that. She, you know. Why mum and dad got married in the war. I think they, you know had a good relationship. Romance blossomed and I think the idea was well, why shouldn’t we get married? You know. In those days it was the way forward regardless of how long they had got together. I don’t think that entered into it. So, yes. They, they married. Yes.
CB: And we talked about their links and because they were physically not next to each other while the flying —
RG: Yes.
CB: Was going on. So that covers that matter. Thank you.
RG: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So, Terry. On your case.
TG: My dad was in the army and he was on the beaches at D-Day and wounded just after. But they married in 1941 and my dad was on a few days leave and they had a special licence. They decided to get married on the Wednesday night and the ceremony took place at the church on the Saturday. And everything was pretty quick in those days although I was three or four years coming along and the eldest of five brothers. They caught up for it later on, didn’t they? But he survived the war. My father.
RG: And they were married for nearly seventy years.
TG: Nearly seventy years.
CB: You had a long and auspicious career in the police force and to what extent did you come across policemen who’d been in the war and did they talk about it?
TG: Well, only early on did I come across it and only for a short period because the chaps on the patrol car with me were much, much older and had served.
RG: Lofty had, hadn’t he?
TG: There was one chap who was, I remember distinctly. Never had a cigarette out of his hand. And he’d been on the Northwest Frontier, was it? As a stretcher bearer and drummer boy. And he told me a few tales.
CB: In India.
TG: Sorry? In India. Yes.
CB: In India. Yes.
TG: And his skin was still leathery. They called him Lofty. A wonderful character. But he didn’t go too much into, into his experiences and I didn’t see many others who were old enough.
RG: And Vic’s dad. Was he in the war?
TG: Yes, but he didn’t serve with —
RG: No. No.
TG: Vic’s dad. No. I met one or two people. One chap had been, he’d worked in an office in Lincoln and he was, you’d call him an insignificant little chap and he wasn’t very noisy. He kept quiet but when he spoke everybody listened because he’d been on the, in the Navy, I think the Merchant Navy and been torpedoed twice and survived. That sort of thing. I think Alf Dixon who was the office man at Spalding when I joined had been torpedoed in, in the Navy. But I was only nineteen when I joined. And I mean I had school masters who had been, all of them had been in the war. One had lost his leg. The deputy headmaster. That’s a thing.
CB: And what about the felons that you dealt with? Had any of those been guided by the forces originally?
TG: No. No. They, young as I was most of them and they just jumped on to the one side of the fence while I’d fallen on the other at the time. I was on the law enforcement side. But no it didn’t.
CB: So, going back to the war itself you talked about the experience of one of the crewmen and being [pause] we were talking about, touching on LMF.
TG: Oh yes. Yes.
CB: So, what was that dimension as far as Pete was concerned? What his knowledge.
TG: The man was out of control. He said he was. He just had him, you know he was shell shocked was probably —
RG: Flak happy.
TG: Flak happy was, was the word. He’d gone flak happy. Completely flak happy and gone berserk on the aircraft. Endangering it. As I said, Pete said he hit him with a ammo box and knocked him out. And then he was charged. Probably court martialled. I don’t know for LMF. In these days you’d have probably got a handsome sum in compensation for all the stress he’d been put through. But that’s as far as it went. I don’t think Pete came across it. Or if he did he didn’t mention anything about that at all. Even if he was stressed. I mean obviously what he said they were terribly stressed. You wouldn’t go out and get blind drunk to forget what you’d just seen, done and been through like they did. It was the only release they had. The only release. They above all went from relative safety to the most terrible danger in a very short time. Whereas no other arm, arm of the armed forces experienced that, did they? They were, either they were out there fighting at a fairly consistent level, I know it went up and down but the bomber crews and I suppose the fighter pilots as well went from sitting at home in a pub in England or with a girlfriend and hours later being subject to the most horrendous barrage and being attacked from above and below. And it was a huge contrast for them.
RG: And the frequency of the flying and the raids. If you look at dad’s logbook it sort of says you know, he’s made up the logbook and its flying such and such and where they’ve gone. Good long way away. Then they’re back. And then it’s not five minutes or so before they’re off again, you know. And they would be going at 9 o’clock and 10 o’clock at night. Flying. Night flying. Coming back. Then afternoons. And there wasn’t a good long rest period in the middle so they, they would be tired out, you know. Head wise as well as body. Physical. Yeah.
TG: Sometimes a crew would be lost and of course their uniforms would, and everything they’d left in their billet was moved and their beds made up for the next crew to replace them. The next crew would come. And then before they went to bed they’d probably gone on a raid and be lost and they’d never use the beds that were made up for them. I mean. As you know. This was the —
RG: I don’t think modern society can understand what a lot of they had to put up with that and go through really. I know there’s different things. Different aspects now. But they just had to get on with it in those days. Well, from what I can understand.
CB: You touched on a point indirectly which is that the socialising of the crew and in this particular case Tuesday’s crew was mixed airmen of sergeants and officers.
TG: And, and —
CB: So, how did that work?
TG: There was I think there was pretty well classless. I think those, those divisions were not, Peter never, Pete never mentioned anything of that nature. The only thing he objected to was when they were marched off at gunpoint by the Americans at this base and they were all put in the sergeant’s mess when he said he should have been in the officer’s mess. But they were questioned and all sorts. That’s the only time he ever, but I think he had taken umbridge at the Americans attitude rather than anything else because Pete had no thoughts for what anybody’s background was. He’d treat everybody the same.
RG: No. Absolutely.
TG: Whether he was a prince or a pauper. Quite literally. And he spoke to all people from all of those classes and you could be with him and he could hold a conversation with anybody from any background but he never ever —
RG: Never judged anybody.
TG: He never judged anybody.
RG: No.
TG: And he never sort of said, ‘I’ve got the DFC,’ and everything. He never got, it never got entered into conversation.
RG: He was just a nice chap.
TG: He was just a nice sociable chap who liked a pint after a hard days work at the nursery. And sometimes in later life he’d go down to the Mail Cart on the bus wouldn’t he because of the road safety. But one of the funny things I’ll tell you about Pete when I was first was going out with Rachel. I think I was first married.
RG: I think we were married.
TG: I think we were married. And Pete and your, and Harold.
RG: And his friend George Samsby.
TG: And George Samsby.
RG: And some, one other.
TG: They were a right drinking group.
RG: Oh dear.
TG: And they all used to go to the Dun Cow at Cowbit. Now, me and my mate who was quite a lot older than me were in a patrol car one night and it was about one in the morning coming back into Spalding along Cowbit Bank. And I could see some of the cars outside the well-lit pub because closing time was about ten thirty and this was 1am. The lights are still on. There were a few cars outside amongst which was your dad’s.
RG: Harold’s.
TG: Your brother in law’s and George Samsby’s and my co-driver, he said, ‘Look at that pub. Let’s go and raid it.’ I, I was appalled that these, you know, he says, ‘They’re all drinking.’ So I said, ‘I’m sorry, Brian. I can’t Brian, I can’t.’ He said, ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘Because I’m at court in the morning. If I get tied up with that lot I’m going to be here ‘til 4 or 5 o’clock.’ I didn’t mention whose cars they were because I could see it in the paper that, “PC arrests whole family illegally drinking.”
RG: Oh dear [laughs]
TG: Dear me. In the local pub. And I could imagine quite a rift, you know and I’d have to go and give evidence against him and then bail him out.
RG: Oh dear.
TG: But he was wonderful company. He was wonderful. He were wonderful company your dad was. Wasn’t he? He was. He used to work like anything. But when they used to be at Maxey they used to get an allowance to cut the grass at the Royal Observer Corps Post. To pay somebody to do it. Well, they didn’t. They kept the money and cut it themselves. So every year they had a right old booze up and a dinner to which we went with the money for the grass cutting. Resourceful to the last. Wasn’t he? Yes.
RG: He used to have these, you know exercises and they’d you know pretend that there was going to be a —
TG: Nuclear war.
RG: Nuclear war, you know. And away dad would go there. And the first thing that went down into the post as they called it was the beer laughs] It went down, you know. The beer.
TG: That was because they were underground weren’t they?
RG: Yeah.
CB: They wouldn’t want to get it contaminated by radiation would they?
RG: Absolutely not.
TG: It didn’t matter about anything else but they’d be locked down there for a few days, wouldn’t they?
RG: Yes.
TG: With the luncheon, didn’t they? The luncheon meat and —
RG: I felt as though I knew everything about the Royal Observer Corps.
CB: What would you think Pete would have said was his most memorable experience in the war?
RG: Golly. That is a question. In the war.
TG: Well, only the things that he’d mentioned really because he didn’t go into that much detail. He mentioned the Scharnhorst thing because they lost those aircraft and they put it out of action for about a month. The loss of his crew, and those things we’ve already highlighted.
RG: I think he would probably have said it would be his mother in law’s cooked breakfast because when he was at home on leave nan, my nan would always make sure that he got the eggs and he got the bacon and had a good, you know a good breakfast. But I can’t think of anything on the raid side or operations that dad would talk about more than another.
TG: He just, he just did it.
RG: Yeah. I think the loss of his crew. He talked about that a bit but, yeah. No.
TG: It was a, it was a period in his life that —
RG: He just did.
TG: They did. And when it was over he wanted to put it behind him.
CB: Yes.
TG: And what he did subsequently was in complete and utter contrast. Wasn’t it? Growing plants and, and selling them. It wasn’t a noisy machine driven —
CB: Destructive force.
TG: Destructive force. It was a constructive effort.
RG: But all his hobbies and things were RAF connected. Yeah.
TG: They —
RG: Yeah. He had a great love of flying and things.
TG: He liked, liked flying. As I say. The Holbeach Club and his wireless op. His amateur radio and obviously the ROC, RAFA and all this sort of thing.
RG: My sister. My younger sister. She —
TG: There are three of them.
RG: Three of us.
TG: We’ll not mention Jane.
RG: Jane. She lived in Bath and she’d just bought this house and they were having it converted. Fantastic place it was and she wanted dad to see it. Now, dad was a very, very sick man and she wanted us to go. And I said, ‘Dad won’t survive a road trip or a train trip.’
TG: He had a heart attack when he was about seventy eight, so.
RG: Yeah. I said, ‘Dad won’t survive that, Jane. It’ll just absolutely knock him out.’ So she chartered a helicopter to come and fetch us.
TG: [unclear] anyway.
RG: Yeah. But dad was absolutely in his element. He, we set of from Fenland Airfield. Right. You know. Little Fen.
TG: In this helicopter.
RG: All his mates were watching him and this chappy in the uniform and off we went.
TG: To Bath.
RG: Terry and I went to Bath.
TG: With your dad.
RG: Yeah. With dad. And dad sat in the front like this. And as we got, we went over where Prince Charles lives. Highgrove, and that. And when we got —
TG: Highgrove. Yes.
RG: When we got near somewhere or other there was two Hercules in the sky. Now, helicopters fly quite low.
TG: It was over the —
CB: This is Lyneham.
TG: No.
RG: No.
TG: No. The one that was closest.
RG: No.
TG: Fairford.
RG: Where the —
TG: Fairford. It was closed at the time.
CB: Because —
RG: Yeah. Because they were converting for the —
CB: Americans. Yes.
RG: Yeah. Two helicopters, two Hercules were coming like this and we’d got, we were all sat in the back. Got these headsets on and I said, ‘Oh, oh look at those Hercules across there. Look at those.’ You know. We were coming like this. These two Hercules were coming like that. And I thought to myself I don’t know but we’re just a little bit too close to those. So I said to the pilot about these. I said, ‘Oh they’re a bit close to us, aren’t they?’ He went, ‘Silence in the cabin.’ Closed me. So then he kept saying to the radar people and whatever.
CB: Control room. Yes.
RG: Yeah. Control room. He kept saying such and such, ‘This is Echo Tango Lima 546,’ or whatever we were, ‘We are a Jet Ranger. We have five people on board. We are flying from Fenland Airfield in Lincolnshire to a private landing spot in Bath. We are a Jet Ranger. We have five — ’ And I kept thinking and I kept thinking, I kept thinking you keep telling them. And he kept saying it, repeating and the control place said you are de, de, de, der like this. And he kept saying and, ‘Yes. We are a Jet Ranger.’ And he kept repeating it. ‘We are a Jet Ranger.’ And then the call sign like that. I thought, yes you tell them who we are because when we hit there’s not going to be anything left of our Jet Ranger. And then all of a sudden this voice said whatever the call sign. ‘You are a Jet Ranger. You are flying — ’ you know repeated everything. He said, ‘Yes. We are.’ And the next minute our little helicopter, well it wasn’t a little one, we went down like this. We went right down like that. I thought I don’t like this, we’re going down, and these Hercules literally went over the top. And when we got calmed down the captain said, ‘Phew.’ And what it was the call sign of us was very similar to one of those Hercules and they’d got us muddled up.
CB: Oh.
RG: But do you know dad sat in the front and dad said something, ‘Well, Skip. That was a good, good shout.’ Or something like that.
TG: Good show.
RG: Good show. Yeah. And the fella said, ‘I bet you’ve had more experiences than that one.’ And dad said, ‘Yeah. But not as exciting,’ or something like that. But oh dear. But, yeah.
CB: Crikey.
RG: Dad was laid up for quite a few weeks after that one. Oh, you haven’t been recording me have you?
[recording paused]
RG: And he obviously had —
CB: So Terry I just want to go back to what talked about the parents of Tuesday coming down to see Pete. What do you think they were looking for?
TG: Well, Durham is a couple of hundred miles away from East Kirkby at least. And travel wouldn’t be very easy at that time. And they were there waiting for Peter when he returned from his, his short period of rest. Expressly having requested to see him. And there must have been a terrible gap in their yearning to find out more about their son in his last days and to speak to his closest friend of that time. His drinking mate. His flying mate. And Pete was able to fill them in. How they were. What his attitude was. What his spirits were like. Right up until the last time he saw him which was obviously some time after his own parents. The fact that they went out to dinner with Pete when they were down there, the fact that the station commander had accepted them on to the base because it wouldn’t be easy for civilians to get on there at that time must have been a great —
RG: And the five pounds.
TG: Must have been a great comfort to them. And having then travelled home. Probably having had to stay down in Lincolnshire for a day or two. To post him the five pounds in recognition of both the comfort he’d brought to them and also for his recent commission, Pete’s commission, clearly shows to me that the effort that they put in the, that it’s the terrible desire to fill in the gaps in their son’s life as much as they could was for closure.
RG: And dad had done it.
TG: And Pete had fulfilled that and filled that gap as much as he possibly could. He brought them closure. And hopefully they went away, well clearly were much happier than they had have been. But to have lost him without any of this detail would have, they would have always wondered. And it wouldn’t have been an easy journey for them to make because they didn’t know what they were going to hear really.
[recording paused]
CB: So what did he particularly appreciate when he was on his trips?
TG: Coming home. He said, he said that often coming home particularly coming home they’d waste a huge amount of ammunition shooting at the Morning or the Evening Star. Whichever time of day Venus was up. When they were very tense and they thought maybe there were fighters waiting for them to land. But one of the loveliest sights he said was the landscape below. England was always greener and he knew he was in England just from the colour, the density of the green rather than on the continent. He didn’t look out for the Cathedral as, as a lot of crews did. Boston Stump was the, was, was more visible than the Cathedral when they came home.
CB: The Lincoln Cathedral.
TG: Than Lincoln Cathedral. But he particularly loved the greenery. That’s more than anything else he loved to see the green green grass of home as they say. And it was greener than over the water.
CB: Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: I want to take you both together.
RG: Oh dear.
CB: And where shall we do it because it’s nice here. Or we can for it outside?
TG: You can do it outside. Or wherever you like.
RG: Yeah. Do it where you like.
CB: Well, we just have the picture with you.
RG: Yeah.
CB: Just hold it between you. It’ll be nice to do it outside wouldn’t it?
RG: I’ll put a bit of lipstick on I think.
TG: She’s got to do her hair.
CB: That’s good. Let me in the meantime just write my email address on there.
TG: I’ll try and send you three and four at a time. Or whatever.
CB: Whatever. Yeah.
TG: Yeah. I’ll just get my shoes on.
CB: Ok.
[pause]
RG: Yes. It would be quite appropriate to be in our garden.
CB: Well, I think so.
RG: Dad and I spent an awful lot of time on it.
CB: Did you? Yes. I think it looks super. Well, I’m looking to move. To downsize my house.
RG: Oh yes. I don’t —
CB: Thank you.
RG: What was I going to say? I think we ought to downsize.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Rachel and John Gill
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGillRA-JT170930
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:38:47 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Hazeldene joined the RAF from Wales when he saw a poster to see the world from a different perspective. He trained as a wireless operator and during training suspected a couple of incidents of sabotage on the base. Peter was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Finningley. On a mining operation they were hit by anti-aircraft fire. It was only when they returned to base they realised the rear gunner was dead and his turret was awash with blood. On another occasion the flight engineer apparently went berserk and Peter had to subdue him by hitting him with an ammunition box. After his first tour of operations Peter was seconded to the Americans at Polebrook as an instructor. He then was posted to RAF East Kirkby with 57 Squadron. While he was on leave he returned to find his crew were dead or missing. The parents of his pilot travelled to East Kirkby to meet him and come to terms with the death of their son. He started a third tour at RAF Syerston and completed several operations before the war ended. After the stress of operations Peter suffered terrible flashbacks and nightmares for the rest of his life.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
106 Squadron
57 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
bale out
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
final resting place
Gneisenau
H2S
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
heirloom
killed in action
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
mine laying
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cranwell
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Finningley
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Metheringham
RAF Polebrook
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wigsley
Royal Observer Corps
Scharnhorst
Stirling
take-off crash
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/844/10838/AGreenE180522.2.mp3
249391cf79090c9672f3295249b1c716
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
Green, Elaine
E Green
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Elaine green (b. 1940). Her Uncle was an armourer for 617 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-05-22
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Green, E
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Ok. We’ll get, just get this going. If I keep looking down I’m just making sure it’s working.
EG: Ok.
DK: So, this is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing, interviewing [unclear] on the 22nd of May 2018. So, if I just put that there.
EG: Yeah.
DK: I’ll. I’ll occasionally look over like this.
EG: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So, what, what I want to do first of all is just ask a little bit about yourself. So, have you always lived in this area then?
EG: No. I, I was born in Yorkshire but I lived in Peterborough but my grandfather lived on Nelson Street in Lincoln.
DK: Right.
EG: And we used to go and see him. And my aunt and my uncle were there as well and my cousin, Richard.
DK: Right.
EG: But they moved around to Woodhall Spa and all around there in lodgings.
DK: Right. If you don’t mind me asking how old would you have been during wartime then? Would you —
EG: I was born 1940.
DK: Right. Ok. So come, come the sort of Dambusters time —
EG: Oh yeah.
DK: You were about three. Three years old.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
EG: Oh yeah. Yeah. I don’t remember that but my mother does.
DK: Yeah.
EG: They weren’t supposed to say anything but my uncle did say to my mother, ‘Don’t tell Lottie.’ That was his wife, ‘But pray for us on the 16th.’ Or around about there.
DK: Right. So, your uncle’s name was —
EG: Ernest Richard Bolton.
DK: Bolton.
EG: Bolton.
DK: Bolton.
EG: B O L T O N.
DK: And he was with 617 Squadron.
EG: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Right [unclear]
EG: Yeah. He was in there for twenty five years. I’ve got the paperwork about it. He, I think he was the eldest one in the squadron. He was the, he looked after the bombs and he was the chief armourer.
DK: Right.
EG: He worked with Barnes Wallis. There was letters between him and Barnes Wallis but my aunt destroyed them.
DK: Oh dear.
EG: I know. My cousin was furious about that.
DK: Oh dear. So, you don’t, now after all these years you probably don’t know what exactly he was doing with Wallis then.
EG: Well, he was at the Ladybower.
DK: Right. Right.
EG: And also down by the sea. Where ever that was.
DK: Reculver? Would it have been Kent?
EG: I don’t know but it’s my Aunt Ettie, his sister in law that told me what she knew.
DK: Right.
EG: Guy Gibson said to him, ‘As you’ve been here right from the beginning would you like to go?’ Now, I’d have said no but he said yes and he went so there was a hundred and thirty four went that night. Which plane he was on we’re not sure. It could have been Guy’s. We’re not sure. And, but he cut his head badly and when he got back he was in hospital for two or three days.
DK: Right.
EG: Yeah.
DK: So, he actually went on the raid then.
EG: He went on the raid.
DK: Right.
EG: As an observer. As an observer. I mean what was Guy? Twenty four.
DK: Yeah.
EG: And he would be forty four.
DK: Right. So, he’d have been born in —
EG: 1900.
DK: 1900. Yeah.
EG: Yeah. There’s a photograph of him. That’s his medal.
DK: Right.
EG: That’s a letter from the King.
DK: So, he was awarded the, just for the recording here he was awarded the MBE then.
EG: Yeah.
DK: So that’s the MBE there.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So, it’s Squadron Leader Ernest R Bolton, MBE.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: Yeah. That was from Arthur Harris.
DK: So, there’s a post, well, a telegram here.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: A telegram here to Squadron Leader Bolton at 54 base which was Coningsby.
EG: Yeah.
DK: So, “My warmest congratulations on the well-deserved award of your MBE.” Signed by Arthur T Harris.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Air Chief Marshall.
EG: That’s right.
DK: And can I just, for the recording that’s dated 16th of June 1945.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So that’s, that’s from the Under-Secretary of State for Air.
EG: Maybe Johnny Johnson might know about it.
DK: Yeah. Might do. Yeah.
EG: That was —
DK: That’s the Gazette. Yeah.
EG: The Gazette.
DK: The London Gazette.
EG: Yeah. And that was when he died, I think. That one. 1947.
DK: Right.
EG: Yeah.
DK: So —
EG: You can have all those.
DK: So, yeah. Right. Thanks. He’s in the London Gazette then and that’s, this is recording his, his death, is it?
EG: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Oh, was it —
EG: I don’t.
DK: Oh, no. It’s —
EG: Bolton.
DK: Bolton. Yeah.
EG: Bolton. I don’t know what MBE.
DK: Yeah.
EG: No. I know he died in ’47.
DK: Right. So, he died January 1947 or —
EG: Yeah.
DK: About that time.
EG: Around about that time. I can remember the funeral. We weren’t sure what it was but we were, my cousin and I were pushed next door while they went to church.
DK: Right.
EG: I think it was St Faith’s. That’s the nearest church to Nelson Street.
DK: So, whereabouts were you living then at this time?
EG: Well, we were living in Peterborough.
DK: Right.
EG: My mother and I.
DK: Right. And Bolton himself, your uncle where was, where would he have been based? Was he based at Scampton at the time?
EG: Well, when he died, no. He’d retired.
DK: Right.
EG: And he’d got a job and through the accident on the plane.
DK: Right.
EG: He caught, he got cancer of the brain and died.
DK: Gosh.
EG: Because of it.
DK: Really?
EG: Yeah.
DK: So, while he was with 617 Squadron then he’s gone up in a plane.
EG: Yeah.
DK: And been injured in some way.
EG: Yeah.
DK: And that led to his death.
EG: Yeah.
DK: In 1947.
EG: ’47. Yeah.
DK: Right. So, he retired and then died very soon afterwards.
EG: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely old chap. I can remember he always used to cook breakfast when we used to go up for a weekend and put a pinny on. He’d got his uniform on.
DK: Yeah.
EG: But always liked cooking breakfast.
DK: Yeah. So, do you know much about what he was doing before 617 Squadron?
EG: No. That’s where —
DK: So you don’t know whether he was, because Gibson tried to recruit most of the aircrew and ground crew. Do you know if he would have been personally recruited —
EG: I think, yeah. I should think he would be, yeah.
DK: Recruited by Gibson.
EG: I should think he would be but you’ve got to find that out.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: There was a programme the other night about it but it was 2010 and they’re saying that the ground, he, he couldn’t recruit many people.
DK: Yeah.
EG: Yeah. Not many volunteers [laughs]
DK: No. So, do you know much about what he did after the Dambusters raid then?
EG: No. I know nothing. Now, if you ring my cousin up he might know more.
DK: Ok.
EG: Because he was living with his mum and dad.
DK: Right.
EG: But he said he was at Coningsby.
DK: Right.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Because —
EG: Well, it’s not far away.
DK: Yeah. Because 617 then moved so he’s probably then moved with them.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: To Coningsby.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And I think they went to Woodhall Spa after that.
EG: Well, they lived at Woodhall Spa for a bit. But they did have accommodation, I think at Scampton —
DK: Right.
EG: At one time. I remember seeing a photograph of Richard when he was a little boy sitting on the step. It looked like a Nissen hut.
DK: So, the story about the dog then.
EG: The dog.
DK: The dog would —
EG: Well —
DK: The dog called N*****. We can say that in front of [unclear].
EG: Well, I’ll tell you another story about him later but they brought, we were up at my grandfather’s at Nelson Street in Lincoln for the weekend. Uncle Richard brought N***** home and he chewed my hat. I was about two at the time but I thought maybe he’d gone away with his wife but looking at this other, he had a lady friend called Margaret.
DK: Right.
EG: And they used to go to Honeysuckle Cottage.
DK: Oh right.
EG: Did you know that?
DK: No. Yeah. Yeah.
EG: Yeah. Well, I’m not sure about this but my friend, Liz, her mother was his driver and I can’t remember if her name was Margaret but they used to interview her.
DK: Just in case. So it, so that’s, I mean do you remember much about the incident?
EG: No. I remember nothing.
DK: Yeah.
EG: It’s what my mother always told me.
DK: So, no pictures of the dog then.
EG: No.
DK: No.
EG: No. None at all. But funnily enough I was in the dentist in Grantham here and Richard Todd used to live here, around here.
DK: Oh right.
EG: And Richard came into the dentist and, being nosy I said, ‘Oh Richard, by the way,’ I said, ‘Have you heard that they’re going to do a remake of your film?’ And he had this booming voice.
DK: Yeah.
EG: And he shouted out, ‘And do you know they’re going to call the bloody dog Trigger?’ [laughs] Oh dear. Oh, I remember that. But they never did, did they?
DK: No.
EG: Make another film.
DK: So, so the story is, so, the story is then as the armourer there he actually went on the raid itself.
EG: Yeah. As an observer.
DK: Observer. Right.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And is, is there anything, you haven’t got any any documentation at all about when he was with, just that?
EG: Just that.
DK: When he was with Wallis.
EG: This is what my cousin put though yesterday.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: For me. You can have all that.
DK: Ok.
EG: But if you want my cousin you’ll have to ring that number.
DK: Yeah. So, what’s your cousin’s name then?
EG: Richard Bolton.
DK: Right.
EG: It’s another Richard Bolton.
[pause]
DK: I have got my pen here somewhere.
EG: But the RAF, because my uncle died they sent my cousin to boarding school and paid for it.
DK: Oh right.
EG: Yeah. He was at Queen’s College, Taunton, Somerset.
DK: I can never find my pen when I really want to.
EG: Here you are. Just put Richard Bolton on there.
DK: So, is that his son?
EG: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
EG: Yeah. I think he was stationed in India for a while. I’m positive he was, joined the, not the RAF but before the RAF.
DK: Right.
EG: So, he would be one of the, what did they call it in those days before the RAF.
DK: Oh, the Royal Flying Corps.
EG: The Royal Flying Corps. That’s right.
DK: Right.
EG: Yeah.
DK: So, his career might go back that far.
EG: Oh yeah. Yeah. He’d been there twenty five years.
DK: Could well do then, couldn’t it?
EG: Yeah.
DK: Because that was 1918.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Might have joined the Royal Flying Corps.
EG: He’d be about eighteen then.
DK: Yeah.
EG: Yeah. So, he’s one of the old school.
DK: Oh right.
EG: Yeah. He was a Regular.
DK: So, do you want to, for the recording then do you want to tell your story about your father and the tank? You’re going to have to repeat it again because I’ve just the recorder on.
EG: Well, dad was about, he would be about five at the time.
DK: Yeah.
EG: When my grandfather came home and said he was going to take dad up to the Common to see Little Willie, the tank which was called in those days the Water Tank of Mesopotamia.
DK: Yeah.
EG: And they picked him up, took a photograph of him and put him in the tank and rode around the Common with it.
DK: Right.
EG: So, he was the first child in the world —
DK: To ride on a tank.
EG: On the tank.
DK: So just for the recording what was your father’s name then?
EG: Ernest Watkinson.
DK: Ernest Watkinson.
EG: Yeah.
DK: The first, first child to ride on the tank.
EG: Yeah. I know. I’m still looking for that photograph.
DK: Yeah. As I say you might want to try the Imperial War Museum. They might have it.
EG: Well, they’ve got photographs of a woman with a dog with a long frock on and a hat and two little girls. But not a little boy sitting on a tank.
DK: Yeah.
EG: But I would have thought the papers would have been there. The newspapers. Local.
DK: Could. Could well be.
EG: Yeah.
DK: If you look in the archives for the —
EG: Well, I did ring them up.
DK: Yeah.
EG: And heard no more from them.
DK: Probably might have though if it was a local paper that no longer exists where the archive.
EG: Yeah.
DK: That could have gone but —
EG: Yeah.
DK: But I expect it’ll be out there somewhere.
EG: But also, when my father, who was in the Second World War and he was stationed in Suffolk near Orford.
DK: Right.
EG: Do you know where Orford is?
DK: Yes. Yes.
EG: Yes. South of Southwold.
DK: Yeah.
EG: And he was on duty in the forest there. Is it Rendham or Rendlesham Forest, on a field phone and he was told what he saw that night he wasn’t to divulge.
DK: Was this the famous flashing lights?
EG: No.
DK: Oh, another one.
EG: Before that.
DK: Oh, before that. Oh right.
EG: Before that. No. No.
DK: Because that was quite recent, wasn’t it?
EG: Oh yeah. Yeah.
DK: That was the 1980s, wasn’t it?
EG: Yeah. Well, apparently —
DK: The Americans saw something in the woods.
EG: Yeah. The Americans saw something in the woods.
DK: Yeah.
EG: No. This was during the war this was.
DK: Oh right.
EG: And apparently the Germans landed. There’s a shingle street and they came with rubber boats and the Canadians, I believe it was the Canadians, dad said went over, dropped petrol on the top of them and dropped a bomb in the middle and they’re all buried in the forest.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: So, whether that was the film, do you remember, “The Eagle Has Landed?”
DK: Has landed yeah. Yeah.
EG: That’s based on that I think.
DK: Based on that. Yeah. There has been rumours of German landings hasn’t there but nothing has ever been —
EG: Oh, yeah. Well, dad saw it that night. Yeah.
DK: Right. Ok.
EG: Yeah. So, whether the lights came on after that —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: I don’t know.
DK: Yeah.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So, he had a son then. Richard Bolton who was your cousin.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Was there any other children then?
EG: He had two sons from his first marriage.
DK: Right. Ok.
EG: But what their names are I don’t know. They were much older. His first wife died. Whether in childbirth I’m not really sure.
DK: Yeah. So, you don’t really know anything more about this accident that he actually had on this aircraft other than he banged his head.
EG: Well, he banged his head. I believe cut it open. That’s what my aunt said.
DK: Right.
EG: Yeah. Yeah. But he was lovely. He really was a nice man.
DK: And you haven’t got any stories handed down about, you say he was a chief armourer but —
EG: Yeah.
DK: What his actual role was as an armourer?
EG: He was, well that’s all I heard. He was a chief armourer and he worked with Barnes Wallis.
DK: Yeah.
EG: They were quite close and he went around with Barnes Wallis as well. I said there was letters but my aunt destroyed them all.
DK: Yeah.
EG: Why? I don’t know.
DK: Because I’m, I’m wondering. He’s clearly got involved in the development of the bouncing bomb, hasn’t he?
EG: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
DK: And the various issues you’d need to set the thing off.
EG: Yeah. Well, Barnes Wallis might have. If he’s written to him he might —
DK: Might have copies of it.
EG: Copies. Yeah.
DK: Because I think the Barnes Wallis Archive now is in York, I think.
EG: Is it?
DK: I think it’s at the York Aircraft Museum. I think. It should be at Brooklands but, because that’s where he worked for many years but I don’t think it is. It’s either, either Brooklands or up in York.
EG: Yeah.
DK: That’s where it might be. There might be something there.
EG: Yeah. But I took my cousin up to Scampton. Saw the grave and Guy’s office.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: And what have you.
DK: Because it’s got a big fence around it now, hasn’t it? Iron railings.
EG: Has it? Oh.
DK: Yeah. Iron railings around, around the grave.
EG: Oh, yeah. I saw the —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: Railings around the grave. Yeah. And funnily enough the Red Arrows just turned up that time.
DK: Yeah. Oh right.
EG: And the chap, the guide who was taking us around said, ‘If you wave they’ll wave back.’
DK: Yeah.
EG: And as they came down they waved [laughs]
DK: Excellent.
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Ok. Well, that’s, I think that’s probably all we’re going to be able to do today.
EG: Yeah.
DK: But just background on him. Is there anything else you’ve thought of?
EG: I can’t think of anything else.
DK: Yeah.
EG: He was, I think he was the oldest one in squadron. There might have been another one on the ground crew but there definitely the flight wasn’t.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
EG: They were in their twenties weren’t they? I mean even Guy was twenty four.
DK: He was only twenty four wasn’t he?
EG: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: David Shannon had only just turned twenty one.
EG: Terrible.
DK: Yes.
EG: I know my uncle as that happened in the May my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother was twenty one on the [unclear]
DK: Yeah.
EG: In July he was shot in Sicily.
DK: Right.
EG: And his captain visited [unclear] in Yorkshire and he said, ‘If it’s any consolation we got the sniper.’ And she turned around and she said, ‘No. You shouldn’t have done that. Somebody else’s son.’
DK: It’s always the tragedy, isn’t it?
EG: Yeah.
DK: The tragedy of war. Nobody, nobody wins in war.
EG: Nobody wins in war.
DK: Yeah.
EG: My grandfather you see we were all mining stock.
DK: Right.
EG: All my uncles had gone down the mines but my grandfather didn’t want his youngest son going down. He said, ‘You’re going to be a gardener.’ So he was called up and killed. Yeah.
DK: Oh dear.
EG: Yeah.
