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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/181/2011/ASuchenwirthR160730.2.mp3
9afd40e8a7bfb43fb852cb3f8043e75f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/181/2011/ASuchenwirthR160731.2.mp3
3beb82a73fdef1baaffe0d0fe10015b0
Dublin Core
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Title
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Suchenwirth, Richard
R M A Suchenwirth
R Suchenwirth
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-31
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Suchenwirth, R
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Dr Richard Suchenwirth, who served as a Flakhelfer in Pasing, a district of Munich.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewers are Lioba Suchenwirth and Anna Hoyles and the interviewee is Richard Suchenwirth.
LS: Ok.
RS: ja.
LS: So how do you wanna start?
AH: Ehm, can you tell me a bit about your early life?
LS: Möchtest Du was erstmal über deine Kindheit und vielleicht dein Elternhaus erzählen?
RS: Ja. Mein Vater war ja ein großer Anhänger Großdeutschlands und er schrieb eine Deutsche Geschichte mit 700,000 Auflagen und. Aber er war eigentlich, und er kannte auch Hitler persönlich ganz gut, aber er war tief skeptisch und ganz gegen den Krieg. Und dann schrieb er noch Dramen, Dido und Karl den Fünften. Und sonst. Ja, ich bin aufgewachsen in Pasing, weitgehend in Pasing, bei München, ein kleiner Ort der am Rand von München, uralter Ort, und da besuchte ich auch ein Gymnasium und da hieß es im Februar 1943, im Februar 1943, wir müssten, [unclear]
LS: Ihr müsst im Februar ‚43, hieß es,
RS: Wir müssten zur Flak, weil in Russland so viele Soldaten gefallen oder verletzt waren, mussten wir ‘43, im Februar ‘43, zur Flak.
LS: Wie alt warst du da?
RS: Da war ich alt fünfzehn Jahre und drei Monate. Und da bin ich also an die Kanonen gekommen, an die Flak-Kanonen 8,8. Wir waren bei der „4/456“, „4/456“. Das war die erste Flak-Batterie bei der ich tätig war, „4/456“.
LS: Was habt ihr gemacht?
RS: Ich hab versucht München vor Angriffen zu bewahren, vor Luftangriffen zu bewahren, aber Erfolg war nicht gut. Im März da war ein großer Angriff auf München, da gab’s viele hundert, dreihundert Tote, über dreihundert Tote, und alle wurden heimgeschickt, ne, zu schauen ob bei ihnen was passiert war. Alle kamen vergnügt zurück, es war nichts passiert. Ich bin nicht nach Hause gegangen weil ich, war ja nicht in München direkt, sondern in Pasing, und dann wurde ich angerufen, soll sofort kommen, die Hochschule, in der mein Vater tätig war, ist abgebrannt.
LS: Und damit auch die Dienstwohnung.
RS: Und damit die Dienstwohnung. Und ich kam also im März 1943 kam ich also Heim, lagen noch unsere Möbeln, waren großteils gerettet worden, standen alle auf der Straße. Es lag Schnee, und ich blieb dann Paar, ein, zwei Stunden hab bisschen mitgeholfen und dann bin ich zurückgegangen. Meine Eltern zogen dann hierher nach Breitbrunn, ein ganz altes Haus, das wurde erst später neu gebaut.
LS: Und sind Leute damit zu Schaden gekommen?
RS: In der Hochschule sind zwei Leute gestorben, einer, beim [unclear] durch Möbel im Treppenhaus, ein andere, ein junger Student, der kam nicht mehr raus, lag im Krankenzimmer. Und er war, im Haus war eine, eine, ach wie heißt die jetzt, eine Bombe eingeschlagen, eine, die erst später erst gezündet hat, die hat erst, nach Stunden hat die erst gezündet, eine, wie heißt die [unclear]
LS: Brandbombe.
RS: Eine Brandbombe ja, aber die hat einen bestimmten Namen. Und ist, war ausgelaufen, hatte oben das ganze Haus mit einem Schlag, brannte die Hochschule ab. Und dann sind wir, sind wir, mit einen Schlag war’s vorbei.
LS: Und als ihr bei der Flak wart, habt ihr auf Flugzeuge geschossen?
RS: Ja haben wir auf Flugzeuge geschossen, mit mehr oder weniger Erfolg, mit mehr oder weniger Erfolg.
LS: Und habt ihr noch was getroffen, oder?
RS: Vierzig Schüler waren wir, vierzig Schüler, und vierzig Schüler waren bei der Flak, und wir wurden da eingesetzt an Kanonen und an verschiedenen Geräten, wurden wir eingesetzt. Erste Zeit wurde ich [unclear] Bunker, habe ich in einem Bunker gearbeitet, das war nicht schlimm. Und auch später hatte ich eigentlich nie Angst. Abgeschossen habe sicher auch Flugzeuge aber nicht sehr viele. Sehr erfolgreich waren wir nicht. Da gab‘s den Witz: Was will ein Mensch zu Tode verurteilt werden? Was haben Sie am liebsten? Am liebsten will er von der Flak abgeschossen [laughs]
[LS explains the answers to AH]
RS: Eine Phosphorbrandbombe war das.
LS Phosphorbrandbombe.
RS: Eine Phosphorbrandbombe, die war explodiert und hat dann sich ausgedehnt und da eine gewisse Warme im Haus war, ist [makes a wooshing noise] abgebrannt.
[LS explains the asnwers to AH]
RS: Also mit fünfzehn Jahren wurde ich Luftwaffenhelfer. Der Kultusminister wollte es nicht haben, aber der Reichsjugendführer Axmann hat sich durchgesetzt und wir kamen zur Flak, mit fünfzehn Jahren zur Flak. Und dann waren wir in der Nähe von München, in Krailling, und dort ist aber uns nichts passiert, aber bei meiner alten, in, am Bodensee war eine Batterie mit Luftwaffenhelfern, da sind zwei, fast die Hälfte, über die Hälfte ist gestorben bei dem Angriff.
[LS explains the answers to AH]
LS: Und wie hast Du dich da gefühlt als du da eingezogen worden bist?
RS: Ich war sehr stolz, war sehr stolz. Dachte kann ich helfen, bisschen die Heimat zu verteidigen. Ich war sehr stolz, proud,
LS: Kann ich mir gar nicht vorstellen.
RS: I feel proud, very proud. Wir waren vierzig aus unser kleiner Schule, vierzig und alle, jeden Tag kam, ein oder zwei Lehrer kamen und unterrichteten unseren ersten Zeit, aber dann kamen sie nicht mehr weil das, hatte keinen Sinn mehr. Wir waren zu oft weg, nachts rausgerufen worden zur Abwehr und zur.
LS: Und wurdet ihr da, was wurde euch denn erzählt, was ihr machen musstet?
RS: Uns, ja [unclear] oft, unser Offizier war sehr nett und vernünftig, den Olan Hoffman, Hofbauer, der war sehr vernünftig und wir hatten auch nette alte Soldaten. Die meisten waren sehr nett, die meisten waren vernünftig. Die meisten wussten natürlich genau dass es nicht viel brachte, aber sie haben eben uns. Wir hatten, wir waren zu….Sechs Kanonen hatten wir zu betreuen. 8,8 cm, sechs 8,8 Geschütze, und die schossen dann immer in Gruppen die schossen dann immer in die Luft und versuchten die Flugzeuge abzudrängen und zu treffen. Viel getroffen haben wir nicht, einiges haben wir getroffen, aber viel getroffen haben wir nicht.
LS: Es waren Engländer, Amerikaner?
RS: Tagsüber Amerikaner. Da kamen die Liberator und die, Liberator war die eine große Maschine. Und nachts kamen die Engländer mit Lancaster und solchen Maschinen an und nachts warfen die ihre Bomben und nachts und die Amerikaner am Tag. Und dann sind wir raus, und nach ungefähr einem Jahr sind wir verlegt worden nach Senftenberg in der Niederlausitz, also oberhalb von Sachsen. Und dort hatten wir dann eine 10,5 Flak-Batterie. Aber wir haben geschossen in die Luft aber es war, kam nicht viel.
LS: Wie lange warst Du insgesamt bei der Flakbatterie, weißt Du das?
RS: Ich war dadurch das ich zum Schluss krank wurde ein halbes Jahr im Lazarett lag, war ich zwei Jahre bei der Flak.
LS: Am Schluss hattest Du Tuberkulose.
RS: Tuberkulose und Hepatitis.
LS: Hepatitis, durch Mangelernährung.
RS: Na ja, natürlich ansteckend.
LS: Aber du warst auch fast verhungert, hast Du gesagt.
RS: Dort, bei der Flak nicht, nein dort nicht. Und dann waren wir beim Lazarett in Senftenberg und war dort halbes Jahr gelegen und dann bin ich von dort nach Hause entlassen worden. Als der Krieg zu Ende war, war ich gerade siebzehn Jahre.
LS: Und als du nach Hause kamst, was hast du denn hier vorgefunden?
RS: Ja hier im Haus, das Haus war ja ganz anders gewesen. Dieses Zimmer hier das ist so alt, das ist über hundert Jahre alt dieses Zimmer. Und sonst waren meine Eltern, meine Großeltern, meine Eltern waren da, meine Großmutter war da, und der Vetter, der Neffe, Georg, Gerhard aus Wien waren da, war also alles proppenvoll, das Haus war proppenvoll mit Leuten.
LS: Aber da fehlte auch jemand, oder?
RS: Mein Bruder Harald ist schon, ist auch, noch im April, noch im März, noch einmal. Er wollte, hat den Amerikanern ergeben wollen und die Amerikaner haben alles an die Russen ausgeliefert. Er war in Altötting. Haben alle an die Russen ausgeliefert und der kam nie wieder zurück [unclear]
LS: Wie alt war der?
R.S.: Der war achtzehn ein halb, neunzehn, neunzehn.
LS: Und als er eingezogen war?
RS: Der war normal, sechzehn, siebzehn Jahre. Ich bin wesentlich jünger gewesen, aber.
LS: An Ruhr ist er gestorben.
RS: An Ruhr. Auf der Heimfahrt von Russland. ER war im Gefangenenlager in Russland und ein Freund der berichtete später noch, das er sich tapfer geschlagen hatte. Wenig, der war alles andere als ein Nazi, er war ganz gegen. Sein Leidensspruch war: Ubi bene, ivi patria. Wo‘s gut ist, das ist deine Heimat.
[LS explains the answers to AH]
RS: Und ich stand ja auch nicht gerade sehr positiv. Ich habe immer einen Schweitzer Sender gehört, einen Schweitzer Sender um Nachrichten zu bekommen. Die Englischen haben wir nicht gehört, zu der Zeit wollten wir nicht, wir wollten keine Feindsender hören.
[LS talks to AH]
RS: Beromünster, hießt der Sender. Beromünster in der Schweiz.
LS: Ach. Un der Englische? BBC?
RS: England haben wir nicht gehört.
LS: BBC? Habt ihr nicht gehört.
RS: Und da kam, war der Krieg zu Ende. Und als die ersten Amerikaner kamen, Amerikaner, fragte mein Vater: ‘Are we occupated?’. Und da antworteten die, zwei Amerikaner waren: ‘No, liberated!’ Und dann ist er drei Jahre lang eingesperrt worden.
LS: Warum ist er eingesperrt worden?
RS: Na ja, er hatte ja einen Hohen Rang bei der SA und war, und sein Buch war sehr verbreitet. Und er war Reichsredner. Und, und, war schon sehr dicht verbunden, obwohl er gar nicht wollte, mit Hitler sehr verbunden. War, ja?
LS: Aber er hat sich aus der Aktienpolitik irgendwann zurückgezogen?
RS: Ja, ja, aus der Aktienpolitik hatte er sich schon zurückgezogen, hat er sich zurückgezogen in Pasing damals, ‘36.
LS: Warum?
RS: Weil er Arbeit genug, andere Arbeit lag ihm mehr als aktiv Politik zu treiben. Und Hitler lag ihm gar nicht, Hitler war ihm sehr wenig sympathisch.
LS: Und das Antisemitische fand er auch nicht gut, oder?
RS: Na ja, also, er war ihm die Kirchenfeindlichkeit, es waren ja alle in der Kirche geblieben natürlich, Katholisch. Und er hatte auch Antisemitisch, wir haben nie eine Wort Antisemitisches von ihm gehört. Das verrückte war ja, als die, als, als, ‘40, die Deutsche Armee in Frankreich, England, Frankreich, Belgien und Holland einfiel, kam unser Dienstmädchen, die kam begeistert: „die Deutsche Kriegsfahne wehte über Rotterdam oder über [unclear]“, da sagte mein Vater, werde ich nie vergessen: „Die machen die gleiche Dummheit noch einmal“.
[LS explains the answers to AH]
LS: Er hatte doch ne, da ist gibt’s eine Episode die hast Du mal erzählt, die fand ich sehr spannend. Er hat eine Hitler-Büste geschenkt bekommen.