DK: Right. Ok, then. Well, I’ll, I’ll stop the recording there. That’s, that’s great. Thanks very much for that.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Elaine Green
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
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
2018-05-22
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGreenE180522
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:18:02 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Elaine’s uncle worked as an armourer in RAF Scampton. He first joined the Royal Flying Corps before the organisation was renamed the RAF. He worked with Barnes Wallis at the time of the design of the bouncing bomb. He sustained an injury which the family believe led to his early death.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground personnel
Lancaster
RAF Scampton
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/864/11106/PHaytonK1701.1.jpg
ef6b69d8536b3e5ebdb6b4231318428f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/864/11106/AHaytonK171004.2.mp3
2342cec6176bee1aa281e272dd002da5
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
Hayton, Ken
K Hayton
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ken Hayton about his father George Stanley 'Stan' Hayton (1912 - 1971). He served as a fitter at RAF Woodhall Spa and RAF Riccall.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-17
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hayton, K
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Joyce Sharland. The interviewee is Ken Hayton. The interview is taking place at Mr Hayton’s home in Andover on the 17th of October 2017.
KH: Yes.
JS: Right. So, Mr Hayton, can you tell me about your father?
KH: My father was George Stanley Hayton. Always known as Stan. And before the war he was employed by Lloyds Bank. He was born in Durham City in two thousand and err now then let me get this right [pause] in 1912, and lived in the city all his life until his death in 1971. In, around about the early time, early days of 1940 he was given permission by the bank to join the Royal Air Force as a volunteer. Which he did. And I know that he did join as a volunteer because initially his uniform had the letters VR under the albatross on his shoulder flashes. It would be 1940 that he joined up because I have recollections as a small boy of going to Durham Station to see him off. I believe his initial training took place at RAF Padgate. And then after that was completed he went on to his trade training as a fitter armourer which I think took place at Lytham St Anne’s. I’m not sure about that but I think that’s where he went. Once that was completed he was posted to Bomber Command into 97 Squadron which was based at RAF Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire. A satellite unit to RAF Coningsby. And he remained there right throughout the war or almost to the end of the war. And towards the end of the war he was posted to RAF Riccall in Yorkshire where he was involved in preparing all the redundant 303 Browning aircraft guns for storage in case they were ever needed to be called back into service. He was demobbed from RAF Waddington in around about the latter part of 1945. I do believe that he was offered a commission if he was prepared to stay in the Royal Air Force but his duty he felt was to the bank who had released him early. So he then was demobbed and joined Lloyds bank where he remained employed until he retired after having served forty years. During his service at Woodhall Spa he was involved in bombing up Lancasters for raids over the occupied territories and when 617 Squadron was due to take, take-off for the Dams raid 97 Squadron was moved back to the parent unit at Coningsby and 617 Squadron came in to Woodhall Spa. I can only think that that was done from a security point of view because it would be much easier to maintain security on a single Squadron station like Woodhall, rather than on the main base of 617 Squadron which was of course RAF Scampton. My father was involved in the bombing up of 617 Squadron for the Dams raid. And I only learned about this when after the war and the production of the film, “The Dambusters,” my father and I went to see it at the cinema in Durham. And on the way home we were discussing various things in the film and it came out that my dad had been involved with 617 Squadron. And when I asked him about the parts of the film which showed the aftermath of the raid on the countryside I said I wondered if that was anything like what had actually had happened and whether the filmers had got it anything accurate. And he said, ‘Yes. It was just like that.’ And immediately after that he said, ‘But don’t tell your mother I said that.’ I can only think that that comment was made because he had been taken over the Dams in one of the Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft which did the photo reconnaissance after the Dams raid. I’ve no proof of that but I can’t see any other reason for the comment which he made except that he was there. He had been very much involved in the bombing up of the aircraft and this I think was why he wanted to go and see the film because neither he nor I were great film goers. When he was at Woodhall there was an incident at a bomb dump near Snaith which is not too far away from Coningsby and Woodhall when a Lancaster came down on the edge of the bomb dump and my dad was involved in the clearing up operations. And I think that had an effect on him because we never ever had chops as a meat meal and he could never stand the smell of lamb being cooked. No other reason that I can think of for that reaction other than the involvement that he’d had in clearing up what obviously must have been carnage with the Lancaster coming down on the, on the edge of the bomb dump. At one time during the war my mother and my sister and myself went down to Woodhall Spa because my dad couldn’t get any leave. It was during a high pressure time I think of bombing raids and he wanted a pushbike. And being the elder of the two children I was given the responsibility of looking after the bike. I can remember feeling quite proud that I’d been given the responsibility of taking care of this bike all the way down from Durham to Woodhall Spa. During that journey we passed through York Station not long after it had been blitzed by the Luftwaffe and it really was in a very bad state on one side of the station. Of course the Luftwaffe went for York because it was a main railway junction during the war and if they could have disrupted the railways it would have had a marked effect on our war effort. The other effect I think that I learned about with on the family was when my father came home on the odd occasion that he could get home on leave he always changed out of uniform into civvies before he saw my sister because my sister was younger than I was and she thought that the RAF was a sort of box that my father was locked up in and the uniform always brought that home to her. But we can only think that that was one of the reasons that dad always got changed as soon as he came home. There was not a lot of other effect on us as a family except that once my father had joined up we moved out of the council house and went to live with my maternal grandparents in the city which overlooked the river and the Cathedral. And just thinking about that period in the early days of the war Durham City is what might be regarded at the centre of a hub of a wheel with the perimeter being on the three main rivers. The Tyne, the Wear and the Tees with the shipyards in Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. And at the beginning of the war we used to get all the air raid warnings if enemy aircraft were coming in for any of those three places. But we never had anything over the city. And eventually we stopped getting air raid warnings unless the aircraft were heading inland. So we were very, very fortunate. Not so my wife who was a Sunderland girl and she lived through the various Blitzes in Sunderland and it had obviously an effect on her as a young girl. Much more so. And I didn’t realise until after we were married and we were talking about things that had happened during the war how fortunate we had been as a family because my maternal grandfather was a great gardener and had allotments which provided vegetables. And we also had an orchard at the back of the, at the back of the house so that we always had fruit. And he kept chickens in the orchard so we always had meat. And it made me realise, talking to my wife just how lucky we had been having all those facilities when I heard of the sort of things that she had had to put up with in Sunderland. So, you know there were many things that happened during the war which folks don’t realise. I mean that was only a distance of twelve miles between Durham City and Sunderland and yet such a difference in the effect on families that lived in, in those two places. My maternal grandfather had been a forge smith in Yorkshire and at the beginning of the First World War he was sent up to Durham to work in the forge there. And they sent him away from Yorkshire because the recruiting officers were fed up with him trying to join the forces and told him he was much more valuable making the armaments for the forces rather than him going out into Europe. So that was how the family from Yorkshire came to be based in Durham city and how my parents met. Because my paternal grandfather was trained as a pharmaceutical chemist and during the First World War he was stationed in Mesopotamia. I think as part of the Northumberland Fusiliers. But I’m not certain about that. He eventually moved into the motor trade and that was how I knew him all my life. The effect, I think on my mother wasn’t anything that I ever knew about or thought about. She had started training as a teacher before the war and of course like all women had to do something and once my sister got to school age she went back to teaching. So as a family we were still a fairly compact unit. Whilst we were living with my grandparents as I say we were in a house that overlooked the river and the Cathedral. And there has been for many many years the knowledge that if ever the Durham Cathedral were to come under attack for any reason whatsoever St Cuthbert who the Cathedral is dedicated to and who is buried in the Cathedral would save it. And of course Von Ribbentrop was determined to obliterate all the main Cathedrals in the United Kingdom if he could. And shortly after the raid which destroyed Coventry Cathedral we had an air raid warning in Durham and that was as I say by this time quite unusual. So we were due to go down into the cellar of the house which was our air raid shelter but looking out of the window there was the mist rising off the river. And of course the river is an ox bow around the central peninsula of the city on which stands the Cathedral and the castle. So this mist rose off the river and it’s always been said that that was St Cuthbert’s way of protecting the Cathedral. And certainly that mist blanketed the whole of the city and we could hear the German aircraft over the top of the city. It was definitely German aircraft because their engines weren’t synchronised like the English or British aircraft engines were. And they were over the, overhead going around and around. Nothing happened and eventually they flew off. The all clear went. And as the all clear went the mist descended back to the river. And I can vouch for that because as a youngster I saw it out of the windows of our house. My grandparent’s house. And it’s made a lasting impression as you can probably gather. I really don’t know that there’s much else that I can say apart from the fact that my own Royal Air Force service which was three years as a regular and two and a half years on the reserve and during that time the one thing that I was very proud to wear was my father’s cap badge. Sadly, I no longer have that. I have my own cap badge but I think my father’s cap badge must have gone back with my uniform when I had to return it to RAF Fenton which was my call up base when my two and a half years reserve service was ended. The only other thing of my father’s which I have apart from his ‘39 ‘45 Star and Defence Medal is a piece of metalwork which I know was part of one of his trade tests in which I think was part of the bomb release mechanism for a Lancaster. I can’t be sure about that but the trade test would be taken after he’d started working on Lancasters so I think it’s a fair assumption that that’s probably what it is. I don’t know that there’s much else that I can say.
JS: You said you recall going to the station to see your father off.
KH: Yeah.
JS: How old were you then?
KH: I’d be about seven.
JS: About seven. And you went with your mother and your sister?
KH: I don’t think my sister went. My sister would only be about three. Three and a half and so I don’t think she went. She would probably stay with my grandparents. But I, I can certainly recall going to the, going to the station in Durham and seeing, seeing dad off on the train. Little bits of things like that they do stick in your memory and you know it’s a bit like the [pause] the memories of the 9 o’clock news during the war. Alright, as a youngster you don’t appreciate everything that is being said but the things that stick in my mind are Big Ben, and my grandparents sitting in the lounge and everybody being quiet and listening to the news. It was a nightly ritual and you know its little things like that which, you know I think need to be kept in mind. And I think future generations need to know how important it was to us at home to know what was going on. And the only way we could get recent, decent reliable news was the BBC. And you know it was important to everyone I think and I’m quite certain that my family weren’t any different from countless other families throughout the country. At 9 o’clock every night the wireless was turned on and we had the news. There wasn’t all the current news from the battlefield and all the rest of it and I think it’s perhaps just as well. I think we get too much of this instantaneous news now and it doesn’t give people time to digest really what’s happening. Yeah. Instant gratification in a different form. Perhaps I’m being old fashioned.
JS: Did, as far as you’re aware did your mother ever receive letters from your father. Was he able? Could he write letters? Could he communicate? Make phone calls perhaps. Do you ever recall him making contact when he was away?
KH: I don’t recall any phone calls. I don’t think, in fact I don’t think we had a phone in the house so that wouldn’t have been possible. Letters I think possibly he did get able, he was able to send. I mean as he was based in this country I don’t think there was any problem in that respect. But it didn’t sort of register on me as a, as a youngster. I mean that’s not something that I would have been aware of I don’t think. The only things that I was aware of were, you know the pleasure of having him come home on leave on the occasions when he could get home. And as I say the occasion when we went down to Woodhall Spa and it would be during my school summer holidays. And the one, the one thing apart from the pushbike being my responsibility the one thing that I can remember of that little holiday from our point of view was seeing a Lancaster loop the loop. Which was totally out of order. And I believe talking to my father afterwards that that particular exercise had such a damaging affect on the airframe of the aircraft that it was written off and I believe the pilot was severely disciplined because obviously you don’t write off expensive aircraft. But it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t have happened but I can remember seeing it and was quite surprised. It was just one of those little things that come back to mind as you, as you think about what, what happened. And another thing that has just come back to my mind thinking about that was at the beginning of the war just after my father had joined up and before we moved in with my grandparents I can remember being taken into the shelter in the garden when there was an air raid warning and looking up into the night sky and seeing searchlights over towards Sunderland and seeing what was obviously an aerial dogfight because you could even at a distance of twelve miles you could see the tracer. And that, that’s something which has just come back to me since talking about seeing the Lancaster. We shouldn’t have been out of the shelter but, you know youngsters do things that they shouldn’t do even, even in wartime. Yeah.
JS: So, did life for you as a young lad, did it more or less go on as normal? You were going to school. You were helping around the house presumably, were you? Were any of your friends lives touched in a bad way by the war? Did any of them lose close relatives.
KH: No. Not that I can say. I mean, as youngsters we didn’t sort of discuss the, we didn’t discuss the war. It was something that was going on and we had the black out and there was no possibility of after school work or sports clubs or anything like that. They were all off limits. When school was over you went. You went home and you stayed at home. You couldn’t go and play out. Which we could once the war was over. But we didn’t [pause] I can’t recall sort of discussing or talking about the war as a youngster at school. Not even when I got to Grammar School just towards the end of the war. The only thing that was noticeable when I got to Grammar School was the fact that there were quite a number of older teachers there who had obviously stayed on beyond retirement because the young teachers had gone into the forces. And I was made well aware of that because both my, my uncle and my father had gone to the same Grammar School and some of the teachers that taught them taught me. Which was sometimes a little embarrassing because on occasions, I can remember one particular occasion in the physics laboratory when I’d been assisting in dealing with some electrical experiment which had a series of plug keys connecting wires up and one thing and another. And that master was one of the masters who had taught my father. And in operating one of these plug keys I’d managed to disconnect some of the, some of the wires. And the master just looked at me and just sort of tut tutted and said, ‘Your father would never have done that.’ Which you know, it was a little embarrassing at the time but you get on with it. But it was only things like that I think which made you realise that the war had had an effect. Then of course towards the end of my Grammar School career a number of the teachers who had been away on war service were coming back and the older ones took well-earned retirement. Not something which you would tend to think about until later on when you look back and you think, oh I wonder why that happened? And then as you get older yourself you realise why these things happened. It’s not, not something that you think about a lot but when you do think about it, it all comes back. Yeah.
JS: Do you have any recollection of the atmosphere on the day the war ended and the immediate aftermath of the war ending? Can you remember, were there were celebrations in your street? Can you remember your family saying anything or general air at school of relief?
KH: Not really. Again, it was something that yes there were celebrations in the city quite clearly. But as a youngster, bearing in mind what, I’d be only ten or eleven when the war ended. It wasn’t the sort of thing that you got involved in very much. It was, you weren’t old enough in those days. A ten year old or an eleven year old was still regarded as a child. Unlike nowadays where they tend to be treated as semi-adults. But so, yes there were celebrations and yes a sense of great relief and the hopes that everybody would come home safe. Which, you know was important but not something which as a youngster really impacted on you. I think obviously it would impact on my mother and my grandparents on both sides because not only was my father in, in the Royal Air Force but one of his younger, his youngest sister was also in in the WAAF. So that you know the family I think were a case of well, great relief when they both came home safe and sound. So yes there was a sense of relief and, but as a youngster it perhaps doesn’t penetrate the consciousness in quite the same way as it does as you’re older. But as a family my, we had sort of my paternal grandfather as I say was in Mesopotamia in the First World War. My uncle, my mother’s older brother had been in the Durham Light Infantry between the wars and strangely enough very much like his father he couldn’t go back in to the Army at the beginning of the Second World War because he’d become an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture which was a Reserved Occupation and although the Durham Light Infantry wanted him back he couldn’t go back. So he took it on himself to get involved with the Army Cadet Corps and he ran the Army Cadet Corps in the city for a number of years. Even after the war. Until I think he got to an age where he was voluntarily retired. But it was something which again we, we just took on board. It was part of parcel of, of what we were doing. In much the same way as my grandfather because he had allotments and whatnot could supply friends and family with, with fresh, fresh veg and so on. And also, I think, I know we used to sell apples from the door and presumably what was raised from those went to, went to charities or went to support the, probably went to support the Army Cadet Force I would think because my uncle was so involved in it. These are odd little things which you think about if, you know if you sit down and put your thinking cap on.
JS: And you said after your father was demobbed he came home in his demob suit.
KH: Oh. Yes. Of course all Service personnel got a demob suit. And the one thing that I do remember was that it was a brown suit which was most odd because going back into the bank I don’t think he would wear a brown suit in the bank. Not in those days. Banking was very much more formal than it is now. In fact, I think if my father was still alive and was still involved in banking he’d be horrified at some of the things that happen. One of those things. But yeah. The, the demob set up is a little bit different then I think from when I came out. I mean I had to sign the Official Secrets Act of course when I, when I signed on, and again I had to sign it again at the time I was demobbed. But I spent my three years at RAF Innsworth as part of the Record Office where I was working in the Stats Section until I was seconded to the Home Command Coronation Unit which in fact happened to be based at Innsworth. And we did all our training on one of the local airfields which I believe is now a civil airfield which was RAF Staverton at that time. And we eventually, having completed our training ended up in Kensington Gardens under canvas for the actual Coronation. And of course Coronation Day was a dreadful day weather wise but we were fortunate. Our section of the route lining force were in the Haymarket. And the Haymarket in London in those days was two way traffic and it had islands down the centre. And I was on the edge of the road in the middle of one of these islands and the royal coach came past my side of the island and the outriders that are normally alongside the coach during the procession because of the narrowness of the road had to go in front and behind. And as the coach passed me Phillip must have said something to Her Majesty and she turned to speak to him and I have a photographic memory of seeing her turn towards Phillip. So I had a full face view of the Queen on the day of her Coronation. Granted, around the barrel of a 303 but still something that one never forgets. And that, that night or that afternoon after we’d got back to Kensington Gardens I think it must be the only time that the Royal Air Force had issued the men with a rum ration. It had been such a dreadful day that we were all taken to the mess tent and dished out with a tot of rum. And that evening three of us went off into, into London because up ‘til that point we hadn’t been allowed out of Kensington gardens. But we went to look at the fireworks and we went down to Buckingham palace to see the royal family and their guests going off to the ball at Hampton court. And because we’d been trained in crowd control as part of our Coronation training we were able to link up with the police to control the crowds outside Buckingham Palace that night. And again something which I didn’t discover until I was married and talking to my wife about the Coronation in London and had discovered that she had been in London with her uncle and aunt and they had been at Buckingham palace on that night. Although obviously neither of us knew the other but we were both there at the same time. Strange coincidence. But we, after we’d seen some of the fireworks on the Embankment we were looking for a drink and all the pubs of course were packed out to the doors as you could imagine. And eventually we looked through the doors of one pub and somebody seeing three RAF uniforms it was like a tidal wave. The crowd opened up to the bar and we were given straight access to the bar and I don’t think we bought a drink for ourselves the rest of that night. One of those things where you know men in uniform in those days were regarded with consideration and there wasn’t any of the problems that sadly we have now where men are told not to wear uniform when they go into towns and so on. Which is, I think very, very sad because the armed forces now and then do a remarkable job in protecting what we have in a democratic country. And it’s sad that men in uniform have got to be told to, not to go in to towns in their, in their uniforms. Although I’ve got to see we do see some uniforms in Andover which we still, it’s not the garrison town that it once was but there are still quite a lot of Service personnel around and we do see some of them in town and nobody ever I’ve never come across anybody making any adverse comment on what I’ve seen in Andover. But I know it does happen in some places. Sad. Very sad.
JS: I expect your parents were hugely proud of you serving in the RAF. Did you ever speak to your father about your time there?
KH: Not, not specifically because the only thing was talking about the Coronation obviously because that was, that was something which you know happens once in a generation. But most of, most of the work that I was doing wasn’t something that you would, you would talk about. Alright you know I mentioned the Official Secrets Act and I was based in a section which dealt with personnel for all the RAF stations throughout the world by command. So you just didn’t talk about it because, well in those days there were so many different commands and obviously a lot more RAF bases throughout the world than there are now that it would have been impossible anyway to keep in mind what happened in any particular RAF camp in the Middle East, or the Far East or in Europe or wherever. But it, it would never have occurred to me to have discussed anything to do with that. It was something which wasn’t to be discussed even, even with my father. Yes. We’d talk about inconsequential things like guard duty and having, you know things like hearing the experiments with the after burners for jet engines which took place at a company called Rotol which was just up the road from RAF Innsworth. And also seeing some of the test flights of the, the RAF Javelin. The Gloster Javelin which was in its test flights was always supported by a Meteor. And seeing those two aircraft together made you realise how big the Javelin was. Because of course it was being built at Gloucester, in the factory on the outskirts of Gloucester which was not far from where the Record Office Unit was. So things like that. Yes. You could remember and you would talk about it. I would talk about with my father, you know because he’d obviously been involved with Lancasters and Manchesters, and I think it gave him a taste for flying because when he came out of the Royal Air Force he joined the Newcastle Aero Club and got his private pilot’s licence which, so that he flew Tiger Moths and Austers. And both my wife and I flew with him in the Tiger Moth. I can remember going to the Aero Club on one of their at home days when there had been all sorts of demonstrations and one thing and another and my dad had said to my wife, ‘Come on. I’ll take you up.’ And they went. They went up and flew out over, over the border country. Over North Northumberland and so on and it was, it was a very nice night.
SH: Very cold.
KH: And it was, yes. As my wife just said, very cold. And it must have been quite light up there but it was getting quite dark on the ground and I can remember the flight engineer who was a very, very good pilot himself standing on the grass outside, outside the hangars striking matches as my dad came down. That was, that was quite amusing. Yeah. So we maintained a contact with flying although I never had the opportunity or the time to get a pilot’s licence myself. But I do remember flying with my dad on several occasions when I was at home from university. Yeah. Yeah. Strange. Strange how things have a knock on effect because although my father’s uncle was one of the early members of the Newcastle Aero Club I don’t think there had been any thought of my dad getting involved until he came out of the Royal Air Force. One of those things. But yeah.
JS: You say you kept up that connection with flying. Did he keep up any connections in terms of any Associations? Did he meet up with people he’d served with? They were quite a fluid bunch as I imagine in various parts of the country.
KH: You see, I think there was only one person that he ever sort of had contact with after he came out of the forces. See the Royal Air Force is rather different from the Army, for example where in the Army you move as a regiment or as a section of a regiment. So that you have that connection with a bunch of chaps or girls who are together as a unit. In the Royal Air Force there’s a subtle difference between the aircrew and the ground crew. The aircrew will move with the Squadron. The ground crew tend to move as individuals between units because they, they are posted. And I know this from my RAF experience myself in the Record Office. They are posted as individuals to, to a unit. To an RAF station. They’re not posted to a Squadron like they were during the war. But even during the war as exemplified by the fact that although my dad was posted to 97 Squadron and was based at Woodhall Spa when 97 Squadron moved out it was only the 97 Squadron aircraft and aircrew that moved out. The ground crew remained there. And that’s how my father came to serve with 617. Because 617s ground crew would remain at Scampton. That’s the difference. So that you don’t have that sort of ongoing connection except as aircrew. I mean, you talk, if you talked to people who have been aircrew and we’ve got a near neighbour who was in the Royal Air Force and he still goes. He was a, he flew helicopters and various things. And he still has Squadron reunions. But I think that’s the difference. Understandable when you know how the, you know sort of how the system works. I don’t know about the Navy although my niece has just retired as a naval officer. I don’t know. They, they are sort of posted to ships more or less. So I think the navy and the Royal Air Force have a similar —
JS: System.
KH: A similar sort of system. Unlike, unlike the Army and probably the Royal Marines.
JS: And he didn’t discuss the war much?
KH: No.
JS: In the years that followed it. He went back to working at the bank as you said.
KH: Yes.
JS: Because he felt he owed them that because they had released him to go.
KH: Yes.
JS: And he stayed working in Durham.
KH: He stayed in Durham. He, he for a short while he was moved to Bishop Auckland which is about twelve, twelve or fifteen miles outside the city. He moved to Lloyds Bank there for a short while but didn’t move out of the city because it was within easy travelling distance. So, yes he remained at Lloyds Bank in Durham until he, until he retired. Yes. He became a sub manager at one of the sub branches of the city but it was a sub-branch in one of the mining villages. So it was not a case of having to move. So we, as a family we remained in the city and I only left the city when I joined the Royal Air Force myself and then when I went to university and then, you know that sort of broke the, broke the connection although after, after we were married because my wife and I were married in the city in our parish church and after having lived in the East Midlands we moved back to the North East but not to the city because I was then working in Newcastle. So it was only my parents who remained in in the city and they both remained there until they died.
JS: And you lost your father at quite a young age, didn’t you?
KH: My father. Yes. He died very very suddenly when he was only fifty nine. Which was a great shock. Particularly as, or within, within the previous fortnight he’d had a full flying medical and passed. Passed his full flying medical and then had a massive heart attack within a fortnight. So it was, that was quite a, quite a shock for all of us.
JS: For all of you. Yeah.
KH: And at that time my sister was in, was living in Australia because her husband was a civil engineer and he was working out there and so, she wasn’t here when he died.
JS: And your sister’s name you told me was Ann.
KH: My sister was Ann.
JS: Ann. Yeah. And your mother’s name for the record.
KH: My mother’s name was Hilda.
JS: Hilda. That’s right.
KH: Her maiden name was Lambeth. L A M B E T H. And that is my middle name.
JS: Ok. And she stayed in the city, did she?
KH: She stayed in the city. She remained in the family home that was bought. That they bought after the war when my father was demobbed and until she eventually went into Sherman House Hospital which was a Church of England Old People’s Home which was where she died after having, having had a series of strokes unfortunately.
JS: And you did give me the address of the family home at the time.
KH: The family home that was bought after the war was 24 Church Street Head. Church Street having been split into two sections, Church Street proper which ended where, just above St Oswald’s Church which was our parish church and the parish church. The infant school which was attached to the parish church that was sort of the dividing line. Up to that point it was Church Street and from there up to the crossroads at the top it was Church Street Head. One of those peculiar things that you get in cities where one street has two sections.
JS: Yeah.
KH: Yeah. It was, in those days it was basically on the outskirts of the city and just beyond the road that ran across at the crossroads there was the university. One of the university science colleges there. But beyond, but that was quite small. And beyond that were woods that, the woods which surround the city and a lot of that land was owned by the university because the majority of the land around Durham City was owned either by the university or the Cathedral, and all that land now is occupied by new colleges. There are one, two, three, four. At least four colleges now on the south side of the city. No five. Because there was a female college opened. That was the first one to be opened just after the war and it was opened by the Queen when she was Princess Elizabeth. So there are all those colleges now are built on what were woods and fields. It’s quite, quite an alteration. And I haven’t lived in the city since 1961, and, and I’m quite certain that there have been a lot more alterations since. Well, I knew the city obviously beyond ’61. I didn’t live in the city after ’61 but obviously my mother and father did. So until we moved south in 2000 I was in and out of, in and out of the city so I know what developments went, went on up to the beginning of the current century but what’s gone on in since then is anybody’s guess from my point of view. Obviously there must have been a lot more development but —
JS: Yeah.
KH: Not that I’m aware of.
JS: Places change don’t they? Yeah. Right. Well, that’s really comprehensive. Thank you very much for all that for your time in, and your patience in talking to me about that. Is there anything else that you can think that you would like us to say for the record given that it is a Digital Archive. Was there anything that you would like to say? Anything you can think of now or any comments that you would like to make?
KH: Not really. Except, the only thing that I would say is that I feel that it is vitally important that what the likes of my parents, my wife’s parents and their generation what they did for this country should never ever be forgotten. And the generations that come up it should be made quite clear to them why we are still a free country. And they should never assume that things will just drop into their lap. Everything that is worth anything has to be fought for and cherished. Those are the things that I think are sometimes lacking in the teachings now of the youngsters coming up like, like our granddaughter. I mean our two children when they were at school were taught a certain amount of history and in fact, it’s quite amusing. They came home on one occasion and we, we discovered that they were being taught the details of the ‘39/45 war as history. So we decided as parents that we weren’t just parents we were history. But you know, that was, that’s the lighter side of it. But I think seriously the current young generation I don’t think they’re taught the history. Not just what happened in two world wars although obviously they’re getting a lot about the First World War just at the moment but I think, you know some of the so called ancient history of this country on which a lot of our civil rights are founded. A lot, a lot of that doesn’t seem to be taught anymore and I think that is very sad. And I think, you know the education system needs to be looked at in that respect because we can’t afford to lose our history because that is part of our identity. Alright. I might be pontificating a bit but I do feel fairly strongly about it and I wouldn’t want to be called a Little Englander but you know I think we need to be proud of Great Britain and ‘great’ being the important part of it.
JS: I don’t think many people will disagree with you. I think that’s absolutely a fair point. Well, again thank you very much. Thank you for your time and your patience and thank you to Sybil as well, your wife who is here with us. And I very much appreciated you taking the time
KH: I’m only too pleased to have been able to do it because I think it’s important that those of us who lived through the war should leave a record of what, what happened so as far as they’re concerned. And you know sadly the people who actually fought the war for us are becoming few and far between now so it’s only the likes of us who are now getting sort of towards the end of our active life as you might say you know we’re the only ones who perhaps have a memory of it. And if those memories disappear a bit like the, some of the memories of the First World War which have just disappeared and only been found by archaeologists and things like that. Because there was no such things as digital recordings.
JS: No. No.
KH: Which is what we’ve got now.
JS: No. We’re fortunate to have the tools now at our disposal and that’s what the Digital Archive is all about.
KH: Yeah.
JS: Which is keeping those memories alive and keeping that message alive
KH: Yeah.
JS: So that, so what you’ve done for us today is really important.
KH: I’m pleased.
JS: So thank you very much both of you.
SH: It’s ok.
KH: Pleased to help.
JS: Thank you.
KH: Really pleased to help. Thanks
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ken Hayton
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Joyce Sharland
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-04
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHaytonK171004, PHaytonK1701
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:59:30 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Durham (County)
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Tyne and Wear
England--Yorkshire
England--Durham
England--London
England--Newcastle upon Tyne
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
Description
An account of the resource
Ken Hayton’s father, George Stanley Hayton (Stan), worked worked for Lloyds Bank. In 1940 Stan left his post to join the Royal Air Force; Ken recalled going to Durham station to see his father off, travelling to start basic training at RAF Padgate. Ken believes his father completed his training as a fitter armourer at RAF Lytham before joining 97 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa. When 617 Squadron replaced 97 Squadron, Ken remained and was involved in bombing up 617 Squadron aircraft ahead of the Dambuster operation. Stan was sent to help with the clear up of a Lancaster crash on land near a bomb dump and for the rest of his life he could not stand the smell of lamb being cooked. Towards the end of the war Stan was posted to RAF Riccall where he prepared redundant .303 browning aircraft guns for storage, he was finally demobbed from RAF Waddington in 1945 and returned to Lloyds Bank where he remained until retirement. After the war Stan trained for his private pilot license at Newcastle Aero Club and took both Ken and his mother flying in the club’s Tiger Moth.
Ken describes his schoolboy life in Durham, including leaving the Anderson Shelter one evening and watching searchlights scanning the sky over Sunderland. One bombing on Durham was shortly after Coventry had been bombed: the mist rose from the river and shrouded the city, with local folklore being St Cuthbert protecting the Cathedral. During his father’s service at RAF Woodhall Spa, Ken recalled travelling there with his mother from Durham by train and seeing extensive bomb damage to York railway station. Ken served three years in the RAF, posted to RAF Insworth a non-flying RAF station where the RAF Records Section was based, transferring to the Coronation Unit for training ahead of the ceremony in 1953. He recalled route lining in the Haymarket, due to the narrowing of the road he was very close to the Queen’s coach and in the evening went to Buckingham Palace and assisted the police with crowd control. Ken recalls watching The Dambusters film with his father in 1955 and his father commenting on the accuracy of the film.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1943-05
1944
1945
1953
1954
1955
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jim Sheach
Julie Williams
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
617 Squadron
97 Squadron
bombing
childhood in wartime
crash
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
ground personnel
Lancaster
RAF Innsworth
RAF Padgate
RAF Riccall
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
searchlight
shelter
superstition
Tiger Moth
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/11115/PHollisAN1801.2.jpg
7fea6f1398cdeabc26833d102de46378
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/875/11115/AHollisRE180111.1.mp3
e3e523e3265c6984d2c2ca159745a801
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
Hollis, Arthur
Arthur Norman Hollis
A N Hollis
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Arthur Hollis (b. 1922) who joined the RAF in 1940 and after training completed a tour on 50 Squadron before becoming an instructor. At the end of the war he was deployed as part of Tiger Force. Collection contains a biography and memoir, his logbook, correspondence, training records, photographs of people, aircraft and places, his medals and flying jacket. It includes an oral history interview with his son, Richard Hollis.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard Hollis and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hollis, AN
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 Thursday the 11th of January 2018 and I’m in Cowes with Richard Hollis to talk about his father Arthur Hollis. What were the earliest information you’ve got about your father, Richard?
RH: Well, right from his, from his childhood through schooling. We know quite a lot. Quite a lot about the family. I’ve got lots of photographs and, up until when he was in the Home Guard and then joined up and joined the RAF.
CB: So if we start with early on. Where his parents were. What his father did. And then take it from there.
RH: His father got completely decimated in the First World War and was an office manager in an insurance company. He went into insurance really because it was about the only thing that he could do and my father’s mother was at home bringing up children. My father was the eldest. The eldest child.
CB: His schooling?