RS: Hat er ja gehabt, einziger war von Hitler. Also er hatte kein Bild von Ihm hängen, nur eine Büste und immer wenn er sich geärgert hat, kam ein Paar Mal vor, konnte er die Büste eine Ohrfeige geben.
LS: Abgewatscht.
RS: Abgewatscht. Und so sprach er vom Teppichbeisser Hitler. Er war sehr skeptisch Hitler gegenüber.
LS: Warum Teppichbeisser?
RS: Weil Hitler angeblich, in seinen Wutanfällen, sich auf den Boden geworfen haben soll und in einen Teppich gebissen haben soll.
LS: Und warum war Dein Vater so Großdeutsch, glaubst Du? Hatte es mit der eigenen Vertreibungsgeschichte zu tun?
RS: Nein, also, er war Großdeutsch 1930, wollte sich Österreich wirtschaftlich anschließen an Deutschland. Ein gemeinsames Zollabkommen. Und das haben die Amerikaner, haben die Franzosen und Engländer verhindert und das hat die anderen zur Weißglut getrieben. Sie wollten eben, Deutschland mit Österreich, wie vor 1866. Wie vor 1866 war Deutschland.
LS: Und dein Vater war Österreicher.
RS: Mein Vater war Österreicher. Wiener, Vienna. Ich bin auch Wiener, aber, ach, na ja.
LS: Und wie hat er Hitler kennengelernt?
RS: Er hatte ganz früh Hitler kennengelernt, 1922 schon.
LS: Als er noch in Österreich war [unclear] NSDAP [unclear].
RS: Ja….
LS: Und wie ist Dein Vater, wie ist er dazugekommen die Österreichische NSDAP zu gründen?
RS: Das war in der Politik. Die Politik florierte gerade und hat er das gemacht und ist dann bald ausgetreten aus der Partei.
LS: Ach so, ist er dann ausgetreten?
RS: Ein, zwei Jahre später ist er ausgetreten.
LS: Weist Du warum er ausgetreten ist?
RS: Na ja, er war an einer Jüdischen Schule tätig, die war fast ganz von Juden besetzt und dadurch kam er nicht an Staatsstelle. Und dann bekam er die Staatsstelle und dann ist er, war er glücklich. Paar Jahre ging es ganz gut. Er war an der Hochschule für Bau, Bauhochschule. Dann ist er eben auch nach England, nach Deutschland geflohen.
LS: Er musste fliehen weil die Arbeiterrevolution war in Wien, oder?
RS: Teilweise. Eine Revolution die von den Sozis. Aber auch weil eben die, kam auch diese kleine Nazigruppe, die Dolfuss erschossen hat, und dann ist er geflohen, über die Tschechei.
LS: Und ist er vor den Nazis auch geflohen?
RS: Nein, nein, nein, nein.
LS: Er ist vor den Arbeitern, vor der Arbeiterrevolution geflohen.
RS: Vor der Regierung.
LS: Vor der Regierung. Und die Regierung setzte sich zusammen…
RS: Christlich [unclear]
LS: OK. Und warum musste er fliehen? Weil er mit den Nazis auch zu tun hatte.
RS: Ja, ja, ja. Und dann kam er nach Deutschland, war er erst bei der Reichsschriftungskammer und dann hatte er die Hochschule in Pasing, wurde er Rektor und wurde 1942 aufgehoben und da ist er verbittert gewesen. Professor, Honorarprofessor der Universität war er noch.
LS: Und der Großvater ist über die Tschechei geflohen.
RS: Ja.
LS: War das aufregend, oder?
RS: [Unintelligible] Es sind viele geflohen.
LS: Ok war nicht.
RS: Nein.
LS: Und ihr seid mitgekommen?
RS: Wir sind später geholt worden, später nachgekommen, später nachgeholt worden, später erst.
LS: Und war der eigentlich auch im Ersten Weltkrieg, Großvater?
RS: Er war im Ersten Weltkrieg war er noch Leutnant.
LS: Und was hat er da gemacht? Wo war er da?
RS: Er war in Polen gegen die Russen und dann war er in Südtirol gegen die Italiener. Sette comuni, Sieben Gemeinden, zehn Gemeinden, da war eine kleine Deutsche Minderheit und da war er halt dort gewesen. Als [unclear] Offizier, als Nachrichtenoffizier.
LS: Als Spion?
RS: Nein, nein. Er war viel zu feige.
LS: Er war viel zu feige [laughs].
RS: Nein nein, er war kein Spion. Er hat überall [unclear], wie er glaubte, seine Pflicht erfüllt, gel.
LS: Und was ist nach dem Krieg mit ihm geschehen?
RS: Nach ‘45? War er drei Jahre interniert, erst bei den Amerikanern, dann bei den Engländern, da ging‘s ihn besser als uns. [laughs]
LS: Warum?
RS: Wurde gut ernährt und Zigaretten bekam, und er war Nichtraucher, bekam viel Zigaretten. Zigaretten war die Währung damals. Eine Zigarette fünf Mark.
LS: So viel! Und was hat er mit den Zigaretten gemacht?
RS: Hat [unclear] mir auch mitgegeben. Ich hatte eine Hose gehabt, die unten zugenäht war, so’ne Überfallhose, und die hatte, bis zum Knie steckte sie voller Zigaretten und voller solche Sachen.
LS: Und was hast Du mit den Zigaretten gemacht?
RS: Hab eingetauscht. Eine Schreibmaschine für dreißig Packungen Zigaretten.
LS: Und mit der Schreibmaschine hast Du deine Doktorarbeit dabei geschrieben?
RS: Auch ja.
LS: Und euch, wovon habt ihr gelebt nach den Krieg?
RS: Meine Mutter war ja aus einer Wohlhabenden Familie, und die hatte einen, war Teilhaberin einer Fabrik in Attendorn. Meine Mutter war nicht reich aber wohlhabend war sie gewesen. Die wollte gerne Medizin studieren, da musste ich Medizin studieren.
LS: [laughs] Aber die war eine der ersten Frauen die studiert haben in Deutschland, oder?
RS: Ja angefangen.
LS: Ja [unclear]
RS: Zwei Semester dann musste sie aufhören. Sollte Geld verdienen, weil sie heiraten wollte.
LS: Was hat sie da gemacht? gearbeitet?
RS: In einer Fabrik. In der Fabrik meines Großvaters.
LS: Und, von der Familie eine Tante ist auch bei einer Brandbombe umgekommen, oder?
RS: Zwei Großtanten sind umgekommen durch Brandbomben. Die Tante Lene in Nürnberg und Tante Agnes in [unclear]. Sie hat bis zum Schuss versucht die Bomben rauszuwerfen, die kleinen Bomben konnte man rauswerfen damals,
LS: Mit der Hand,
RS: Mit der Hand. Und die großen Bomben, gegen die waren wir machtlos.
LS: [talks to AH] Wie alt war sie da, ungefähr?
RS: 72.
[LS explains the answers to AH]
RS: [unclear] Hatten wohl noch… hatten wohl noch nach, den letzten Kriegstagen noch schwer beschädigt und, nicht, nicht, unser Haus nicht. Das Haus mit den Großeltern nicht.
LS: Und dann kamen die Amerikaner hierher,
RS: Die Amerikaner, ja.
LS: Die haben gesagt ihr seid befreit worden [laughs],
RS: Ja.
LS: Und haben die dann euer Haus abgenommen oder wie war das?
RS: Was? Das hier?
LS: Hier dieses Haus hier.
RS: Nein, das war so ein schäbiges Haus gewesen, aus sieben Teilen bestehend, wollte keiner haben.
LS: Und die, aber die Franzosen, waren hier eine Zeit?
RS: Die Franzosen waren, die Kriegsgefangenen waren sehr anständig zu uns und die, dann kamen so Plünderer in Pseudouniform und die plünderten alles was gut und brauchbar war.
LS: Was haben sie mitgenommen, zum Beispiel?
RS: Schreibmaschine, Radioapparat, Fotoapparat [unclear]
LS: Und haben die euch bedroht mit Waffen oder..?
RS: Mit Waffen bedroht nicht direkt, sie wollten dass ich das rauftrage zum Auto, das wollte ich nicht und da hat meine Mutter sich da vor mich geworfen und sagte: ‘aber er ist krank, TBC’ und hat es selber raufgetragen. Die Franzosen haben, die Gefangenen waren gut, die waren nett. [unclear] Die Gefangenen standen sehr gut.
LS: Und, Du hattest, also waren Französische Kriegsgefangene hier auch? Hast Du sie kennengelernt?
RS: Ja hier auch.
LS: Die haben hier als Erntehelfer gearbeitet?
RS: Haben bei den Bauern gearbeitet, ja. Ungefähr zwanzig. Die wohnten dann oben in einer [unclear], später. Und da kam abends, kam immer einer, einer zog sich mühsam eine Deutsche Uniform an und fragte; ‘seid‘s alle da?’. Da schrie einer, einer musste immer Oui schreien. Dann war‘s gut. Alle andere waren nicht da, waren unterwegs irgendwo. Nicht alle, aber viele waren unterwegs.
LS: Und was haben sie gemacht?
RS: Freundinnen hatten sie irgendwo.
[LS explains the answers to AH]
RS: War so nicht so ganz ernst der Krieg da.
LS: Und da waren Russische Kriegsgefangene hier auch.
RS: Die Russischen Kriegsgefangene, bei der Flak hatten wir welche. Die mussten die schlechten Arbeiten machen. Zehn hatten wir in der Batterie ungefähr. Zehn Russische Kriegsgefangenen haben uns bei der Flak geholfen.
LS: Du hast so eine Bärenfigur irgendwo.
RS: Ja, ja, das hat, hat ein Russe hat es gemacht, ein Russe hat ihn geschnitzt. Und wo liegt es, weiss es nicht.
LS: Im Schrank.
RS: Ja, ja, richtig.
LS: Und das haben die getauscht für Essen oder für was?
RS: Gegen Brot, gegen Brot.
LS: Hatten die Hunger?
RS: Ja, Hunger, viel Hunger.
LS: Die?
RS: Russen. Es war keiner verhungert. Einer war ausgerissen, der soll erschossen worden sein, habe ich gehört. Nie selber gesehen, auch nie selber gehört. Nach dreisig, vierzig Jahren im Krieg habe ich gehört von einen der bei der Batterie als Luftwaffenhelfer war [unclear]
LS: Und warum hatten die so Hunger? Gab es nicht so viel, oder [unclear]?
RS: Wir hatten alle, die Rationen wurden alle kleiner, aber für die Russen wurden sie noch kleiner. Also gut ging’s ihnen nicht. Und da, haben wir das gemacht, gegen Ringe gemacht und solche Sachen. Und haben dann Getauscht gegen Brot, gegen. Gut mir noch genug gegen Ende des Krieges und Lazarett war js ein halbes Jahr und [unclear]
LS: Wie hat sich denn dein Vater nach dem Krieg gefühlt, oder wie? Hatte er das Gefühl, das er sozusagen, einen historischen Beitrag geleistet hat für diesen Krieg, oder wie?
RS: Ne, er war fester Meinung, er hat ja schon längst angefangen, Dramen zu schreiben, im Krieg schon, eine über Dido, eine über Karl den Fünften, und hat geschrieben, geschrieben, geschrieben. Aber er durfte ja nach 1945 nichts mehr publizieren, und da war’s vorbei. Und er hat dann, aber die Amerikaner haben ihm weitergeholfen und haben ihn arbeiten lassen in Ameri, in Hamburg und in Karlsruhe.
LS: Und seine Bucher wurden noch auf Englisch publiziert, gel, denn in Deutschland durften sie nichts, aber in Amerika schon.
RS: Ja, ja, drei Bücher wurden auf Amerikanisch, auch nach seinem Tod.
LS: Ach, nach seinem Tod wurden wieder welche.
RS: Ja, ja.
LS: Und Großvater hat auch über die Luftwaffe geschrieben.
RS: Er hat drei über die Luftwaffe, eines über die Führungsgestaltung der deutsche Luftwaffe und eines über die Entwicklung der Deutschen Luftwaffe. Drei Bücher hat er geschrieben. Ich hab sie alle hier liegen, kann sie auch zeigen, wenn Du willst.
LS: Die Bücher sind auf Englisch, gel?
RS: Auf Englisch. Auf Amerikanisch.
LS: Ja, Amerikanisch. Und, ehm, weil er doch die NSDAP in Österreich mitgegründet hat, hat er da eine Art historisches Schuldgefühl?
RS: Er mitgegrundet, die NSDAP gab es in Österreich vor der Deutschen NSDAP. Die Tschechische NSDAP. Und er hat sich nie als schuldig gefühlt. Aber er hat sich nie in diesem Sinn schuldig gefühlt.
LS: Und hast Du das Gefühl, wenn Du jetzt so geschichtliche Sachen sich entwickeln siesst, glaubst Du, man hätte eine Art Notbremse ziehen koennen? Also Du nicht..
RS: Also ich weiss nicht. Ich glaube die Geschichte laüft, wie sie laufen will. Mit den Engländer, also als Soldaten, waren Die Engländer sehr fair und anständig, als Soldaten. Sehr unangenehm waren Die Franzosen. Als Kriegs….[unclear] Und die Russen hatten selber nichts Gescheites, gel. Die waren sehr . Den Russen ging es sowieso schlechter als, na ja. Und die Amerikaner waren so neutral.
LS: Von den Amerikanern gab’s immer Kaugummi.
RS: Ja, die Amerikanischen…. Und es waren, Die Neger waren so furchtbar nett, die Neger.
LS: Aber.
RS: Man sagt nicht mehr Neger, ich weiß. Aber die waren so furchtbar nett und Kindern Schokolade geschenkt und Kaugummi und so. Und einer kam immer und ans Klavier sich gesetzt und hat ein Paar drei, vier Klinge und konnte nicht richtig spielen. Und meine Mutter hatte ihn Badehosen angezogen, genäht. Mutter hat ihm Badehosen genäht.
LS: Damit er irgendwie schwimmen gehen kann. Und wie hast Du Dich gefühlt, als Du quasi bombardiert worden bist? Hatte man da persönliche Gefühle auch oder nicht?
RS: ich hatte keine Angst. Ich saß ja im Bunker. Draußen saß…Angst hatte ich keine, nein.
LS: Und eine Wut, das die sozusagen in dein Land kommen?
RS: Nee, überhaupt keine Wut, überhaupt kein Gefühl gehabt. Ich hab’s ja erlebt aber nicht gesehen. Waren natürlich schlimme Sachen aber wir haben, na ja.
LS: Und als ihr das so gehört habt, zum Beispiel über Coventry und Dresden?
RS: Schlimm, ja war sehr schlimm. Coventry, das haben wir auch gehört die Geschichte. Die Bombardierungen von Coventry und dann noch die Angriffe auf London. Haben alle gehört und wir haben eigentlich innerlich Distanz… Weiter dann war der furchtbare Angriff auf Dresden. Und dann wurde eine Stadt wie Würzburg war sehr stark bombardiert. In den letzten Kriegstagen von den Amerikanern weitgehend zerstört. München war zu 40, zu 50% zerstört. München im Laufe von vielen Angriffen.
LS: Und stimmt das dass man die Weihnachtsbomben genannt hat, die Bomben, die da runtergefallen sind?
RS: Nein es ist so. Die den Flugzeugen voraus flogen nachts, flogen, wie heißen die den, jedenfalls, Mosquitos hießen die, die waren sehr, ganz schwach bewaffnet und warfen dann Leuchtkörper ab und dann wussten die wo sie bombardieren sollten. Und das war von Weihnachts….Die warfen das ab und dann wussten die wo die bombardieren sollte. Und die nachfolgenden Bomber haben sich nach den Mosquitos gerichtet und haben da die ganzen Flechtflächen geworfen.
LS: Warum hießen die Weihnachtsbäume?
RS: Nein, die hießen gar nicht so, die hießen nicht Weihnachtsbäume, sondern die waren wie einen wunderschönen Schmuck, hatten wunderschöne Farben. Christbaüme.
LS:Weihnachtslichter.
RS: Ja, so ungefähr. Die Mosquitos vor weg, leichte Flugzeuge, die warfen so kleine Bomben, Leuchtbomben, und dann wussten wir schon wohin, wohin der Angriff ging. Und dann waren… da kamen eben die Bomber, aber es sind schwere Bomben.
LS: Du hast gesagt du hast mal was unanständiges erlebt, als ihr ein Flugzeug mal erwischt habt.
RS: Wir hatten einen Amerikaner abgeschossen und da wollten von uns einige Leuten wollten den Piloten misshandeln, und der Erstleutnant, unser Offizier, trat sofort ein und bot ihm auch eine Zigarette an. Das fanden viele gut aber viele fanden das auch nicht gut.
LS: In wie fern misshandeln?
RS: Wie?
LS: Verprügeln, oder was?
RS: Ja ja.
LS: Also ihr habt ihn gefangen dann auch?
RS: Ja ja.
LS: Der kam mit dem Fallschirm abgesprungen und ihr habt den dann geschnappt.
RS: ja ja.
LS: Und habt ihr auf ihn geschossen wie er mit dem Fallschirm abgesprungen ist?
RS: Also ich persönlich nicht aber es gab einen Oberleutnant, den Namen will ich jetzt nicht nennen, der hat noch etliche Salven auf Ziehfallschirm, abspringenden Soldaten geschossen. Fand ich sehr unfair, ich konnte es aber nicht verhindern, ich war ein kleiner Jungen von fünfzehn Jahre.
LS: und wie fanden die anderen Jungen das, weisst Du das noch?
RS: Weiß ich nicht.
LS: Wurden so Sachen diskutiert, oder durfte man nicht diskutieren?
RS: Die wurden kaum diskutiert, weil das Leben war so ereignisreich, dass wir gar nicht dazu kamen, über die Dinge viel zu sprechen. War zu viel. Dann wurden wir verlegt nach Senftenberg, von München nach Senftenberg, 8,8 zur 10,5 Flak. Und dann bin ich [unclear] gekommen und das war anfangs, na ja. Hatte einen Italiener, der war sehr nett, und den habe ich gedolmetscht. Und er hat mir, na ja. Im Lazarett ging ganz friedlich zu. Was interessiert sie noch?
LS: Ich überlege.
RS: Nach dem Krieg habe ich noch studieren dürfen, studieren können. Gleich nach dem Krieg konnte ich studieren, hatte einen Förderungskurs, ich musste einen Abiturförderungskurs von vier Monaten und dann konnte ich studieren, habe ich angefangen zu studieren und von da an war alles wie gewöhnlich.
LS: Und du warst auch Mangel an Ernährung, zum Beispiel, oder?
RS: Essen, und essen hatten wir sehr wenig, sehr sehr wenig. Mein Vater unter Kriegsgefangenschaft meinem Bruder immer Päckchen mit trockenem Brot geschickt. Über zwanzig Päckchen hat er geschickt. Und meine Großmutter hat daraus Suppen gemacht. Und ich habe….. man merkte es gar nicht mehr, es ging so langsam. Mal wurde es immer weniger, immer weniger und dann haben wir gehungert. Dann habe ich versucht alle Kunstprodukte zu packen, hat mir aber nie geschmeckt, habe ich nie essen können.
LS: Was zum Beispiel?
RS: Zum Beispiel aus Leim und aus Haferflocken, ach aus, was in der Muhle so ubrig blieb.
LS: Holzspäne?
RS: Holzspäne nicht gerade, aber, aber…
LS: Die Spelzen vom Weizen.
RS: War nichts zu essen. aber. Leim war ja auch.
LS: [unclear] ?
RS: Jedenfalls vom Kunstegebilde. Hier gehungert und erst richtig. Und als ich noch…mit dem Studium fertig war, wog ich noch glaub ich siebzig Kilo, zehn Kilo hatte ich verloren ungefähr, zehn Kilo Gewichtsverlust aber es ging noch ganz gut. Zu der Zeit Kriegskrankenhaus wurde operiert…
LS: Hattet ihr Uniformen als Kindersoldaten?
RS: Natürlich, ja, ja. Luftwaffenhelferuniform. Ich habe auch…Leider liegt’s nicht hier oben. Sa ganz gut aus in so einer Uniform. Sollten wir immer HJ Binde tragen aber die haben wir nie getragen. Anfangs immer noch HJ am Arm als wir die Flak verlassen und Heimaturlaub und dann [unclear]
LS: Und warum?
RS: Wir wollten nichts mit HJ zu tun haben.
LS: Warum wolltet ihr nichts mit HJ zu tun haben?
RS: Weil es waren Soldaten.
LS: HJ waren die Kinder, waren die Jugendlichen.
RS: Ja ja.
LS: Und wie waren die Baracken wo ihr wohntet? Oder die Lager?
RS: Ich war in einer Baracke mit neun anderen in einem Zimmer, neun, später drei oder vier. Und da habe ich ein Mädchen kennengelernt, mit der ich noch vor wenigen Monaten telefoniert. Die ist inzwischen Urgroßmutter und ich werde auch bald vielleicht..
LS: Urgroßvater.
RS: Urgroßvater.
LS: Und dann war das ein bisschen für Dich manchmal so ein romantischer Abendteuer, so lauter Jugendliche zusammen? Keine Eltern….?
RS: Ja ja, war spannend, war interessant und spannend. [unclear] Ist keiner bei Fliegerangriffen gefallen. Später sind ungefähr ein viertel gefallen. Und wir waren, kein einziger ist zur Waffen-SS gegangen. Die waren nicht beliebt bei uns.
LS: Und hattet ihr Freizeit dann auch, als ich bei der Flak wart? Hat ihr so richtig zu Dienstzeiten quasi und dann am Wochenende dann heim?
RS: Es ging nicht, wir mussten bereit sein, die mussten kommen. Bei Fliegerangriffen mussten wir da sein. Aber wir waren natürlich, am Wochenende waren einer zu hause und ich war am Neujahr zu hause.
LS: Und durftet ihr am Nachmittag eure Eltern sehen oder so?
RS: Die kamen, natürlich besuchten uns. In der Flakstellung.
LS: Und habt ihr viel gelesen? Aber Du ließt ja immer so viel.
RS: Ich habe viel gelesen aber, natürlich haben wir viel gelesen und haben uns über vieles unterhalten. Aber…
LS: Und wie hat man sonst die Zeit so rumgebracht?
RS: Na ja, Wir machten ja Appell. Der schlimmste war der Vollzähligkeitsappell, das ganze Zeug was wir vom Militär hatten, mussten wir nehmen und um uns herumlegen und dann wurde gesagt „drei Paar Socken, zwei Paar, hier sind sie, alles in Ordnung, ein Hemd, ein Nachthemd’ und Sachen. Und jedenfalls…
LS: Und war es mal langweilig und hat ihr Karten gespielt?
RS: Karten gespielt. Karten nicht viel, aber wurde…. Gespielt.
LS: Und was hast Du gemacht?
RS: Alles mögliche. Vieles und uns unterhalten. Den Schweitzer Sender Beromünster habe ich gehört und da musste ich meinem Vater immer sagen was es Neues gibt und da mussten…
LS: Warum hat er ihn nicht gehört?
RS: Der konnte immer sagen: ‘ich habe keinen Sender’. Überzeugend.
RS: Und in der Schule sprachen wir darüber. Und ich sagte: ‘ich habe heute bei der Putzfrau, bei der Milchfrau das gehört’ und ich wusste wer die Milchfrau war, die hat auch Beromünster gehört.
LS: Und ihr hattet ein Dienstmädchen, und die war Überzeugte Nazi-Anhängerin?
RS: Die war Sozialdemokratin aus Wien, aus Attentan und dann Wien. Und als die Deutsche Kriegsflagge uber Ludwig [or Lublin??] wehte, kam sie begeistert und mein Vater war entsetzt. Und da war eine Polin, die war sehr nett. Hatten zwei Mädchen.
LS: War die Kriegsgefangene die Polin, oder?
RS: Nee, die war so verpflichtet, angeblich. Die hat einmal eine Gans mitgebracht aus Polen.
[LS explains the answers to AH]
RS: Helene.
LS: Ich glaube das war’s dann, Papa.
RS: War’s alles? In drei Jahren habe ich nicht mehr erlebt?
[LS explains the answers to AH]
LS: Mir fallt nichts mehr ein. Aber weisst Du was, wir kommen dann nachher und machen nochmal eine halbe Stunde, ja?
RS: Gut, gut.
LS: Ok.
SECOND INTERVIEW
AH: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre on the 31 of July 2016. It is the second interview with Professor Richard Suchenwirth, taking place in his home in Breitbrunn, outside Munich. The first interview took place yesterday. The interviewers are Liobe Suchenwirth and Anna Hoyles.
RS: ich kann so schlecht Englisch.
LS: Papa, wir wollten noch wissen von Dir über die Bücher vom Großvater die er über die Luftwaffe geschrieben hat. Kannst du noch ein Bisschen was erzählen dazu?
RS: Drei Bücher hat er über die Luftwaffengeschichte geschrieben, und die sind alle nach seinem Tod in Amerika erschienen. Ich hab alle drei hier.
LS: Auf Englisch erschienen.
RS: Auf Englisch.
LS: Vorüber waren die nochmal?
RS: Die, wer die Führer war der Luftwaffe, wie die Luftwaffe sich entwickelt hat und wie die Luftwaffe überhaupt zustande gekommen ist.