RH: And his schooling. He went to, he said not very satisfactory prep schools. And then my grandparents were left some money by an uncle who deceased and enabled them to send both my father and his brother to Dulwych College as day boys where my father said he rapidly learned how to work and the advantages of working and he, he did very well academically. He was also a keen sportsman. He played rugby. He was a very keen swimmer and he was an extremely fine amateur boxer. He then, well after he came out of school at sixteen after he matriculated and I think that was school certificate or, anyway and he then, my grandfather was very anxious, his father was very anxious that he’d, with the war coming that he’d have some sort of grounding for a profession which my poor late grandfather had not had and so he was articled to a firm of chartered accountants or accountants in the City called [Legge] and Company. I think Phillip, I think it was Phillip [Legge], I’m not sure. The, he, [Legge] had been a contemporary of my late grandfather in the First World War. He was there for a good couple of years and, and, but he wanted to join up. He was not, he couldn’t join the Army or the Navy for some reason but he went then, he opted for the RAF and but apparently at that time there was a bit of a blockage of new people wanting to be pilots. They obviously couldn’t process them fast enough so he was sent off to Manchester University to do higher maths and flying related subjects I think for about six months before he went off to learn to fly in Florida. In his memoirs he comments that the ship that they went out on which was to Nova Scotia had been used for, as a meat ship. I doubt if it was cleaned out very well. They just strung a row of hammocks across and people were very sick apart from him. And so he landed in winter time in Nova Scotia. They saw good food for the first time. In his memoirs he tells us that. And then they worked, went by train down through the United States into, into Florida which of course was beautifully warm. He went to an airfield called Clewiston and quite early on he was selected to be a corporal, acting corporal and to, one of the jobs was to maintain discipline. He was quite a disciplinarian anyway and so he seemed to be rather suited. His commanding officer was Wing Commander Kenneth Rampling and he got on extremely well with Kenneth Rampling and had a huge amount of respect for him. He finished his training there. He said when he was training the flying instruction in the air was excellent. On the ground it was very poor so they had to work extremely hard to, to make sure that they didn’t lag behind or or fail. When they had finished there he went back up to Canada and I think he received his commission on [pause] up in Canada. They then joined other people on a, on a ship, troop ship crossing the Atlantic and in, he said in his memoirs later on he didn’t realise at the time, he wouldn’t have known but it was actually at the height of the U-boat, U-boat war but they were all very jolly and he said, but it wasn’t always pleasant going. He said, ‘If the sea was rough,’ he said, ‘You imagine shaving with a cutthroat,’ which he did, ‘A cutthroat razer in a rough sea.’ He said, ‘I didn’t worry about it.’ He just got on. But anyway, he landed in, he landed in [pause] I think Liverpool but I’m not sure. That would have to be checked out. And then went down to, in his memoirs I think he said he goes down to the south coast to be kitted out. After that, we’ll check up in his logbook, he went to Little Rissington to start learning to fly twin engine aircraft. It would have been Oxfords. He then went, he then went on to, where did he go after that Chris?
CB: Right. We’ll pause there for a mo.
RH: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: The question [pause] Of course, when he was an articled clerk it’s the early days of the war and everybody was pressed into something. He’d had training, officer type training when he was at school.
RH: Yes. He was —
CB: So what did he do when he left?
RH: He joined the Home Guard. He had a lot of respect for the other, his colleagues in the Home Guard. He pointed out to us as a family, he said, ‘Dad’s Army is not really a true picture of what it was like.’ He said, ‘These were people who had been a part of a, at the end of the First World War, if they’d survived the First World War, a fine Army and they could certainly shoot fast and straight. And in his memoirs he says that there would have been a lot of dead Germans. Anyway, he enjoyed himself in the Home Guard and thought it was very worthwhile.
CB: Good. Thank you very much. And so that set him in good stead anyway when he joined the RAF because he already had —
RH: Yes.
CB: Military training.
RH: Yes.
CB: Now, in his logbook we have talked about him returning to Little Rissington.
RH: Yes.
CB: Returning to England and doing his twin engine flying.
RH: Yes.
CB: So that was to get him accomplished with A - twin engine and B - the British weather.
RH: Yes. He does say in his memoirs that navigation was considerably harder in in the UK than it was in the, in the States.
CB: Did he ever explain why? Why that was so much more difficult.
RH: I don’t think so. Just that the terrain, in the States you could follow a railway line or something and there was very little. And the weather of course. So after Little Rissington —
CB: He then went on to the Operational Training Unit.
RH: Yes.
CB: That was at —
RH: He then went to Number 29 OTU at North Luffenham on Wellington Mark 3s. By this stage he had done two hundred and ninety five hours of flying and and it was during this period that he had an unfortunate incident. It was in December just before Christmas. December 1942. He had to bale out at two and a half thousand feet on the orders of the captain from the Wellington and he did not have his parachute done up correctly and it started to go over his, over his body. It caught on his flying jacket. It tore his flying jacket and he came down holding on to the, holding on to his parachute with his arms. He flatly refused all through his flying life to get the flying jacket repaired where it tore because he said, ‘That tear saved my life.’ He says in his memoirs that when he landed on the ground that he was met by some farmers, or farm labourers approached him and questioned where he was from. Was he one of theirs or one of ours and he said very strongly he was one of ours. He said they then plied him with tea in a farmhouse. He said he would like to have had something slightly stronger. Anyway, he continued his training there, then went to a short course, advanced flying, again on Wellington Mark 1s. And then in February, the beginning of February 1943 he joined 1660 Conversion Course at Swinderby. Swinderby, and was flying Manchesters, Mark 1s and he then and that’s where he picked up the rest of his crew. He had picked, when he was flying Wellingtons he had pilot officer then, Palmer as navigator, Sergeant Kemp as an air bomber, Cheshire, Sergeant Cheshire as a wireless operator/air gunner and Sergeant Jock Walker his rear gunner. And he was very very fond of Jock Walker.
CB: What did he tell you about the crewing up process at the OTU on the Wellingtons?
RH: He said that you just stand. There wasn’t any, he said you chose. I don’t know how it worked but you just chose your, I think he said that he chose. You chose your own crew and how you would know if they were good. I suppose if you got on reasonably well or you talked to them and you found out a little bit about them but those were the people that he had, I believe he had chosen. Later on in the Conversion Unit at Swinderby he was joined by Sergeant Bob Yates and sergeant [pause] who would that have been? Sergeant [Adsed], Don Adsed who was a flight engineer. Bob Yates was the mid-upper, upper gunner. So that made up the crew of seven. He did say, he told me that when he was doing his Conversion Unit converting to heavy bombers of all the people on the course he was the only one to have survived the Second World War. And that was born out by when the Memorial at Skellingthorpe was unveiled in the 80s. nineteen eighty —
CB: Six.
RH: 1986. A very old man came up to him and said, ‘Are you Arthur Hollis?’ And he said yes and he said and he was with my mother at the time who also witnessed this and this dear old man said to him, ‘Oh, I know one, I knew one survived. I’m so pleased to meet you.’ Which was very touching. Anyway, then in 1943 in March, March the 11th 1943 he started flying operationally at Skellingthorpe on 50 Squadron and straightaway we’ve got the first operation to Stuttgart. According to his logbook he flew a variety of Lancasters. They were Lancaster Mark 3s but his favourite, their favourite one appeared in March, at the end of March 1943 and that was D for Dog, ED475 which took them to Berlin and then on to St Nazaire the next night. Working through his logbook they did, they were flying some part sometimes to France. I know he planted, he did some mining in the Gironde on one occasion but then it was off to Kiel, [unclear] Stettin, Duisburg and Essen. On May the 12th 1943 they were setting off to go to Duisburg. He told me that quite often to gain height they would take off, fly over and go and fly over to Manchester to gain height and then, and then cross the North Sea with some decent height. But off the Dutch coast he was with, in collision with a Halifax. What had happened was that the Halifax apparently had been early and contrary to the strict instruction not to do a dog leg and join in with the main bomber stream the pilot of the Halifax had decided to turn back in to the main stream. Go head on into the main bomber stream. They collided. The Halifax with one of its propellers cut through and cut off six feet and damaged six feet of the starboard wing and put an engine out of action. The engine must have been on the starboard wing as well. Probably the outer. They both returned to, to England and he my father told me, I had asked him at one stage why he had not been recognised for, for bringing a damaged aircraft back with seven valuable men in it and he said because he wasn’t riddled with German bullets. But he was always extremely angry that the collision seemed to have been hushed up. There is correspondence about the collision from other members of his crew that looked at it, looked at it in 1979 and some photographs of the damage to the wing. But [pause] could we just stop there?
CB: We’ll pause just for a mo.
RH: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So after the mid-air collision.
RH: Well, he —
CB: He got no recognition.
RH: He got no recognition. In fact, it was, it was all hushed up which made him very angry because it was, he said it was two valuable aircraft and fourteen valuable men. Coming back they jettisoned the bombs. He managed to fly the aircraft he said. He told me he could just about keep it in a straight line and they jettisoned the bombs and I don’t know where he landed but he obviously did. So that was that. Then he continued on with operations. That was with ED475. Their favourite aircraft. In an article written by, or written in 1979 one of his crew which was [pause] who was that? Cheshire, his wireless operator praised my father for flying the aircraft back. But it was established that it was a Halifax because there were bits of the Halifaxes propeller wrapped around the wing of the aircraft and it contained wood and only the Halifax propeller I believe had, did contain wood. So, we then move on to [pause –pages turning], I think we’ve missed something here. We need to stop I think.
CB: Ok. We’ll stop for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Ok. Restarting now.
RH: There is another photograph of, a colour photograph of a Lancaster. It’s actually a flight of Lancasters and my father told me that he was asked to take up a flight, a flight of Lancasters with a photographer on another aeroplane. They were to do formation flying. In his logbook he says on the 23rd of July a formation flying nine aircraft. He did say that they weren’t trained to do formation flying and basically most of the aircraft the pilots couldn’t get near this photographer so most of the photographs were taken of my dear late father in his Lancaster and his crew and the photographs are there. That has been established that it was JA899, again D for Dog and photographs have been taken up by Lincoln, copied by Lincoln University. Shortly after that, that was on July the 23rd, on July the 24th he went to Hamburg and on July the 25th in the same aircraft JA899 they went to Essen. It was on this trip to Essen that he, they were caught in searchlights and I think my father said at that stage they now had radar controlled searchlights and they were damaged by flak. It said hydraulics were u/s in his logbook. Tyres burst. They didn’t know that until they landed. Following the attack they were attacked by a fighter whilst held in searchlights in the target area and Jock Walker the tail gunner was wounded by a cannon shell and one of his other crew, the mid-upper gunner was also slightly wounded. He managed to lose the, or get out of the searchlights and, and fly the plane home and there was also, it says in his memoirs there was no, they lost their intercom as well. So it must have been a pretty unhappy time. For that he was awarded later on the DFC. Then after another trip to Hamburg they were coming towards the end of their tour. By this stage he told me that his crew, he said he didn’t believe in luck. He wanted, he purposely throughout his tour never had a girlfriend and he was a very strict disciplinarian in the aircraft. He said that there were, there were good skippers of aircraft and there were popular ones but he did not believe that the popular ones were necessarily good and he maintained this discipline. By this stage the crew had definitely established that they wanted to be flying with him and were most grateful for that which they wrote to him in a letter in 1968. And in the letter, this was written by Tom Cheshire who had visited, who had made contact with Don Adsed and it said, “We had a nostalgic hour.” This was in 1968 when they met up, “We had a nostalgic hour during which time we came to the conclusion from our total flying times that you were about the best pilot and aircraft captain we’d, either of us had flown with. I will spare your blushes but I really mean that. I afterwards flew with a motley load of crews and missed the crew discipline which you always maintained. I’m sure this was a considerable factor in allowing us to take advantage of an average share of luck.” Can we pause there?
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
RH: There is a photograph of, I would imagine it’s the entire squadron in front of a Lancaster. I know that my father is not in this one. I believe it was taken when he was on leave and that was at about the time of the, I think the Peenemunde operations. And he said that when he was on leave he came back and there had been such losses he arrived late in the evening and it was dark and he didn’t recognise anyone in the officer’s mess. He didn’t see anyone he knew and he said he seriously thought that he’d been dropped at the wrong airfield. And then he met someone and he said, ‘No, Arthur. I’m afraid we’ve had some, we’ve had some very bad losses.’ Moving on as they get towards the end of their, oh when Jock Walker was wounded so he didn’t do the last three operations but they were ending their, ending their tour and the last two operations were to Milan. My father told me that they were chosen, Milan was chosen because it was really getting to the stage where Italy had was on the point of, of getting close to giving up and Milan was perhaps a softer target, an easier target. They flew across France, over the Alps to bomb the marshalling yards in Milan. Unfortunately, my father told me that there had been a lot of instances where bombing raids tended to creep back from the target area as people pressed the button just a little bit early to, to get out and he wanted to demonstrate how not to bomb short. So he said to his bomb aimer, ‘You tell me when you’re ready and I’ll tell you when to press the button.’ He unfortunately got it slightly wrong and counted all the way to ten by which stage he’d completely missed the target they were shooting at, destroying the chapel where Leonardo da Vinci’s, “The Last Supper,” was on the wall in this chapel and Leonardo da Vinci’s, “The Last Supper,” was damaged but the wall stayed there. The rest of the chapel was completely destroyed and online you can, if you go online and look at the Leonardi da Vinci’s the “The Last Supper - war damage,” you can see some of my father’s handiwork. Later on, some years, some twenty seven odd years, thirty years later in his memoirs he tells us that he had, as a chartered accountant some Italian clients. He had quite a number of Italian clients. He never let on that it was he that had damaged that chapel or blown it to bits. But he was taken to see it and he quietly told my mother, ‘And guess whose handiwork this was?’ And he did also say later that he felt gratified, the fact that he had a whole lot of artisans work for the last thirty years. So that was his last operation to Milan and that was the end of his time at Skellingthorpe.
CB: Right so we’ve ended operations.
RH: Yeah.
CB: How many operations did he do?
RH: He, he did thirty. He did his full thirty.
CB: And how many hours was his total by then?
RH: And that, and that total by then was just under, was about six hundred and ninety.
CB: Ok. We’ll pause there. Have you got some more?
RH: Yes.
CB: He, he just about when he was finishing at Skellingthorpe in his logbook he says a voluntary attachment to 1485 Gunnery Flight, Skellingthorpe and it was then that his dear rear gunner Jock Walker came back on to the squadron and he, he took Jock Walker up in a Tiger Moth because he thought it would just be fun and good for Jock to get back into flying again. Very sadly Jock Walker lost his life doing his last three trips with another aircraft and in his logbook he says he was a very experienced pilot but sadly they lost their lives.
RH: Stopping there.
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: What was your —
RH: With the situation with Jock Walker my father was asked by the station commander or senior officer whether he thought it would be a good idea if Jock Walker went back on to operations just to finish his tour because he only had three, three to do to complete his thirty trips and my father said that he thought that Jock would like that because he would be happy with that. My father later on a night explained that, he said it was one of the worst things he ever said in his life because as I’ve said poor Jock Walker went off to, to lose his life on one of those last three trips and Jock was the only child of, my father said, a very nice Scottish couple and to lose their only child was absolutely tragic.
CB: The history of these sorts of things is that, seems that captains and others sometimes feel a sense of guilt when something’s happened to their crew that was actually beyond their control but nevertheless within their realm of concern and command.
RH: Yes. So that was the end of his flying operationally. That. His tour of operations.
CB: We’ll just stop there a mo.
RH: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: So in training and during operations people formed all sorts of alliances, experiences and admirations and some of the senior people were very encouraging to the more junior ones. What experience did he have in that?
RH: When he was, when he was, going back to Florida he had a great admiration for, for his Wing Commander Kenneth Rampling. And as I say he appointed him, he says in his memoirs course commander. “I was made an acting corporal unpaid and held general responsibility for the behaviour of the Flight. About fifty cadets.” He, he then went on to say that, at the end of his course, “We took the wings exam and qualified. On the evening before the Wings Parade together I, together with my two section leaders invited by three officers to a celebration at the Clewiston Inn where they stayed. What a night. I arrived back at camp wearing the CO’s trousers, mine having got wet in a rainstorm. The next morning the Flight was drawn up on parade and I marched up to Kenneth Rampling to report, ‘All present and correct, sir.’ He said, ‘Christ you look horrible.’ To which I replied, ‘Not half as horrible as I feel.’” Just as well the doting onlookers could not hear these remarks. Dear Kenneth Rampling, he was killed two years later as Group Captain DSO DFC CO of a Pathfinder Squadron.
CB: Clearly made a really big impact.
RH: Yes.
CB: On him and an inspiration in his life.
RH: Yes.
CB: I’m stopping.
[recording paused]
RH: If I just refer back to his last trip, tour. His last trip of the tour was to Milan. His he said his usual aircraft was pronounced unserviceable rather late in the day. Group Captain Elworthy, later Marshal of the RAF, Lord Elworthy the then base commander was very anxious that I should finish on this trip. He therefore arranged for an aircraft from another station be made available and took me personally in his staff car to that station. My crew were taken there by bus. And he then goes on to talk about the bombing short.
CB: So, when, when he went to Milan then he didn’t come straight back did he? He went on to North Africa.
RH: No. They came straight back.
CB: That was a different one.
RH: That was a different one.
CB: Right.
RH: The North African was when he was bombing, a trip to Friedrichshafen. He says in his, in his memoirs if I can find it. [pause] I think we’d better just stop now.
CB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
RH: Was when they, when they carried out raids on the U-boat pens at St Nazaire it was rather useless as the concrete was too strong for the bombs then carried. He also went to Berlin, Pilsen and Hamburg. An interesting trip was as a special force chosen to bomb Friedrichshafen where special radar spare parts were stored. “As it was then midsummer there was not enough darkness to return to the UK. We therefore went over the Med to North Africa. The personal map which I marked up and tucked in to my boots is in my logbook."
CB: Stop there.
[recording paused]
RH: After his trip to Milan he used to dine out on the story but he maintained that he had taken Italy out of the war because they were so disgusted that a religious artifact was too much for them to cope with that and he recently, he said he recently told the story to an artist friend who remarked drily that the bomb damage was not half as serious as the damage inflicted by the subsequent garish and overdone restoration.
[recording paused]
CB: What other stories have you got that ties in with —
RH: Well, my father, my father had a very [pause] he was quite careful what he would say to, to some people. Particularly, he had German and Italian clients but I remember on one occasion in the 1980s at a lunch party my father was sitting next to a very charming German lady and she asked the question, ‘Have you ever been to Hamburg?’ And, because she was from Hamburg and he said, ‘No.’ And she, this lady had to leave the lunch party early so she went and one of his other, one of the other people sitting beside him said to, said to him, ‘I thought you said you had gone to Hamburg.’ He said, ‘Well, I did go but I didn’t stop.’ He was very, he used to give talks on, about his experiences and he was very adamant that people should understand that, you know people said, ‘Oh well, you know the poor Germans,’ etcetera. He said, ‘Do understand this? That whilst Germany was completely obliterating Europe the —' perhaps we ought to be recording this actually.
CB: We are.
RH: Yes. We are. Good. That it, it turned people, some people said, ‘Oh the bomber, the bombing campaign didn’t do much.’ He said, ‘Just look at it this way. It tied up, it tied up about a million people. Manufacturing had to be geared for defending the German Reich not manufacturing shells for, for the Russian Front or tanks for the Russian Front. It tied up a huge number people as Speer said in his book.’ My father also used to refer to Speer and said that had there been nine other raids like Hamburg the Germans would have probably thought about giving up. But everything was, everything, the vast amount of armaments and work and planning was geared to the defence of Germany not the offensive. And he said, ‘If you look back in history no one has ever won a war on the defensive and we put the Germans on the defensive. That they were not going to win.’ So, and he was, people used to bring up, he’d give talks about, about the Second World War and he would, he would definitely make this point that, and he also talked about the, after the war he said, ‘I can understand the crooked thinking that the appalling and harsh lessons during the war our former enemies quickly became model citizens. I’d been delighted to share friendships with some admirable Germans and even one or two Japanese. But naturally there has always been during the war there were good Germans but the nation as a whole followed, took a disastrous turning during the 1930s and set about ruthlessly establishing itself as the master race and one must not forget that.’
[recording paused]
CB: How many aircraft did he fly on ops?
RH: In total he flew twenty different Lancasters and after the, after the war my mother did the research when it became available and found that only one of them survived the Second World War. All the others were either crashed or went missing which means they were crashed. Incidentally the Lancaster JA899 which was the Lancaster where he got shot up over Essen that was repaired. That was repaired three times. Damaged three times and eventually it was lost on the 22nd of June 1944. So it was quite clearly not a throwaway society. Right.
CB: So after ops then.
RH: After ops he went on to number 11 OTU at Westcott in Buckinghamshire and was flying, became an instructor and was flying Wellington Mark 1Cs. He used to tell us that they were grossly underpowered and quite honestly he thought at times that it was far more dangerous training people than it was flying over Germany which he absolutely hated by the way. Flying over the Ruhr. He then said, he says in his memoirs he was posted instructor’s duties to OTU Westcott. “I felt it was rather like leaving the Brigade of Guards for the Ordnance Corps but there was no choice.” Most of the instructions, instructors were New Zealanders. A very jolly bunch of chaps. His immediate senior and flight commander was one Squadron Leader Fraser Barron. DSO DFC DCM. A New Zealander who ranked at the age of twenty one as a Pathfinder ace and was killed the next year as a group captain. The immediate successor to Kenneth Rampling mentioned earlier in the narrative in my father’s memoirs. He told one amusing story about one New Zealander who said he was, father became what he termed as a shepherd. People who really couldn’t get something right and eventually were going to be, you know sent back to be an air gunner or something instead of a pilot they were given to him and, and he, he did his absolute utmost to make sure that they were, they, you know, passed. He said, but it was sometimes it was very sad because he said generally people who were poor pilots tended to get the chop first. He had one. One New Zealander. He said he just couldn’t believe how this man actually got his wings but he did. He disappeared and some months later he turned up back on the station and said, ‘Oh, hello sir.’ He said, he said, ‘Good God, what are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘I’ve come here as an instructor.’ He couldn’t believe it [laughs] He’d survived his tour. Anyway, he was also at Westcott. He was, spent a lot of time at the satellite station of Oakley which also had 1Cs. He said one night he was sitting next door in the instructor’s seat next to an Australian pupil pilot who was doing a cross country practice. On returning he made a rather mess of the landing approach and I said, my father said, ‘Go around again.’ Immediately ahead of the main runway was at Oakley was Brill Hill. He said, ‘Good pilots could clear it easily but my pupil was not in that category. After looking up at the trees as we went over Brill Hill I let him have another attempt at landing. He did the same thing again after which I said, ‘Up to three thousand feet and we’ll change seats.’ The aircraft cross country flying at Oakley had no dual controls. He said at one stage he did, I think on that occasion he did come back with some, a bit of branch or twigs or something in the tail wheel. When he was at Oakley he said in the late spring of that year he had the good fortune to meet one Betty Edmunds, one of the staff in the watch tower at Oakley. He was officer commanding night flying at the time. “We soon discovered that we both came from Carshalton and had many mutual friends. Our friendship developed. We used to play tennis together. She always won partly because she was a much better player than I but also because whenever she bent over to pick up the ball I was completely unnerved and my mind was not on the tennis.” They did eventually get married and my father said he thought they would wait until the end of the war and my mother said, ‘Oh, do you? I was thinking about the coming 2nd of December.’ They got married on the 2nd of December and, and they went away for a honeymoon in Torquay and there is a photograph of my father on honeymoon wearing, wearing a greatcoat and out of uniform. That hasn’t gone to the Lincolnshire. That’s a new one I found. But anyway, continuing on with my parents because it was a very important part of his life. He said they both wanted children. My mother wanted four but my father thought that would be rather too many to educate properly. He was particularly keen in his life that people should be educated properly thinking back of his own, of his own education. He said, “Thinking about things over the years and knowing my darling Betty’s quiet way of getting what she wanted I think she made up her mind to start our family on our honeymoon. I had no hesitation in helping.” And I think, I know life was very difficult for them there. My mother was, was still in the WAAF but, and found certain petty rules very very irksome and there was one time she was married, then married to my father said at a New Year, at New Year there was an officer’s dance at Oakley and Betty was only a sergeant. She had to get her COs permission to attend and this was refused. “My fellow officers were most indignant that the Oxford tarts were likely to be there but an officer’s wife was refused.” I didn’t particularly mind the signs that Betty was pregnant but there you are. I don’t know how he told that within a month but still [laughs] they then, they then got some accommodation, very difficult but later on they managed to get a council house or part of a council house. Two rooms in a council house at Brackley but more of that in a while. So he continued his, back to the flying he continued with his training as an instructor and there was one stage where someone started to write him down and when he went for tests in flying saying that he wasn’t very good. Fortunately, his commanding officer picked this up and realised that the man, the same man actually wanted to go out with my mother. He thought that he would be taking my mother out. So, but that was, that was picked up and he did finish up and he says in his memoirs that he finished up with a category, “After New Year I was telephoned, this was a year and a half on, “I was telephoned by Group and I was promoted to squadron leader and was to Command Instructors Flight, Turweston. A satellite of Silverstone. I had two months earlier been categorised A2 by a visiting examiner from Central Flying School. An A2 instructor’s category was rare and the highest one could obtain in wartime.” I didn’t know that. But there we are. So, after, after Westcott he then went to [pause – pages turning] Ludgate, Lulsgate Bottom. Number 3 FI [pause] FI5 or FIS?
CB: FIS.
RH: FIS. And I don’t know whether that, I think that must have been further, that must have been further training.
CB: Let’s just stop there a mo.
RH: Shall we stop?
[recording paused]
CB: Right.
RH: Right. So after further training, advanced training as an instructor his European war ended on the 1st of May leaving Westcott.
CB: No. Turweston.
RH: Sorry. Leaving Turweston and he says in his memoirs when everyone else was celebrating VE Day he was with my mother and he had a miserable time because he’d just been told that he was going off to be an advanced party of Tiger Force then being formed to set up Bomber Command on Okinawa. But he was not allowed to tell my mother where he was going and he may or may not be coming back. So, he refers to that as, ‘The saddest day of my life.’ Do you want to know about Sue the dog?
CB: Yes.
RH: When he was, when he reached his twenty first birthday, as a little anecdote he, he was given an English bull terrier called, which he called Sue which he obviously loved. And when he got married to my mother they went to [pause] they found the two rooms in a council house in Brackley which was owned for the sake of it by a Mr and Mrs Blackwell. They didn’t, when father was posted away my mother who was heavily pregnant at the time went to live with, back to live with her parents in Carshalton Beeches and they didn’t know what to do with Sue. So they gave Sue the dog to Mrs Blackwell and my father used to say that every, every Christmas there and after they always had received a photograph of Sue the dog with Mrs Blackwell. He said they looked rather similar which looking at the photograph they did but Mrs Blackwell was always the one wearing the hat. He boarded a, he boarded a troop ship which had been formerly the Kaiser’s yacht and they were, they went through the Panama Canal. He found that fascinating. And they ended up they were in Hawaii when the bomb was dropped. The Americans, he said, didn’t really want us to, didn’t really want the British contingent which I think was about seven squadrons. They didn’t want them to be part of Tiger Force. The bomb was dropped and he said he and his fellow officers were horrified. Had mixed feelings. He discussed the situation with his fellow officers in his memoirs, “We were horrified that science had reached this far but grateful that our lives and probably about two million others had been saved.” They didn’t know what to do with them. They had a ship full of craftsmen, builders, and medical units, air sea rescue units etcetera. So after a certain amount of cruising around the Pacific they went to Hong Kong. He, they landed, they got to Hong Kong and it was about two days or so after, a day or so after the British Pacific Fleet. Before the Army had arrived and my father told me a story that it was after he arrived he said the crew on the Empress of Australia, the former Kaiser’s yacht, he said they were about, he said about the fourth rate scum that they’d dug out of the, out of somewhere in, somewhere in England. I think he said Liverpool. They had been cheating the, the servicemen on board by turning up heating and then serving them some sort of orange drink to which they would add a touch of salt so they wanted to you know, sell more. And he said they really were, they were very badly done by this group. When they arrived in Hong Kong he went ashore for twenty minutes and he came back and was speaking to a very worried sergeant, RAF sergeant who told him that the crew were mustering over there and, and they wanted, they were planning to loop the medical supplies that had just been unloaded from the ship on to the dock and what should he do? And he said it was the only time he took out his service revolver in anger. He said to the sergeant, ‘Sergeant, there’s a line there. Any man that crosses that line shoot him dead and I’ll show you how to do it.’ And he would have done too. But anyway, he, they had to keep the Japanese officers as fully armed because otherwise, he said the Chinese, the Hong Kong Chinese would have ripped the place apart and looted it but he said they gave, they gave away their food, their rations because there were other people who definitely needed it more. He said, ‘I scarcely slept for several days and was somewhat hungry as we had given up our rations to the ex-occupants of the internment camps. The Japanese were later used for hard work in repairing the colony. They lived in POW camps and were not overfed. And then after about a fortnight the Marine Commandos arrived and he did have, apart from the fact he was away from my mother and he did have a grand time, or a good time in Hong Kong. Although he’d never learned to drive he was given a jeep and he said that you had to guard it all times. If you left it for five minutes when you came back the engine would have been taken out. He said the Chinese, the Hong Kong Chinese were so resourceful he said they would, they used the engines for their, to power their junks. He was initially put in as supplies officer for the officer’s mess and he had an office in the Peninsula Hotel. He said that when you went into the Peninsula Hotel you turned right into a large room. In the middle of the room the room was completely bare apart from a desk, a chair and a filing cabinet and that was his office. He was supplies officer for the officer’s mess and he said he used to go out to the Navy ships to collect the gin. He said, ‘I always remembered going out.’ He always remembered going out but he never remembered coming back. He then, also in Hong Kong went on to do the rather unpleasant job of commandeering people’s houses for accommodation and he made some good friends from the Hong Kong Chinese for that. He said it was the most distasteful job. He also would do tribunals. Criminal tribunals. He said it was very difficult because the Hong Kong Chinese at that time would make things up and tell you what they thought you wanted to hear not what had actually happened. But I don’t know whether we can put that in. Anyway, he, my mother sent him some books to study, to carry on studying accountancy but he said that the social life was, it was difficult to study because the social life was rather too good. Anyway, back, then later on in it must have been I think it was May. In May 1946 he [pause] I’ll just get, we need to stop really.
CB: Yes.
[recording paused]
CB: In July.
RH: In July 1946 it was his turn to be demobilised and he set course for home by taking a passage in one of her, his majesty’s ships to Singapore and then got a place on, believe it or not the Empress of Australia again. He arrived at Liverpool one wet afternoon and the ship’s tannoy went, ‘Requiring the presence of Squadron Leader Hollis in Cabin —’ X. He proceeded there and was greeted by an air marshal who was there for the purpose of offering him a permanent commission. He said, ‘I’ve always been pleased that I didn’t accept. There were severe Service cuts a few years later and he has had a very interesting life.’ He went on to qualify as a chartered accountant. When he came back to England — do you want this? When he came back to England of course he then had to study. He had a young child. They had nowhere to live. They managed to find two rooms in the attic of a house in Dover belonging to a relative and he only spent the weekends there because he was studying during the week time in London living with his father which was, he said since his father liked to sit in silence it was the appropriate atmosphere but very poor for my mother. They literally had no money at all. Any money that they did, he got a small grant and any money they did have was spent on, on suits so that he was well dressed when he went to work. They then moved to a house of another, some cousins in Westcliffe on Sea in Essex but they were not, that did not go down. It did not work very well. But then in 1948 they found a flat to rent at the Paragon in Blackheath where they spent fifteen happy years and he passed the final exam and became a charted accountant. And my late sister Sylvia was born in 1949. Things got a bit better for him and eventually he was offered a partnership in a firm called Hugh [unclear]. A joint [unclear] with an assistant partnership prospects and he, in 1950 — do you want to continue in this? In 1950 he went out to Jeddah and he had some work in Jeddah to do and he said Jeddah at that stage was absolutely medieval. He said he felt that he was going back to the Old Testament. He did tell me one story that he was very keen on walking and one evening he walked out of the town and on to the outskirts of the town and got surrounded by a pack of dogs, wild dogs and he really did think that he was, that he was going to be attacked and killed. But he managed to find some sticks and stones and threw them at the dogs and he walked back into the town. But he said that was a very close shave. Unfortunately, my sister Sylvia when she was born was born very prematurely and was blinded by an oxygen, use of an oxygen tent. This was when he returned from Jeddah. He said it was very difficult. My other sister was doing well at school but he said, ‘How can you tell a child who says, ‘Will I be able to see next year? Or when I’m ten?’ ‘No. You won’t.’ In 1953 I was born. Unfortunately, my mother contracted polio whilst she was carrying me and it was another great burden on the family. My father and his career he worked hard and progressed well becoming a partner in [unclear] and company. He also took on the work from a small practice where the sole practitioner had died and the sole practitioner specialised in theatrical, in the theatrical and musical world and, and he met, and Yehudi Menuhin became a client amongst others. And Diana Sheridan, the late actress. He struck a great, had a great rapport with Yehudi Menuhin. Saved him from being clobbered by vast taxation and, and he was instrumental with others in setting up the Yehudi Menuhin School. He provided for us admirably. The family. We then in the early ‘60s moved down to a beautiful house down in Kent where he lived with my mother for fifty years and was very very happy there. He was highly respected and it was the house, he was highly respected in the village and became the sort of the elder statesman in the village. And he, my mother died in 2010 and in 2013 my father didn’t become ill he just one day went to bed and never woke up. And he was terrified of ever having to go into a home but he had his wish, he died as I say in his own bed in his own house and having lived an extremely full life.
CB: What a fascinating story.
RH: There we are.
CB: Thank you very much.
RH: Sorry, I’ve gone —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Richard Hollis
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
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
2018-01-11
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHollisRE180111, PHollisAN1801
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:06:22 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Civilian
Description
An account of the resource
Richard’s father, Arthur Hollis, went to Dulwich College as a day boy. He left at sixteen to join the Home Guard , then worked for a firm of accountants for a couple of years before joining the Royal Air Force. He was sent to Manchester University for about six months and then to Florida to learn to fly. He went to Nova Scotia and then travelled by train to Florida. Arthur was posted to Clewiston airfield and was soon selected for acting corporal. After finishing his training, he was posted to Canada where he received a commission. His next posting was to RAF Little Rissington to learn to fly twin-engine aircraft and then to the Operational Training Unit at RAF North Luffenham working on Wellingtons. He also went on a course for advanced flying and then joined the conversion course at RAF Swinderby with Manchesters, where he picked up the rest of his crew. Arthur recalled December 1942 when he had to bale out at thousand five hundred feet on the orders of the captain. His parachute, not being fastened properly, tore his flying jacket and he came down holding the parachute with his arms. In March 1943 he started flying operationally at RAF Skellingthorpe with 50 Squadron. Off the Dutch coast he was in collision with a Halifax which had been early. It cut off and damaged the starboard wing and put an engine out of action. Arthur had brought his crew back safely. The crew continued operations flying to Hamburg and Essen. On one occasion they were caught in searchlights, attacked by a fighter, and damaged by anti-aircraft fire. They managed to get home and Arthur was later awarded the DFC. The last two operations were to Milan to bomb the marshalling yards. Arthur completed thirty operations and had flown 20 different Lancasters, of which only one survived the war. Upon completion of his tour, to No. 11 OTU at RAF Westcott and RAF Oakley, where he met Betty who became his wife.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Manchester
Canada
Nova Scotia
United States
Florida
Germany
Germany--Hamburg
Italy
Italy--Milan
Netherlands
England--Rutland
Germany--Hesse
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Lancashire
China--Hong Kong
Germany--Duisburg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-12
1943-02
1943-03-11
1943-05-12
1944-06-22
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
11 OTU
1660 HCU
29 OTU
5 BFTS
50 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
British Flying Training School Program
civil defence
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Lancaster
Manchester
mid-air collision
Operational Training Unit
RAF Little Rissington
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Westcott
searchlight
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/887/11125/AHughesJ171102.1.mp3
f3de320ee01bc0b2759aeccd5626621c
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
Hughes, Janet
J Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Janet Hughes (b. 1958) about her father Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923). He served in Bomber Command.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-23
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hughes, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Janet Hughes. The interview is taking place at Mrs Hughes home in Farnham, Surrey, on the 2nd of November 2017. So, Jan could you say your father's name and then say a bit about his early life and growing up?
JH: Yeah sure. My father- My late father’s name is, was Reginald Charles Wilson. He was born in 1923, on the 20th of- 26th of January, 1923 in, Hackney in East London. He was the third of five children, and when he was about ten the family moved to Ilford, or the outskirts of Ilford in Essex, where he lived until going off to war basically, in, in 1940.
DM: Right, do you know why he joined the RAF as opposed to anything else?
JH: Yes, I, I have a very clear recollection of what he said there. Basically, when war broke out he had only just left his grammar school, and probably I think he left prematurely because of the war, and he did a couple of admin jobs. First with the railways I think and then with Unilever, and he experienced first-hand the seventy-eight consecutive nights of the Blitz, when East London was particularly badly affected and when they missed the docks, you know, the bombs and the incendiary devices would quite often fall on the roads surrounding where my father lived. So it was, it was something that he- It was a daily thing, and one day when he went into Blackfriars to, his job, it was the 30th of December 1940, the night after the notorious second great fire of London, as it has become known, when the city of London was bombed very heavily, and the firefighting operation was limited by the low level of water in the Thames. It’s said that the Luftwaffe had known this and chosen that night to do the bombing because they knew that the low level of the Thames would hamper the attempts to quench the flames, and London- The City of London was extremely badly affected, and there’s an iconic photograph of St Paul‘s standing defiant amidst the surrounding devastation, saying ‘You’re not going to get me’, and when my father referred to this photograph, which he often did, he said that’s- That photograph it captures exactly what he saw, that the surrounding area was still smouldering but St Paul‘s was still rising, you know, like the phoenix out of the ashes, and he said at that moment he, he decided that he had got to do something, that he had got to fight back, and he, you know, like lots of young men at the time had a dream of being a Spitfire pilot, and indulging in dogfights and basically shooting them down before they got as far as London. So that was his plan, and you know, he knew that eventually, when he got to the age of eighteen, he would be called up anyway, and I think he decided that by joining the RAF volunteer reserve he would be more likely to end up doing something that he wanted to do rather than something that he’d been forced to do.
DM: Okay, so, he joined the RAF, the reserve, he got called up, what happened about his training?
JH: Right, well the training was quite long and convoluted. It’s described very well in his own diary, and, and in the book which I co-wrote with him in recent years. The early part of the training was sort of square bashing and general fitness for the armed forces, and he subsequently went to the United States on a troop ship for the early part of his training. So, it says in his notes here that he joined the RAF volunteer reserve in August 1941, by which time he would’ve been eighteen and a half. I’m not quite sure why there was a delay, perhaps you know, took that long to do the paperwork. He joined the aircrew, and they- The first part of the training was in, at St John‘s Wood in North London, and then in Torquay in Devon, and that was the basics of- The bit in Devon he learnt meteorology, air navigation, aircraft recognition, wireless telegraphy, and then the usual square bashing and clay pigeon shooting, and then he was promoted from AC2 to LAC, and this is the critical bit I think, he was posted to Marshalls airfield in Cambridge for a flying test, and this was in a Tiger Moth [chuckles], and after about eight hours he convinced them that he had the necessary skills to join the Arnold training scheme in the USA. So then, he joined the troop ship Montcalm, at Gourock on the Clyde, and this took them to Halifax in Canada. He commented that it was quite funny that he went to Halifax for the first part of his training ‘cause he ended up flying a Halifax, and, the crossing was quite eventful, bad weather because, you know, January seas and the ships weren’t very stabilised in those days, and half a dozen other- They weren’t torpedoed or anything, but half a dozen other ships that were in the same area were sunk, and at that time, about sixty ships a week were being destroyed by the German U-Boats in the North Atlantic. So, when he got to Halifax, they- Which was a sort of mustering area I think, they went to the USA and they travelled in uniform, and this is significant, they were the first aircrew trainees to be travelling in uniform, because America had only just become an ally, following the bombing- The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour on the 7th of December 1941, so basically that brought the Americans into the war, and that kind of was a game changer in terms of the way everything was organised. So then, they went to Albany in Georgia, a place called Turner Field, and that was an acclimatisation month. During that month dad celebrated his nineteenth birthday. Turner Field was run on the lines of the American army, so it was an American army air corps training centre, so they wore their [emphasis] uniforms, American air corps clothing, and they were treated like cadets. So that meant drilling and physical training, calisthenics at six o’ clock in the morning, apparently, they were given literature that told them how to behave and how they were expected- You know behaviour and etiquette, how they were expected to conduct themselves, and the bit that I think dad found the most memorable was marching behind a brass band, which was playing American air corps music, this was on the way to all meals and also before retreats, which was the lowering of the American flag in the evening. Now these young men had come from Britain, where rations had been in place for quite a long time, and when- America was the promised land, you know, they were waited on hand and foot by, and these are my father’s own words, ‘coloured waiters’, and that was something again that was quite strange to British people because, this was, this was the south of America, and at that time coloured people were not considered equal to whites and there was a kind of apartheid, like in, later in South Africa, they had to sit at the backs of busses and, in different parts of the cinema and they were generally treated as second class citizens, so this business of having them, you know, at their beck and call was something I think, quite a lot of the British people found quite difficult, because they just weren’t used to- Although, Britain was more racist then than it is now, they, you know, you still treated everybody with, with dignity. So, I think he found that, you know, quite, quite a shock, and also you know, in Britain they had to queue up for their meals, get all their meals on one plate, take your own cutlery in your gas mask case, and wash it up afterwards in a tank of greasy water, so to be waited on hand and foot, you know, and be served amazing food, was, was, was quite nice given what they’d been used to, you know, up to a month beforehand. So, after this month of acclimatisation, he went to Lakeland, Florida. This was a civilian flying school, which presumably had been commandeered because they needed the capacity, and it was for primary flying training, and that, this was a great experience. Dad went solo in a Stearman biplane, and before that the instructor had had to buzz off a herd of cows from the landing field by diving at them, and here dad completed forty hours of solo flying, including acrobatics, stalls, spins, loops and so on, and underneath them were the lakes and orange groves of Florida in beautiful sunshine, so what a change from Britain, and, they had a lot of hospitality with local American families and lots of contact with their daughters, so I think really this, this felt like a very long way from war. There’s some lovely pictures of dad during that period, you know, carefree existence, and then, at the end, the end of the course they had a few days leave and so, you know, not wanting to waste this amazing opportunity, dad and a colleague hitched off to West Palm Beach, and they booked into a hotel but while they were there they were invited to stay with an American lady called Mrs Hubbard, who turned out to be the daughter of Rockefeller, and she had an English woman staying with her who had a son in the RAF, and so they were spoilt by these two ladies who were trying to sort of do for them what they wish they could do for this lady’s son. And they were looked after for the next couple of days as if they were long lost sons, the house had an amazing swimming pool with an Italian style garden and an arcaded drinks bar, and they were, they were - I think they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. He- During this time dad met and was photographed with one of the few surviving Fleet Air Arm pilots, who had- Was one of the people who, the previous year had torpedoed the Bismarck, and enabled the British fleet to sink, sink it, and he was touring America as a hero, and he had also been invited to, to this lady's home, so they, they met him, and somewhere in dad's album there’s a picture of these, him with this chap, and my dad looks very diminutive in that although he was quite a tall man, ‘cause the other guy was much taller. So anyway, after this period they went to another- No, this, this was an American army air corps flying school, so not a civilian one this time, and that was in Georgia, again, for intermediate training, so he’d done the basics, this was the immediate training, and he started a course of flying on a basic trainer which would have been a more sophisticated plane than the Stearman biplane, but this is where dad’s fortunes changed because- And he was quite bitter about this, actually in later life, ‘cause he said after a lon- A number of flying lessons he was unable to convince the instructor that he was safe to go solo, so that was the end of his pilot training, and he, he, he did say that in his opinion had he been trained in an RAF flying school in the States, he might have passed. Anyway, he was disheartened at the time but he tried to make the best of it. One of his friends had been killed in Georgia on a, on a simple training exercise, so you know, it might’ve given him a stay of execution, and he said at least if he eventually died in combat, which he didn’t, it would be for a just cause. So then, by this time we’re in June 1942, so he’s been in the RAF for nearly a year, so he took the train back to Canada and this time it was to the Royal Canadian Air Force camp at Trenton, in Ontario. He did some interviews and took an exam, and was remustered to navigator, and the transfer gave him a chance to see some more of Canada. He visited Lake Ontario, Toronto, and Niagara Falls, so lots of travelling that a man of his age would not of had the opportunity to do had he not joined the RAF and left civilian life behind him. So, there’s - Then in his notes there’s quite a lot of very colourful description of, of the geography of various parts of Canada. So, then he was posted to the Winnipeg air navigation school, by which time it was August ‘42. The school's services were run by civilians but the teaching of the subjects was carried out by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Winnipeg’s in the grain growing area of Mani- Manitoba, which is flat as a pancake, so the relevance of this for flight training is that when you're flying at a few thousand feet you’ve got an unrestricted view as far as the horizon, and you can pick, everything out very easily because there’s no hills, or, or forests or anything to obscure your view, and the towns were marked by grain elevators and water towers that have the town’s name printed on the sides, so you couldn’t get lost. And they were spaced along the railway line so, you know, it’s like having a Google map underneath you. And these, these water towers were visible from any cross-country route so you just couldn’t get lost, because even at night there was no back- blackout in Canada ‘cause they had no need for it. So, they were there for three months, half of the time in classrooms and half on air exercises. There they flew Anson aircrafts, with civilian pilots. These were great big cumbersome things that had to be manually wound up, the wheels had to be wound up on take-off on a winch, and down again on landing. But one thing that marked him, during this period was the crash of a light aircraft only a few yards away, and the raging fire that ensued which made it impossible to rescue the pilot. So, he actually saw somebody fry, even at that stage, and the nights were very cold. They used to practise astro-sextant shots, one of the applications of a navigator, at night-time, but the leisure time was- As in America, eating Christmas-like turkey dinners every Sunday, and going to dances, socialising, probably a bit of womanising as well although he hasn’t been too explicit about that. He got his navigator’s wing on the 20th of November 1942, and at that point he was promoted to the rank of flight sergeant, just a few marks, a few short marks, again something he was a bit bitter about, off getting a commission. Although, that happened later as I will say later on, and then they travelled by train to Monckton in Halifax, stopping on the way in Montreal, and they returned to England on the Queen Elizabeth. Fantastic experience. It had been converted into a troop ship, so they had two meals a day on board, seventeen bunks to a state cabin, they travelled without escort and it took them only four days to cross the North Atlantic which was amazing, given the technology of the time, and they were on home- At home on leave for Christmas, and basically, by this time he had done, he’d been in the RAF for just under eighteen months, and was now back in the UK.
DM: So once your dad got back to Britain what, what happened next with his training?
JH: Right, well this was the beginning of 1943. So dad would’ve been just coming up for twenty that month, and there was- At that point there was a glut of trained aircrew coming back from the North American and Commonwealth training schools, so lots of them were held in holding centres in Harrogate and Bournemouth to await postings, and to fill the time, dad and a few others were transferred to a regiment training course, an RAF regiment training course at Whitley Bay, near Newcastle, and that was the February 1943 when it was pretty damn cold up there. So, it wasn’t until 19- April ‘43, so that’s three months later that they took up flying again. So I suspect they were a bit rusty by this time, and a party of them was posted to the RAF navigation school at Jurby, which is on the Isle of Man, still flying Ansons, and during this time my dad brushed up on his navigation skills because he hadn’t flown for five months, and this was achieved by means of day and night cross-country exercises around the Irish Sea, the East Coast of Northern Ireland, and the West Coast of Britain, and the weather was quite cold. He remembers using the toast rack railway on his days off, which ran from Jurby to Douglas, and he remembers all the hotels along the sea front which were wired off because they accommodated many of the so-called aliens, who’d been interned there for the duration of the war, in case they engaged in espionage I suppose. Anyway, so when this course was finished, he got some more leave, and then he went to the RAF Operational Training Unit at Kinloss, in Scotland, on the Moray Firth. So it’s sort of late spring early summer by this time, and he was now set for crewing up in Bomber Command and getting nearer and nearer to operational flying. This I think was a, was a, was a very, satisfying period. He said he arrived at Kinloss in the first week in June and the weather was fantastic, and stayed like that for the whole six weeks that they were there, (early summer in Scotland is often lovely), and for part of the time, they were housed in a mansion like property, where- Just for sleeping, and they were each given a bike to get to and from the airfield. So, they were cycling through the beautiful countryside with the lovely weather and the birds singing in the hedgerows, and he said the war, the war seemed very far away at that point, they couldn’t actually believe what they were training for because it all seemed so remote from what they were experiencing. Kinloss had Whitley bombers, these had been withdrawn from operational flying in ‘42 and they were known colloquially as flying coffins because they were very sluggish, in responding to the flying controls, that’s a major defect, as they were to discover when flying in formation over Elgin, to celebrate a special occasion. He doesn’t say what it was but I suspect it was someone's twenty-first. So after a few days they were crewed up, now, in his notes he hasn't actually said how this achieved, but somebody else told me that they just put them all together and let them pick their own, their own teams because I think it was thought that if they, effectively chose their own crew members they would, they would, they would gel better, as a crew. They would have more in common, and they would, they would be more likely to work well as a team if they, if they hadn’t been imposed on each other so they were basically told, you know, find you, find your - I don’t whether the pilot went round and said ‘right I need a navigator and a bomb aimer,’ and so on, I’m not quite sure, but this- And I’ve heard this from more than one source, that they, that, that somebody decided, very sensibly actually, that that was a better psychology then just teaming them up arbitrarily. So dad’s crew at this point was Flying Officer Vivian, S. R. Vivian, known as Viv, he was the pilot, my father himself, Flight Sergeant R. C. Wilson, as he was then, navigator, known as Reg, Flight Officer L. A. Underwood, that’s Laurie, whose the bomb aimer, Sergeant Ross who was the wireless operator and air gunner, he had two, two roles, ‘cause different planes had different requirements in terms of crew, some of, some of the roles were- In some other aircraft I think the bomb aimer and the navigator was combined. Anyway, Sergeant Ross was a wireless operator/ air gunner, known as Bill, and Sergeant John Bushell, Johnny, the rear gunner. So, for six weeks, they flew day and night, in this crew, just five people, carrying out exercises such as cross-country and formation flying, air firing, fighter affiliation and bombing practice, and they had to do some ground work. At this point dad was introduced to something called the distant reading compass, this was located near the tail of the aircraft away from magnetic influences, which otherwise would have corrupted it. It was a gyro-controlled compass, it was very stable and it could be adjusted by the navigator for the earth's magnetic variation, to give true north readings, and this thing had electric repeaters for the pilot, the navigator and the bomb aimer, so they could actually access the readings from the front of the plane, although the actual gadget was at the back. He can remember flying at night, trying to practise astronavigation, and this was difficult because they sky was barely dark. You’ve got to remember this was around the time of the summer solstice, mid-summer, in the north of Scotland and at ten thousand feet the sun’s glow was present on the horizon for most of the night so it never got completely dark, but the Grampians and the Highlands below looked gaunt and forbidding in what was basically a kind of twilight, I suppose. So, as was the case with many crews by the end of the training, the crew had become great friends, they’d spent time together at Findhorn Bay, on the Moray Firth, and on some afternoons, in the pub in Forres town on some Saturdays, and he recalled that he- They’d spent one entire weekend confined to the mess. They’d been confined there by the CO because they’d landed in error at RAF Lossiemouth which was an adjacent airfield, instead of Kinloss, and they drank a lot of beer, not surprisingly. They left Kinloss for some leave, but they never saw Viv, the pilot again because he had been borrowed to, to fly with another crew, this happened quite a lot, and he was killed three weeks later, tragically just a few days after he’d got married, while, whilst on leave, and again a lot of people did that, got married perhaps prematurely because they thought they might, you know, might not get another opportunity. So, this was before they even reached RAF Rufforth in north- In Yorkshire, which was the conversion unit for Halifax heavy bombers. So they got to Rufforth in the middle of August, discovered that Viv had been reported missing, on the 10th of August, whilst flying as a second pilot, second dickie pilot, which they had to do to gain operational experience before they could take their own crew out on operation. Anyway, so Viv had disappeared on the 10th of August while flying as a second dickie on a raid to Nuremburg, and dad subsequently found out that his pilots' aircraft had crashed near Ramsen Bolanden in Germany, and six were killed including Viv, and two became POW’s. So, Viv, dad’s pilot actually never got to head up his own crew and that left the rest of them a headless crew. So they then had to wait the appointment of another pilot, and this is when, you know, the party was over at this point, they’d had all these wonderful experiences in Canada and the USA, and Scotland, lots of travelling, lots of leisure time, lots of laughs, but at this point it became- It began to look, look very serious, it became a lottery. There’s no way they could tell from day to day, even in the conversion unit, before operations started whether they would live or die, because during their short stay at Rufforth, sixty air crew were killed due to mechanical failure of aircraft or accidents, and dad recalls an incident of the collision of two aircraft in mid-air, and another aircraft crashing when its propeller fell off into the fuselage, and another one came down at night on a practice bombing raid. So after a few days they got a new pilot, so flylan- Flight Lieutenant P. G. A. Harvey was appointed, and Sergeant A. McCarrol as the mid-upper gunner, they hadn’t had a mid-upper gunner before by the look of it. So, Sergeant McCarrol had been a drummer previously in murricks[?]- morris wennix [?] dance band and was well known on BBC radio in the pre-war period. The flight engineer was Sergeant J. McCardle, and that completed the crew for the Halifax bomber, which normally had seven members unless they had a second dickie pilot on board, in which case there would be eight of them. Now, the new pilot, Flight Lieutenant Harvey was a very experienced pilot, he’d survived two operational tours but these had been in the Middle East in 1941 and on Wellingtons, and they couldn’t really understand why this man would want to take on another tour. But anyway, he did, maybe he was after a, an award of some kind, but anyway he’d volunteered, but, dad points out that flying on operations deep inside Germany in ‘43 was a different dimension, it was a different ball game, and this is because cities in Germany were heavily defended by ack-ack, and night fighters armed with cannon, and equip with radar homing devices were everywhere. So, this was very different to flying in the Middle East in 1941, where a lot of the missions, although in a warzone weren’t actually bombing missions, they might’ve been deliveries and, you know, service flights. Now because Harvey was a seasoned pilot, they decided that they could fast track the process. So the minimum time was taken to crew up, to get familiar with the Halifax and to take on the new disciplines, which they needed in the Halifax, of a flight engineer and a mid-upper gunner, and dad had to learn how to use Gee, that’s spelt G-double-E. This was a radar device, for measuring pulses from two transmitting stations, and these were displayed on a cathode-ray tube which you then plotted on a special gridded map, and this gave pin point accuracy of the ground position, and this was a new gadget as far as dad was concerned. So, they had air exercises for bombing, air firing, fighter affiliation, and the latter exercise, so that’s fighter affiliation, was one to remember. This was the 2nd of September ‘43, they flew at ten thousand feet and a fighter would attack, that’s in inverted commas because it’s a mock up, obviously, training exercise, from behind and the two gunners would then co-operate with the pilot so that he could take evasive action. So, they would depart from the plotted route to dive or, or, or change course suddenly in order to get out of the way. Now in taking evasive action, Flight Lieutenant Harvey, managed to turn the aircraft on its back, and it was seve- several thousand feet later before he succeeded in righting the aircraft. Dad, the navigator had spun round in the nose of the plane, there were broken rivets rattling round everywhere, and the chemical Elsan toilet at the back of the aircraft had emptied its contents all over the rear of the plane. Not pleasant experience, and they were all shaken up by this, especially because, you know, Flight Harvey- Flight Lieutenant Harvey already had nearly four hundred operational flying hours to his credit and they didn’t expect him to lose control, they thought he knew what he was doing. But the good thing that came out of it was that John, the rear gunner, Johnny, Johnny Bushell, he decided from then that he wouldn’t- Then on that he would store his parachute in his gun turret [emphasis], rather than in the fuselage which was required by regulations. So, a maverick, and this action would later save his life, and dad decided as well that he would try and minimise the risk to himself, so he, he kind of devised this routine to cover baling out. So, point one, this is like bullet points, point one, helmet off, and the reason for this was you could break your neck if you had the helmet still attached to the oxygen supply and the intercom, so the first thing he did was take it off. Parachute on, for the obvious reason that it’s not a good idea to jump out without it, and then, this is one special to dad, handle on the left hand-side. Dad was left-handed, and aircraft was sometimes due- killed due to an unopened parachute with the d-ring, the handle, on the ‘wrong’ that’s inverted commas side. So, if you were right-handed, obviously the right side would be the right-hand side, and for dad it was gonna be the left-hand side. So dad had also decided that, as he had a minute or so to spare while over the target, he would fold back his seat, lift up the navigation table clear of the escape hatch and be ready to bale out immediately, if necessary because this was the point at which they were obviously at their most vulnerable over the target, and because the navigator’s job was very cerebral and was, he was constantly occupied throughout the whole flight, unlike some of the other crew members, this was his only opportunity really, to take a break. So he basically got ready to bale out on every single operational flight, just in case, and he said that he believed that these plans, together with the action taken by Johnny the rear gunner, gave them and Laurie, or gave dad and Laurie, the bomb aimer, additional vital seconds when the three of them were to save their lives nearly five months later. So Laurie and dad were saved by dad having folded up the, the table, and Johnny by having his parachute more accessible than it would otherwise have been. So, a week or so after this, this last training flight, they were posted to 102 Squadron in Pocklington to commence their operational service, so quite a long haul from joining at the beginning, quite a long process. So, Pocklington, is twelve miles south-east of York, it has eight-hundred foot hills, three and a half miles north-east of the aircraft- airfield. So while dad was there, two Halifax bombers complete with bomb loads, crashed into the hills after take-off, so the result of that was that they didn’t use that particular runway afterwards, because of the, the, the risk of running into the mountains. Pocklington was a wartime airfield, some of the others had been in use before the war, and the ones that were basically, got ready just for the wartime, only had temporary accommodation so they were all billeted in Nissen huts. These had semi-circular corrugated iron roofs, roofs and walls and concrete ends, not very comfortable, dispersed in fields, near the aircraft- Sorry, in fields near the, near the airfield, and they were pretty dreary, inhospitable places. The heating was only a central coal burning stove, so whenever they weren’t on duty they went for refuge and relaxation in the relative comfort of the sergeant's mess, or the pubs. Or famous places like Betty’s Bar, in York, or the dance halls like The De Grey Rooms in York. Pocklington had three affiliated airfields, Elvington, where there’s now an air museum complete with a, model of a Halifax which has been made from parts of Halifax bombers welded together, because none of the Halifax bombers were saved after the war, unlike the Lancasters, something else he was- Dad was quite miffed about. So anyway, there was Elvington, Full Sutton and Melbourne, and they were all sort of in a group, and they were commanded by Air Commodore Gus Walker, who was the youngest air commodore in the RAF at the time, only thirty-one years old. He’d lost his right arm when a Lancaster had exploded on the ground at Syerston, the airfield which he’d commanded in 1942. So mid-September, Pocklington, 1943. Flight Lieutenant Harvey, was promoted to acting squadron leader in charge of A flights, so this meant that his crew would not fly as frequently on operations as other, other crews. That was a mixed blessing, because it meant a tour of thirty operations would take longer if they were under his command. So, over the next two weeks they completed a number of cross-country exercises, mostly for dad’s benefit to practise his navigation skills with the new equipment. So he learnt how to use Gee at Rufforth, but in the meantime the Germans had learnt how to jam Gee. So as the aircraft approached the coastline of continental Europe, the radar pulses were obliterated. So the navigator then had a race against time to obtain as much data as he could before they crossed the Dutch, or Danish coast, and at Pocklington they had a, what was then, state of the art, new piece of radar equipment called H2S, height to surface. It was located in the aircraft itself and it sent out pulses to the ground, around the aircraft for ranges of fifteen to twenty miles, and the reflections that were received back were shown as bright specks on a cathode-ray tube, and the density of the reflections depended on whether the aircraft was flying over sea, land, hills, rivers, cities or lakes. So from this, a rough typographical map of the ground was, was translated, the quality of the picture varied but it was much better than what they’d had previously, and the map, was displayed on the cathode-ray screen. The best results were produced between land and sea, but if the navigator factored in his, his awareness of the ground position he could recognise coastlines, large rivers, lakes, sizeable towns, and other prominent features, both on the way to and back from the target. So he could use this information to plot the bearing and distance from these landmarks, and he could recalculate wind velocities, required tracks, ground speeds, and the ti- Critically the time that it would take to reach the target. So, with the help of H2S some more experienced navigators would have the ability to blind bomb, which- Blind bombing meant that you could reach your target without the need to use the markers dropped by the Pathfinders, and the Pathfinders incidentally also used the H2S equipment. H2S couldn’t be jammed, but the night fighters could home in on the H2S frequency if it was on continuously, and unfortunately this is something they didn’t know at the time, and some aircraft were shot down because of it and probably that accounts for the, the demise of dad’s aircraft later on. Another new piece of equipment was the air plot indicator, and this was available to the navigator by this time. That linked the gyrocompass and the airspeed indicator, gave a continuous read out of the air position in latitude and longitude, used for navigators, a navigation device but, you couldn’t rely on it entirely. So basically, the navigator had to use a combination of all the things that were available to him, and you know, his common sense and sometimes just basic geometry, when everything else failed. They had a handheld Ican that’s I-C-A-N computer, computer used in the original sense of the word there, something that calculated. It was a manually operating vectoring device, so they used that to plot a course, geometry really, calculate airspeed, make good their desired track and ground speed, and then they added that information into the main chart, and they also had radio bearings that were taken by the wireless operator and astro-sight shots[?], and they were converted into position lines by the use of almanacs, so basically, using the stars. But neither of the, these methods were practical when off- operating over enemy territory, because operational aircraft were growing faster, and the need to take evasion action at any moment because of flak or night fighters would mean that you, you didn’t have time to use these devices. And when no navigational aids were available, for some reason or some technical mishap, and map reading over cloud or at night, especially at high altitude, they’d have to resort to something called dead reckoning, and that required accurate plotting of air position, the use of wind velocities which had been supplied by the MET office officer, at the briefing before they left, and sometimes these were updated on route by radio, or the use of those calculated by the navigator en route. So they need to be modified all the time for changes to the forecast weather, to take account of wind velocity changes and any alterations in altitude, which might be caused for reasons that couldn’t be predicted. So, how did they prepare for a bombing mission? Well, it, it was a lengthy procedure, it occupied a good part of the day prior to the night's operation. So, the first thing that would happen would be mid-morning, ‘ops on’ would be announced, if there was to be a raid that night. So the ground crew would be busy checking each aircraft radar, guns, engines, filling the wing tanks with over two-thousand gallons of fuel. Armourers would load the guns with ammunition, and bring up and mount a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs ‘cause there were two types in the bay, in the bomb bays for that night's target. So these bombs were stored in a remote part of the airfield for safety obviously, behind blast walls, and they had to be fused for the target and towed along on long low trolleys you see that a lot in the old films, and towed by tractor to the des- The aircraft dispersal points, and although the target wasn’t disclosed at this point, because of the strict security rules, you know, walls have ears and all of that, ground crews would have a good idea from the amount of fuel loaded and the type of bomb load where the target would be. So more fuel meant further east, further north, further away. So about the same time as the ground crew were doing all these things, the aircrew would be briefed, so I will try- I can’t remember where it was, I think it, I think it might have been at, at Elvington we, we went to a re-enactment of one of these briefings and dad said it was very good, so I’ve actually experienced this as well because, you know, you have the sort of flip chart with a map on it and then, you know, they lift up the blanket and you see Berlin and everybody gasps and, you know, Dad said it was, it was just like that. Although it is actually done quite well in some of the films as well. So, there’d be a leader for each discipline, so the pilots would have a speaker, the navigators, the bomb aimers and so on, and the navigators would be the busiest, they’d be issued with flight plans, meteorological information. They’d be the first to know the target, because they’d have to plot the route on their chart and smaller topographical maps, and then they would highlight towns, lakes, rivers so that they, you know, could, could recognise them when they were flying over them, familiarise themselves with the territory. Initial courses and airspeeds would be calculated from the wind velocities supplied, and these would be modified as more information was gained from Gee and H2S during the flight. So, the navigators- It was essential that they kept, were kept to their prescribed altitudes, tracks and timetables. This was to maintain the concentration of the bomber stream, in order to keep to their time slot over the target, which was no more than three minutes long so, it was really important that people, you know, did exactly what, what they’d been told to do and didn’t deviate from it. So, the aircrew would then go to the mess, have their operational meal of eggs and bacon, which was a treat because civilians were lucky to get one egg a month, they’d fill their thermos flask with coffee, draw their flying rations of chocolate and orange juice to sustain them, during the long night, and they’d also have available caffeine tablets to keep them alert. Then they’d get the briefing, so everybody due to be on operational duty that night, about a hundred-and-fifty personnel, were assembled in front of a large war map of Europe showing the route and the target. If it was to be the big city, Berlin, a gasp would go round the hut. This was considered to be the most dangerous target of all. The briefing was carried out by the squadron commander, the intelligence officer, the MET officer, and any other specialist whose views were pertinent to that night's raid, so that could depend on what the target was and what the purpose was. So the briefing would cover the size of the bombing force, the objective, of any diversionary raids taking place, ‘cause sometimes they’d have a decoy to put the Germans off the scent, the weather expected en route, and when returning to base, the forecast wind changes, the extent of cloud cover en route and over the target, and icing risks at various altitudes and obviously that would depend on the time of year as well, how the Pathfinders would be marking the route and the target, and any hot spots, danger spots for flak and night fighters, and then all personnel, especially navigators were asked to synchronise their watches to the second, to GMT. Then they would draw their parachutes and their Mae Wests, their life jackets, they left any personal items in a bag to be picked up if and when they returned, and departed by truck to the dispersal points and there they had time to smoke a cigarette outside, not frowned upon in those days, and then to check their equipment thoroughly before they took off. The air gunners would check their guns over the North Sea, and there’s a, there’s a nice little line drawing somewhere of the, the crew all having a pee against the side of the aircraft which was partly ‘cause it was more difficult to have a pee once you were inside the aircraft, but also, I think it was a kind of macho good luck, you know, boys' game. There’s a great little line drawing of it somewhere, I can’t remember where I saw it. Sometimes they’d get to this point and they’d have to wait for clearance of fog, the MET officer would’ve guaranteed that it would clear otherwise they wouldn’t have gone through the whole process, but sometimes it didn’t, and if it didn’t the whole operation would have to be aborted, and I think that must’ve been one of the most frustration things because they’ve all- The adrenaline’s flowing and then you’ve got to come down and you haven’t actually got anything to show for it. So, assuming it wasn’t aborted, at last it was time to take off, the crews were directed by the airfield controller to the runway. Many of the ground crew would then wave them off into the darkness, I think they felt a sense of ownership of, whatever plane they’d been working on, so they’re very much part of the team although they weren’t in front line. Then for the people in the air commenced the long ordeal, five to eight hours of freezing cold, heavy vibration, incessant roar of the four Rolls Royce Merlin engines in the case of the Halifax, in an unpressurised aircraft until they returned, hopefully unscathed, in the early hours of the following morning. When they got back they were debriefed, they were given hot coffee, a tot of rum by the padre, and again, this, you see this in some of the better films, and the- They had to be debriefed by an intelligence officer, who took notes about the bombing run, any details of flak and night fighters, information that could all be used to improve safety on subsequent flights, and then they had egg, bacon breakfast and trekked back to the huts, crawled into bed and tried to get some sleep and wait for the next one. Okay, so, they- Their first operation was a mine laying trip, called- Also known as gardening and planting vegetables, that’s the kind of code for it. This, that, that, this was supposed to be an easy, an easy option ‘cause it was not as dangerous obviously as bombing raid over a major city. So this was the 2nd of October 1943, and they- When they got about half way across the North Sea, towards Denmark, the flight- The, the pilot, Harvey, asked Laurie, the bomb aimer to take over the controls while he went to the toilet, and Laurie had never, he would’ve had some training to assist the pilot but not in flying the plane, and Laurie had never sat in the pilot seat of a Halifax before, and there he was on his first ever mission at the controls while the pilot went to the toilet. So, as they, as they approached the enemy coast, Laurie, the bomb aimer is at the controls never having- I don’t even know if he could drive a car, and Harvey had this urgent call of nature, and- Anyway, so, you, at this point there were no events, dad said if they’d actually thought about the magnitude of what was going on, you know, they’d of all jumped out, but anyway, when they passed over the cloa-, the coast there was a loud bang, which lifted up the aircraft, and at this point the Gee and the H2S went out of action, so they got to Denmark without these navigational aids, and they opened the bomb doors and they made their, their dropping run at eight thousand feet, tried to release the mines but they wouldn’t drop. So they tried to liberate them manually, but they couldn’t get them out, and Harvey the pilot, at this point decided to return to base with the mines on board, and he tried to close the bomb doors but they wouldn’t shut, so it was obvious that their hydraulic system had been damaged, as well as the radar equipment probably by flak. So they went down to two thousand feet to get under the cloud base, and got caught up in some nasty electric storms. But without technical navigational aids, dad had to pick out land fall as soon as possible, it was down to dead reckoning, and this was his first flight [chuckles], operational flight. So they didn’t need oxygen at this height, so dad decided he’d got to the loo as well. So he went to visit the Elsan at the rear of the aircraft, and he took a torch and he groped his way to the back, and he was just stepping over the main spar when he noticed a gaping hole beneath him, and had he completed the step he would’ve fallen two thousand feet into the North Sea without a parachute. So at this point he decided to wee through the hole, rather than complete the journey to the Elsan, and he returned to the nose to confirm to Harvey that there was no doubt that they had been hit by flak. So he had a drink of coffee to restore his nerves, but the damage was quite considerable. So, when the flaps and the wheels were lowered for landing, the bomb doors, flaps and wheels could not be raised again, which meant that if they were to overshoot the runway on landing, they would crash with two mines still on board. So they knew, you know, that, that, they were in great danger, and so they crossed Flamborough head on the north, North Yorkshire coast, and dad’s dead reckoning brought them back on course and they landed safely. But on landing one of the mines fell out onto the runway, and at the dispersal point the ground staff were amazed that in these circumstances they’d survived without a scratch. They thought the aircraft would be scrapped because the damage was very considerable, there was a lot of shrapnel holes and so on, but it was repaired and it went off to be used in other missions, and eventually was shot down with the loss of all crew, but that’s not dad’s crew, that was, this was another crew. So the upshot of this was that dad- After the war dad read flight- The pilot’s statement on that, this mission and he found it to be totally inaccurate, there’s no mention of the flak damage, or having to bring the mines back, although it is in the Pocklington station records, and dad believed that Harvey wanted to have an unblemished tour of operations on his record, you know, so dad, dad was very much a man of honesty and everything was meticulous and he was- That’s why he made such a good navigator, but he lived his whole life like that and he didn’t like- It disturbed him to think that other people could, could bend the rules for their own purposes which is what this amounted to. Having had a near miss, the mid-upper gunner reported sick before the next operation, never flew again, and sadly was labelled LMF, lack of moral fibre, reduced to AC2 and posted to Elvington for general duties. So, he said that because the losses were so high at the time this was at the peak really of the dangerous period, one crew hardly got to know each other before- One crew hardly ever got to know another crew at the base before one of the two crews went missing, you know, you’d notice, you get back to the base there’d be a number of empty beds and you’d learn that they’d not come back, and you wouldn’t ever necessarily know what had happened to them. Every mission to Germany, especially to Berlin was like going over the top, in the First World War, according to Dad, that risky. A success- A succession of these raids could bring on exhaustion, nerves, to anybody however strong they were mentally, and the threat of being branded LMF was made to avoid the eventuality where aircrew would just refuse collectively to, to fly. He said only 0.4% of all aircrew were branded LMF but it’s surprising actually, and he, he thought it was a huge injustice when you considered there were many civilians of military age in reserved occupations, who’d never have been exposed to such risks. Anyway, after this, first operation, the squadron navigation officer decided to check my dad’s log and chart, and he found both completely accurate, commended dad on the results, which he knew had been made under testing conditions and subsequently informed dad that he was recommending him for a commission, so it looked like he was going to get his commission after the war. So it made up for having missed it before by a few marks. So, the next operation was supposed to be to Frankfurt but the pilot decided to turn back, less than a hundred miles from target. It, it was frustrating for everybody else, being so near the target, because the raid turned out to be the first serious blow to Frankfurt and, later the flight engineer went sick and did not fly again. The next flight was to Hannover, this one preceded without mishap, and then they thought, okay things are looking up, we’ll- Looks like we’re gonna be successful crew, but then they didn’t fly on any more operations in October, remember that the position of Harvey as a, as a, as a- His promoted position meant that they didn’t fly perhaps as frequently as other crews, and they, in fact they never flew again with him, because he, although officially he did remain the A flight commander until the end of November. So dad got his commission, Gus Walker confirmed that dad was being recommended for it and he was interviewed for it, and during that meeting my father learnt that the pilot Harvey was being withdrawn from operational flying because he’d had enough. But he did get his DFC, and that was described as long overdue for his tours in the Middle East, but dad had a different view. So, now they’ve lost their second pilot and they’re a headless crew again, so during that period they all flew as spares. Dad hated this. Flying as a spare meant you replaced a crew member in another crew who as sick or otherwise unable to fly. It was very demoralising because you didn’t have any of the team spirit and trust in each other that you had when you were flying with a regular crew. You were just a floating part, you had little or no faith in the crew that you were joining for that night and they probably didn’t have any faith in you either, ‘cause they didn’t know you, and it was bad for morale of everybody. So, Laurie, the bomb aimer, John the rear gunner, and Dad, the original three, flew as spares for the next five or so operations and the wireless operator had disappeared. So-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Janet Hughes, One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Meanwell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-02
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHughesJ171102
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:06:41 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Janet Hughes’ father, Reginald Charles Wilson, volunteered for the RAF in August 1941. In January 1942, he was posted to America under the Arnold training scheme and was later remustered to train as a navigator in Canada. After forming a crew at RAF Kinloss in 1943, the pilot was killed in action, so they located another pilot while converting to Halifaxes at RAF Rufforth before joining 102 Squadron. Hughes describes Wilson’s use of Gee and H2S, and how anti-aircraft fire damaged his navigational instruments during his first operation, forcing them to land with mines on board.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Moray Firth
United States
Georgia--Albany
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
102 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
briefing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Kinloss
RAF Pocklington
RAF Rufforth
sanitation
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/887/11126/AHughesJ171123.2.mp3
33dfe3a2b506d35007a636f6c426d4e4
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
Hughes, Janet
J Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Janet Hughes (b. 1958) about her father Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923). He served in Bomber Command.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-23
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hughes, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Janet Hughes. The interview is taking place at Mrs Hughes’ home in Farnham in Surrey on the 23rd of November 2017, and is the second interview with Mrs Hughes. If we could perhaps pick up from where we left off, where they’re now continuing to fly as spare bods without a settled crew?