LS: Und wer hat ihm da den Auftrag gegeben, weiß Du das?
RS: War Department in New York,
LS: War Department in New York.
RS: in Washington.
LS: In Washington. Und davon hatte er auch das Geld einfach, also, die haben es auch bezahlt und so.
RS: Ja, die haben und da hat.
LS: Und was hat er dann, und er durfte ja nicht mehr arbeiten so richtig nach dem Krieg?
RS: Ja.
LS: Was hat er gemacht, und wovon hat er gelebt?
RS: Von, erst hat er von Vorträgen gelebt und, hat er lange Zeit, drei Jahre war er ja lang interniert und dann hatt er erlebt, [unclear] die Amerikaner haben viele Jahre ihn [unclear]
LS: Er hat auch was für die Europäische Konstitution geschrieben, oder?
RS: Nein, das weiss ich nicht.
LS: Europäische Verfassung?
RS: Er wollte etwas schreiben, wie heißt es, ich hab’s nicht im Kopf. ‘Europa’s letzte Stunde?’ hiess, Fragezeichen.
LS: So, Vorläufer der EU Geschichte, sowas, nicht.
RS: Ja.
LS: Dann, wollte ich nochmal fragen.
RS: Maria Theresia, [unclear] Buch von Maria Theresia ist [unclear] richtig, sogar nochmal nachgedruckt worden.
LS: Ah ja, genau, das war auch sehr erfolgreich, gell? Der hat fürs Reichskulturministerium gearbeitet nachdem er aus Wien geflohen ist. Was hat er gemacht?
RS: Reichsschriftungskammer. In der Reichsschriftungskammer war er Geschäftsführer, und da flog er Tag aus und dann ging er nach Pasing, da hat er die Hochschule [unclear].
LS: Und warum flog er da raus?
RS: Weil er, dort damalige Reichsschriftungskammerchef ihm nicht gewogen war. Der war ein großer, der war [unclear] hiess der.
LS: Der war so ein großer Nazi, oder. Und war das so was politisches oder was, oder mochten die sich einfach nicht? Oder so ein Bisschen beides?
RS: Erstens, beides, beides.
LS: Dann wollten wir nochmal fragen, wegen dem Harald. Der Harald hat wo gedient? Der wurde zwangseingezogen so wie alle, oder?
RS: Ja, zwangseingezogen. Er war bei der Wehrmacht, war er Oberreiter, hat aber nie ein Pferd gesehen, abgesehen vielleicht vom Kochtopf.
LS: Und wo war der?
RS: Er war in Russland, ganz innen in Russland. Und man hatte ihn das Bein abnehmen wollen und dass wollte er nicht und da musste er nochmal raus. Und da kam er, hat er geflohen von Sankt Pölten mit einem freund, von Sankt Pölten bis Altötting, in Altötting, und da hat er sich den Amerikanern ergeben. Und die Amerikaner haben alle von Altötting über die Donau nach Freyung getan und in Freyung wurde ausgeliefert an die Russen.
LS: Und das war aber nicht…. Das ging gegen die Genfer Kriegskonvention, oder?
RS: Ja.
LS: Und er ist geflohen, dass heißt er ist desertiert.
RS: Ja, es hat sich aufgelöst, die Truppe hat sich aufgelöst. So ungefähr, die Truppe hat sich aufgelöst.
LS: Kannst Du noch etwas von den Namen von deinen Eltern erzählen? Wie die heißen?
RS: Mein Vater hieß auch Richard wie ich. Mein Großvater war ein großer Verehrer von Richard Wagner. Alle drei Richards sind Folge davon: Ich, und mein Vater und vor allem mein Sohn Richard.
LS: Und deine Mutter?
R.S.: Meine Mutter kam aus dem Sauerland, südlichen Westfahlen, und uralte Fabrik, uralte Familie, hat 170 jährigen gefeiert und vorher war sie eine Wohlhabende Bürgerfamilie aus Westfahlen-Sauerland.
LS: Und wie hieß sie?
RS: Anna Elisabeth.
LS: Und wurde Else genannt.
RS: Ja.
LS: Und Deine Schwester, wie hat die den Krieg gelebt, wie hat die den Krieg überlebt?
RS: Hat und der Hermann, die jüngeren Geschwister blieben bei meinen Eltern, blieben bei der Mutter, sie haben eine Ziege gehabt, hatten zwei Ziegen und haben davon gelebt. Und die haben’s gut überlebt, den Krieg.
LS: Deiner Schwester wurde viel Kaugummi geschenkt von den Amerikanern.
RS: Ja, Schokolade wurde geschenkt. Die Amerikaner haben sich hier, die Truppe war sehr anständig, die Kriegstruppe. Und sehr viele Schwarze dabei.
LS: Und Du hast, und die Franzosen haben auf das Klavier geschossen, hast Du mal erzählt.
RS: Die Franzosen haben das Klavier nicht geschossen, sondern mit dem Messer…..
LS: Ach, mit dem Messer zerrissen.
RS: Ja.
LS: Und sag mal, ihr hattet hier verschiedene Leute wohnen in den Haus, und dar war eine Frau die gesehen haben will, wie eine Waffe ins Klo geworfen wurde, ins Latrine. Erzähl mal die Geschichte.
RS: Das war oberhalb, wie mussten raus aus unserem Haus als die Amerikaner, als die Franzosen kamen und da bin ich, wurde ich untergebracht bei einer alten Frau, hier oben, Frau Fischer, und da hat man sie gefragt, ob der Mann keine Waffen gehabt, da hat sie dem Offizier gesagt, doch doch die haben sie ins Klosett geworfen. Und da musste ich’s Klosett ausheben und die Waffe, [unclear] Pistole.
LS: Und wie lange musstest Du da graben?
RS: Na ja, drei Stunden, vier Stunden…
LS: Ein Paar Tage. Es war im Sommer, oder. Musstest Du viel Latrine ausgraben?
RS: Latrine ausgraben, ja.
LS: Und der Großvater, hast Du gesagt, war ein Sprecher für die Nationalsozialisten, oder Vortrag, hat Vorträge gehalten, was genau wie war das?
RS: Er war Reichsredner, Reichsredner gehabt, und hat gelegentlich weit weit überall Vortrage gehalten aber im Krieg schon lange mehr, kaum mehr noch. Da war er in Rumänien, und da war er in Griechenland, und da war er in Estland.
LS: Du hast gesagt, bis 1938 war Großvater, fand Großvater in Hitler ein notwendiges Übel?
RS: Ja. Bis der Anschluss, von Österreich zu Deutschland, Anschluss Österreichs war ihm sehr sympathisch, war ganz in seinem Sinne, und da war er sehr erfreut über Hitler aber nachher ging das Entsetzen über, denn er war für ihn der Teppichbeißer. Hitler soll er, soll in Wutanfällen soll er in den Teppich gebissen haben, Boden geworfen haben und in den Teppich gebissen haben. Stimmt aber nicht gar nicht.
LS: Und fand Großvater sehr lächerlich.
RS: Ja, so war’s gewesen. Da war er Reichstagsabgeordnete aber der Reichstag hatte nichts mehr zu sagen. Reichsredner und….Parteianzeigen …… zu tun.
LS: Irgendwas bekommen, so was bestimmtes?
RS: Nö, nö…..weil er eben lang dabei war, weil er lang dabei war.
LS: Und, also Harald wurde eingezogen….
RS: Frühjahr 1944 wurde Harald eingezogen, kam an die Ostfront, hat einen Knie [unclear] schuss bekommen. Und trotzdem ist geflohen weil die Russen hinter ihm her waren, da kam er ins Lazarett und da wollten sie ihm das Bein abnehmen und er lies es nicht zu, nein er wollte sein Bein behalten, er ließ es nicht zu und da musste er in den letzten Kriegswochen noch in den Krieg und ist wie gesagt in Gefangenschaft geraten, auf Jalta war er.
LS: Und Du meintest dass, Du hast sagst dass wenn sie ihm damals das Bein nicht abgenommen hätten, dann wäre er noch am Leben.
RS: Konnte er lange Zeit noch am Leben gewesen sein.
LS: Ein örtlicher Arzt hat dann was hinterher zu Großvater gesagt über Harald.
R.S.: [unclear]
LS: Nein. Das man hatte auch das verhindern können das er eingezogen wäre. Weißt Du das noch?
RS: Nein. Das Weiß ich nicht.
I.: Sagte dass man hatte ihm noch ….. geben können oder sowas.
R.S.: Das weiß ich nicht.
LS: Weißt Du nicht?
RS: Weiß ich nicht.
LS: Ich danke, Papa.
RS: Bitte.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Richard Suchenwirth
Description
An account of the resource
Richard Suchenwirth recalls his wartime memories as a Flakhelfer in Pasing, a district of Munich. He tells of his father who was the author of three books on the Luftwaffe, the founder of the Austrian Nazi Party, a political orator and initial supporter of Hitler’s idea of creating a single German state. He remembers being drafted as a Flakhelfer in February 1943 and the pride he took in defending the city even though anti-aircraft fire was ineffective. He mentions the high death toll of the March 1943 bombing raid, in which his house was destroyed, and tells how Russian forced labourers were deployed at his unit. He recollects being liberated by the Americans, with kind black troops handing out chocolate and his father spending three years as a prisoner of war but being treated humanely. He mentions various episodes of his father’s life: having a bust of Hitler which his father used to slap in moments of rage when he would call Hitler a ‘carpet chewer’. He mentions various wartime anecdotes; two aunts who died in different bombing raids; the capture and attempted lynching of an American pilot; food rationing; bartering cigarettes for a typewriter; an incendiary device hitting his house. Richard Suchenwirth describes how his brother, a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern front, was taken prisoner by the Americans and then handed over to the Russians.
Creator
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Lioba Suchenwirth
Anna Hoyles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-30
2016-07-31
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Format
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00:51:33 audio recording
Language
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deu
Coverage
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Civilian
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Spatial Coverage
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Germany--Munich
Germany
Temporal Coverage
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1943-03
Type
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Sound
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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ASuchenwirthR160730, ASuchenwirthR160731
anti-aircraft fire
anti-Semitism
bombing
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
home front
incendiary device
Luftwaffenhelfer
lynching
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/214/3353/PBrewsterDG1602.1.jpg
4638c2a9b10e66a020eed6251410c875
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/214/3353/ABrewsterDG160617.2.mp3
8de1fcde610d2afb6e235c498b312f6d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Brewster, David
David G Brewster
David Brewster
D G Brewster
D Brewster
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with David Brewster and one photograph.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-07
2016-06-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Brewster, DG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is David Brewster. The interview is taking place in Mr Brewster’s home in Horncastle on the 17th of June 2016. Could you tell me a bit about your early life?