JH: Okay. Well, a month elapsed, I don’t know quite why that was for operational reasons since the previous flight, and dad’s next operation as a spare was mine laying, which I think was fairly uneventful, that was on the 11th of November 1943, which coincidentally is seventy-three years before his death. The next one was a trip to Mannheim and Ludwigshafen; this was one of the diversionary raids which were organised to- As a decoy to deflect the German attention from the main target which was Berlin. So, they did it hoping that the, the fighters would think that was the main raid and therefore the less- Berlin would be less heavily defended. The next one, on the 22nd of November was a very big one, very famous raid, it was the second of the battles collectively known as the Battle of Berlin. It was the third heaviest of the entire war, and also the most successful, because there was considerable damage to industry and munitions factories, in particular. An interesting point of that raid from my point of view, as Reg’s daughter, is that the Kaiser Wilhelm church in the centre of Berlin was badly damaged. Now the Kaiser Wilhem Gedächtniskirche was a, a two-towered cathedral-like church in the centre of Berlin with many precious artefacts and, and paintings, and it was almost completely destroyed, and it was big landmark and still is a big landmark, was one of the iconic landmarks of Berlin that you think of when you think of Berlin. After the war the decision was made to keep the ruins as a reminder of the destruction of war, and the, and the, and the heartache that it causes and a brand new cathedral was erected by its side, not in any way trying to replicate the original church ‘cause it’s very modern and I think the tower is- Well certainly I think the main church is hexagonal and it’s very sort of geometrical- Looks like a hat box, and it’s entirely glazed with glass which I believe was a gift from Chatres in France as a sort of peace thing, and it’s very, predominantly blue, and when you sit in the modern church you kind of have a sense- Almost a sensation of being underwater. It’s very beautiful, I mean it’s very stark in many ways ‘cause it’s very modern but it’s also very beautiful, and like Coventry Cathedral it sits aside the, the, the original church. One little point of interest here is that in 2005, when we were back on a, on a research visit to Berlin about which, more later, I asked my father what he wanted to see, you know, what he wanted to visit in Berlin ‘cause we’d- I was teaching at the time and it was half term, we didn’t have very long. So, I said, ‘Look, you know, we’ve got a couple of days, what are your priorities?’ and straight away he identified that church as a priority which surprised me ‘cause he wasn’t in any sense a religious man, and when I- I kind of said to him, well, you know, ‘Why do you want to see that, do you want to see the outside or do you want to go inside?’, ‘No, I want to go inside,’ and when we got there, I’d seen it before ‘cause I’ve been to Berlin many, many times and dad just sat there for- with my mum, for quite a long time just, you know, staring into space seemingly, and the significance of it wasn’t lost on me because it was a church which theoretically, he could’ve bombed personally, because he was on that raid and I think he was making his peace. He never said so, but I think that’s what was going on. Anyway, dad’s plane on the mission of the 22nd of November,that particular bombing raid, dad’s plane was unscathed but it did have a near miss on the way back to Pocklington in Yorkshire, when two other planes that were very close to dad’s plane, collided on their attempt to land, and with the loss of all lives of both crews. So, you know, you could, you could return from a hair-raising trip like that and then get killed over, over the Yorkshire countryside on your way home, that was, that was the lottery of Bomber Command. So, three days later dad did another trip to Frankfurt, on the 25th, which I don’t think was a particularly eventful trip, but then they were called again [emphasis], the following night and pepped up with caffeine and pink gins on the 26th of November. That was another diversionary raid, because the main bomber thrust was going to Berlin. So that’s the 22nd, the 25th, and the 26th, so what kind of physical and mental state they must’ve been after three raids in four nights I cannot imagine. Dad was due to do another flight as a spare and I think this must’ve been shortly afterwards although the date isn’t specified in his, in his notes, and that one was aborted because the plane on which he was flying as a spare taxied into mud, and was unable to take off, and dad was quite relieved about that because I think he, he just didn’t have any confidence in, in the crews that he was flying with as a spare. That turned out to be the last mission that he flew with as a spare because not long afterwards they crewed up again. December ‘43 was quite a quiet month, that’s because there was a full moon, now earlier in the war when there was a full moon, they all used to think, ‘Oh good,’ you know, ‘We’ve got good visibility,’ and it was even known as a bomber’s moon. But as the German defences improved, they learnt that it was not a clever idea to fly when there was a full moon because not only could they see very much more easily, but they could also be seen, and there were quite a lot of occasions when they entire bomber stream was, was identified early on by the, the flak and the night fighters with catastrophic results, so, you know, they basically learnt not to, not to fly on those nights. Also, during December there was a period of poor weather, of other kinds that, that made flying not a good idea. So, they’d gone sort of quite a long time before they were crewed up. Now, the final crew, and this is important because this was, this was my dad’s, you know- This is the crew that I’m still in touch with, or at least I’m in touch with the second generation, because my late father was the last member of this crew alive, and he died a year ago. So, the full crew was- The pilot was Flight Officer George Griffiths DFM, he was on his second tour so he was a very experienced pilot. There was a second dickie pilot, with them. Now, second dickie pilots were those who’d completed their training but who flew as spares in the sense that they were observers, and I think they had to do two of these before they were allowed to, to command their own crew. So, the second dickie pilot, who as the eighth member of what would normally be a seven-man crew, was Sergeant Kenneth Stanbridge. Then there was the flight engineer, Sergeant John Bremner who had done previous ops, the wireless operator, Eric Church, who was a flight sergeant, he had done previous ops, and the mid-upper gunner, Flight Sergeant Charles Dupueis, who was a Canadian. It says in dad’s notes that he was a French Canadian but I’ve, in- Since I’ve published the book, I’ve been in touch through Facebook with relatives and it turns out that he, he wasn’t a French speaker at all, and that also perhaps accounts for the misspelling of the surname, because it’s not the conventional spelling of Dupueis, and I think if there was French blood it was obviously several generations back because he wasn’t a French speaker. Dad found it surprising that now these five people had, had been teamed up for that night’s operations, and theoretically for future operations with the exception of Stanbridge, with the original crew, or the remains of the original crew that is, Johnny Bushell the rear gunner, Laurie Underwood the bomb aimer, and my father the, the navigator, you, you would’ve expected that a new crew would’ve been given time to gel and would’ve been sent on some training flights, or some reconnaissance flights or something before they were sent off on an important mission. But that was not to be, and on the 29th of December, which again was the third anniversary to the night of the bombing raid on the city of London which provided my father’s inspiration to join the RAF in the first place, that’s the famous raid with the, iconic picture of St Paul‘s with everything around it in ruins, and this was exactly three years to the night from that raid and my dad was bombing Berlin, you know, getting them, getting. them back if you like. Although, he was not a vindictive man, it’s somewhat of an irony that three years later he was bombing Berlin. So, it was the eighth raid on Berlin by the RAF, it was the fifth heaviest, seven-hundred-and-twelve aircraft took part, two-thousand-three-hundred-and-twelve tonnes of incendiaries and high explosives were dropped in twenty minutes. From dad’s point of view, it was uneventful, from the point of view of not being shot at. He remembers seeing the Zuiderzee on the radar screen, using H2S on the way out. Bad weather had restricted the German night fighters to sixty-six, but due to two spoof raids by RAF Mosquitos the night fighters reached Berlin too late to be effective and this, this contributed to the success of the raid, in terms of the damage that it caused. They dropped their bombs from seventeen-and-a-half-thousand feet, on the target indicators but they couldn’t see whether or not they’d caused any damage. Sometimes you get these photographs where you can actually see the, the fires. That was due to the fact that there was ten-tenths cloud cover. The overall losses that night were only two-point-eight percent, which is lower than many of the other Berlin raids, but 102 Squadron, dad’s squadron, yet again managed to beat the average with two aircraft missing, and on one of the aircraft that was shot down, one of the crew members was named Harold Par, and he was on his first op, and he later became a POW in the same camp as my father, Stalag 4B and he was in the same hut as my father, and about- Let me think, this would be about twenty years later, he was living in Chigwell in Essex, and his son was in the same class at Buckhurst Hill Boys Grammar School as my brother. So, my brother and Howard, who was Harold’s son became good friends and when, their fathers met, so that’s my father and, and Howard’s father, they realised that they’d been in the same POW hut, and in the same squadron, and on the same raid. So that’s, that's a pretty good set of coincidences, such is life. So, we move into 1944, and January ‘44 began as another month of inactivity, bad weather, another full moon, and the combination of these two events meant that there was a reluctance to send Halifax Mk 2’s to Berlin because they were being recognised by then as increasingly vulnerable, and in many squadrons they were already being replaced by the Mk 3’s which were less vulnerable. However, another maximum effort to attack Berlin was required, so dad’s second operation with the full crew including the second dickie pilot, Stanbridge, was scheduled for the 20th of January 1944. This was six days before my father’s twenty-first birthday, so he’s twenty. So, dad was responsible as one of the four navigators operating HS2, sorry H2S, get it confused with the railway H2S equipment in 4 Group. 4 Group comprised fifteen squadrons, totalling between two-hundred-and-fifty and three-hundred aircraft. Dad had to radio interview- intervals his calculated wind velocities back to Group, to 4 Group, and they would average the readings from the four navigators and rebroadcast them to the whole of 4 Group to, enable them to concentrate the bomber stream. Dad was also due to do his own blind bombing that night. Now blind bombing means, when they weren’t bombing on Pathfinder markers using H2S, to identify the homing point, for a timed run. Now they only gave this to navigators with a good track record obviously because most of the others would, would follow the Pathfinder markers. So, dad was effectively a Pathfinder. The bombing raid was to be the ninth raid on Berlin, and the fourth heaviest. Seven-hundred-and-sixty-nine aircraft took part, two-thousand-four-hundred tonnes of incendiary and high explosive bombs were dropped in twenty minutes. It was considered to have been successful, although less concentrated than planned, and perhaps less successful than the one in December, which I mentioned earlier. Due to bad weather again over Germany the night fighters were limited to nighty-eight but they were experienced crews, and they were equipped with something called Schräge Musik which is- It means jazz, jazz music. That was code for upward-firing cannon, radar interception and critically H2S homing devices, and I think at this stage, they weren’t- They didn’t realise that the night fighters could home in on the H2S. It was a kind of cat and mouse scenario with the technology because each side would produce something new and then the other side would find a way to disable it, and so if you happened to be in the period where they just learnt how to intercept your new piece of technology and you didn’t know, it would make you very vulnerable. The night fighters, which were all twin engined were operating a new technique called tame boar. This meant they were directed by ground control into the bomber stream at intervals and over the target, and after this they were on their own really, they could fly freelance and use their own equipment to seek out bombers, fly beneath them out of sight of the gunners and fire cannon shells into the petrol laden wings, completely invisible. Additionally, on this night thin cloud covering Berlin with tops at about twelve-thousand feet was illuminated from below by many searchlights, so it’s, you know- It meant that they were effectively backlit, and the night fighters flying above the bomber stream could, could locate them, silhouetted against the bright backcloth, like back projection. So despite the limitations of night fighters, it was a highly successful night for them. They claimed thirty-three victories, nine of them over Berlin, out of the thirty-five bombers lost that night. So presumably the other two were flak but it meant that the night fighters had a fiesta, and in fact, there is some footage on YouTube from a, a German propaganda film bit like Pathé news which features the pilot responsible for the demise of five aircraft that night, and I’ll come back to him later. So, preparations; dad’s plane LW 337 Halifax Mk 2 Series IA took off at sixteen-thirty-hours GMT, in, in the- The plane was, as I’ve just said LW 337 was nicknamed Old Flo by the ground crew, something to do with the red- With the, with the numbers that were painted on the side, and they were soon flying above the ten tenths cloud. So first they used Gee, radar, and then H2S to map read. They flew uninterrupted on a northerly route into Germany turning south east sixty miles from Berlin. Berlin is a large city and there were too many stray reflections on the H2S screen to be able to identify the target position. Dad was instructed personally at the navigators briefing in Pocklington to identify a turning point. Taking a precise bearing, and distance on his screen of a small town doesn’t name it about ten miles north of Berlin and that was the commencement of a timed bombing run to the target which was Hitler’s chancery, and they flew in straight and level at eighteen-thousand feet, maintaining a pre-calculated track and groundspeed at the time set by stopwatches, and they dropped their bombs at twenty-hundred hours, GMT. Unfortunately, this procedure made them a sitting target for the night fighters because they’d hardly closed their bomb doors when they were hit by one of these aircraft. We had- They had trailed behind, this is the night fighters, this particular one had trailed behind and below dad’s plane waiting for the bombs to be released, obviously they didn’t want to be shooting at you before then ‘cause they might get in the way of the bombs, and then they fired the cannon shells upwards into the starboard wing, where there were more than a thousand gallons of petrol still aboard. A lot of petrol obviously needed for the return trip, so two-thousand gallons to start with, and if you got them over the target, half of that was still in the tanks, and it was only seconds before the whole wing caught fire. Dad can remember Griff, the pilot George Griffiths shouting, ‘Graviners engineer.’ The graviners were switches used to activate the fire extinguishers for the engines, but it was to no avail and the blaze was so fierce that Griff realised that the aircraft was stricken, that there was nothing he could do, and so he immediately called, ‘Parachute, parachute, bale out’. Now dad was already wearing his parachute I think in an earlier interview I explained that after a near miss he used to put it on over the target and pull up his navigation seat to facilitate quick access to the escape hatch and so, he lifted the escape hatch door and dropped it diagonally through the hatch itself, but it caught in the slip stream and jammed half in and half out. With dad’s efforts combined with those of the wireless operator Eric Church and Laurie Underwood, the bomb aimer, they did manage to kick the door clean. So, he- Dad sat on the edge of the escape hatch and dropped through immediately, followed closely by Laurie. This was truly a leap of faith, a leap into the dark with fingers and toes crossed. They had no idea what would happen next. They were surrounded by flak, searchlights, well-illuminated, very vulnerable. The wireless operator had no time to follow them, although he’d helped to kick out the escape hatch, he perished with the plane. Dad believes that after Laurie dropped out the blazing aircraft went out of control and into a spiral dive. So, dad and Laurie baled out at seventeen-thousand feet. Dad spun over a few times and then pulled the ripcord. The canopy opened, and when the harness tightens around his crotch this is in his own notes he said it brought him to his senses in double quick time. Sure all the men amongst you can understand why that might be. Below him and to his left he could see another parachute and to this day he doesn’t know whether it was Laurie’s or not but, obviously we know that Laurie survived, and Dad and Laurie didn’t actually see each other again until Laurie’s wedding after the war, in June 1945. So, dad was floating on a layer of light cloud, or over, over a layer of light cloud I should say, and he could see the glow of the fires beneath it with heavy flak, tracer shells, hose piping around in the sky, and he floated down for ten to fifteen minutes, which is incredible when you think of being that vulnerable for a whole ten to fifteen minutes, it’s quite unthinkable. He said he didn’t feel cold, doesn’t remember feeling cold, although at the altitude when he, where he baled out it would’ve been about minus thirty-four Celsius. There was a sixty mile-an-hour northerly wind prevailing, and this was, you know, 20th of January so, pretty damn cold. But because of the wind he drifted away from the centre of the city which, which might well of saved his life, because he was out of the hot spot so to speak. His, his sensations were of silence. The deafening noise from the aircraft’s engine which was present all the time during the night, during the flight, had gone, and once he’d blown away from the target, there was, the sound of the flak had died away too, so there’s this uncanny silence, and blackness as he descended through the cloud, and as he got near the ground, he thought he was gonna land in marshes because in the light that was available it looked like marshland. So, he thought he was gonna need his Mae West life jacket. So, as he, as he got closer it- He realised that what he could see beneath him wasn’t actually marshland but a canopy of trees in a small wood, that turned out to be a southern suburb of Berlin. So, he crashed through the trees, fell the last fifteen feet and his injuries amounted to a grazed face and a sprained ankle. Remarkable that these were the only injuries he sustained. So, in fewer than twenty minutes his life had gone through a dramatic change. He survived by a hair's breadth, a mix of emotions, elated at being alive but then what of his crew? He had no idea whether any of them had survived. He thought about his family, and how they would suffer when they were informed by telegram the next morning that he was missing. A few hours beforehand he’d been eating egg and bacon only available before operational flights in the mess at Pocklington with his aircrew colleagues all around him, laughing and joking. The friendly town of York, twelve miles away, and imminent home leave to get his officer's kit. Well, that wasn’t going to happen now. He was in hostile Germany, in south eastern suburbs, he wondered what would happen if he were caught by civilians, having just bombed their city. Nobody here would care whether he lived or died. It was the depths of winter, he was in enemy territory six-hundred miles from home, and on him he had some French francs they weren’t going to be much use, a handkerchief with a map of France printed on it equally useless, and a magnetic trouser button with a white spot on it, which when cut off the flies and balanced on a pencil point would point north, so that’s his compass, high tech. Oh, and a tin of Horlicks tablets, which was all he had to sustain him while he evaded capture and made his way back to England. He was still in his flight sergeants' uniform, in spite of having been commissioned on the 1st of December, nearly two months previously, and he was five days away from his twenty-first birthday. So, he walked because he had nothing, there’s nothing else he could do, and about eight hours later he disturbed a dog while trying to hide in a barn, and at this point he was captured by the civilian police. What had happened to the crew? Well, we now know that Laurie had blacked out during part of his parachute drop, but landed uninjured and he was captured by the military. Also, something that dad didn’t know till later only four of the crew of eight came through the ordeal. So, the two survivors that we, we suspected were dad and Laurie, the one who followed him out through the escape hatch. The other two survivors had an even more miraculous escape because Griff, the pilot, and Johnny really, just, just benefitted from extraordinary good luck. Because after Laurie and dad had baled out, the aircraft had gone into a spiral dive and Griff, the pilot, was thrown forward onto the controls and he was held in his seat by the, the g-force of the spiral dive and he saw the altimeter this is in his own notes which I also have, he saw the altimeter unwind past seven-thousand feet, and basically wondered how long before the end came, and at that point he lost consciousness, trapped in, in the cockpit. Dad believes that the petrol tanks exploded, ‘cause there’s no other explanation, there was no escape hatch, and Griff was blown out and he had his parachute on, at some point he must’ve put that on, and he regained consciousness just in time to pull the rip cord, a couple of hundred feet from the ground, and he knows this because his parachute was still swinging like a pendulum when he landed. What normally happens is it swings like a pendulum and then eventually reaches equilibrium and then you go down straight, but he was still swinging, so, you know, it must’ve been a matter of minutes, maybe seconds since it opened, and he thumped down among debris from the aircraft on waste ground, in Berlin, quite a long way from dad ‘cause, you know, they didn’t obviously get out at the same time and the aircraft continued to travel. He was uninjured but in shock, he wrapped himself up in the parachute and went to sleep under a bush, and he was discovered the next morning by a party of civilians, led by a soldier. Now Johnny the rear gunner, he was thrown over his guns during the spiral dive and also lost consciousness and he came to in the air. So, he must’ve been blown out as well. In similar circumstances to Griff, he opened his parachute near the ground but he landed close to a searchlight battery and so he was captured immediately, so there was no delay as there was with dad and the other two. He had a bad cut over his right eye and a bruised face but otherwise was alright, and one thing that dad always stressed was that the four crew who were killed were those who were, were new to them. He believes that the bond that he and- Certainly that he and Laurie and Johnny had had, had somehow kept them safe. The wireless operator- So of the four who perished, the wireless operator and the co-pilot were eventually buried in the British war cemetery in Charlottenburg in, in Berlin, having previously been buried just, you know, where, where there was a space. So, one was buried in, I think in Spandau and the other one was taken to a civilian graveyard about fifty miles east, ‘cause basically they just had to put them where they had spaces, and then later they were, they were exhumed and buried in the war cemetery. An interesting point is that when Griff, the pilot, was asked by the German military, ‘Tell us the name of your wireless operator, so that we can bury him with a name’. So, you know, I expect, Griff must’ve thought well, you know, ‘should I give them this information?’ But otherwise, he would’ve been buried, you know, in an unmarked grave, and because of Griff he, his name was on his grave. Now the flight engineer, and the mid-upper gunner were neither found, nor identified, and having no known graves, they were remembered only on the war memorial at Runnymede. Another point, the mid upper gunner the, the Canadian, Dupueis he’d avoided an assignment to Berlin on his thirteenth operation because he’d been, he’d been drafted to a comparatively safe mission instead and so, the one to Berlin turned out to be his fourteenth operation but it turned out to be just as unlucky as thirteen. He carried a lucky rabbit's foot with him, but it didn’t help him. Another thing, the, the flight- The wireless operator, Eric Church, had taken some milk from the sergeants mess for his own use, and my father had seen this, and had criticised him, saying you know, that’s not for civilians, that’s for us. What dad didn’t know at the time was that he, he had taken the milk for his young wife who was living near Pocklington and who was expecting a baby, and, my dad was destined to meet that baby later on in 2008. He lives just outside Southampton and I am in fairly regular contact with him, so that's a nice little story. After the war, dad realised that not only was the 20th of January 1944 a big night for him, but it was recorded by both sides as one of unprecedented activity. Fifty years later, through the help of a German archivist, they discovered that the plane had been shot down by an ace night fighter Pilot Hauptmann Leopold Fellerer, in a twin-engine Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4. He had forty-one victories to his credit, over the war, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross, and that night had shot down five aircraft including dad’s. He became gruppenkommandeur of the night fighter group and later became a high-ranking officer in the Austrian air force, and ironically was killed in a Cessna flying accident in 1968. In 2005 the German archivist had provided dad with a map of Berlin showing approximately where the aircraft had crashed, which was about seven miles southeast of Hitler‘s chancery, at [unclear] and this confirms that they were on target that night as the crash point was on our track less than two minutes flying distance from the time when they’d released their bombs. So if you do all the maths you can see that they must’ve been bang on the target at eight o’ clock. So, there’s an extract here from the 102 operational record which is held on the microfilm at the public records office in Kew so it says, ‘Weather: foggy, clearing later. Visibility: moderate to good. Wind: southerly, 20 to 25 mph’. Sixteen aircraft were detailed to attack Berlin on what proved to be probably the most disastrous operation embarked upon by 102 Squadron. It’s- Who suffered the loss of five crews, Griffis DFM, that’s dad’s crew Dean, Render, Wilding, Compton. Two other aircraft were lost in Britain, so one had to abandon the aircraft because they ran out of petrol and another one crashed near Norwich, and the bomb- The air bomber died of his injuries. So, seven of the sixteen aircraft from that squadron were lost that night. That’s nearly fifty-percent, and five crews were lost, and this exceptional night of misfortune was never repeated, within that squadron anyway. So that was the end of dad’s time in Bomber Command, so after reforming as a full crew, they’d only done two operations, and that for dad made ten in all. But in spite of that they’ll go down in the annals of 102 Squadron as having been shot down on the night when the squadron suffered the loss of seven out of sixteen operation aircraft, or forty-four-percent of the planes that flew that night, and that’s a loss which is greater than any other operation in the squadron’s history in both World Wars. Dad also appended that 102 Squadron was not a lucky squadron. After that disastrous night another four aircraft were lost the following night to Magdeburg, so that was 21st of January, and shortly after this as the losses continued, they were stood down. Too late for dad, but they were stood down from operations over Germany. So, they did, you know, perhaps mine laying and, and trips to France, but they took them off the really perilous missions, and then the Halifax Mk 2’s were withdrawn, and they were replaced by the Mk 3’s, which were equal to the Lancasters of that time in their operational efficiency. But for dad’s crew the new aircraft arrived too late, otherwise they might’ve had a better chance of survival and they might’ve been able to complete at least one tour of thirty ops, and they might’ve been able to avoid ending up in captivity for the rest of the war. In the Second World War, 102 Squadron suffered the highest losses in the whole of Group 4 of bomber command, that’s fifteen squadrons and the third highest losses in the whole of bomber command, that’s ninety-three squadrons. [Beep] So, dad said that he’d disturbed a dog and the dog drew attention to dad and a farm worker, who was waking up- It was early morning, I don’t know exactly what time but this, this farm- He was a kind of overseer and he was going round and knocking on doors of all the agricultural workers to wake them up, and he handed dad over to a couple of policemen, one of whom had a revolver and the other one had a pair of handcuffs, but they indicated to dad that, you know, they wouldn’t use any kind of restraint or violence as long as he behaved himself. So, they walked him to the police station where my dad remembers being exhibited like a trophy to the policeman’s wife. He was searched and they took all his possessions away. Interestingly, they asked him if he was Jewish. My dad could’ve been Jewish if you look at the photograph in the book, you can see that he had very dark hair and quite a prominent nose although that was because he got hit by a cricket ball when he was twelve, but, you know, they wouldn’t know that, and it makes you wonder why they wanted to know because even if he had been Jewish, as a British POW, you know, they weren’t- There was a German Jew actually in my father’s POW camp, who was incarcerated there rather than in a concentration camp because he was a British POW and therefore under the protection of the Geneva convention. Anyway, another person who interviewed him was a very attractive young woman who had perfect English and appeared with, you know, very long legs and very long hair and dad said that, you know, she definitely improved his morale. Then he- They returned, I think, his cigarettes and he offered one to the policeman and they smoked them together. I don’t- They were clearly trying to get information at this point, but they weren’t- They were very correct. I don’t, I don’t think- They might’ve been a bit smug but, but, but he certainly wasn’t ill-treated by the police, he was fortunate to have been apprehended by authority rather than civilians because it’s well known that people who were initially found by civilians, if the civilians weren’t being monitored by anybody else, they sometimes, you know, applied their own sanctions and put pitchforks through people and so on, and that apparently increased towards the end of the war. But everybody knew that you were better off being apprehended by authorities particularly, well, military rather than gestapo. Then he was given a sandwich, which was wrapped in a newspaper with a very prominent piece of propaganda on it about the American [unclear] as they called them, and he said, you know, to his dying day he didn’t know whether that was a coincidence or whether it was deliberate. It gave him something to think about. Then he was taken by car to Werneuchen which was the night fighter station and, on this journey he, he was driven through the, the less damaged parts of Berlin. Again, I think that was deliberate to show him, you know, you haven’t actually inflicted any damage on our city. The route was very carefully chosen. From there he was in a guard house cell and he was, interviewed by a guard, who had been a bomber pilot over London, or so he claimed, and had you know participated in some of the Blitz raids, and my dad apparently quipped to him, ‘Now we are quits’. These people all had pretty good English and I’m sure he understood. He remembers a meal of macaroni pudding being given to him at this point, which was the first decent meal he’d had since he was shot down several days previously, and he said it was like a feast, never have macaroni- Tasted so good. From Werneuchen he was taken by underground to Spandau, and he said this was a very frightening experience because there were several captives and I think only one guard or two guards, certainly not enough to protect them if the civilians got nasty, and this was a very, very frightening experience because, you know, he thought he was gonna get lynched at any minute and they were all spitting and gesticulating and, you know, dad said he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t of wanted to be without the protections of the guards. In Spandau they were kept in a bunker to protect them from the bombs, their own bombs. There are- There were still no sign of his crew at this point but there were lots of others and obviously they shared stories, but at any moment they didn’t know whether they were being watched or listened to, so I don’t suppose the conversations were very natural. The food was very poor, in the bunker. Then there was another incident where they took all his possessions off him and a guard offered him one of his own cigarettes. From there they went by train to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt-am-Meim. This is where they were kept in solitary confinement in cells with a straw palias and the notorious electric heater, which was not just for their comfort but also for their discomfort because the temperature was intermittently turned up to, I think one-hundred-and-twenty degrees Celsius dad said, in order to try and make them crack. Here he met the notorious ‘Red Cross representative’ in inverted commas who asked them for lots of personal information over and over again, weren’t aggressive, but dad would’ve been warned about these people, they weren’t really anything to do with the Red Cross and he persisted in only giving his name, rank and number. So, there he is in the cell with a cigarette, which he couldn’t light because he didn’t have any matches, and he said he remembers picking a piece of straw up out of the palias and sticking it in the fire to see if he could make it light enough to light the cigarette, but it didn’t work. The interrogators showed him pictures of things like H2S and asked him what it was for and he said, ‘I don’t know,’ and they seemed to know an awful lot about the RAF and they knew which squadrons people had come from. Dad later realised that they were able to identify- They were able to work this out from the numbers painted on the sides of the planes which they could then link with squadrons. So, you know, they, they made it seem that they knew more about you then they actually did, but it was all done, well partly to demoralise you and partly to make you think, ‘Well they know that much, it won’t hurt if I tell them some more’. On my father’s twenty-first birthday, he asked- He told them it was his twenty-first birthday and he asked them if he could have a shave, and they duly provided him with a towel and hot water, and soap and a razor, and so on, which was a nice gesture, but not really what one hopes for their twenty-first birthday present. One of the interrogators told him that 102 Squadron were ‘one of our best customers,’ which dad just thought was bravado but when he got- Later when he was looking at the statistics, he found that they were right. His astro watch was never returned to him, it was formally confiscated and he, he had a receipt for it, which we still have, you know, and he did joke when we were in Berlin that he was going to go to the authorities and say ‘Right well here’s the receipt, can I have it back?’. Some of the other possessions, not the watch, were returned to him at this point, but not the rest of the cigarettes, and not his photographs. But, at this point he did meet up with Johnny, Johnny Bushell, his rear gunner, and he was overjoyed. They had no news of any of the others but they knew that at least two of them had survived. At the Dulag transit camp they were presented with a cardboard suitcase, by the Red Cross which contained basic items of underwear, toiletries and so on, and funnily enough a pair of pyjamas. At some point there was a cartoon with a- I think this was probably somebody in the prison camp, who, who did a cartoon of a guy coming down, you know, in a parachute having been shot down carrying a suitcase containing a pair of pyjamas as if, you know, they’d jumped out of the plane with them. In the transit camp the food was good, because it was provided by the Red Cross, and at this point dad was also able to send a postcard home to his parents, which we still have, saying that he was safe and they, that they mustn’t worry. Obviously wasn’t able to tell them where he was, and in any case, he was still in transit, he didn’t know where he was gonna go. So, from this, this transit camp, they were transported to, the prison camp that Johnny and my father were allocated to, which was Stalag 4B. This was in a series of cattle trucks, very similar to the ones that the Jews were moved to the concentration camps, that were marked forty men and eight horses, or something like that, in French. They were obviously rolling stock that had been commandeered and been taken from France because the signage was all in French, and that was a terrible journey taking a couple of days with only a bucket to pee in, in the corner. They couldn’t sit or lie down because they were rammed in so that they had to stand up. Every now and then the train would stop and they would all have to get off and defecate next to the line. The only slight relief that they had during that time was that they were able to eat some [emphasis] of the contents of the Red Cross parcels, but only that which didn’t require a can opener. Now, dad’s theory at this point was that he missed Griff and Laurie at the transit camp because they’d either arrived earlier or later, probably earlier, than Johnny and, and my father, and because they were both commissioned officers and could prove it, they went to a different camp anyway, they went to Stalag Luft 3, the scene of the great escape in Sagan which is in modern day Poland, but dad because he couldn’t prove his rank, and that was a critical point, that he couldn't prove that he had just been commissioned because he went with Johnny to Stalag 4B which was not an RAF camp specifically, and there my father remained for a year, until his commission came through at which point he left Johnny behind. Which I think cut him up quite a lot because they were muckers together, which meant they would share their rations and cooked for each other, but dad said at that point that Johnny was a very sociable type, unlike my dad actually who’s quite reserved and that dad felt sure that he would team up with some other people. Dad then went on to- Initially to a camp in Eichstätt in Bavaria which obviously was a long way away, and then towards the end of the war when everything started to fragment there was, there were a series of movements, all of which is described in great detail in my father's own words in our book, which is entitled “Into the Dark: A Bomber Command Story of Combat, Survival, Discovery and Remembrance.” It’s published- It was published in 2015 by Fighting High, and the authors are Janet Hughes née Wilson, myself, and Reginald Wilson, who was still alive at time of publication. [Beep]
DM: Do you have any idea how his time in Bomber Command, being shot down and later becoming a captive effected your father in later life?