DB: I was brought up at Sutton on Sea as a little boy and we moved actually from Sutton on Sea to Alford in December 1939 but before we moved there I was taken up onto the sand hills at Sutton on Sea by my father and saw the Germans bombing a convoy out in the sea. We could see the aeroplanes and the ships and the bombs dropping in the water and some of our fighters were going up and down the coast to make sure none came inshore. That was my first recollection of the war and then we were dished out with gas masks, all of us at school, and we had to test those in the school and then, as I say, we moved to Alford and at Alford there was only ‒ Alford was only bombed on one occasion and the goods shed at the station was bombed one night and the night watchman was killed and, er, but we did see a lot of German aeroplanes over and, like, I remember standing outside my front door in Alford and there was a Heinkel 111 up in the sky and the hillside at Miles Cross Hill was covered in incendiary bombs, little fires all over. And once, I can’t quite remember just when it was, but I know there was two German ‘planes shot down at Bilsby It was one lunch time and my brother, he gobbled his lunch quick and gone out to some of his friends and came running back in saying “The Jerrys are here” and so, what did we do? We all went outside to see (laughs). These three German aeroplanes were flying over, being attacked by some of our fighters, and one of them was on fire and they disappeared into some cloud and then all bits were falling out and parachutes coming down and a lot of people from Alford went to see where they’d landed. Though I didn’t actually go to that [emphasis] crash site but I did learn that two of the aircrew were killed and, with a friend of mine, we were biking around Bilsby on one occasion, just afterwards, and there was a funeral taking place, a military funeral, so we stopped and had a look, and it was these two Germans that had been killed, so we went to the funeral. And, but there was quite a lot of planes that flew over. We saw these thousand bomber raids, the sky was absolutely full of aeroplanes. But near Alford there was Strubby airfield. Well, as boys we used to bike up half way up Miles Hill out of Alford and we could look down over the marshland area there over Alford and out to Strubby and we could watch them take off. And I used to go to an uncle’s farm near Stickney, near East Kirkby airfield, and there we used to bike and watch them take off and watch them come back again there. So, I did see a lot of aircraft around at different times and one thing that always stuck in my memory, and has done, was going out with my father out in Orby Marsh, out Skegness way, and we were walking across the fields to ‒. My father worked for the Drainage Board and we were going out to some drag lines where they were cleaning the drains out and these three Mustangs, these American Mustangs, flew over and they were so low we ducked [slight laugh]. And they were going [emphasis] (where they were going I don’t know) but they were in a hurry. And I also remember being at Sutton on Sea on one occasion, again during the wartime, when a flight of Beaufighters flew past. They’d got torpedoes under them and looking down to Huttoft way there was a pall of smoke going up. So I thought ‘what had happened?’ So next day at school I asked one of my friends from Huttoft I said ‘Did something happen down your way yesterday?’ He said ‘Yes and one of those planes crashed’. He said it had come down in a field just outside of the village and he says ‘You’ve never seen two people get out of a ‘plane and run so quick for their life’ as they’d got torpedoes on board. So they got out in full flying gear. He said ‘They would have beat any Olympic record to the nearest ditch’ [laughs]. But we used to bike out, my friends and myself all over to aeroplane crashes and try and salvage bits of them to see if we could have a souvenir of a plane crash somewhere, and we went out to all sorts, German and English planes, that had come down. One Lancaster – there’s a little monument just near Ulceby Cross. I don’t know if you’ve seen it there. Um, as you come to Ulceby Cross Road from Alford, go straight over towards Spilsby and on the next bend there’s a road goes off to Harrington and that way, and just in the corner of the first field there’s a little monument to a plane that crashed and it’s the Lancaster that got shot down by intruders. And Peter Rowlands from – He’s an ex-headmaster from Ancaster Grammar School (unfortunately he’s dead now) but he wrote a book about – “Lest We Forget” and it mentions that plane crash in there and it says about somebody biking up from Alford to it. Well, I said ‘I wasn’t the person that was written about in the book but I biked up the next morning to that crash and had a look at it’. Because the police sergeant lived next door to us and he came and told us where it was. But I also went to a German plane crash near Spilsby, at Asgarby, and there was a guard on duty on the gate and he wouldn’t let us in so I said ‘Can’t we go down to the wreck’ and he said ‘No, not allowed’ and I said ‘Well, you’ve got a guard down there’. ‘Well’ he said ‘You see that piece of stuff half way down there?’ I said ‘Yes’. He said ‘That’s an unexploded five hundred pound bomb’. So, he says ‘I’m not letting anyone go passed that’. But, well, we got around quite a lot of crashes. I also remember, as a naughty boy, scrumping some pears on one occasion, up a real tall pear tree in Alford, when a Heinkel 111 flew past and we could see the crew in there because they’ve got a big glass front and you could see the crew in there as they flew past. We didn’t pick any pears. We got down as quick and went home. [Slight laugh]. What happened to those, I don’t know. I also remember walking out. My father used to be a big walker and he’d go for a walk every Sunday morning while lunch was being cooked and I used to go out with him quite often, and we walked out on the road towards Strubby on one occasion, and we saw a plane come over, flew over us. It was a German plane. It went back and it dropped some bombs over Mablethorpe. We saw the blow from that. Also, in Alford, we did actually see the glow from that serious bombing they had at Hull. We could see the glow in the sky from that night. We stood outside in the road and we could hear planes about. We couldn’t see any because it was dark but we could see the glow in the sky from Hull burning, which was something you don’t forget. But it was, it was, a hectic time. And then, when I got to be thirteen I joined the ATC and used to go Manby every month and get a flight in some airplanes or other and I actually got a flight in a Lancaster and a Lincoln when I was there so I was very fortunate. But I could probably think of a lot more things later but, er, there was some of my recollections of the wartime.
AH: When you were in the ATC what did you do?
DB: We used to go to Manby once a month, and we used to go on the rifle range, shooting, we used to go and look at them, you know, watch the people repairing aeroplanes. It was a training place Manby, and we used to watch them doing all sorts of repairs and that sort of thing. And we were tested out on Morse code and everything. We had to know all about it and one of the main things was aircraft recognition, to make sure we knew what was ours and what was theirs, and they always used to take us for a ride in something while we were there. We flew in ‒, well I flew, in Ansons, Avro 19s, Harvards, Tiger Moths, Lancasters, Lincolns. I had a good old time really and thoroughly enjoyed it.
AH: Were they nice?
DB: Oh yeah, they were very good to us. And there was quite an interesting one, he’s dead now of course, he was our CO at the ATC from Alford, Geoff Hadfield. In your recollections and all things happening with bomber command I’m sure you’ll find out that name will crop up more than once ‘cause he was, what you’d call them? Looked out for aircraft, not an air raid warden, but they’d got posts, Observer Corp, that’s right. He was in the Observer Corp in Alford and so he had a lot of recollections and he wrote a lot of books and things, about things as well. He was the CO when we went flying in the Avro 19 and I nudged him and said ‘Geoff, the engine’s stopped and we’ve only got two’ and the colour sort of drained from his face. He said ‘It’s alright, it’s started again’. After a minute or two that [emphasis] one stopped because they were engine testing [laughs] but I could always see the funny side of that. I got a peculiar sense of humour. ‘Cause my rule about flying is, ‘the man who takes me up wants to come down for his dinner so he’s going to get down if he can’. So, there’s more chance of getting down than anything happening and I was always lucky, one or two rough landings, but mainly they were alright and afterwards, many years later, I actually flew in a microlight at Manby. I was the only one in the office that dare go up but we had a club running on East Kirkby, Manby ‘cause I worked at East Lindsey at that time on Manby. I persuaded the man to take me up for a ride. [Loud sound of chiming] Excuse me.
AH: And you went to Yorkshire with the ATC?
DB: Yes, with the ATC I went to a week’s camp at Diffield airfield and during that time I did get a ride in a glider which was quite novel, but I was lucky. But unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of breeze and we just did one circuit round but I found it very quiet [laughs] but again very interesting.
AH: Did you enjoy flying in the different ‘planes?
DB: Oh yeah, I’d fly in anything. We actually went on holiday once to Monaco for a week, sorry for a long weekend. Took my son for his eighteenth birthday and we flew from Manchester to Charles de Gaulle, from Charles de Gaulle to Nice and a helicopter from Nice to Monaco and then the reverse journey coming home again. And while we were coming home we took off in the helicopter and there was a big cruise liner just coming into Monaco so we flew round it so we could have a good look at that as well.
AH: How long were you in the ATC?
DB: Er, about three years, I think. Yes, I joined at thirteen and I started work at sixteen, that’s right.
AH: What year were you born?
DB: 1931. I’m getting a bit old in the tooth I’m afraid now. [Slight laugh.] Eighty-five this year.
AH: And so you first lived in ‒?
DB: Sutton on Sea. We were there in Sutton on Sea until the December of 1939. War started in the September and then my father’s job took him ‒ he had to ‒ he was working in Alford but he had to go and live in Alford. So we left Sutton on Sea which, from looking back with hindsight, was a very good thing really because our playground was the sand hills. And the sand hills were all mined in the wartime and whether we could have been kept off them or not is anybody’s guess because I know one or two people were blown up by them. And when they finally moved them all out, got rid of all the mines, they couldn’t find a lot because the sand moves and they’d moved with the sand, and they washed them out with hose pipes and, er, some of the bomb disposal people were at Well, just outside Alford, at the army camp there and Ted Burgin, one of their people, was on this and he was a real footballer and he played for the England B at football afterwards. He used to play for Alford on a Sunday, no, on a Saturday, army on a Sunday and when he came out of the army he played for Sheffield [laughs]. I knew him quite well at that time ‘cause my friends lived up at Well, so I spent a lot of time round there.
AH: What was he like?
DB: He was a very nice bloke actually, a very ordinary person, but dedicated to what he was doing, shifting all these mines and he was laughing about washing them all out and them exploding all over the place.
AH: Who got blown up by them? Was it children?
DB: I can’t remember but I do remember some mines going off at Mablethorpe once, but I can’t remember whether it was children or who it was but it was somebody in Mablethorpe area that got injured by them. But there was defences put all down in the sea, like scaffold poles aiming outwards in the sea on the coast there, in case anything came ashore. Because the shore on the Lincolnshire coast is an easy place to land normally, come in at high tide and you’re right up on the foreshore, right at the top end. So that had these scaffold poles aiming out to sea so if anything came in they got stuck [slight laugh]. They were down at low tide.
AH: Was there a feeling that you could be invaded?
DB: At that time, yes, there was a worry that we could easily be invaded and, yeah, we were very pleased to hear the news at times about when things turned round and of course at Well Camp as well, there was an awful lot of airborne there, before Arnhem. ‘Cause they were at Woodhall Spa as well but there was a lot at Well, and they all went off and I can’t remember how many came back now but a lot of them didn’t of course.
AH: Was there a charge when the war started round here? Did society round here change? Was there a big influx of - ?
DB: We had refugees from – We got them in Alford from Grimsby and at school, my class at school, there was two or three of these people that had come from, boys of my age like, come from Grimsby and were – They were there for the duration of the war so we got to know what it was like up there [loud clock chimes] because they were in touch with their family but, yeah, anyway I can’t remember how many came to Alford, but quite a lot.
AH: What was that like?
DB: Well they just became part of the school and I remember one of them, he was lodging with a farmer who had a milk round and, of course, in a few days he was doing the milk round [laugh].
AH: Was there a big influx of service persons?
DB: Oh, service persons, well a big army camp at Alford just as you come out of Alford going towards Spilsby on the right hand side by the cemetery, where the cemetery is now, then next to the cemetery is a big highways depot and some of them buildings are ones that were put up in the wartime. They’re still the same ones, well that part and the field beyond was a big army camp. And there was a big army camp at Well and a big army camp at Bilsby and Bilsby at one point became mainly Polish people, later on, after they moved the Germans out. I’m not sure where there was an Italian prisoner of war camp but there was an Italian prisoner of war camp in the area and they used to take them out in the lorries, working, ‘cause I remember going with my father down to Anderby Creek ‘cause the creek itself, which is a drain outfall into the sea, it had got sanded up and they got a lorry load of these people to dig it out and I went down to see them there.
AH: What did they look like?
DB: Well, same as anyone else. They were in a uniform but that’s all. And at one point in the wartime I also worked on a farm just outside Alford. My friends had a farm and their father said they wanted some help and I went to help them in harvest time and there was two German prisoners of war worked there and they used to be brought in every day and taken out again at night. But there was a German prisoner of war camp at Moorby just between here and Revesby. I think it’s all gone now but it was there until not long ago. Oh, I know where there were some Italians up at, er, just the other side of of Baumber, Sturton [?] Park, because when I was up at Manby we got some planning applications there and one of the lads went out to visit the site there and, in some of the huts at that point, there was still some paintings on the wall that the Italian prisoners of war had done but they’ve all gone now, all disappeared, which is a shame.
AH: Did you ever talk to any prisoners of war?
DB: Talked to the ones I worked with at ‒, on the farm, yeah, one was very dour ‒, hardly said a word, but there was a young one there. He was only eighteen and he chatted away. He spoke quite a bit of English and he was looking forward to going home after the war and I presume he did. But he was just an ordinary person.
AH: What did you talk about?
DB: We talked about the war and we talked about ‒, at that time it was going our [emphasis] way, and he said ‘Yeah, let’s hope it soon finishes and I can go home’. But he was talking about the farming and life in the prisoner of war camp. They were fairly well looked after. He’d had no complaints but I think, if I remember rightly, he was on the Russian side and it looked like he’d be captured there and he’d got right back across to the American side and give himself up [laughs] ‘cause he didn’t fancy being captured by the Russians. He got back and presumably ‒ I never saw him afterwards, like. I presume he went back to Germany. I did meet one German after the war. I got some relations and that they’d met some Germans before the war and after the war the German had contacted them again and he actually came over to stay over here, across in Lancashire, in actual fact it was Mary’s first husband who was friendly with him, and he came and stayed with them in Darwen in Lancashire and they brought him over to Lincolnshire, to Partney, which was Mary’s home and he was a very nice bloke. No problems.
AH: And he’d been a prisoner of war?
DB: No, he hadn’t been a prisoner of war. He’d been in Germany all the war. But as I say, he’d made contact as a boy before the war and afterwards he wrote to see if they were still about, and found out they were, so he came over and there was no enmity or anything like that. He was just a good friend. But Mary’s first husband, he finished up in Colditz.
AH: What happened?
DB: I don’t know what happened altogether. Somewhere up in the attic upstairs I think, or somewhere in my records, I’ve got a newspaper cutting about him when he died. He weren’t all that old when he died. But he, er, he was captured, like, on the continent somewhere, I’m not sure where, maybe Dunkirk, I don’t know, but I’ve got all the details somewhere but I just can’t find them at the minute, but he finished up at Colditz and he was released from there at the end of the war.
AH: What was his name?