JH: Well yes, I, I- My grandmother always said that he’d never been the same after the war, and yet I know other people who went through similar experiences to my father who, who, who had a more positive and optimistic view of life. So I think some of it was down to his personality. I think he as a child was a very shy little boy, he was very meticulous, he wasn’t very adventurous, he was very studious. You know, perhaps a bit reluctant to join in, that kind of thing, and a combination of that and the horrific experiences that he went through kind of shaped him forever. I, I keep meaning to ask my aunt, who’s still alive, she’s ninety-eight now, if she’s got any recollection of, you know, her impression of how he changed when he did come back, in 1945. During the prisoner of war as a- days, as I’ve said it was a, it was a, it was a Stalag, well the first year anyway it was a Stalag, they didn’t have enough to eat, they were very cold, they were quite bored a lot of the time although they did have an opportunity to study, and, you know, they, they put on musicals and that sort of thing. They weren’t badly treated really, they were just very, very hungry and cold and a lot of them succumbed to- As the place got more and more overcrowded, a lot of them succumbed to, you know, typhus and typhoid and, and TB and things like that, so certainly the people that were prisoners of war for a long time dad really only had a year in that very bad camp suffered more, more than he did. But- And then the, the second camp that he was in was, was, was much more comfortable but I think really the worst thing was the complete lack of privacy, that’s probably the worst thing of all, you know, never being able to be on your own, to do your own thing, being permanently surrounded by other people, and obviously you needed them for moral support but there must have been times when you just wanted to get away, you know, imagine going to the toilet with, with forty other people. Not even, you know, the most basic human, human functions being witnessed by thirty-nine other people. It must have been awful, and, and he was very private, always very private, you know, my parents never walked around without their clothes on, you know, like I sometimes do or, you know, they always locked the door of the bathroom and that kind of thing, and, and they were very kind of- Well that, that might’ve been a generational thing I don’t, I don’t know but I think when my dad did get home he cherished, you know, the ability to, to, to have privacy when you wanted it. When I was a child in the 1960’s his mental wounds were still too raw to allow him to talk to me about his experiences. He occasionally still had horrific nightmares which I remember really clearly. They caused him to sit bolt upright and scream, and I had an adjacent bedroom and I would wake up, it would be loud enough to disturb us even in a well-built house, you know, with brick walls not like in these days, the partition walls and I can remember, you know, going round and knocking on the bedroom door and saying, ‘Mummy what's happening,’ and she’d say, ‘Oh it’s alright, daddy’s had a bad dream, go back to sleep he’s alright now,’ and I must’ve thought, you know, that daddies had nightmares, that’s what daddies did in bed. I didn’t know any better, and I suppose I must’ve thought that it happened to all my friends’ fathers as well, I didn’t realise that dad was different, in that respect, but also, he was a bit older than a lot of my friends’ fathers because he was thirty-one when he married my mother, having been dumped by the woman who he was going out with before he got shot down, and he was thirty-two when my brother was born and thirty-five when I was born, so he was quite a lot older, probably ten years older than some of my friends’ fathers. So, by the 1970’s, I was at grammar school and I was studying German. He never had any objection to me studying German, I had a choice between German and Latin, my parents let me choose what I wanted to do. I don’t ever remember him questioning my desire to learn German or thinking it was a strange thing. He, he wasn’t anti-German, he never had been, he was anti-Nazi and he always made a distinction between those two things. He had a lot of respect for the Germans actually, because they were generally very law abiding and because dad was law abiding, he liked their formality in the fact that, you know, they always did things by the book. I think that kind of had a resonance with him really. In the sixth form, when I was studying German A-Level I also, as part of the course had to study modern history, as it related to Germany since the war and, and during the division of Germany ‘cause of course at that time the wall was still up and Germany was two countries, and you know, my father who had all these amazing stories to tell, couldn’t or wouldn’t share them with me and I don’t know whether that was because he couldn’t or because he didn’t want to or just because he was so busy because he had a, he had a very prestigious career. He was eventually a management consultant with Unilever and he travelled all over the world and, you know, he worked hard and he commuted into London and to be honest he wasn’t there all that much and when he was, he wanted us out of the way, you know, so that he could spend time with my mother and he travelled a lot, you know, he was sometimes away for weeks on end. So, I just thought, ‘Oh well what a shame,’ you know, he didn’t want to look at my photographs of Berlin taken in the late seventies when the wall was still up and I went there as a student. I thought he never would talk about it but I was wrong, fortunately, and it all happened on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. Well actually a bit before that in, in the run up to January 1994, you know, dad realised it was a big event, he’d kept in touch with the other three survivors, they sort of, you know, occasionally met up and exchanged Christmas cards and things, and they decided that for that fiftieth anniversary they would all meet up. So, they all met up three of them had wives, Johnny had never married, and they met in a hotel in Peterborough because it was central for all of them to kind of, you know, reminisce and toast the fifty years of life that they’d had unexpectedly afterwards and, you know, share artefacts. The pilot by this time had started to do a bit of initial research into where the plane had come down, but he died not all that long afterwards, about four years afterwards, and he hadn’t completed this research, and, you know, the whole thing- The whole of the country was suddenly talking about the war. In the summer of 1994 there was a lot of TV coverage of the anniversary of D-Day and by then dad was, what was he then? Seventy, seventy-one, and he was developing a growing sense of time passing and the compelling need to share his story with others and he started to talk and write about his experiences. He’d always wanted to find out where his plane had crashed and having inherited some of- copies of things that the pilot had discovered, he went to the RAF museum, he went to the public records office at Kew. He slowly gathered bits together but it was, it was a bit of a patchwork, it was a, it was a jigsaw with quite a lot of pieces missing. So, in July 2005- So that was another ten years later, I think he’d written his, his memoirs by then and, well partly written his memoirs, and put it on a floppy disk so that we all had copies. He, he suddenly started using the internet an awful lot, you know, for a man of his age he was, he was quite competent with computers and, he discovered Google Earth, and this meant that he was able to compare this map that he’d got with the, with the approximate crash site marked on it, something that the pilot had given him. He tried to compare the two and I was over there in the summer and he said, ‘Look at this,’ you know, ‘We might be able to find out where my plane crashed,’ and I told him he was bonkers but humoured him, and he decided he wanted to pursue it and I didn’t see that it could do any harm, so I agreed to help him, when I wasn’t teaching ‘cause I was busy teaching full time. He contacted a German museum curator and an archivist, and the curator put him in touch with a journalist, and the journalist together with the archivist sort of launched a campaign in a local newspaper on his behalf, and appealed for witnesses to the, to the crash. They knew approximately where the plane had come down, they knew the night, they knew the time of the raid, and they asked for witnesses, and, you know, a lot of people replied who didn’t really have all that much to say, or it was interesting but not directly relevant. But there were sixty responses and these lead to an incredible discovery which nobody could have anticipated at all. Just incredible. So, Ralph Dresser[?] was the investigative journalist and he collated these sixty responses and some turned out to be eye-witnesses, one in particular had actually seen the wreckage of my further- my father’s plane. He’d been a schoolboy, he was now a retired dentist, and he remembered going through the wood on the morning after the crash, and seeing this plane which was being guarded, what, you know, until they could take it away ‘cause of where it had crashed, it wasn’t an easy thing to move ‘cause it had all woodland all around it. So they gave- The journalist organised a reception for us at the townhall in Köpenick on- In October, it was half term, October 2005, and- The atmosphere was amazing because, because, you know, here are all these people that had been bombing each other and they were all sitting round the table and telling anecdotes and the atmosphere was, was wonderful it was a, it was a atmosphere of, entirely of friendship and reconciliation, and towards the end of this reception this guy came forward and he had kept a diary as a schoolboy and in the diary was a record of, you know, his thoughts when they were in their cellar during the raid, during which my father's plane was shot down, and, you know, finding the plane the next day and there was a little sketch showing the plane and where all the bodies were, and it just seemed too much of a coincidence not, not to be connected but obviously we had no proof at that point, that it was dad’s plane. So, we went back in May 2006, again we had to wait until I could, you know, dedicate some time to it, school holidays. We didn’t want to do it during the winter, obviously. So we went back in May 2006, and we finally identified- Visited the site, identified by the main eye-witnesses as the crash site, and with the help of local historians, who’d all climbed on the band wagon, and a metal detector, one of them was a research, you know, a researcher into historic aircraft and had done a lot of these excavations and he had a metal detector, and we unearthed fragments of metal which had been buried underneath the leaf mould, and, you know, lots of bits of hinges and pipes and tools and, you know, it got more and more exciting until we eventually got to one fragment which had a reference number on it, which is a bit like the vin number on a car, and the researcher took it away and linked it to a particular series of Halifax bombers that were made in the English electric factory at Preston and it narrowed it down to a series of about fifty planes, and then we cross referenced that list with the list of losses for that night and we ended up with two planes, and then later dad established that the other plane had crashed on the other side of Berlin. So, we, we knew, you know, ninety-nine percent sure that it was dad's plane and he was so excited. I can remember him in the bathroom with the fragments of metal that we'd found and a nail brush and a tube of shower gel, you know, cleaning them up and he thought- He, he was just like a little boy at Christmas. But the story didn’t end there you know, I thought ‘Oh great, we’ve got some closure,’ you know, ‘Dad’s visited the crash site, he’s met these people, perhaps he’ll, perhaps he’ll have peace now’. But, the journalist carried on nibbling away and he told the Berlin police and sort of wound them up a bit and said ‘Oh,’ you know, ‘Maybe there’s some unexploded ammunition there,’ you know, ‘You really ought to go and have another look in case there’s anything that could be hazardous’. So they waited till November 2006 and went back with metal detector again, they found further fragments of the plane, various tools, part of a parachute harness with the instructions turned to unlock on it, and then near the parachute harness, they found human remains, and I can remember having, you know, being given this news by the German journalist on the phone and then having to sit by the phone and plan how I was going to tell my father because I knew it would open another can of worms and part of me didn’t want to do that. Anyway, so having ascertained that the human remains were probably linked to the plane crash. They handed them over to the British authorities. This took a while because Berlin police had to satisfy themselves that it wasn’t a crime scene. So, the British authorities had them for quite a long time, they went at one point to Canada because one of the people that had been missing and didn’t have a marked grave was a Canadian, and dad got frustrated because things weren’t moving fast enough and he was getting older. So he wrote a speculative letter to a newspaper in Newcastle because he knew that the other chap, whose remains had been- never been found, who was buried in an unmarked grave or probably not buried at all, he’d come from Newcastle so my father had tried to find out, you know, if any of the family were still in the area, and he had traced, through this speculative letter to the Newcastle Chronicle, a lady called Marjorie Akon [?] who was the sister of his missing flight engineer, John Bremner. Efforts to close-to trace close relatives of the other missing crew member in Canada had proved more difficult, although I did actually make contact with them after the book was published through Facebook and I am now in, in touch with a distant relative of the Canadian, and I sent her a book so that she wasn’t, you know, so that everybody's now got copies of the book. So in April 2008 so this was two, not, no- one-and-a-half years, eighteen months after the bones had actually been found mitochondrial DNA testing finally established a definitive link between the remains found at the crash site and Marjorie Akon[?]. So after sixty-odd years of not knowing what had happened to her brother, she was told definitively that these were remains of her brother, and she was eighty-eight, so for sixty-four years she’d not known what had happened to her younger brother, and the result was a full ceremonial, military funeral in Berlin on the 16th of October 2008 with the Queen‘s Colour Squadron officiating. The surviving crew members and their closest relatives were invited, most of them attended, I think only Laurie Underwood wasn't represented. Huge efforts were made by the MOD to trace the families of the two crew members who were already buried in Berlin, so that was Eric Church and Stanbridge. Stanbridge’s daughter actually came over from Australia and she had never visited her father’s grave before, and the- Eric Church’s son, Michael was discovered literally a few days, that he was finally traced- Literally a few days before the funeral and he had to actually take someone else's place on the flight in order to get him there on time, and again he, he’d never known what had happened to, to his father, not definitively. So, it was hugely emotional. So, six of the crew of eight were represented by their own family members and the Canadian was represented by somebody from the Canadian embassy, so that was seven out of eight. Only Laurie Underwood sadly wasn’t represented ‘cause he was too frail to travel, and none of his children or grandchildren were there, but I - Again I’m still in touch with them on Facebook. The most important mourners at that funeral were- Well the most important one, was undoubtedly Marjorie Akon[?], John Bremner’s sister, she was finally able to say goodbye to her beloved brother and in an interview with the BBC, or it might’ve been ITN, anyway I’ve got the footage, she expressed the deep gratitude that she’d at last been able to do this, to, to say goodbye because she’d not wanted to spend the remainder of her days believing that John had never been accounted for, and she actually died herself three months later at eight-nine, just, just after her eighty-ninth birthday. Because of my father’s efforts she didn’t have to go to her grave without knowing the outcome, because John was buried with great dignity and ceremony, so she died almost exactly sixty-five years to the day after her brother, also in January, and although she was sadly missed by her family they were unanimous in saying that she’d experienced a great sense of closure and relief at the end of her life having been able to say that last goodbye, she actually said- I can’t remember the exact words but she said something like she’d been spared long enough, to see her brother laid to rest. But I think what is important to stress is that none of this could’ve been achieved without the internet, the internet was absolutely pivotal to all of this research. We could never have made any of these links without the internet, so the internet, you know, we couldn’t’ve done in, ten years- If the bones had been discovered ten years earlier, they would’ve, they would've just buried them in an unmarked grave, you know, just ten years. The technology had all, all come on stream, we- Everything was available on, you know- In time for the internet and the DNA profiling and before she died because once we’d lost Marjorie Akon[?]- I think that her daughter could've also given a DNA sample because the, the mitochondrial DNA goes down the maternal line and she in turn has got daughter- No has she got daughters? Yes, yes, she’s got two daughters, so probably we could’ve used the, we could’ve used the next generation but it was much nicer for it to be a sibling. So, the internet was pivotal. The MOD were obviously pivotal, we couldn’t’ve done it without them. We couldn't've done it without the Germans because the- Our German friends, I’m still in touch, you know, almost daily with the journalist. The museum curator, who himself had been a prisoner of the Stasi during the cold war. So, he was an interesting man. Historians, eye-witnesses, it was a group effort and the ability to communicate via the internet had even enabled us to trace the Austrian grandson of the ace fighter pilot who shot my father’s plane down, and incredibly he visited us in August 2007 and we all drank champagne in my parents' garden in Essex. This was before- After we’d found the bones but before we knew who- Exactly who, whose they were, and although my father wasn’t a religious man, he did once say that somebody else had a hand in, in the discovery because it was too much to be a coincidence. In the opening- In the preface to the book I’ve, I’ve quoted Byron and said, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ because if you’d made it up, you know, if somebody had made it up as a, as a plot of a book, people would’ve dismissed it and said that it was too perfect that all the things linking up, you know, it was too good to be true, and that made me think of the Byron quote. So, contacts that we made during the course of the research led us to friendships, new friendships in the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and I’m in touch with the second generation of the entire crew, including the second dickie pilot. It reminds us of the horror of war, but also shows us how coincidences like this can lead to deep and lasting friendships between former enemies, and the crew and their families have achieved a sense of closure. So, I'd like to dedicate this interview to the crew of LW 337. Their survival rate exactly mirrors the chances of any airman in Bomber Command, because only half of them came back [voice breaks with emotion]. The average age of those who died in action was- Well here it says twenty-one, I’ve read twenty-two somewhere else, so I don’t know which is right. So, the crew were; the pilot George Griffiths, POW, died in 1998, navigator Reg Wilson, POW, died in 2016 on the 11th November ironically, the rear gunner Johnny Bushell, who was a POW and who died in 2013, the bomb aimer Laurie Underwood, taken POW also died in 2013, the wireless operator Eric Church, killed in action, identified and buried in Berlin shortly after the war, the second dickie pilot Kenneth Stanbridge, also killed in action and identified and buried in the German- the Charlottenburg war cemetery in 1947 I think it was after the war, when they were moved, then the flight engineer John Bremner who was killed in action whose remains were not found until 2006, and who was buried in 2008 in the same row as the two others in the Berlin war cemetery, and last but not least the mid-upper gunner Charles Dupueis, the Canadian who was killed in action and whose remains, as far as well know, were never found and so he remains to this day commemorated on the Runnymede memorial. Although it’s possible that he is in the Berlin war cemetery but in an unmarked grave, that’s, that’s entirely possible ‘cause there are some unmarked graves in the same area and they did tend to, to bury the- whole crews together if they could or part crews together, and of course now the four who died in action will all be commemorated on the ribbon of- On the stones at the IBCC, and we have funded stones in the ribbon of remembrance for those who did survive but have now all passed on. So that’s George, Reg, John and Laurie, whose, whose stones we have yet to, to see because they're being laid as I speak.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Janet Hughes. Two
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Meanwell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-23
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHughesJ171123
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:28:18 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
After flying as a spare, Reginald Wilson (Hughes’ father) formed a new crew and completed their first operation to Berlin on the 29th December 1943. During their second operation to Berlin on the 20th of January 1944, the aircraft was shot down. Upon baling out, Wilson was captured and became a prisoner of war at Stalag 4B. Despite Wilson’s initial reluctance to open up about his wartime experience, Hughes describes the process of researching and publishing a book together. She recounts their discoveries including the fate of his crew (George Griffiths, Kenneth Stanbridge, Erich Church, Johnny Bushell, Laurie Underwood, Charles Dupueis) and the excavation of the crash site which resulted in the burial of John Bremner in 2008.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
102 Squadron
4 Group
aircrew
bale out
Dulag Luft
final resting place
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Me 110
memorial
navigator
prisoner of war
RAF Pocklington
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag Luft 4
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/893/11132/AHydeON170830-01.1.mp3
a437c43ccde923c395ec60cc089515ba
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
Hyde, Oluwole
Oluwole N Hyde
O N Hyde
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Oluwole Hyde (b. 1958) about his father, Adesanya Hyde Hyde DFC (188146 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 640 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hyde, ON
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: Okay. This is the 30th of August 2017 and it’s Heather Hughes for the International Bomber Command Centre chatting to Oluwole Hyde at his home in Malvern. Thank you Olu, so much for agreeing to be interviewed this morning for the project.
OH: Thank you for asking me for an interview, Heather. It’s a pleasure.
HH: Olu, what would be lovely would be obviously to talk about your dad but before that to talk a little bit about you and where you were born and brought up.
OH: I was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone and I was brought up in Freetown, Sierra Leone also with a short while in America with my father whilst he worked there. And I did all my education in Sierra Leone and my university education before leaving Sierra Leone to come to Britain and Southern Africa.
HH: What made you want to come to Britain?
OH: I came to Britain to study. To do a second degree which was in agricultural engineering at the University of Cranfield. And once I got here it was very much the consumer wonderland and very beautiful place. But I did leave after my, after my studies. And I left and went to work in Zimbabwe which was newly Independent.
HH: And you were teaching agriculture in Zimbabwe.
OH: I was teaching agriculture in Zimbabwe. Yes. I taught in what was called a [unclear] school which was a school for agriculture with production. And I taught mainly to ex-combatants and children from the refugee camp.
HH: And how long were you doing that for?
OH: I did that for four years and that was very very interesting and very satisfying work.
HH: How different was Southern Africa to the part of the world that you knew better which was Sierra Leone and West Africa?
OH: It was very very different. And I remember flying over. I started to write a letter in my head to my uncle who I used to work with at the Research Station in Rokupr in Sierra Leone. And one thing I noted was that there was so much agriculture. Big pieces of agricultural land that you could see. And you could go in to the supermarkets in Zimbabwe in, in 1980 and ‘81 and you could find almost all the products within the supermarket were made in Zimbabwe. Dairy products. Meat products.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Cakes, et cetera which was so different to Sierra Leone where if you went in to a supermarket almost everything was imported.
HH: Yeah.
OH: The other differences was the language of course was totally different and just the social interaction was also quite different. And I had to learn how to behave in a manner that was suitable to, to the Zimbabwean public.
HH: Of course, both Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe when it was formerly Southern Rhodesia had been part of the British Empire. Did that give any commonality to your experience at all? Apart from, I suppose English would have been one legacy so that you could at least communicate but — yeah.
OH: No, the common, yes, you’re quite right the commonality was in English but I can’t say I can remember much more.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. Interesting. Tell me about your family, Olu. A little bit about your parents and siblings and they were Sierra Leonian of course.
OH: They were. Yes. My father, Ade Hyde is, was, what shall I say? He identified with the Kru ethnic group. And my mother was a Fulani. But she grew up in Makeni which is one of the towns in the interior. And he grew up in Freetown within the Creole community. And that’s the capital city of course. Yes. And I think in the days when they did get married it wasn’t so, wasn’t so common for those two ethnic groups.
HH: Did it cause them problems?
OH: It must have caused them some problems but they didn’t tell me much about it. Yes. Probably caused a few raised eyebrows. From the Creole community in particular. But nowadays that’s, that’s not the case anymore.
HH: No. They were just ahead of their time.
OH: They were just ahead of their time. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: So, I’ve got three other siblings. Two sisters and one brother. I’m the third within the family. Family of four.
HH: Okay.
OH: Yeah.
HH: So you, are you the, you the third of four.
OH: I’m the third of four.
HH: Okay.
OH: Yes.
HH: And the others? Your brothers and sisters. Where are they?
OH: They’re all in America at present.
HH: Okay.
OH: And they’re all within the district of Columbia area. They live in, two of them live in Virginia and the third lives in Maryland but really they’re just very, quite close together.
HH: Okay.
OH: And they all tend to work in the district of Columbia. In Washington, DC. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. Are any of the others in education or —
OH: No. My elder brother who is now retired was a computer, computer analyst or computer specialist. And my sister was in education at one time. I think she worked for one of the universities. I think it was Georgetown University. But she’s an accountant. And the youngest sister is an agricultural economist. Yeah. And she works for the government. Yeah.
HH: And your parents? Tell me a bit about their lives. I mean what was it like growing up? Because, obviously, you know we’re leading to talking a little bit about what prompted your dad to join up at the beginning of the, of the Second World War. What was, what was home life like when you were little?
OH: When I was little. Home life varied and when I was very little I remember my earliest memories were that my father worked away from home. And he worked in the interior and we lived in the capital city. And, and there were times where his work [pause] and we used to go up to him on holidays and visits.
HH: What did he do? Just tell us what he did.
OH: He was a district, he was a district commissioner and he was actually the first black district commissioner in Sierra Leone. Yeah. And so those, those are my earliest memories. Apparently we actually did live, I did live in the interior with him at one time but I don’t remember that.
HH: Okay.
OH: Yeah. The memories carry on to when he stopped being a district commissioner and started work in the secretariat as they called it. But he was working in the government and he was secretary to the president. And then he lived within, within the city. And I remember that very well because we lived in, in various government houses. And the locations were, were particularly nice.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yes.
HH: Well, that’s what the British left behind.
OH: They did [laughs]
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yes.
HH: Did your dad ever talk, when you were growing up did he ever talk about his war experiences?
OH: He spoke very little about his war experiences to us. I now know that he spoke a lot more about them to a cousin of mine. Tywell. Tywell [unclear] who, who he had quite a good relationship with. And Tywell used to visit him after we left. We left home. And Tywell found this, made this rapport with him. And he used to visit him at home and they used to sit down and talk about lots of different things.
HH: Was your dad retired by then?
OH: He was retired by then. Yes.
HH: And that’s probably part of the reason.
OH: That’s probably part of the reason. And he was, I guess he was lonely and Tywell was a very interesting and lively character. And so he spoke a lot to Tywell about it. So sometimes Tywell would tell me things and I’d think, oh I didn’t know about that at all.
HH: Well, it’s lovely that you’ve got that source. That somebody got the story direct and can pass it on to other members of the family.
OH: Yes. That’s true.
HH: Yes.
OH: Yes. But no, he didn’t talk about the war very much. He didn’t like loud noises. He didn’t like bangers. So when it was Halloween or Christmas and we were out with our fireworks and things like that he, he stayed.
HH: He struggled with that.
OH: He struggled with that. Yeah.
HH: And that’s probably a direct consequence.
OH: Yes. Apparently —
HH: Of his experiences.
OH: Yes. It is. Yes.
HH: So, I mean, how much do you know about, one way or another from, from other family members or direct from your dad about his war experiences?
OH: I know about his, this little, the major part where he was injured. I think he was on a bombing raid over France and, or Germany I’m not sure which one but I think it was France and he was injured by a shell. So, there’s a shell explosion outside the plane but the shrapnel went through the plane, through the fuselage and hit him on the shoulder. And he was, he was badly injured but he was the navigator and he knew that they needed his help to get back. To get back to, to base. So he refused the morphine which was the standard practice. You know. He’d have, because if he was injured like that he’d have the morphine injection. And that would put him to sleep. But he refused that and navigated all the way back.
HH: Extraordinary.
OH: And when they saw the White Cliffs of Dover he said, ‘Okay chaps. I’m sure you know how to get home now from here.’ And then he took the morphine injection. Yeah.
HH: That’s an extraordinary story.
OH: It is. Yes.
HH: His bravery was rewarded, wasn’t it?
OH: It was. Yes. He was. He got the DFC for gallantry. Distinguished Flying Cross.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Do you know which squadron he served with, or — because, I mean it’s not, it’s not important now it’s probably something we could look up anyway at some point so I don’t think, I don’t think it’s necessary right now. We can, those are details we can fill in a little bit later on.
OH: Right.
HH: Yes. He was only one. Well, let me put it this way he was one of only six Sierra Leonians who actually participated or who had volunteered for the RAF. Who got to serve in RAF Bomber Command as I understand it.
OH: That’s correct. Yes.
HH: So, he was one of a very tiny, sort of sort of select minority of those who applied, I think and were accepted. Which, which is extraordinary. That there was such a small number.
OH: Yes. He flew in 51 Squadron.
HH: Okay.
OH: Yeah. Before being demobilised.
HH: Thank you for that.
OH: Yes.
HH: That’s quite, they were based quite close to Lincoln.
OH: Yes. I think he was flying Handley Page Lincoln bombers I think. Something like that. Yeah.
HH: So, yeah. You’ll have to take a visit up and we can show you the places where he served.
OH: I see, yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yes. Now, sorry your question was it was a small —
HH: No. No. No. It was just, it was just that there was, you know one of the things that fascinates me in this project, I mean it throws up all sorts of fascinating things all the time, is the willingness of of of of black people in various parts of what was then the British Empire to serve in the war effort.
OH: I think there was for willingness but also there was another motive I believe. And the other motive was that from my father’s story to me was that they had finished their, what would be the A levels now but there’s the senior Cambridge exams and they’d done well. And it was the Great Depression around the world. And there wasn’t much work around. Much prospects of work and they saw this advert and I think he said they were sitting together drinking or having coffee and they decided they would, would apply for it.
HH: To volunteer.
OH: Volunteer. Yes. Apply for it. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
OH: And although it was a voluntary I believe they had to pay them, pay for their fares to get to England, to actually —
HH: I think they probably did.
OH: Yeah. Achieve this volunteer thing. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
OH: But on the other hand they came across the first employer, probably the first employer, employer in Britain who was equal opportunities to some extent.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yes.
HH: Yeah. I mean I don’t think that the RAF was without racism at the time.
OH: Oh definitely not. Yeah.
HH: But they did, they did have a policy as the war went on, the policy was that there should not be any discrimination with regard to colour in among those that were serving in the different commands of the RAF.
OH: Yes. That’s true. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: And the other, the other aspect was the RAF actually needed — they needed particularly navigators because they were struggling to find navigators within the British population.
HH: Yeah.
OH: And they found out the students from abroad were taught maths in a better — were more proficient at maths. The students from the colonies.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yes. And that was one of the things they were looking for.
HH: Interesting. So I mean a good education was really what stood them in good stead in terms of being accepted.
OH: It was. Yes. It was. Yeah. He tells me stories about being accepted. And when they, when they were was recruited his first posting was at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. And he spoke about how cold it was there.
HH: It must have been a very very memorable aspect of his stay. The weather at that time of year.
OH: The weather. Yes.
HH: Yes. Coming from West Africa.
OH: Yeah.
HH: But he survived.
OH: He survived. Yes. And he enjoyed it. And so most of the stories he tells me that I know of seem to be pleasurable stories. Yeah.
HH: Were they to do, the stories that he told you were they to do mostly with experiences within the RAF or with local people? Meeting British people or —
OH: They were within the RAF and with meeting local British people. And I think there’s a picture I have here of, of him in a home in Bridgnorth playing cards with some boys. And this is a family setting. He’s playing cards —
HH: Great.
OH: With little boys and their mothers or sisters around and he’s in uniform and obviously been welcomed in to the house. And —
HH: Yeah. There is a chance I mean I don’t know about your dad’s case but I spoke to the son of, as far as I can tell the only Nigerian who served in RAF Bomber Command.
OH: Oh really.
HH: Whose name was Akin Shenbanjo. And his son, Neville has a story which, which we’ve been able to verify in other sources that black, black servicemen were so unusual in Bomber Command that they were often treated as very lucky charms. They were very lucky as mascots.
OH: I see.
HH: And Akin was, he, his crew felt that they’d all survived the war because he was, he was the one who made them lucky.
OH: That’s interesting.
HH: Interesting story. Yeah.
OH: It is. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. And in fact they called it, in that case Akin’s crew named their Lancaster bomber the Black Prince.
OH: I see. That was very good.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: No, he never, he never mentioned that to me.
HH: Yeah.
OH: I know his pilot was, was an Australian and —
HH: So truly international crew.
OH: It was quite an international crew. Yes. Yeah. And his name was Fred Papple and he wrote this. He wrote this book.
HH: Okay. “Seventy Five Percent Luck.”
OH: “Seventy Five Percent Luck.”
HH: So you see they were lucky.
OH: They were lucky. Yes. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. How long after, your dad, your dad what did he do after the war?
OH: After the war he, well after being injured —
HH: Did he go straight back to Sierra Leone?
OH: No he didn’t. He was in hospital here for quite a while. And he said he was very lucky because penicillin had just been discovered. And he believed the Health Services spent a lot of money on him by using penicillin to help heal his wounds. But after that I think he went to active service but the war had pretty much finished by then.
HH: So he stayed on in the RAF for a while did he?
OH: Just, just for a short while.
HH: Okay.
OH: Yes. And then he, he joined the — what’s it called now? The Colonial Administration. And he was sent to Cambridge and he did a course in Cambridge on Colonial Administration. And, and then he went to Sierra Leone. And that’s where he became the first black, what did I call it now? The first black commissioner.
HH: Commissioner.
OH: Yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Very interesting.
OH: It was. Yeah. So, from then on he was in, he was in the Colonial Administration until there was Independence.
HH: And for Sierra Leone that was which year?
OH: That was —
HH: ’60.
OH: 1960. 1961.
HH: I think it.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. It was one of the first after Ghana.
OH: Yes. Yes, it was. Yeah. And, yes and it was whilst he was working in a region, in the northern region that he met my mother and they got married. Yeah. And my mother was, went to school and formed a link with some missionaries, an English missionary. And so she did well at school and when she finished, finished her school she became a teacher in the school and she taught the younger, the younger, the younger students. And the missionaries later sent her to Scotland.
HH: Gosh.
OH: Yes. To do, it was to study, basically it was studying home economics. And I can’t remember what the school was called. It’s got a, it’s Glasgow School of Home Economics of some sort but in Glasgow it was referred to as the Dough School. So she has quite interesting stories about arriving at the airport and taking a taxi and giving this long official name for this place and the taxi driver didn’t know what she was talking about until he finally clicked that, ‘Oh, you want to go to the Dough School.’ Yeah.
HH: I see.
OH: But, but she, she seemed to have a good time in Scotland. Varied experiences. But also during some of the holidays, the first few holidays she, she lived in the Hebrides because —
HH: Gosh.
OH: She went to live with other missionaries. And so she lived in the Outer Hebrides.
HH: That’s quite an unusual story.
OH: That’s quite unusual. Yeah.
HH: Wow.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Wow. When would that have been?
OH: Well, she was born in 1930s. So she must have been about the late 40’s early ‘50s. It would be. Yeah.
HH: So gosh it was — yeah.
OH: Yeah. It must have been in her early twenties. Yes. So she was born in 1930 so early ‘50s.
HH: So it would have just been post-war.
OH: Post-war. Yes.
HH: How fascinating. And she returned to Sierra Leone and taught home economics or —
OH: Yes. She returned to Sierra Leone and taught home economics. Yeah. And taught at the school.
HH: With a Scottish accent.
OH: I don’t think so [laughs]
HH: Did she enjoy her time in Scotland?
OH: She did. Yes. She did. Yes.
HH: Wonderful story.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Gosh.
OH: I think she enjoyed her time in Scotland.
HH: So in, in, in completely, for completely different reasons both of your parents had time in Scotland. Spent time.
OH: Yes.
HH: Time of their lives in Scotland.
OH: In Scotland. Yeah.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yeah. I think what’s interesting is the amount of travel there was between Sierra Leone and the colonial power. Because lots of other people travelled for other things like education and training.
HH: We tend to forget that now.
OH: Yes.
HH: We tend to think that these things are so much recent but there was a lot of coming and going wasn’t there.
OH: There was coming and going. There was a lot more going back home because there were jobs and things to do. Places to take and — yeah.
HH: And especially straight after Independence. There would have been a lot of work.
OH: There was. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: There was.
HH: Taking over the Administration.
OH: That’s correct. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. Really interesting.
OH: But yes. I don’t know. What else would you like to ask?
HH: Well, would, one of the things that, that I’m interested in talking to the next generation of, of you know sort of, if you like the second generation of those who who, who served in in Bomber Command is what — I mean it was quite, I know your father had a very long and distinguished career and though his participation in Bomber Command was a was a quite short period but it was it must have been very formative for him in terms of the experiences that it represented for him. And by the way it is quite common we’ve discovered that often veterans don’t talk about their experiences until they’re very very elderly.
OH: I see. Yes.
HH: But nevertheless that doesn’t mean that these things weren’t formative for them. They were probably, you know, life changing experiences that they had in that, in that period when they served in RAF Bomber Command and what it means to you now.
OH: What it means to me now. What it meant to me growing up was that my father was well known in, in the, in the city. And quite often people thought, actually told me he was a pilot in the war and, but he wasn’t. He was, he was a navigator and and people would ask me if I wanted to be a pilot. If I was going to follow his, in his footsteps and things like that you know. But yes so, so it was a small community and he was well known and —
HH: He was regarded no doubt as a hero.
OH: Yes. Yes. Yes. He was regarded —
HH: As a war hero.
OH: As a war hero. Definitely. Yes. And someone very brave to do something like that. Yeah. And so were the other, the other five who went with him were regarded in that way.
HH: And you were able to bask in a bit of that glory.
OH: I’m not sure it was basking in glory. It was sometimes slightly embarrassing.
HH: Okay. So you were more embarrassed than proud at time.
OH: Yes.
HH: Yes.
OH: Definitely proud but embarrassed.
HH: At the same time.
OH: That it was brought up and I had to [pause] And the fact was I didn’t know much about it because he didn’t say much about it. So that was, that was difficult and we always thought he never wanted people to know much about it. Yeah. So, yeah. But what it is for me now is that [pause] I don’t know. It’s, it’s just great to be able to I suppose tell my children that this is your dad, this is your grandad and this is what he did. And also possibly to sometimes when I talk to English people and they talk about their father and what he did and they’re quite surprised. They find the whole background and history very interesting and unusual. Yeah. It’s something that they’re not aware of. About black people being in the RAF and being officers, et cetera. Also, growing up I think one of the things he he [pause] that struck him in the RAF was that because he was an officer he came very close to quite cultured middle class, upper class British people who were, who were also officers. And I think he, he, I wouldn’t say I think — I know very clearly. He took very much to their etiquette and was very particular about us being, having the right etiquette. And so our table manners were very important. And the, our table manners and how we sat and ate for for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And having, using the right cutlery, the right glasses, the right dishes. And I think he, I think some of that was learned at home in, when he was a child. Because the, in, in those days the Sierra Leonians or the Creoles lived very much a western style of life and would have sort of copied, you know an aristocratic style of living but I think that was sharpened and honed when he was living with these, with these officers.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yeah. Yeah.
HH: That’s really interesting. I mean, you know because moving in those what were quite elite circles gave him a particular perspective on British life.
OH: Yes. It did. Yes.
HH: Yeah.
OH: That was, that was, and so I have to my children’s sort of [laughs] I don’t know they’re quite happy I did that now but whilst we were doing it I also passed on this sort of etiquette and good manners. No elbows on top of the table and things like that. And I’ve actually calmed down now.
HH: You’re more relaxed about whether they have their elbows on the table.
OH: And they’re actually picking me up on it [laughs] on the various things, ‘You taught us that.’
HH: These things, you know at one time were just so important because they were a mark of your status.
OH: Yes. They were. Yes. That’s true. Yeah.
HH: Yeah. That’s a lovely story about table manners.
OH: Table manners. Yes.
HH: A wonderful story.
OH: It’s not only table manners. How you brush your teeth.
HH: Just the way in which you conduct yourself.
OH: Conduct yourself. Yes.
HH: And probably the way you dressed.
OH: Yes.
HH: Everything.
OH: Yes.
HH: And spoke.
OH: And spoke. He became very, he was a very loyal colonial and he would always stand when the national anthem was played which for us, us children you know, would say, ‘Come on, papa. Why are you doing that?’ You know. ‘That’s a, that’s an imperial colonial power, you know. I’m not standing up for that.’ But he would stand.
HH: Probably because of those experiences that he’d had.
OH: Yes.
HH: During the war.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. Fighting for the empire.
OH: Fighting for the empire. Yes. Yeah.
HH: Interesting. I mean, I have spoken to one family member of a Caribbean veteran whose perspective on why they did it and why they wanted to assist Britain in the war was the fear that if Hitler won what would happen to black people then? So, I mean, I think that could also possibly have been a motive. That even though this wasn’t, you know even though they had maybe slightly mixed feelings about the empire there was something far worse that might happen depending on the outcome of the war.
OH: Yes. That’s true. Yeah.
HH: Yeah, interesting. It’s so complex though.
OH: It is complex. Yeah. And I think to some extent they were, they were very much colonised and they believed in the empire.
HH: Yes.
OH: Yes.
HH: I think that you’re right. I mean you find that in, in the work that I’ve been doing for example on early nationalism, African nationalism in Southern Africa. People who were, who had issues with the way in which British colonialism functioned nevertheless felt that there was a lot about the sort of British way of life in terms of fairness, fair play, the rule of law, which was to be admired. So you get that kind of quite complex mix of rejecting part of it but really accepting and completely internalising a lot of it as well.
OH: Yes. That’s true.
HH: Yeah.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. Thank you so much for that interview, Olu.
OH: Oh, thank you.
HH: It’s been wonderful to hear those stories. And I do hope that you do come and see the Centre when it opens next year.
OH: Yeah. I must say that there are lots of other things about him that I didn’t say. And what one, another very important part of his life was that he was an ambassador for Sierra Leone.
HH: Very important.
OH: Yes. To the United States of America. And that was a very formative part of my life too although only there for about two years.
HH: Is that when you went with him?
OH: That’s when I went with him. Yes.
HH: So you were based in New York.
OH: No. We were based in Washington, DC.
HH: Oh, Washington, DC.
OH: Yes. To some extent that’s why, that’s a draw to my other siblings back to Washington, DC.
HH: That was a world they knew.
OH: That’s a world they knew. Yes. When Sierra Leone became not very comfortable to live in. Yes.
HH: Yeah. Yeah. That was I mean he he he had a very distinguished career.
OH: He did. He did have a very — he was awarded the CBE and the DFC also and lots of other little medals he’s got. I’ve got here. War medals.
HH: Yeah. We’ll have a look at those in a moment. Yeah.
OH: Yeah.
HH: Yeah. I suppose it’s, it’s an imponderable question as to how his career really was shaped by his war experiences. But there must have been some connection in terms of, in terms of creating a network of contacts. In terms of those experiences of camaraderie and discipline and all the things that would have happened during the war really.
OH: Yes.
HH: In terms of what he subsequently made of his life which was a lot.
OH: Yes. Yes. Indeed. He did. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
HH: Well, thank you.
OH: Yes.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Oluwole Hyde
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Heather Hughes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHydeON170830-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:36:52 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Oluwole Hyde’s father was Adesanya Hyde who served as a navigator with 640 Squadron. He was badly injured but continued to navigate the aeroplane on operation. It was only when they were over the UK that he accepted the morphine for the pain. After the war he returned to Sierra Leone and later became the Ambassador to the US. He spoke little about his experiences of the war to his family.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Sierra Leone
Zimbabwe
Scotland--Moray
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carolyn Emery
640 Squadron
African heritage
aircrew
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
navigator
RAF Lossiemouth
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/893/11133/AHydeON170830-02.1.mp3
e0c9daed8543abb8cdd8a9cbdb50d5db
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
Hyde, Oluwole
Oluwole N Hyde
O N Hyde
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Oluwole Hyde (b. 1958) about his father, Adesanya Hyde Hyde DFC (188146 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 640 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hyde, ON
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
OH: Who fought during the Second World War as an RAF officer in Bomber Command. He was a navigator and he was attached to 52 Squadron. Now, I’m going to talk a bit about how being the son of my father, growing up in Sierra Leone affected me. And as I grew up I became aware that my father had fought in the war and had medals. Won medals. Not really from him telling me about it but more from people who recognised who I was and asking me whether I was going to be a pilot like my father. In effect my father was not a pilot. He was a navigator. But they would ask me if I was going to be a pilot and if I was as brave as my father was. And it was interesting that I learned about my father’s war, war career from outside and not from inside. And when I spoke to him about it he told me yes, he was in the war. And then things around the house started to make sense. Like the beret where he kept all the keys, you know [laughs] They all started to make sense and so then I knew that yes he was in the war and he corrected some of the — he corrected some of the false information I had heard, yeah. It, it was really good to have a father who was popular but at times it became embarrassing having to, to listen about, listen to it or talk about it and it also laid an expectation on me to be, to do something very important. You know, to do something very — to achieve great heights like my father did. And, but now, as an adult I really appreciate having this father. It’s really good because it’s been important to talk to my children who have grown up in England about the fact that their father, their grandfather who came from Sierra Leone also took a part in the Second World War. And, and to show them his pictures and his medals and talk about his achievements. It’s also interesting that when I talk to English people, my friends and my family and tell them about my father and his experience coming to the RAF and they find that very very interesting. And didn’t, a lot of them weren’t aware that there were black personnel within the fighting in the RAF as officers and as navigators and pilots. And so that has been good and [pause] Can I stop there for a moment?
HH: That’s fine.
OH: Yeah
HH: Let me just make sure that we’re still going.
[pause]
HH: Come on. Okay. I think I’m going to be running out of battery very shortly so we’re going to just do a bit more and then you can finish off.
OH: Okay.
HH: Okay. Keep going.
OH: Yes. And it’s, it’s, it’s really a story I would like to help promote more in England. To make people more aware of the contribution of people from the Colonies who fought in the Second World War. And he fought and he was decorated with the, the DFC. I don’t think I will ever get that decoration and, but one thing my father did impart to me which was very important was that after experiencing war he did not like war at all and he was very much a pacifist and very much against violence and aggression. And that’s one thing I believe I’ve, I have experienced, you know. And I had no interest in joining the Army or joining the RAF or becoming a pilot. I think I’ll finish there.
HH: That’s good. Thank you so much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Oluwole Hyde. Two
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Heather Hughes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHydeON170830-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:05:43 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Olu Hyde continues his interview by describing his experience as the son of a Bomber Command veteran.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Sierra Leone
African heritage
aircrew
navigator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/899/11139/AJacksonDM171130.2.mp3
1afde4d3c12a3c8d0bc1a7b452422441
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
Jackson, Norman
N Jackson
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with David Jackson about his father Norman Jackson VC (1919 - 1994), his service record and two photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Jackson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jackson, N
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: [unclear] [laughs] My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 30th of November 19, 2017 and we are in Kingswood in Surrey talking to David Jackson whose father was Norman Jackson VC and we are going to start off with earliest recollections of father’s life. So, what were the first [unclear] there?
DJ: Oh, good afternoon Chris. My father was born in Ealing in London on the 8th of April 1919. He was born to a single mother who put my father up for adoption. My father was adopted by a Mr and Mrs Gunter who lived in Twickenham. They were a professional family as far as I know. They certainly had a lovely house in Camac Road, Twickenham, they also adopted, just after dad another lad by the name of Geoffrey, Geoffrey Hartley. My father and Geoffrey grew up together, very close as half-brothers, my father was educated in Twickenham at Archdeacon Cambridge School, he stayed there until the age of sixteen where after gaining his school certificate joined an engineering company, he always had an interest in engineering. At the start of the Second World War in September 1939 my father decided that he wanted to volunteer, join the military services so he first he tried to join the Royal Navy but was told they weren’t actually recruiting at that time and so thought he would try the Royal Air Force where he was accepted. He was sent to RAF Halton where he took a further apprenticeship in engineering on airframes etcetera, from there once qualified, he joined 95 Squadron which was Sunderland flying boats, as a fitter he was sent to Africa, North East Africa which was Freetown where he served his time on Sunderland flying boats, he returned in 1942, in summer of ’42 where his intention was to join Bomber Command as a flight engineer, prior to that in 1939 he’d actually met my mother, Alma Lilian, they became engaged in 1940 when my father was then sent to North Africa and my, they didn’t see each other for two years, on my father’s return they organised their wedding which was on Boxing Day in 1942. ’43 my father started his training as an engineer on Bomber Command, joined his first squadron later that summer in ’43 which is 106 Squadron at that time based at Syerston in Lincolnshire soon to be sent to RAF Metheringham where the squadron was then based, flew several missions including ten to Berlin, several incidents during his tour of operations with Bomber Command, got shot up, engines out of action, very heavy landings with Fred Mifflin the pilot who they considered taking off flying actually and retraining because he couldn’t land the Lancaster without bouncing it, one day that led in a crosswind situation where they switched runways on a heavy crosswind and my father, the aircraft crashed with a heavy landing losing his undercarriage, my father suffered a broken leg at that time but even with a broken leg managed to get Fred Mifflin, he was in a bit of a, had a few problems inside the cockpit and managed to drag him out but was patched up and continued flying with a broken leg for further six weeks. Thirty missions were completed because my father actually had volunteered with another crew, his flight engineer wasn’t able to go one night, father stood in, so he reached his thirty missions’ quota before the rest of the crew. On the night of the 27th of April 1944, target designated was Schweinfurt in Germany, father volunteered to go along with the rest of the crew to see them through, this would be his thirty first mission, they took off on time, prior to the take-off my father had received a telegram to say that his first child, my oldest brother Brian had been born, he went along on the mission, they hit a head wind which slowed them up and when they arrived over the target they seemed to be alone but they went ahead, bombed, and by turning out and all of a sudden Sandy Sandelands the wireless operator spoke to Fred Mifflin the pilot over the intercom telling him he had a blip on his fishpond screen, his radar screen, he felt that blip could be a night fighter, they all braced themselves and waited, he then came back, Sandy Sanderson said it’s closer, it’s fast, it’s definitely a night fighter and then before they knew it the aircraft was being racked with cannon fire, my father was thrown to the ground, he was injured at that time with shell splinters, on recovering his position in the cockpit he noticed that the starboard wing had a fire just inside the engine area, he tried to feather the engine which he did, he feathered it, but the fire was still raging out there because it was basically in the wing where the fuel tank was. He decided at that time that he could deal with it, he got the, asked the permission of Fred the pilot, he felt he could deal, so he said, he could actually climb out on the wing with a fire extinguisher with the aid of the crew if he jettison his parachute, Fred Mifflin looked at him incredulously but said, ok, go ahead, so Dad took the cockpit axe which had an ice pick end on it, he took a fire extinguisher from inside the cockpit which he placed inside his tunic, his flying tunic, the bomb aimer and the navigator stood by as Dad climbed onto the navigator’s table and jettisoned the hatch above there which is just behind the pilot’s seat, he then deployed his parachute so that navigator and bomb aimer could hold onto the rigging lines, whilst had sorted the lines out Dad then climbed through the hatch and into the two hundred mile and hour slipstream, it was icy cold, he said he always remembered how cold it was, he inched his way out keeping close to the fuselage, trying not to have the slipstream affect him any more than it would, he used the ice pick on the axe to fire into the side of the fuselage to give him some purchase and then pulled himself down towards the wing root which was below him and toward the aerial intake at the front of the wing where he managed to get his left hand in to hold on, he then removed the fire extinguisher from his flying jacket and started dealing with, knocked the end of the fire extinguisher off on the front of the wing, the extinguisher started and he started to deal with the fire, he felt he was doing ok and the fire started to die down, at that point the wing lifted below him and the aircraft started to bank to the left. He was then, he then realised that the fighter must have found them again, the fighter came in, racked the aircraft again with machine gun and cannon fire, my father was hit several times with shell splinter and bullets, the wing blew up around him, engulfing him in flames, the slipstream from the aircraft as it slipped to the port side and down, lifted my father off the wing and he was thrown backwards, he came to an abrupt halt just behind the rear of the aircraft because he was still attached to the cockpit via his rigging lines and parachute, as he was being dragged down through the air, those inside the cockpit thought Dad had been killed but thought they’d get the parachute out anyway, they scrambled as best they could to get the shoot out as it been ripped, as it went through the hatch above the navigators table, it also suffered damage through the fire, my father then left the aircraft as the parachute went out through the hatch, he descended to ground quite rapidly, hit the ground very, very heavily, smashed both ankles, he laid there in a pitiful state, ankles smashed, his hands and face were severely burned, his right eye was completely closed, he also had several shell and shrapnel wounds in his body, he lay there until first light, he then crawled on elbows and knees through the forest and came across a small cottage, he approached the cottage and with his elbow knocked on the door, a window opened above him and a male voice shouted, was ist da? My father said, RAF. The voice from the window upstairs once again said, was ist da? My father cleared his voice as best he could and said in a louder voice, RAF. The voice from above shouted, Terror Flieger! Churchill gangster! And the window closed. Dad then heard the window opening and expected to be kicked and punched but there were a couple of girls inside, who took father in and laid him on a settee and started attending to him, their father, who was the person in the window upstairs, disappeared through the door, he returned a little while later with a policeman and a chap who Dad thought must have been Gestapo was in plain clothes, they then took Dad off of the settee and my father, supported by the policeman was made to march to the local police station. A the police station he was placed into a [unclear], he was in wheels through the streets to the local hospital, en route he suffered verbal abuse and even some stones but he always said he understood this, at the hospital he was treated very well, he stayed in the hospital for several months, he was then transferred to a prisoner of war camp where he served out his time, he escaped once, he tried to, was recaptured, at the end of the war he was repatriated along with the other, the rest, the surviving members of the crew. The surviving members of the crew told my father’s story, my father got a call from a WAAF officer he said who asked if that was warrant officer Norman Cyril Jackson, he said, yes, it was, and she said, I’m just calling you to let you know you’ve been awarded the Victoria Cross. My father’s words were, what the bloody hell for?
CB: We’ll pause there for a moment. That’s. Now in terms of picking up a bit more of detail on this, they got hit and hit badly twice by the fighter or fighters but in general in the dark you can’t see anything that’s going on but you can be seen so what did he feel about flying in these sorties?
DJ: My father, I can remember my father saying that on every single mission they flew which was obviously at night, very dark unless you had a full moon which sometimes light you up, you were, they used to have the four Merlin engines on the Lancaster, and what was a concern to them all the time was the exhaust of the Merlin engine which had basically bright flames coming out of it and that always made the Lancaster visible, they felt from inside the cockpit to anything that was out there but they also had pleasure in seeing that coming out because they knew the engines were still running, so it was basically almost a double edged sword, one you needed to see the exhaust as Dad said to make sure they are all running properly but the other you knew you were a possible target to anyone that was out there that you couldn’t see but they could see you.
CB: And in his training going back a bit he was originally trained as a ground engineer
DJ: Correct, yes.
CB: At what stage and how did he do it, did he get into flying? [unclear]
DJ: This would have happened in Africa, in Freetown when he was with 95 Squadron the Sunderland flying boats, he decided out there that he actually wanted to be part of the aircrew and as a qualified engineer he would be useful to Bomber Command and he knew the new four engine bombers were coming onto stream with the Lancaster and felt that was a position for him and so suitably applied and was accepted
CB: So what do you know about the training he had to do in preparation for getting into the, into Bomber Command?
DJ: Well, I’m reading now, this is the Air VCs Chaz Bowyer, book called For Valour, now, this actually says that my father enlisted in the 20th of October 1939 after various training courses at Halton and Hednesford he became classified as a fitter 11E engines, a group one tradesman posted overseas, his first unit was 95 Squadron to which he reported on the 2nd of January 1941, a Short Sunderland flying boat squadron based on the West African coast near Freetown following, for the following eighteen months Jackson continued to serve as a engine fitter on flying boats Marine Craft but the opportunity to remuster to flying duties as a flight engineer attracted him and he accordingly applied for training, as a result he returned to England in September 1942 and after six months at 27 OTU, Operational Training Unit moved to RAF St Athan at the end of March 1943 to complete instruction. Finally, with promotion to sergeant he was mustered, or remustered, I apologize, as a flight engineer on the 14th of June and posted to number 1645 Heavy Conversion Unit on the 28th of July he joined his first squadron 106 based at Syerston and flying Avro Lancasters.
CB: Right, that sets the scene very well. Did he talk about what the training was like?
DJ: No,
CB: And
DJ: Only, the only thing Dad ever used to mention about training was that the RAF lost more aircrew training than they did on missions themselves, on sorties, he said the loss rate on training was quite high, that’s what I can remember him saying about training
CB: Certainly, there was quite a loss. So, with his training he didn’t start flying until he got to the operational training unit is what you’re saying, yeah, because he’s been on the ground before.
DJ: Well, again I’m reading from Chaz Bowyer’s book here, which has quite a lot of detail, so from September 1942, I think that’s when he started, he applied and after six months at 27 Operational Training Unit moved to RAF St Athan and that was the end of March when he, he may have started his flying training then, whether there was any prior to that at the 27 Operational Training Unit I don’t know.
CB: Ok.
DJ: I don’t know, I think Dad did actually, I can remember Dad talking about RAF Elstos which was a small twine engined aeroplane he used to fly, so at that point being
CB: Ansons,
DJ: Ansons, sorry, the Anson, my apology,
CB: Yes, yeah
DJ: The Anson aircraft, so he did some time on that
CB: Right
DJ: Now I presume that was not at the operational, that may have been at the Operational Training Unit rather than the Heavy Conversion Unit, so I suspected he started before that
CB: The Heavy Conversion Unit would have been the four engine
DJ: The four engine, absolutely, yeah
CB: One way or another. Ok, good, and because he talked to you about a number of things, what did he say about when he got to flying, how he felt about flying?
DJ: He didn’t actually like it that much, I mean, bear in mind, Dad never used to speak, talk about it really at all, it used to be people asking him questions and we as children would be there and I asked, you know, in my father’s later life used to talk Dad about it but he was not very happy with talking about the war, he felt everybody should move on. What was the question, sorry?
CB: The question was how he felt about flying.
DJ: Flying itself he never really enjoyed it, it was just something that had to be done and even though my father wasn’t a particularly religious man, he always said that nobody prayed harder than him before a mission, cause he knew what to expect.
CB: That’s an interesting point because people did different actions before going on a mission, on operation, what did he do? Did he have a mascot, or did he do something before getting in the [unclear]?
DJ: Father never had a mascot as far as I know, he just looked at it as a job that needed to be done and
CB: Did he go through a ritual before getting in the aircraft, do you know?
DJ: No, not that I know of, no.
CB: No.
DJ: He certainly would have spoken of it.
CB: And we are talking about here when he got to the Heavy Conversion Unit it’s now a bomber crew of seven, how did that crew get gelled together?
DJ: As far as I know, once they’d actually formed up as a crew they gelled very well, they, my father always said that they were like a band of brothers, they were very close and that probably, well, I’m sure that would have been the reason why my father decided to fly on the final mission to see them through, their thirtieth, my father’s thirty first, they were very close, socialised together
CB: You talked about him being badly injured when he landed, cause he landed in a different position after he left the aircraft
DJ: Yes
CB: Yeah
DJ: To the rest of the crew
CB: They got out later presumably
DJ: Yes
CB: Were they all in the same prison camp or different ones?
DJ: No, I think that I’m not absolutely sure of, I don’t know, they may have been in the same prison camp [unclear] record and I did not at some stage which Stalag Luft my father was in but I can’t recall it at the moment
CB: Yeah. But did they get together after the war?
DJ: I don’t know much about that actually, I do know that I met two, as a young lad, schoolboy, I met the wireless operator Sandy Sandelands who came to our house in Hampton Hill, Middlesex. I also met the navigator, Frank Higgins, I met him as well, he used to tell about, I can remember them saying that my father citation was always wrong but, you know, they said they just didn’t listen to us because you know, because my father certaition states that on leaving the aircraft my father slipped and then ended up on the wing involved in the fire, well, if you climb out on top of the fuselage on an aircraft travelling at two hundred miles an hour and you’d slip, you don’t go down, you go backwards and this is what they used to say to me and they said, we were looking at your father on the wing and thinking we didn’t actually want him to go out there, we’d all rather just bailed out and that was it, but certainly when the fighter attacked the second time they thought that was it, he shouldn’t have gone out there cause he had now gone, that’s what they thought but those are the two that I’ve met and the only other person I can really remember, which I’d met later many times was Leonard Cheshire at various functions at Buckingham Palace or [unclear] for the Victoria Cross holders
CB: Yes
DJ: But they are the two members of the crew that I have met
CB: And on that topic Leonard Cheshire and your father received the Victoria Cross on the same day, so what happened there?
DJ: The, it was October 1945, as I say, following my father getting that phone call from a female officer in the Royal Air Force informing him he was to be awarded the Victoria Cross, the investiture took place on October 1945, on that day which my mother and father attended was Leonard Cheshire as well, officer commanding 617 Squadron at that time, he was to be awarded the Victoria Cross as well at the investiture in front of the king they were informed about the protocol of the event, the Victoria Cross would always be called first, amongst, cause there were other people there receiving other awards, the Victoria Cross, the people to be invested with the Victoria Cross would be called first, Leonard Cheshire as a group captain, as I believe his rank was at that time, would be called up first, Leonard Cheshire stopped speaking to me at that time, he said, absolutely not, I cannot go first, Norman Jackson in Leonard’s words stuck out his neck much more than I ever did, he should get the Victoria Cross first, I feel humble by being in the presence of this man which is what Lenny told me many times every time I saw him but he, Leonard Cheshire was told that because of the protocol of the day that couldn’t happen and the king would receive him first followed by my father so that’s what happened on that day, Leonard Cheshire went first followed by my father who received the Victoria Cross
CB: And how did they continue their association after the war, was it to do with the?
DJ: I think that after the war of course, the war in Europe had finished, it hadn’t finished in the Far East, my father was being crewed up to continue flying in the Far East but then obviously with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war in the Far East ended and that was that but on the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki the RAF observer was Leonard Cheshire and it had such an effect on him psychologically that he then went into an infirmary to for, I’m not sure how long it was for but he disappeared really from public life at that time, so my father never saw him until probably in the 1950s at various Royal Air Force functions where the Victoria Cross holders would be invited and I think that’s when Leonard started to see my father again but there was no real friendship between them, it was just really the only association was that they’d both been awarded the Victoria Cross, my father did know of Leonard Cheshire prior to the investiture of Buckingham Palace because of his work with 617 Squadron as most people in the Royal Air Force would had done. He was a great man but never really continued to associate afterwards other than at functions, Royal Air Force functions or Victoria Cross and George Cross holders functions, that was it. Which is where I met Leonard quite a number of times.
CB: You talked about your father crewing up for the Far East, that was called Tiger Force after what squadron was he supposed to be going to
DJ: Ok, I don’t know Chris, it was just that me Dad said he was, cause I asked that question did he see Leonard afterwards,
CB: Yes, indeed.
DJ: But that was October 1945 and it was really at the end
CB: Sure
DJ: So prior to that Dad was, you know, he came back, he was still in the Royal Air Force, he was still in the Royal Air Force until ‘46
CB: We’ll get that from his service record, but what did he or how long did he stay in the RAF your father?
DJ: From ’39, I mean, I’ve already showed you the photographs
CB: Of his demob.
DJ: Which is 1946 with Roy Chadwick at the presentation of the silver Lancaster bomber to my father and my father’s in uniform there so I’m presuming he was still in the Royal Air Force at that time, awaiting demobilisation I presume, yeah, so, the exact date I don’t know.
CB: They tended to, as I understand it, they tended to demobilise the people who’d been in longest earliest.
DJ: Well, my father joined in ’39 so he would have been long so but what date he got his demob I don’t know.
CB: Right.
DJ: Other than certainly in that photograph dated in, which, March wasn’t it? 1946 with Roy Chadwick my father still in uniform there, so.
CB: Can we just go fast backwards now, your father is on the aircraft, he is hit by cannon fire on the second attack by a fighter and he falls with his parachute in fire is what you were saying. He was badly burned
DJ: I don’t know if it was on fire or just smouldering, yeah, the rigging lines would have been dragging back
CB: But, he was dropping with that
DJ: At an alarming rate
CB: At an alarming rate and but he is burnt
DJ: Yes, very badly
CB: So, what do you know about how the German doctors dealt with his injuries?
DJ: Well, my father always said that they treated him very, very well, there is a report that I found out about twelve years ago, fourteen years ago by Spink’s in London doing some fact finding on my father, the hospital records are still there in Germany and when dealing with my father’s wounds, they actually ran out of saline and had to send out for more, that’s what they told me from the records they saw cause his wounds were so severe, so, that’s what I know, I mean, he said they treated him very well, very, very well
CB: So how long, remind me, how long was he in hospital?
DJ: The exact time I don’t know I believe, according to again if I may refer to Chaz Bowyer’s book For Valour The Air VCs, it states in here and I presume that some research was done for this, that my father was actually, if I can find the paragraph, at daybreak, my father is in a pitiful condition [unclear] he’s in German for the next ten months, Jackson [unclear] recuperated in a German hospital, though his burned hands never fully recovered so according to Chaz Bowyer ten months which would have put him from April through to early ‘45 where he was then sent to the prisoner of war camp
CB: And his wounds of course never fully recovered
DJ: The [unclear]
CB: [unclear] but what was the state of his hands later?
DJ: My father’s hands were noticeable that there was something different about them, my father had a really, if you looked at my father’s arms, they stopped obviously at the wrist, in he had a ring around each wrist and then the colour changed, my father’s hands were almost translucent where all the skin and flesh had been burnt through and then healed over the years. It never really bothered him as far as enabling him to do whatever he wanted to do, so there was no lasting effect from it other than the look of them really. He never suffered any lasting effects from those burns they healed and that was it but my father’s hands reached a stage where they wouldn’t heal any more so they looked like they looked on my father’s body which when we used to if we went to the beach or whatever my father had a pair of shorts on it was quite obvious with the number of scars on my father’s back and on the back of his legs that some sort of injuries had been sustained during his war years, certainly is quite a few scars there and as far as I believe there were seventeen different [unclear] hospital records from shell and shrapnel in my father’s body, some of those would have been incurred first attack and the rest on the second attack when he was on the way
CB: From your recollection what did they look like? Were some of them [unclear], were some them long and [unclear]?
DJ: Yeah, they were white and diamond shaped, I remember there were a couple that were sort of maybe half an inch long, straight, there were some that were diamond shaped and some that were round with almost an indentation to them so the skin had almost, was concave in my father’s back
CB: Was it a subject to conversation between
DJ: Never had, Dad never, all Dad used to say was, well, I’ve still got some shrapnel in my head, he used to feel round the back, [unclear] you could feel it there and used to feel the back of Dad’s head you could feel something sharp inside the skin so that’s the only thing he used to say when you tried to say, Dad, all those scars on your back but he wasn’t, he never used to speak about it much at all, it was, we learned about it from people coming to the house all the time, people would want interviews with Dad, the newspapers etcetera etcetera radio stations and so we learned about it from there it wasn’t something that Dad actually really spoke about but as we got older we spoke to Dad about it and
CB: And how did he feel about being questioned
DJ: Didn’t like it,
CB: By his family?
DJ: Oh, by his family? Well, he never really used to, Dad loved his family, he would never really be angry with us, he would talk but he never really opened up completely, he was just saying that that was then it was a very bad time, didn’t enjoy it very much, glad to move on and my father, we used to, I used to go to school with my father’s medals, they never meant much to Dad at all, he would let us take them to school in our pocket and of course teachers would want to see them and other people want to see them, he would go to Royal Air Force functions at various places, he would never ever put his medals on until he was inside the building and he would take them off before he left the building, he wouldn’t put them on because he felt that it wasn’t fair on all the other aircrew who were walking around who had their medals on, he felt it was almost ill deserved. I can remember one incident where my father had a function to go to and normally his medals would be in his desk drawer where he’d throw them he put them in there and just leave the drawer and that was it and he couldn’t find his medals anywhere and we were hunting, the whole family were hunting and we couldn’t find the medals anywhere and then obviously you start to backtrack the last time you had them, you know, he was at this function a few months before and what suit were you wearing and to that suit but the suit had been to the drycleaners in which was the [unclear] dry cleaners I can remember that in Twickenham and suddenly we thought maybe they were in Dad’s pocket when they went to the drycleaners so we phoned up the drycleaners and he said, yeah, we got a set of medals here, they were in some suit somewhere and we put them in the drawer and it was my father’s medals including the Victoria Cross that had just thrown in the drawer at the dry cleaners [laughs] so Dad managed to recover them ready for the next function. But he never really gave them any thought, he just put them in the pocket and that was it, that’s what Dad was like.