DB: Jim, Jim Walsh. He worked for ICI and, originally, I think he must have met Mary in the wartime because he was over at one time or just after the war. Because he worked at Grimsby for the Wallpener [?] shop. Wallpener was a type of emulsion paint of yesteryear. They used to sell it in a shop in Manby. ICI, he worked for them in Grimsby and he met Mary somewhere there. They got married and lived in Grimsby and then he got transferred to their headquarters at Darwen and he moved back there and Mary went with him, of course ,obviously, and they made a life over there and, unfortunately, he died and she married again, Eric, and he was the one was out in Italy during the wartime. He was at the, er, Montecassino there, and he was out there one day, him and Mary, after the war, they were out there after Montecassino had been rebuilt, and they were out there looking around it on one occasion, they went on holiday, and they met an army – I think he was a major. And they were looking round and he said ‘Do you know this area?’ Eric said ‘Yes, I know it very well,’ he said ‘I was here in the wartime’. ‘Were you?’ he said ‘Yes’ he said ‘I was here in the wartime behind that hill over there’. [Another person enters the room.] Eric and Mary were out there. He said ‘Where were you?’ He said ‘I was behind that hill over there’. ‘Oh’ he said ‘We’ve got a special service on Sunday. Would you like to come?’ So they went and they were special guests at this memorial service at Montecassino. So it was ‒ they enjoyed it very much. Eric often talks about it now.
AH: What’s Eric’s surname?
DB: Johnson.
AH: And Mary was your cousin?
DB: She was my father’s cousin.
AH: What was her surname?
DB: She was a Holdiness before she was married, from Partney. They farmed at Partney. She was one of ten and my mother she died, unfortunately, when she was only forty-eight and my father married again and he married his cousin, which was Mary’s sister. So it was a bit of a complicated family [laughs]. But I had one brother and he was a year and nine months older than me. Unfortunately, he died about twenty years ago now. He was only fifty-nine when he died. He was Just due to retire the following year. He was in the Met Office. He had a heart attack, unfortunately. But these things happen. [Long pause.]
AH: And when you saw the ships being bombed from Sutton on Sea, were they‒? How far away was it?
DB: Four or five miles out I suppose, something like that. You could see they was ships and we could see splashes in the water. Obviously bombs were being dropped. We did hear on the grapevine somewhere, I don’t know where my father got the information from, some of the planes were shot down. I don’t know whether they were or not but they were Heinkel 115s, I do know that. The float planes. They were sea planes.
AH: How did it feel to watch them?
DB: Well, it was so far away. You could hear the bumps but they were too far away really to realise what was happening, I suppose, as a young lad of eight years old [laughs]
AH: And you saw a Zeppelin?
DB: Yes, I saw a Zeppelin pre-war. Again, I was at the sea front with my father and this Zeppelin flew back, obviously going back to Germany, it was going out across the North Sea, and it was either the Graf Zeppelin or the Hindenburg. I don’t know which, I believe the Graf Zeppelin ‘cause it flew over here quite a lot, I believe, and I remember this great cigar-shaped thing in the sky. It was enormous.
AH: And how did you feel about that?
DB: Well, as a little lad, excited, and of course there wasn’t a war on, of course, at that time, before the war, and as a little lad I thought it was marvellous to see this thing fly over. Little realising what it was really doing. I’ve actually flown in an airship since then. The Goodyear airship. I got a ride in that on one occasion at Doncaster race course. And they call them airships and you can understand why when you’re flying in them because it feels like a ship at sea. That’s what it feels like. That was through Goodyear Tyres ‘cause my wife was company director, company secretary sorry, for B A Bush Tyres at that time and we got an invitation to go [slight laugh].
AH: How exciting.
DB: I don’t know what else I can tell you. I’m sure an awful lot more will come back as time goes on.
AH: Has Sutton on Sea changed a lot?
DB: Oh, changed enormously [emphasis]. The biggest change was after the flooding in 1953 because I remember them building the sea front, basically, there, the original sea front with all the chalets on the top, the colonnade as we’d call it with the chalets on top and half of that was washed away in the flood. But before that there was the old promenade on the front and it had railings along the front and just steps down. And I can remember being stood on there as a little lad, I can’t remember what ‘plane they were flying, but Alex Henshaw and his father flew past as we were stood there on the promenade, and we looked into the aeroplane it was so low and we could see pop Henshaw and Alex in the aeroplane as it flew past. ‘Cause Alex Henshaw was a test pilot during the war, for Supermarines. He was a test pilot, in Spitfires mainly, and during that time, in the wartime, his home was at Sutton on Sea but he was actually stationed at Brooklands, I think it was, where they flew from mainly, and he had a good system. He used to, on a Friday late afternoon, he’d take his Spitfire up for a test flight, he’d fly up to Strubby, land at Strubby. He had a bike there, he’d bike down home for the weekend and on Sunday night he’d bike back, jump in the Spitfire and fly back. I actually got to know him quite well after the wartime. He was a very nice person, a very ordinary person, and I knew his son very well, young Alex (he was an Alex as well). But Alex, he only died not many, just a few years back now. He was in his nineties when he died. But one of the stories that went around at Strubby, ‘cause he did also test Lancasters out as well, they got him to test one at Strubby on one occasion, and the story that went around was that he flew along the runway so low that if he’d put his wheels down it would’ve jacked him up [laughs]. Now that was the story. Whether it was true, right or wrong, I have no idea but knowing the way he used to fly I can well imagine it was true. But he still holds the record for a single-engined light aircraft from England to Cape Town and back again, which he did in 1938, I think it was, and that record still holds for that type of plane and somewhere in my records I’ve got a photo of that plane. And as a little lad at school at Sutton on Sea at that time there was a reception at Sutton on Sea for him when he came back and all the school went.
AH: And where was the reception?
DB: In the front of what was The Beach Hotel. Well, the Beach Hotel is no longer there. It was badly flooded in the flood in ’53. It was used afterwards for a time but since then it’s been demolished. And as you go down Sutton High Street the pull over is in front, and the war memorial, and just to the left of that was The Beach Hotel and the car park, and it was in the car park of The Beach Hotel. I shouldn’t think there’s many people now as remembers that.
AH: And what happened at the reception?
DH: Well, all I can remember is being there as a school and him on the platform in front, basically. And he was introduced to us and congratulated on what he’d done. That’s all my recollection is, as I say. I think it was ’38 when he did that so I wasn’t very old.
AH: Have the amount of holiday makers changed going to Sutton on Sea?
DB: Yes, yes. Well, Sutton on Sea has grown enormously [emphasis] since the flood, in fact, because where we lived in Church Lane at Sutton on Sea if we didn’t get the sea in our front garden in winter time we’d had a bad winter. We thought it was marvellous if the sea came over the top but of course there was a big dyke opposite and most of it would run into the dyke and disappear. And there was fields opposite as well. Well the fields are now all developed, all housing and everything like that, and there’s an awful lot of housing gone on there in Sutton on Sea and in Mablethorpe, of course, as well. I don’t know how many times it’s doubled or trebled in size but quite a lot. But the shops down there now are nearly all seaside type shops. They’re not the shops they used to be. There used to be one shop in Sutton on Sea, Miss Johnsons’, which was a ladies outfitters shop, and people from Nottingham used to come there shopping. It was a real high class shop and if you bought something from Miss Johnson’s you’d got something [emphasis]. It was the fashions of the day but it’s gone now, it’s no longer that. It’s a hardware shop or something like that now. And next to it is The Bacchus Hotel and the car park at the left of The Bacchus Hotel used to be The Bacchus Hotel garage and one of my uncle’s worked in that.
AH: So your family, were they around?
DB: My father came from Sutton on Sea. The name Brewster maybe rings a bell. The Brewsters of the Mayflower days. One of my father’s uncles, my father’s brothers [emphasis], he was an elderly uncle of mine, he did some research into the family history. He was a Detective Sergeant in the Police so he was a good man to do that. He sorted out, he went down to Somerset House to sort out and he sorted out that the Brewster family that went over to America on the Mayflower, some generations later some of them came back to this country, and we are descended from that lot and they came back to Orby and they were all blacksmiths in Orby, and so we are descended from them. The original ones came from just outside Gainsborough ‘cause there’s a Brewster Cottage next to the church at Gainsborough and, of course, at one point they sailed from Immingham originally and there’s a monument at Immingham to them sailing there. Well, it was in the middle of the docks on the point where they sailed but now it’s been moved to the village, just opposite the church, because it was all surrounded by big oil tankers in the docks and of course people weren’t allowed in there. Although, I must admit I went in a few times. I was able to from my work. But the, er, my grandfather, he was the son of the blacksmith at Orby. He thought being blacksmithing was too hard work and he moved to Sutton on Sea and he was the first person to have horses on the beach for people to ride on, on the beach at Sutton on Sea, but unfortunately he died when my father was only three so my father never remembered him.
AH: And did they carry on with the horses?
DB: No, no way. My grandmother then sold the house they were in and built a pair of smaller houses in the park at Sutton, in Park Road East, and she moved into one of those and let the other one.
AH: Is that how she survived?
DB: Yeah, and my father was brought up there in that house. He can’t remember being in the other house at all or didn’t remember. He doesn’t now of course. Unfortunately he’s gone. But he didn’t remember the original house, Sidney House, as it was known as. It’s an estate agents now and where the arch was at the side of it to go through to where he’d keep the horses is now a fish ‘n chip café belonging to the fish and ship shop next door. They’ve got that bit of it. So things have changed a lot.
AH: And what did your father do?
DB: He worked for the Alford Drainage Board. He was the Finance and Rating Officer for the Alford Drainage Board and they had an office at Mablethorpe originally, a sub office, and that’s where he worked originally. Then they moved him to the Alford office and he had to move to Alford and he moved up there in 1939.
AH: What did you think of that?
DB: Oh, it was exciting really. We’d only just recently moved in Sutton on Sea from the original house, which didn’t have a bathroom, to a house that had got a bathroom. We moved in, I think it was in the October, and in December we left that house and went to one in Alford without a bathroom again, one that had only got gas lights and a pump outside for water. So we lived a little bit of a spartan life until after the war and then the landlord there put electricity into the house and a water supply and then put a bathroom in later. But it was rather spartan to start with [laughs].
AH: And where did your mother come from?
DB: She came from Stickford and I think she went to Sutton on Sea. She worked for Crawfords, who were bakers down there. She went down ‒ Her elder brother was running a garage there and I think that’s why she went there, I think he found her a job down there working for Crawfords and she worked for them, not Crawfords, Copelands sorry in those days, became Crawfords later. But they, that’s where they met and they married in 1924 at Stickford and that was where my grandfather at that time ‒ he had The Globe Inn at Stickford, the pub there, and that’s where we used to go for our holidays, to the pub.
AH: And how was that?
DB: Oh, we used to love going there. Because my grandfather had got a field as well, where he used to keep chickens and grow potatoes and things like that, and just across the road from the ‒, from his field, was the local cobbler and he had a barrel organ in his place and we used to go along and play it (laughs).
AH: During the floods in Sutton on Sea did you have family still living there?
DB: I had an auntie and cousin living there at that time and they were flooded out. They lived in what had been my grandmother’s house and they were flooded out and my father ‒. They were brought to Alford from there and my father at that time had married again and he was living at Partney, at the farm, and he fetched them to the farm and they lived there for a while.
AH: Did they say anything about the flood?
DB: I’ve got some photographs of it and there’s a heap of sand about as high as this room in front of their house, which came out of their house and out their garden. Oh, I actually saw the flood that night, at Hannah, about what? A couple of mile in land. I was ‒, I got some friends with me staying the night, not staying the night, they come over and were playing cards, my brother was at the Met Office and he was at Manby at work and my ‒, I lived with my sister in law at that time and my brother, and as I say my brother was at work, my sister in law had a friend staying the night and I got two friends down from Well and we were all playing cards. And the baker used to come round late at night, about half past nine at night, the baker would come. And I went to the door. I said ‘It’s a bit rough tonight Mr Heath’. He said ‘Yes, it is. This time the sea is this side of the railway at Sutton on Sea’. I said ‘Come off it, I lived down there. If was splashing over nicely it would be worth going to look at’. I went back in and said to the rest of them ‘The sea is splashing over nicely at Sutton and Mr Heath says he’s heard it’s this side of the railway line’. And one of my friends, he’d got his father’s car, he said ‘Let’s go and look’ and we went off down and we go to Hannah and the house on the corner and all the houses round about had got all the lights on, and by this time it was about ten o’clock at night. Well, by that time, out in the country like that, most people had gone to bed. And we were going up a little rise going up to the church from a farm at Hannah and my friend who was driving pulled up and said ‘Let’s go and look out’ so we pulled up and his brother and myself got out and had a look over the hedge. All you could see was water. That was the sea coming in and we looked down behind and it was coming across the road behind us so Ray went and put his finger in it and tasted it ‘It is the sea, it’s salty’ . So I shouted ‘For Pete’s sake turn the car round, we’re going back’ and by the time we went back, where it had come across was about six inches of water had come across the road, and we went back up. But I didn’t think then, in our own mind, that Sutton would be as badly flooded as it was because, just near where we used to live in Sutton on sea, I’d got some friends down there. There was the estate agent in Sutton and he lived about three doors from where we used to live and I went to help, well we all went down to help him clear his house out. He wasn’t at home the night of the flood so everything was just as he left it, and as I stood in his front room it was my eye level, the water level, and one of these metal buoys, about that big, that they have on fishing nets and such like, had come through his bay window, for one thing, and we found that in the front room. But we took everything out. He salvaged what he could out of his sideboards and that sort of thing, what he thought he could deal with, and the rest of it was just put the hose pipe on. And we put the hose pipe right throughout the house. I know my brother and myself, we dragged the carpet out and we hung it on his clothes line, and the clothes line really sagged but he couldn’t do anything with it. It was way past it. It was covered in sludge and everything. So we did a good move in moving away from there [laughs].