CB: Right, we’ll just stop for a minute. Going back to the medical issues and the hospital experience, in Britain McIndoe was the man who was best known for his plastic surgery but there other people doing it, what did Dad think about the work done by the doctor’s there? Were the plastic surgeons identified in any way or?
DJ: No, no one in particular, he said that he was very, very well looked after, he did speak about a Canadian doctor who would work in the hospital there which always seemed a bit odd to me that you would have a Canadian doctor working in a German hospital but whether that was, he was brought in for a particular reason or not, I don’t know, Dad never really spoke about it more than that other than say he was very, very well looked after, he was in a pretty pitiful state, he must have been but obviously a very strong will and managed to recover
CB: Any idea of the number of operations they had to perform on him?
DJ: No, no, none whatsoever, I don’t know [unclear]
CB: The hospital itself where do you think that was?
DJ: I would say, well the target that night was Schweinfurt which it I believe quite deep in Germany so I presume that as they were shot down over the target or just after the target, bombing the target it must have been within that vicinity, as much as, that would be a guess obviously.
CB: When you said that Spink’s did an awful lot of research on it
DJ: At the auction of my father’s medals which was done by Spink’s in London in 2004 following the loss of my mother and the subsequent dealing with the estate which included my father’s decorations, they did quite a lot of research and supplied me with quite a lot of information including all of my father’s mission records which I have and gave me the information about the hospital that they must have got, whether they got that from the hospital themselves or from somewhere else I don’t know, they gave me the information about the hospital running out of saline and so but the Canadian doctor bit my father, I can remember my father talking about that and [unclear]
CB: [unclear]
DJ: I presume so, yes, yeah, however they used to treat them in those days.
CB: A bit largely experimental I imagine.
DJ: I [unclear], I mean, I do sometimes think my father must have been in so much pain because if you have very deep burns and they are exposed to the air is very painful. And at the time my father hit the ground, his gloves must have been completely burnt off, completely burnt through so he must have been exposed to the air, but maybe with his smashed ankles, only being able to walk on elbows and knees, badly burnt face as well, one eye closed, there was so much pain elsewhere that it sort of numbed the effect of the hands, I don’t know. And it was pretty cold as well if I understand it was April or so I think it must have been pretty cold out there so that may have helped as well, the cold temperature.
CB: So, he was clearly damaged shall we say in various ways, what happened to his eye? Did that recover or what was wrong with it?
DJ: Yeah, I think he just got a bad bash on it or something, I don’t think there was any shrapnel damage to it at all, he, it was just happened in the incident probably when he left the aircraft he hit something and bashed his eye, I presume, I don’t know, Dad never spoke about it but his right eye was completely closed, I mean, Chaz Bowyer mentions that in the book here when he hit the ground so I think that would have just healed and opened up as normal
CB: These sorts of injuries can stay with people for the rest of their lives and you talked about the fact that his head had some shrapnel in it
DJ: Yes
CB: What about his health of in later years? Was his experience in the war in any way a disadvantage to him from a health point of view later?
DJ: No, I don’t believe, if it was I don’t think my father would have said so and he was a man that, he didn’t really speak about the war, he never actually said the war had any effect on him at all, physically or mentally, it was a time when they just did their duty, he spoke a lot about the other aircrew, how wonderful they were, and with the fact that there was no memorial to these guys, that bothered my father a lot over the years, a lot and but as far as the war affecting him, no, he never ever said that it damaged him in any way, in fact I think he felt himself quite lucky that he survived and went on to have seven children, extremely lucky, he often said that he should have died at the age of twenty five [unclear] man
CB: Where do you come in the ranking of children?
DJ: I am number five, born in 1953, so, four were born between ’44, which is my brother, my eldest brother Brian was born on the night my father was shot down and then we have Pauline, Brenda, Peter and then myself and I was followed by Ian and Shirley Anne a bit later.
CB: When were they born?
DJ: Ian was born 1955 and Shirley was, came along a little bit later in 1961 so there is a bit of a gap there.
CB: So, what sort of house did you have to accommodate all these members?
DJ: Yeah, a big one [laughs], My father had a, he built it himself actually with another chap, he bought some land in Hampton Hill, Burtons Road, Hampton Hill in Middlesex off of a chap had a big house in Uxbridge Road he came down to Burtons Road, so he bought this large, large piece of land and on there he built a bungalow, a four bedroom bungalow which had quite a large front, [unclear] it was a very large bungalow and that’s where we all were brought up
CB: Had bunk beds, did you?
DJ: Yes, yeah, I mean, when we were younger certainly and we were all seven at home, yeah
CB: Was there quite a well regimented system operating for use of the bathroom?
DJ: Probably, I don’t remember it being any problem, I know that we used to have a separate shower in the bathroom so we used to have showers all the time, bath night was generally on a Sunday or something where three or four of us boys used to get in together, I can remember that, certainly three of us, the younger ones used to get in together, the girls used to get in together, it was no issue at all, I mean, I was amazed that my mother who cooked three meals a day for us all, breakfast, lunch and dinner, would come up with so much variety for us all, I can always remember thinking where, my mother must be wonderful to come up with all these different choices all the time but it’s obviously I mean the house was full all the time, there was always things going on so we shared you had three of us in one bedroom when we were growing up, three of the boys, my oldest brother Brian had his own room, you had two girls with another bedroom and then when Shirley came along, a bit later, Pauline was getting married and so leaving the house and so Shirley could take her place [unclear] in the bedroom, Brian at that time had already gone, he’d been married and moved on so, it sort of, it worked out well at the end
CB: What was your father’s occupation after the war?
DJ: My father joined JBR Brandy as a salesman, that’s what he wanted to do, travel, he wanted to travel, he couldn’t settle down any more and his hands were such that he couldn’t go back really to engineering as such, he joined JBR Brandy, he was then with them for a while and then he was headhunted I suppose you could say by the distillers company [unclear] John Hague who wanted him to join them as their troubleshooting travelling salesman so to speak whereas they had accounts that needed building up they would send in, were sending in Norman Jackson VC and that carried some weight in those days. And suddenly people would sit up and listen and that’s what they used, you know, they, he was quite well thought of in the company for doing that, so, that’s what he did, he worked for John Hague was he, for many years. Up until retirement and he retired at the age of fifty-three.
CB: Oh, did he? What made him retire so soon?
DJ: My mother has suffered some mental health, she had suffered a stroke at that time but recovered from it but subsequently had a stroke later in life that put her into a wheelchair unfortunately but that was in, my mother was then sixty and lived to the age of eighty two with that
CB: [unclear]
DJ: Yeah, never complained about it, just got on with it
CB: This was the quality of scotch, was it?
DJ: Probably was, my mother never drunk [laughs], she would have a gin at Christmas with a tonic and that was it
CB: It was just the fumes from the open bottle
DJ: Yeah, maybe, my father used to, he’d drink, I think in those days it must have been different because every meeting my father used to have they’d drink whisky, they would go to a meeting and they’d have whisky, and then they’d drive home afterwards you know and my father used to come home, he’s been stopped by the police before in the old days driving home or he’d drive home with one eye closed looking at the centre line in the road because you know he’d been working and have a few whiskeys and the police would stop him and it would be local police and they’d realised who it was and they’d just take him home, knock on the door with Dad, one of them driving Dad’s car and the other one in the police car with Dad in the police car and say, oh, we have Norman Jackson here and delivering him to our house [laughs]. Happened on a few occasions.
CB: And what age was he when he died?
DJ: My father would have been, it was one month to the day before his seventy-fifth birthday, I’m sorry, one month to the day before they day he got shot down, my apologies, he died on March the 27th which was four weeks prior to the day when he took off, which was April 27 1944 so it was a couple of weeks before his 75th birthday.
CB: Now we touched earlier on the delicate question really of what happened to his medals, so
DJ: Yeah, not that delicate at all
CB: Ok, so, mother died,
DJ: Yeah
CB: Your mother died
DJ: Yeah.
CB: Was that someway the prompt on of dealing with the medical, medals,
DJ: Yes
CB: What happened exactly?
DJ: What happened was we contacted the RAF Museum in Hendon which we felt would’ve been where my father would’ve wanted them to go to, so we contacted the museum, not Douglas actually, we weren’t dealing with Douglas at that time, Douglas Radcliffe at Bomber Command, we were dealing with the curator of the museum and we said that we’d like my father’s medals to go there and he was very happy to receive them and letters were flying backwards and forwards between him and then suddenly my mother’s lawyer, I was an executive of my mother’s will as was my sister Shirley, the lawyer contacted us and said according to your mother’s will there is no stipulation about your father’s medals other than, as this is written in, to be kept within the family or if not part of the estate, he said, this is where we have an issue, you cannot keep a single item within a family, it has to be considered as part of the estate, this is what he said, so he said, well, if we all agree to donate it, he said, well, the problem with that in law there is no precedent for that, you, I can only tell you what the law is, he said, now, if you all agree we can possibly do something. My oldest brother Brian who at that time, at that time felt that they shouldn’t be donated to the museum, that was where the issue was, the lawyer acting for my mother then said, well, they have to be considered as part of the estate, so we said, well, what does that mean? He said, well, they have to be sold, he said, and if they have to be sold you can sell them on a private auction where nobody knows about it but the problem with that is legally if the maximum amount of money isn’t realised for any asset of the estate, the executives of that will can be held responsible, this is he’s just saying what the law is, he says, my advice to you would be to go to a public auction, I said, we don’t really want to do that but that was the road we went down so we contacted, well he did, Spink’s, the only reason we knew about Spink’s because that’s where my mother, my father’s medals used to go for maintenance and that sort of thing and they used to do the you know dressing of them and [unclear], so he contacted Spink’s who then contacted us and we had to go and see them and have this, you know, this meeting and everything else and then we had the auction, the media found out about it as we knew they would but a lot more, there was a lot more interest than we really anticipated and including us on the BBC news asked me to do a bit for them and they interviewed me at the RAF museum there talking about it, my wishes which just they would go to the museum for ten pounds or something you know and we donate that to charity or whatever, to which the lawyer said [unclear] you can’t do that, anyway there we are, day of the auction, all of the family really buried their head in the sand, they didn’t want to know, I was driving along the motorway somewhere listening to the radio and the news came on and it came on that the Victoria Cross awarded to airman Norman Cyril Jackson had sold, had made a world record of two hundred and thirty six thousand pounds at Spink’s in London, I felt, it was an awful feeling, it really was and then I got a call from various newspapers asking which I there felt, thought was quite personal actually, what are you gonna do with the money? And I just said, I don’t want the money, don’t want anything to do with it, don’t want to touch it, and then the guy from the Telegraph phoned and I spoke to him and he said, you sound quite angry, I said, well, only the fact that this didn’t need to happen in my view and he said, well, what do you feel about it? And then the next day he printed what I was saying that it bothered me that this, it had been sold amongst much acrimony and this sort of things and [coughs] it was not an easy time, the money itself was, sat at Spink’s for a while [coughs], they then forded it on to any lawyers dealing with the estate and it sat there until we were told that it had to be divided up amongst the people who were named within the will, which were the family, I personally refused to have any of it, with prior to that, Penny and I had lost our daughter unfortunately at a young age and we decided that what we’d like to do was have a bronze plaque made because the Victoria Cross is bronze from a cannon that was captured during the Crimean War, a Russian cannon, even though, you know, I think since they decided maybe it was a Chinese cannon that was captured by the Russians which was then captured by the British but we thought it’s bronze so we’d like to have a plaque made in bronze for Lilly our daughter so we got a quota back then of a thousand pounds and we took a thousand pounds of that money to make the plaque and the rest left with the rest of the family who wanted to take it and so that’s what happened to the proceeds of the sale of my father’s medals. At the time I was a bit angry because I felt they should be in a museum in the public domain, following the sale it became known that Lord Ashcroft had purchased my father’s Victoria Cross and he actually wrote it was one of his favourites which I thought was quite nice but I was still angry because I felt it should be in a public domain, I was told at that time by Didy Grahame who was at the or ran really the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association at the Home Office that don’t be too bothered because eventually they will end up in the public domain, Lord Ashcroft has stated that to me, that’s what Didy said and now of course Lord Ashcroft has been involved in the creation of the Victoria Cross room at the Imperial War Museum in London which is where my father’s medals were on show with the story so that is wonderful and I give my full thanks to Lord Ashcroft for that, it’s wonderful, it’s all ended up, you know, ok in the end and they are where they should be in the public domain and with my father’s story which is good
CB: And how did the rest of your siblings feel about
DJ: Awful, even to this day, really Brian was held responsible in some ways for what happened and that was tough for the family to take really because of dealing with the media and in some way trying to keep from the media without lying about what was happening and the reasons for it, what would’ve been nice if the lawyers just said, ok, a majority decision here, that’s what’s gonna happen but Brian felt that they shouldn’t be going to the museum, he’s entitled to his opinion but it did affect family, the family bond for many years to come, it did
CB: It sounds as though you found yourself in the front line of this but what about Shirley who was the other executive, why did she
DJ: Shirley to this day doesn’t forgive at all, not at all, Shirley, I do, I live and let live, I move on, Shirley is a different [unclear] [laughs], she hasn’t really forgiven so you’re welcome to go and interview her if you like [laughs], Shirley no, nor my sister Pauline neither my sister or Brenda really, they [unclear] forgiven, tough one
CB: Yeah
DJ: But that, you know, there we are. Brian had his reasons and he was entitled to them, you know, not everybody thinks the same and I think if you have seven children you are bound to have some disagreements, somewhere down the line
CB: You don’t need seven to get disagreements
DJ: No, two [laughs] or one.
CB: We’ll just stop there.
DJ: To be sold, part, consider part of the estate or sold, that was it,
CB: Those were the options
DJ: That was the options, they were part of the estate which meant they were to be sold as the rest of the estate would be
CB: Right
DJ: Or kept within the family and you cannot as my sister was saying at the time, you cannot keep one item between seven, you can’t cut it up and have a seventh each, you could all agree to give it to one person or to donate it or something, but you need full agreement and if there is one person that disagrees it’s part of the estate, that’s it, now you can have one person disagree for whatever reason, whether you want to see it sold, whether you just don’t want the museum to have it, if there is a disagreement and not, it’s not completely agreed by all seven children, it’s part of the estate, that’s how my mother’s will had been put together by her solicitor which was wrong really cause Mom would have been a lot better off, cause Mom always used to say I would rather Dad’s, my father’s medals, Dad’s medals went to David, that’s what she always wanted because she knew I would do the right thing and but that was never in my mother’s will, other members of the family knew that and kept quoting her but the solicitor said, [unclear] black on white
CB: Legally.
DJ: No.
CB: No.
DJ: This, my mother’s will was done many years ago, been forgotten about really so there it was in black on white and that was it, it just [unclear] one person to disagree for whatever reason and it was part of the estate
CB: Now Brian was the eldest?
DJ: Yes, he was, yeah
CB: And he is not with us any longer
DJ: No, oh you? that’s right, yeah, we lost him this year.
CB: Oh, this year
DJ: Yeah
CB: Right. So, how did the family, the survivors as it were, all six of you feel about it then being on display in the Imperial War Museum?
DJ: Happy.
CB: In that room?
DJ: Very happy. Very, very happy in doing it.
CB: So, does that in a way create a closure?
DJ: Yes
CB: In the family?
DJ: Absolutely, it does. They really should be in the public domain, doesn’t matter where but they’re in the public domain
CB: Yeah
DJ: That’s it. They’re still the property of Lord Ashcroft
CB: Yeah
DJ: As they should, I mean, but, you know, there we are, that’s it but they’re in the public domain which is a good thing
CB: It created, as you said earlier, a good deal of media attention and the sale price was two hundred and thirty-six thousand
DJ: Yeah
CB: What was the expected price at auction?
DJ: One forty, I think
CB: Right
DJ: From memory, I think they were saying it should reach about one hundred and forty thousand, which when you divide it by seven is nothing, twenty thousand or something like [unclear] saying at the time is just ridiculous, going through all this for twenty thousand pounds,
CB: Yes.
DJ: Which I, was a lot of money then I suppose but to me in my head it didn’t matter if it was two hundred thousand it still would’ve been a no
CB: Going back to that extraordinary experience in the Lancaster, what process do you understand went on between the crew members with your father deciding or convincing them that he should get out?
DJ: It wasn’t a, I don’t think, as I understand it he didn’t need to convince them, he was the most experienced member of the crew anyway, it was his job as far as he saw to see that Lancaster return and the crew as well, he asked the permission of the pilot Fred Mifflin who was obviously the skipper of the aircraft, he told him he could deal with it and I think the bond between them all, Fred never questioned it, it was an incredulous thing to try and do but he never questioned it and so he just let him get on with it, that was it, deal with it
CB: When he went into the prison camp, then there were lots of people there obviously, do you, what understanding do you have of how he got on when he was in the prison camp, prisoner of war camp?
DJ: The only thing I really about, Didy Grahame at the Victoria Cross and George’s Cross Association always says my father went through hell as she said in the prisoner of war camp, how she knows that I don’t know, I know very little about my father’s time in the prisoner of war camp other than he used to talk about they were very hungry all the time. He also spoke about in the prisoner of war camp was a chap who they called Little Bader who had lost both legs, he was an airman, lost both legs and they were forced to march, I don’t think this was what’s known as the long march or whatever, they were forced to leave that prisoner of war camp and march to somewhere else towards the end of the war and my father carried that chap, the legless Little Bader as they called him, the distance from that out the prisoner of war camp they [unclear] to the next one which I thought was a pretty incredible thing when, you know, you had hands that had been burnt through, broken ankles and God knows what else, [unclear] he’d healed but you couldn’t have been that good, because you hadn’t been, nutrition was probably non-existent almost and you’d carried him and the chap that Dad had carried actually wrote an article about this because he then found out about Dad’s award after the war and wrote an article saying this was the chap that carried me from the prisoner of war camp to the next prisoner of war camp, which I think was basically to get away from the advancing Allies to move further deeper into Germany and that’s what, that’s my only recollection of anything to do with my father’s time in the prisoner of war camp
CB: Do you know what his name was?
DJ: I did
CB: Ok [unclear]
DJ: I think, you can look it up, I did know it, it’s recorded, this chap, Little Bader, he’s quite well known I think
CB: Ok.
DJ: I think he was a rear gunner, I think he’d lost both legs
CB: We are talking still about the prison camp, he would have been in hospital as you said earlier all that time
DJ: Ten months according to Chaz Bowyer, yeah
CB: Ten months. And the effect of the surgery and the convalescence will still be in the system as it were when he gets to the prisoner of war camp, what do you know about the medical facilities, of the medical [unclear]?
DJ: I know nothing about, if it was [unclear] I don’t know
CB: No
DJ: I know very little if anything about the conditions within the prisoner of war camp, I know my father said they were always hungry, I know he said he never ever, he had to wait until he got back to England before he had a pillow, so he used to sleep with his arm underneath the back of his head, that’s how they had to sleep, they had no pillow or anything, very hungry all the time, as far as medical conditions, facilities were concerned I don’t know, I would have thought they were pretty basic if at all, whether they had a camp doctor I don’t know, I don’t know, I’d have to check on that
CB: Ok. We’ll stop on that.
DJ: Did prisoner of war camps have doctors?
CB: Probably. German.
DJ: They would of course
CB: If they captured people, they would [unclear].
DJ: Right.
CB: Spoke earlier about the Canadian doctor in the hospital, what do you know other than that?
DJ: I’m not sure if it was a hospital, my father spoke about a Canadian doctor, now, whether that was someone who worked in the hospital in Germany with the Germans or subsequently was a captured doctor in the prisoner of war camp I don’t know, probably the latter would have been the case, I can’t imagine the Germans sort of bringing in a Canadian doctor to help them in their hospitals, pretty bad on the payroll I wouldn’t have thought so, so it’s more than likely he was actually in the prisoner of war camp and helped at the, after being discharged from the hospital and that is probably nearer the truth
CB: In view of what your father said, did he ever make contact with that man or try to make contact with him?
DJ: Not that I know of, no, no. Not at all, not that I know of. But bear in mind, I was born in 1953, so whether he did turn up at the house prior to my being born or a few years after I’ve been born, I don’t know, I don’t remember. Dad certainly never spoke about it, other than this Canadian doctor and that was [unclear] helped him
CB: Apart from his experience with the aircraft, what else did he talk about his being dramatic because some of the earlier operations he went on as in raids were fairly dramatic, what
DJ: Yes, he used to talk about Berlin, they had, his crew at 106 Squadron they did ten tours to Berlin, which was quite a lot
CB: Ten ops
DJ: Ten ops, sorry, ten ops, not ten tours, ten ops, my apologies, three hundred missions to Berlins, ten ops to Berlin
CB: Yeah
DJ: One of them I know because it is on the records upstairs, they were hit by flak and also attacked by a fighter that night and lost one engine so they returned with three engines from Berlin all the way back to Metheringham, their base in Lincolnshire, I know that, that’s the only one Dad really used to speak other than the rest of them which were just missions, he just, it was a job to be done, one mission paled into insignificance with another mission, you know, it was just one mission after another really, had he had the choice he probably wouldn’t have wanted to go on any of them, but they just did their job
CB: Just picking up on what you said earlier about the cohesion of the crew, they tended to speak from experience of interviews as the family, what about when they were off operations? Any idea of what they did in their spare time?
DJ: [clears throat] No. I know they used to drink together around, they would go to a local pub around Metheringham or go into Lincoln together. Other than that I don’t know, bear in mind that Fred Mifflin was from Newfoundland so his family would’ve been in Newfoundland so I suspect he’d been quite close to the crew, keeping them together and then the rest of the crew would have known that so they looked after their skipper and the rest from various parts of the country, so they would have spent a lot of time together as a family, a family unit.
CB: I’ll stop there again. Thank you.
DJ: Maybe my father always spoke about the rear gunner who was killed that night
CB: The time when he got out of the plane
DJ: Yeah
CB: Well he
DJ: Well, he, the rear gunner, Dad said, was injured in the first attack
CB; Oh, right.
DJ: He was hit. Now Dad said, he probably would’ve never survived a parachute jump, now whether that was the reason why my father decided to do what he did or not, I don’t know, now that may be the reason, he was very good friends with Fred Mifflin the pilot who was also killed that night, my father said or Sandy Sandeland the wireless operator actually said they did both manage to get out of the aircraft, he saw them, Fred Mifflin was, Johnny Johnson was near the escape hatch at the back of the aircraft, Fred Mifflin was released, he was standing up, ready to move away from the controls, the Germans say they were both found within the aircraft, Sandy Sandeland always said that they got out of the aircraft and they were killed on the ground, so there was a little bit of disagreement there about what happened and my father says, knowing how aircrew were treated when they were off for a bombing mission on a village or town or city, he believed they were killed on the ground but we don’t know, there’s another story that Fred Mifflin and Johnny Johnson were very good friends, Johnny Johnson was injured, couldn’t survive the parachute jump so stayed with the aircraft and tried to bring it down, that’s another story, whether it’s true or not I don’t know, my father didn’t know, he was not in the aircraft but my father always believed they were killed on the ground and not in the aircraft.
CB: Ok.
DJ: Was one of those things you could never prove either way, really
CB: Yes, it’s difficult to deal with
DJ: Yeah.
CB: Now, we’ve covered dramatic things here but there was some good sides so how did your parents come to meet in the first place?
DJ: My father, actually my mother told this story that the way they met was my father used to cycle to the engineering works which was in Richmond from Twickenham, my mother lived in Twickenham at the time and Dad used to cycle past her daily and whistle and then wink. My mother used to obviously totally ignore him and then there was a dance one night at a club in Twickenham and that was where my father saw my Mum and approached her and asked her to dance, I think my mother refused, my father wouldn’t go away, kept on asking and eventually my mother gave in and that’s where it started. That was it.
CB: Persistent man.
DJ: A man who knew what he wanted, I think
CB: So how long did it take him to
DJ: Well, that would’ve been in 1938 to ’39, just prior to him joining up. Bear in mind my mother was born in 1922 so at that time she would’ve been sixteen years of age, coming on seventeen, so a young girl. They married in ’42 when she was twenty. And it was just prior to the war
CB: And then the decision on getting married, how did that work? Cause he’s been away for a bit.
DJ: Yeah, he was sent away, I think they actually were quite close and got engaged I believe in 1940 if I remember correctly and then my father was sent to North Africa, Freetown, North West Africa
CB: Sierra Leone
DJ: Indeed and was there until ’42 and my mother didn’t know where he was, received the odd letter but that was it, gone, and came back in ’42, September, they got back together and the, arranged their wedding for Boxing Day of that year and that was it. Happy ever since.
CB: But most of the war, [unclear] after that ‘42
DJ: Yeah.
CB: Then they were, father was still around
DJ: He, he was in the UK
CB: In the UK, so, how did they live together or did [unclear]?
DJ: No, they
CB: They lived apart all the time
DJ: They, Mum lived in Twickenham, in Church Street, Twickenham.
CB: Right.
DJ: She had a flat there, which my father used to visit when he was off duty, all the time my father was on duty, he would’ve been stationed at the airfield at Metheringham or Syerston first and then Metheringham
CB: Yeah, she didn’t move up to Lincolnshire
DJ: No, she didn’t, she stayed in Twickenham, that’s where she was
CB: And then after the war,
DJ: Yeah
CB: He was still in the RAF
DJ: He was
CB: So, the same arrangement continued
DJ: No, well, bear in mind that my father came back at the end of the war in Europe, he then was still stationed in the RAF, my mother was still living in Twickenham. Come ’46, he left the Royal Air Force, they then took a house in Whitton, which is near Twickenham, a rented accommodation while my father was looking for some land to build a house and that he found in Burtons Road Hampton Hill not far from there and then built the bungalow
CB: What do you know about how he came back from the prison camp? Because he wasn’t in the long march, you said
DJ: I don’t believe the march that was spoken about was the long march, it may well have been
CB: No, that’s right. Yeah.
DJ: But I don’t know, I don’t believe it was [coughs], I’m sure my father would have mentioned that, I think a lot of people died on that march, I don’t think it was that one, sorry [unclear]. [coughs] What did he say about that? I can’t remember much about it at all
CB: How did he actually get back to Britain? Was he flown back or [unclear]?
DJ: Again, I don’t know whether he was on a boat or actually flown back, I don’t know, a lot of the prisoners of war were flown back
CB: They were in Operation Exodus, yes
DJ: So, it may well be that he was flown back but he never spoke about it and I never asked him the question
CB: Ok. Right. Well, David Jackson thank you very much for a most interesting.
DJ: An absolute pleasure, Chris.
CB: Just. Parents give advice to families and children all the time. So, what was your father’s what shall I say recommendation that you should do in life?
DJ: Well, one thing I can remember my father saying to all of us was that, just remember, you don’t have to prove anything to anybody and personally I never quite knew what he meant by that until we were at school when everybody it seemed wanted to challenge you or expected you to step up to the mark where a challenge was involved, this was even with the school teachers who, if there was a rugby game, football game, whatever, they would expect you to excel in what you were doing because
CB: Because of your father was a VC
DJ: Because of my father, yeah. And it really was difficult to live up to thatt a lot of the time, very difficult
CB: Right
PJ: You’re down?
CB: Well, we keep going. No, let’s just. Penny is here now, so let’s just get a bit of reflection on other things. What do you remember about your father-in-law, although you didn’t meet him very often?
PJ: I met him over about a two- or three-year period but the first time I met him, I knocked at the front door and he opened the door and he went, hello, who are you? And I said, my name is Penny and I’m here to see David. Just a minute, [unclear] over his shoulder and shouted, David! One of your girlfriends is here! That’s my first meeting with Norman Jackson. We had a few more like that afterwards, didn’t we?
DJ: Wonderful man!
PJ: [laughs] Oh, you want me to add that bit. Wonderful man! [laughs]
CB: And you did meet him again. And what did he say the second time?
PJ: Oh, I don’t remember the second time, I can remember
CB: Other times
PJ: I can remember a few wedding receptions, family wedding receptions where we went to where he’d rather stayed in the pub than gone to the wedding reception
CB: Right
PJ: And we had to help him out, didn’t we?
DJ: Yeah
PJ: We assisted him out of various pubs
DJ: He’d rather stay at the bar with his whisky rather than go to the actual function itself, yeah
PJ: Yes
CB: Well, he was a man who distributed lemonade as a whisky
PJ: True
CB: As a job
PJ: Oh, that’s a good excuse
CB: You’ve gotta have confidence in your product
DJ: Absolutely
CB: You must try it out
PJ: Of course
DJ: I used to [unclear] He was a John Hague man through and through, absolutely
CB: A man of great belief
PJ: He was
DJ: And conviction
CB: Conviction
PJ: He was a lovely man, very lovely man, nice family man, good heart
CB: How did, the two of you, what was your perspective of the lack of a Bomber memorial or a lack of a memorial to the bomber crews?
DJ: Well, I know what my father’s opinion on that was. Really, upset him quite a lot and personally I couldn’t understand why, I know a lot more about why now and even though a lot of people who come up with reasons why it shouldn’t have been put up need to really go back and relearn their history because their facts are wrong, totally wrong and it was shame that Winston Churchill really dismissed [unclear] knowledge with Bomber Command at the end of the war, I think that was a start a bit really but I know my father was very upset by the lack of the memorial to these guys and would’ve been very, very happy to have been at the unveiling of the memorial in Green Park had us talking when that happened but to wait so long after the end of the Second World War for a memorial to the service that had the highest loss rate of any of the services is unthinkable really, I can’t answer [unclear] just unthinkable
CB: Thinking of the history of this, bearing in mind the Germans were practicing in the Spanish civil war, what were the main things that stick in your mind about what the Germans did originally?
DJ: Originally by starting the Second World War
CB: Then the bombing context
DJ: I think that the bombing context of the German Luftwaffe, maybe the bombing of cities you could almost say happened by accident, Coventry was meant to be a reprisal for what happened with the bombing of Munich by RAF following Hitler’s speech in Munich at that time. The bombing of London was meant to be a mistake by one bomber that basically had navigation had gone wrong and ended up in the East End of London and dropped his bombs during the Battle of Britain but if that’s true then what happened in the Spanish civil war, places like Guernica
CB: Guernica
DJ: Guernica which was basically used as a proving ground for the bombing tactics of the Luftwaffe, in my view they always had the intention of destroying whatever they could destroy. I think that the Germans, the Second World War was the First World War almost as it evolved into was not like a normal war that beknown before it was total war and it involved everybody within the country, absolutely everybody. I do think that the Allies fought the Second World War as indeed the First World War with a degree of humanity. I don’t believe that the Nazis, I think for them humanity didn’t exist.
CB: You talked earlier about when father landed and by parachute and the reaction of with the comment Terror Flieger. Could you just for the record here explain what Terror Flieger, what they meant by that?
DJ: A flier that delivers terror. Probably in today’s terminology a terrorist. And I believe, and my father always understood it, these German cities were suffering night after night and so that’s how he understood it, as a person delivering terror, to people who as far as I’m sure, that man who lived in that cottage was concerned, they didn’t deserve it. Maybe he wasn’t aware of Germany’s position within the Second World War or the reasons for the Second World War. He knew what he was being told, whether that was the truth, who knows. But if the, where the Nazis were concerned, I doubt it. But I’m sure he looked at my father as someone that was pretty awful [laughs] and should, you know, should have been treated pretty bad, abominably really and not with any humanity at all. That’s what I think.
CB: And he’s unlikely to have known what was happening in London, Coventry, Liverpool, Belfast, Portsmouth, Plymouth, all these places
DJ: No, I don’t believe that at all, and I think we’re talking about a different time where people weren’t, where news wasn’t as readily available as it is today, I’m sure he would’ve been aware of the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the aims of Adolf Hitler, whether he considered the rest of Europe was to blame, the Allies [unclear] the rest of Europe, for what was happening in Germany towards the end of the war and it was ill deserved as far as Germany was concerned I don’t know, but I’m sure, when he said Terror Flieger, he meant that these people, these Royal Air Force during the night, at night and the American Air Force during the day were delivering terror that was ill deserved on the German cities. [unclear] sure was what he meant.
CB: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with David Jackson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AJacksonDM171130
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:25:11 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
David Jackson tells of his father, Norman Jackson VC, born in Ealing, London in 1919 and who worked in an engineering company when the war broke out. After initially trying to join the navy, he then joined the RAF and classified as a fitter on engines. He was then posted to 95 Squadron and trained on Sunderland flying boats before remustering as a flight engineer. David gives a detailed and vivid account of his father’s operation to Schweinfurt on the 27th of April 1944, which earned him the Victoria Cross: although he had reached his 30 operations with 106 Squadron, he volunteered to join the aircrew to see them through, making this his thirty first operation; the aircraft was attacked by an enemy fighter and racked by cannon fire; with the aircraft on fire, Norman decided to exit the plane in order to extinguish the flames. At the second attack, Norman was blown off the aircraft and landed in enemy territory, breaking both ankles and suffering serious injuries on his hands. He reached a German village, where he was indignantly called “Terror Flieger”, taken into custody, paraded through the streets and taken for treatment to hospital, where he spent ten months. Afterwards he was interned in a prisoner of war camp. David remembers when his father was invested with the Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace and met Leonard Cheshire. David remembers his father flying ten operations to Berlin and tells of one on which they were attacked by enemy fire and lost one engine. David tells of the legal issues regarding his father’s medals and how they ended up in the Imperial War Museum after being sold at an auction. He discusses his father’s views on the lack of recognition to the aircrews after the war and debates the bombing context of the German Luftwaffe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--London
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Schweinfurt
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-04-27
106 Squadron
95 Squadron
aircrew
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
memorial
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
RAF Halton
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
Sunderland
training
Victoria Cross