AH: And when you – Did people have time to get out?
DB: There were quite a few casualties all the way down the Lincolnshire coast. I don’t know of any in actual Sutton on Sea but there was some down at Sandilands. One house in Sandilands, it was about ninety per cent washed away. There was two walls standing and one room upstairs and the people were in that room, there was two ladies in that room, and they got out. But the whole of the area was under water. It was dreadful. And after the flood I was working in the planning office at that time at Louth and I was seconded to the River Board, Lincolnshire River Board it was, which is now the Water Authority. They were the authority, you know, sorting everything out and my wife worked for them and her office in Sutton on Sea was flooded out and my father arranged for her and the other girl out of the office to stay with my brother and his wife and me in Alford and we had various people up there as well. Other friends and relations come and stayed. Some of them stayed only one or two nights and went but Olive and Gretta, they stopped for quite a while, and Gretta married one of the other lads that was there. And she lives at, what do you call it? Scremby now, out there, and I married Olive and we were married fifty four years before she died. So it did a good thing in some respects [slight laugh].
AH: Absolutely.
DB: But we had ‒, although it was a very hectic time, I worked in the offices there on the radio to the engineers down there, for the engineers and such like, in the offices at Alford. They took over a whole big two or three storey building in Alford Market Place, which now is no longer here. It’s been demolished since. But I worked the day shift and a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, from the planning office at Lincoln, he did the night shift. We did a twelve hour shift each, eight ‘til eight. People wouldn’t do that now but we did and I know on one occasion I was ‒, Henry [?] had just come on at eight o’clock to take over from me, and one of the engineers came through ‘Can any of you drive?’ I said ‘Yeah’. ‘Take my Landrover down to Mablethorpe to the office down there. They won’t mind. It’s got the radio in it and bring me one back’. So, I jumped in his Landrover with, I think, one of the army blokes. We’d got some army people with us as well. Well, he jumped in with me and we drove down to Mablethorpe. We got in the Landrover there to drive back and it was chug, chug, chug, chug, going at no speed at all. So I said ‘There’s something wrong here somewhere’. And of course it was in four wheel drive, wasn’t it? [laughs] I’d never driven a Landrover until that night. Anyhow, I managed to find out how to get it out of it into ordinary drive and we came back and I think I got my tea that night about 10 O’clock.
AH: And what did your aunt do on the night of the flood?
DB: She went upstairs. She went upstairs out of it. I had a cousin in Mablethorpe who was flooded out. Her husband wasn’t at home. I don’t know where he was that night. And she was sat in the room and she suddenly found her feet were getting wet. That was the first thing she knew that anything was happening. And she went and the children went upstairs but one of the friends that came to stay with us, well two of them, one was this estate agent that I knew in Sutton very well and they’d got a new baby and his sister, no his brother in law that’s right, his wife’s brother, had also got a new baby and it was going to be the christening the following day. Of course, that was all cancelled. Had to be. But they lived in a bungalow in the park in Sutton and they were keeping everything they could out of the water as much as they could, putting up on top of tables and everything, like, trying to keep everything out of the water and I think Frank made a way through into the false roof so he could go up there out the way. But it was very frightening. In one estate at Ingoldwells there was seven people drowned on one estate, the Lovedays Estate as they call it down there. As I say, an estate of bungalows, supposedly built as holiday bungalows, on the seaward side of Roman Bank. Well, of course all of that area up to Roman Bank filled up with water and it came over, over the top, and they’d nowhere to go but they were in a state of, er, ‒. Two or three dozen bungalows in there that had been built at that time (they were still building them at that time) and, er, they, now it’s ‒. Some of the bungalows were left, some were twisted on their foundations and did all sorts. And they were all taken down and now the rest of it is caravans.
AH: Before we started you were talking about a man, a neighbour, was killed during the war, one of the oldest who were killed.
DB: Yeah, Mr Scrimshaw.
AH: Just tell me about him again.
DB: Well, he was in the RAF and he volunteered for aircrew and he was an older gentleman. Well, he was thirty-nine when he was killed. And his daughter worked for my father and after she left my wife actually worked for my father (before we were not going out or anything) and then she ‒. He used to come home on leave and lived just round the corner from us. And he used to come past our house on his way to, up to the town to the pubs for a pint at dinner time, and, er, he used to stop and talk to us on the way past. Like we knew him well, we knew the family well and he, unfortunately, didn’t come back from one raid. And when I was at the memorial centre at Riseholme they looked him up and they found out that he actually flew from Skellingthorpe but they found out the details of it and where he went down and everything.
AH: And what was his role?
DB: I thought he was a navigator but they got him down in some of their records, they showed him as a rear gunner. And they got in some of the records as a flight sergeant and some as a pilot officer so he obviously got promoted during his time in the RAF or in flying crew presumably. But he was in, as I say, just about the end of his tour ‘cause they used to do thirty raids. That was their tour. But I know one person down in Old Leake area, Sid Marshall, down there. I’ve met him a few times and he did two tours. He did over sixty tours of flying. And when the Canadian Lancaster was over here, I can’t remember where he flew from, he flew in the English Lancaster [unclear] from Coningsby, and they flew him in that that day, and they flew back to Coningsby somewhere, and they flew Sid in it and he hadn’t been in a Lancaster for I don’t know how long. But it’s amazing the people who you meet over a period of time and where you’ve been. When I was in the ATC at Manby once I actually sat in the cockpit of a Messerschmitt 163, which was the rocket propelled German fighter. They had one parked up there and that is now part of East Lindsey offices where it was parked in [laughs].
AH: Where had they got that from?
DB: I don’t know. When we went there it was there one day and they took us to show us it and we could sit in the pilot seat. It’s only a one man band like. They also flew a Messerschmitt 188 there for quite a while. Well, they flew it after the war until they couldn’t get any more parts to keep it going and it was scrapped then. I saw it there a few times.
AH: What did you like flying in best?
DB: Well, I think I just liked flying. I don’t think – I enjoyed the flight in the Lancaster ‘cause we flew over the Humber and over Hull and in that area, and one of the interesting things on that particular flight, I was just at the back of the cockpit, stood up in the back of the cockpit, so I could see everything happen. The pilot was there and the flight engineer and there was another lad up there with me in there. He sat down and began to look a bit pale and the flight engineer said ‘Are you alright lad?’ He said ‘I don’t feel very well. He said ‘I’ll cure you’. Stood him up, opened the window and stuffed his head out [laughs]. He wasn’t sick and he wasn’t sick any time in the flight. It cured him [laughs]. We were flying somewhere over the Humber at that time. But drastic treatment. But it worked. It cured him [laughs].
AH: Did your mother work?
DB: No, she was in the Red Cross right through the war. In fact, I’ve got her medals upstairs from that and she was in the Red Cross right through. As far as I remember the only work she did after, when I was a little lad at Sutton on Sea, we used to take in visitors in the summer time and we would all move to the back of the house and the front house was let out, it was let out to visitors, and she would cook and look after them. But my father was seriously ill in ’36 ’37 winter. He didn’t work for about six months and she had saved up to that point a hundred pound. Well a hundred pound at that time was a lot of money but that kept us going right through until he could work again. And for the last fortnight before he actually went back to work he went to Bournemouth for a fortnight’s convalescence down there, him and me mother, and they went down there. And that was the last of money she’d got so it did a good job because he lived ‘til he was eighty three [slight laugh]. Lived for nineteen years on one lung.
AH: What was wrong with your father?
DB: Well, he lost his lung just after we were married. He, er, he worked for the Drainage Board and they’d been sorting out some old records and they were down in the cellar. They were all damp and fusty and he breathed some of that fust in and it stuck in his lung and grew and he had to go down to Bromfield, yeah, Bromfield Hospital in London and they took one lung out. I spoke to the surgeon afterwards. He said when they opened the lung out ‘You know what a fusty loaf of bread looks like?’ He said ‘that was what his lung was like inside’. The other one was OK and he lived another nineteen years on that and he got, I don’t know, pneumonia or something like that in the end and unfortunately he died from that. He got a chest infection anyway.
AH: And what did your mother do in the Red Cross?
DB: I used to be a patient and she used to practice bandaging on me [laughs]. But she worked at a Red Cross group in Alford and she went to that every week, I think it was, and they used to be available to look after all the army and navy personnel or anybody who wanted looking after in the wartime. And they did anything, any accidents and that had happened they were called out and they looked after these people until they could go somewhere different. As I say, I got three or four of her medals upstairs what she had for her services in the Red Cross and I still support the Red Cross.
AH: You said you saw the good sheds burning? Or did you see it?
DB: No, I didn’t see the goods shed burning but it was blown up while we were there and I didn’t know until a long time after we were married, and we lived in New Bolingbrook, that the person who was killed in there was – I know he was a bloke called Bush ‘cause I didn’t know any Bushes at that time but, of course, when I went to New Bolingbrook my wife went to work for B A Bush and Son, the tyre people (and she had twenty-two years working for them) and it was one of their family, Ivor Bush, who ran the depot at, er, well, built the business up basically, it was his uncle who was killed. But I do remember on one occasion there was a raid on during the war and I remember my brother – we all dived into our mother and dad’s bedroom and we could hear planes about and my brother was looking out the window and he said ‘Oh, that’s one of ours just gone past’. With that it opened up with its cannons on the army camp [laughs]. It was a German night fighter and it, the guard at the camp, he dived under the road bridge (there’s a drain went underneath) and he dived right under that and there were shells all round him where he’d been. And also I’ve mentioned Geoff Hadfield, in the Observer Corp. There was an Observer Corp post down Willoughby road, that was the post where he was at, and he was in the place that night, and in the grass field across to it there was cannon fire up to about a hundred yards before it and it started again one hundred yards past. For some reason he’d taken his finger off the trigger, the German pilot had, and the Observer Corp post wasn’t hit but if it had, well, they wouldn’t have a chance because it was a directly in line of fire. I don’t know if that was the night the plane was shot down at Ulceby, near Ulceby Cross, or not, but that was by an intruder. It was shot down by an intruder. There’s a little monument there in the hedge bottom, two of them, and every year there’s a little poppy wreath goes on it. I don’t know who does that. And I actually worked for the Air Ministry at one point rebuilding East Kirkby and Steeping airfields for the Americans so I worked on there and at East Kirkby behind the hangars there. There’s twenty-three acres of concrete and I did the surveys for that. They built a mass parking apron, as they called it then, because by that time when the airfields were built in the war there was these dispersal points all-round the airfields, so they parked all the aircraft round about, so if there was any bombing took place it only took out one or two but, of course, with the modern bombs , if they dropped one on the airfiled it would flatten the lot, so they put all the planes together ‘cause it was easier to look after them and built this mass parking apron, twenty-three acres of concrete. I did the surveys before it was built and then it was designed and built and I supervised it being built.
AH: And when was that?
DB: Er, ’55 ’57 when that was built and it was only used for about a month. I actually joined the Air Ministry as an Assistant Engineer and my post really was as build draughtsman because I had to do a survey of all the buildings on East Kirkby and Spilsby airfields or Steeping as we knew it as. Because they’d all been altered by the Americans over the wartime and there were no records of them. So my first job I was employed at Grantham and then I was posted to East Kirkby because I could live at home and work from there at Alford at that time (there was my brother and sister-in-law over at Alford) and so that’s what I did and so I started off on that, doing this survey of all the buildings there so they got a record of them all. They’d got records of what they should be like but they weren’t [laughs] and I started doing that and then they came on with the part one contract, as they called it, to do the runways and everything and build this mass parking apron and I was transferred over to that group. So I did surveys of the runways at East Kirkby and at Steeping. ‘Cause we did some roller tests on them for safety to see if they were strong enough and they weren’t. We’d put a fifty ton roller over East Kirkby and a two hundred ton roller over Steeping and when they’d finished rebuilding Steeping and they did a test on it, the test should have come out at forty LCN, as it was called in those days, Lowest Common Number (they got a special testing rig that gave these figures). It came out at nine so it wasn’t fit to use and it never has been used apart from the odd light aircraft landing on it now and again but East Kirkby was better. The asphalt, the hot rolled asphalt put in went wrong for some reason, I don’t know why, but it went wrong and it was rotten underneath. The surface was good, if you dug the surface up you could just pick it up with your hands there was no strength in it, so what caused that –? When I left them they were testing, still testing, to find out what caused, what the problem was. But the Americans actually did use East Kirkby for one month for a big NATO exercise and they had big strata tankers in there flying for this month and then it was closed down. But they were testing when I was there and the junior engineer above me, he was posted to South Uist in the Outer Hebrides and I didn’t want to go out there ‘cause I wanted to get married. So I began looking round for another job and I went to work for Holland County Council at Boston. I got a job there. And then from there moved to the Lindsey County Council at Lincoln and then to East Lindsey from there. So I had a few trips round Lincolnshire but never moved out.
AH: And was that doing planning all the time?
DB: Yes, apart from rebuilding the airfields I was in planning. I went back to planning from there and started qualifying again and managed to qualify as a planner when I was at Lincoln and that stood me in good stead for a job at East Lindsey and I became the Assistant Director of Planning there. And I had that for nineteen years before I retired and then I worked for the best part of three years, just two days a week, at Chattertons the solicitors in town here, as a consultant for them. They wanted me, they’d been after me for a long time, ‘cause I knew them very well. So I had two days a week working for them and then I decided it was time I did retire.
AH: And when did you move to Horncastle?
DB: 1969. Had this house built and the builder was next door at another house. He lived in there and I built next door to him. And my son was five. He was five on the one day and we moved here the next day and he started school the next week in Horncastle. We’d arranged that, like, and the school at that time was a private school at the bottom of the hill and it was er ‒, my wife at that time, worked for Bushes. And her offices were across the road, of course, so she could see him in school and out of school he used to come across the road to her and be in the office with her until she came home.
AH: Did you have any other children?
DB: No, just the one boy. No others arrived. Just the one. That’s him and his wife at the bottom there.
AH: That’s nice.
DB: They were going to some function there.
AH: Well, is there anything else you’d like to say?
DB: No, I don’t think there is at the moment. But if you can think of any other questions you want to ask, yeah, I’m quite happy to answer them or I’ll try to give some indication of what happened.
AH: Did you have air raid shelters?
DB: We didn’t have an air raid shelter, no, but people did have them. But we used to go under the stairs, in a cupboard under the stairs, go into that when there was an air road on, if it was bad. Other times we’d get under the bed. But a lot of people had Anderson shelters in their gardens or Morrison shelters, which they’d have in the house ‘cause they were a steel frame shelter that you could have in your ‒ and you could sleep in them or on them. A lot of people slept on them, put mattresses on them. If there was a raid you went underneath.
AH: And what about rationing? Do you remember rationing?
DB: Oh yeah, things were rationed. Like, we never saw oranges or bananas or that sort of thing throughout the war. They were just disappeared. I worked from being thirteen to going to work at sixteen. I worked in the local butchers and I used to deliver rationed meat, it was all rationing at the time, and I used to bike round the area with a proper butcher’s basket on the front and a tray and I used to take the meat to the houses but it was cut up and rationed, cut up into sizes, certain sizes. Some things weren’t rationed. Sausages weren’t rationed but, of course, they hadn’t got a lot of pork and they used to put any scrap of meat they got anywhere went into sausages. And corned beef came to the butcher’s shops in very large tins in those days. I think they were ten shillings a tin, or something like that, and some of that used to go in sausages. It wasn’t rationed either but I’ve cut those up, cut big tins of corned beef up, to make sausages but you made do and it was amazing what you could do. And my mother was an excellent cook, fortunately, and she could make a meal out of nothing, basically. She could make a meat pie, or fish pie out of a tin of salmon you know, if you could get salmon. I know the only salmon you could usually get was grade three, which was the poorest of the salmon, and I remember on one occasion my grandfather was staying with us and he was taken ill with food poisoning afterwards. It didn’t affect anybody else but just he got it and unfortunately that was my mother’s father. Unfortunately his wife died, my grandmother died during the war. They kept the pub at Stickford and then he kept the pub for a year and had a housekeeper to look after things for him but then he packed it up and retired and he lived amongst the family and he used to come to us for so long and one of my aunties and uncles for so long, stop at all of them.
AH: What was he like?
DB: A little tubby fella [laughs], a real publican, and he worked originally for Salby, Sons and Winch, which was a brewery in Alford and then he got the pub at Stickford. It was one of their pubs and he did that. And he had a pony and trap at one time and he used to do a bit of carrying around the area but his horse would never pass a pub, it stopped at every one [laughs]. He was quite a character. He used to weigh, oh, fifteen or sixteen stone and he was only about five foot six at the most. He was a little barrel.
AH: And what was his pub called?
DB: The Globe at Stickford. It’s not a pub any longer. It was taken over as a pub after he’d retired out of it. Other people had it and somebody called Burton took it first, and then one of the Catchpoles took it I think after that, but it packed up being a pub many years back now. It’s just a house. But one of my uncle’s, my mother’s brothers, he had a garage across the road and there’s still a garage there but it’s not the garage that my uncle had. It’s totally changed and the original house that they lived in, which was a little shop and post office as well, it’s all gone and different houses there now. But I did meet one of my cousins from there last week. He lives at Woodhall. But my grandfather used to come and he’d bring his bike with him and he used to bike round the area. But we kept pigs in the war time. My father rented a sty just at the end of the road. And there was about five or six sties in there and he rented one of them and we kept pigs, so we’d always got some bacon or ham or something uncut during the year, and most people did that who could do. It was a way of life. I used to like it when they used to kill the pig ‘cause I was very fortunate that I could taste sausage meat before it was cooked and tell you if it needed more salt or pepper or sage or whatever was wanted in it. I could taste it and I used to go round all our friends that kept pigs as well when they were killing them and putting them all away and be tasting their sausage meat [laughs]. Before that, oh, they always used to test it as well. They used to put some in the oven and cook it a bit and they would taste it cooked but I could taste it raw.
AH: How would you realise that?
DB: Just by tasting it I think and I liked it. But as a teenager I was a good hand.
AH: And did you grow vegetables?
DB: Yes, we had a vegetable garden there and a little lawn and just a vegetable plot and we had fruit trees at the bottom of it and next door to us there was a house. It was a semi-detached house in Alford we had. A police sergeant lived in that side and we lived in this one and on the other side was a new house that had just been built, was pre-war, and they were builders in Alford. Two brothers had a building business there. One of his grandsons or one of his brother’s grandsons still runs it. Woods the Builders in Alford. It’s still there and behind them there’s a big orchard and everything and the man who lived beyond that side, in the next house, his garden come right round and took all that in. He had about half an acre of garden and chickens and everything, and he had one, a James Grieves apple tree in there, which they are one of the earliest eating apple trees. And all the fallen ones he used to push through the hedge for my brother and myself. These were the gifts we used to take [slight laugh].
AH: What was your address in Alford?
DB: 16 Chauntry Road. The house we lived in at Sutton on Sea just before we, not the one just before we left, the one before that was St Clements Lodge and it’s still St Clement’s Lodge ‘cause I passed it not all that long ago, and it’s been painted white outside. But when I was at the planning office at East Lindsey we had a planning application to do some alterations in that house so I said’ I’m doing a survey at that one’ and I went down and knocked on the front door and this lady came and I explained who I was from the planning office and I said ‘Can I have a look and see what you want to do but’ I said ‘actually I’m here just being blooming nosy’. She said ‘Why?’ ’Because’ I said ‘I used to live in here until I was about eight years old and wondered what it was like now’. I went in. The staircase was exactly the same with the same cubby-hole, mahogany coloured. I went in the front room. The fireplace was the same fire place. It was a Victorian fireplace with tiles down the side. It was just as I remembered it and I went through into the back room. It was ‒ I think it had got new windows and that in it. But the others hadn’t and then the kitchen, that’s right, they were rebuilding the kitchen area ‘cause it was built on the back. And then I said ‘can I have a look upstairs as well?’ and she said ‘Yes, of course, yeah’ and I went upstairs and the front bedrooms were the same, three front bedrooms it had got, that’s right, and a back bedroom. And on the way through to the corridor to the back bedroom was a little alcove. Well, my father had a bed made for that for my brother to sleep in. It was smaller than a full size single bed but it was big enough for a ten year old boy and he had a bed made to fit in that alcove. I said ‘Here then now’ ‘cause it was a door. She said ‘That’s the toilet in there’. I said ‘Our toilet was across the yard’ [laughs]. We did have a flush toilet but it was across the yard in the house next door basically. Well, next door was a shop. It was in one of their outbuildings but that was our toilet and I think the reason for that was, like, our house belonged to part of the family that was next door, it belonged to the wife’s parents I think, down there. They were a well-respected local family at Sutton on Sea, the Wileymans, and Cass[?], she lived next door. She was married to Mr Johnson and they had the shop next door to us. I used to go round as a little boy and sit in there, helping making orders up and that, and I used to help them make ice cream in the outbuilding at the back. They had an ice cream maker that you wound. Nowadays you have the electric to go round but you had to wind it, put ice in it, pour the liquid in, wind it round until it made the ice cream and take it out again, put it in the shop and sell it. And you could buy an ice cream for a ha’penny , the old ha’penny.
AH: Did they flavour it or was it vanilla?
DB: It was all vanilla. All vanilla ice cream. You didn’t have any flavoured in those days, not like they do now with about twenty-five different flavours.
AH: And in what road is St Clements Lodge? Where’s St Clement’s Lodge?
DB: St Clement’ Lodge? In Church Lane, Sutton on Sea. It was, if you go to Sutton on Sea, turn right, you come down the high street, turn right at the end of it virtually, there’s a car park there, you turn right down York road and then follow it through, past the playing fields. The road actually now goes round and you go off there and you go round there to the end, it turns right very sharply, and we were about the third house. There was a house on the corner, then there was a shop, and we were next door to that. But as you turn off down that road past the playing fields the first house there is made partly of railway carriages, two downstairs and two up. In the middle, downstairs, that was their lounge. Upstairs, each bedroom was a compartment from the railway carriage. Some of my friends used to live there as a boy and he had a model railway set, big enough to go right round the house, but in those days, of course, you had no electricity, no electric railways, they were all mechanic. You had to wind them up so you had to have someone at the far end to wind it up again to send it back. And then he got very modern. He got one that worked with steam and methylated spirit and it would go right round on one filling. But that’s been sold now. I don’t know who lives there now. But Frank, he kept it for a long time and I saw only a few years ago Frank Unwin died and it was sold. But just past there, there’s two more bungalows that had just two railway carriages downstairs, one’s got a pointed roof and one had a tin roof going over. But they were there, they were built, I think, in the 1920s or something like that. But quite unique.
AH: And that’s near Church Lane?
DB: Yeah, I think, is it Furling Lane, they call that bit of it? It goes from – you go down the high street, turn into York Road and go straight on down behind the sand hills, and there’s a playing field out on your right hand side, and then the first lot of bungalows, there’s a little group, you see a group of bungalows. I think it’s called Surfside, or something like that, and that one’s built on what used to be a pond. I remember sliding on that as a boy. Now it’s a group of bungalows. I hope they’re built on rafts or something or something to make them safe. But as I say, you keep on behind the sand hills, right at the back. There’s some interesting little places in Sutton on Sea when you go round. In the centre of Sutton on Sea there’s a car park in the middle there. Well, on that used to be, when we were boys, was some big wooden sheds and they belonged to a Mr Sheardown the local second hand furniture dealer. And they were full of furniture (hello, Tracey wants me ‒). But when we actually flitted in Sutton on Sea pre-war days (oh sorry, beginning of war time ‘cause it was October we flitted) we actually flitted in a horse and dray and the person who flitted us was the man who run the donkeys on Sutton on Sea, Harry Bucknall, and I earned my first money ever leading donkeys on the beach at Sutton on sea when I was seven years old. I got about sixpence for the week I think, something like that, which I thought was marvellous. I used to go down in the morning and fetch the donkeys up from the field to his house where he had the stables for them, get them saddled up and all that, take them to the beach, and have them out on the beach, and they’d be there three or four hours, and take them back, and take all the gear off, and take the donkeys down the field again [laughs].
AH: That’s very young.
DB: Yeah. And when I took my son, when he was, what would he be? About three, no more than that, I took him down to the beach for a ride on the donkeys and it was the still the same man running the donkeys, Harry Bucknall, and he looked at me and said ‘I took you to be born!’ He actually took my mother to Louth Hospital. He had a taxi business as well as his donkeys and he took my mother to hospital in his taxi when I was born. And he said ‘You’d better give him a free ride’, that’s my lad, he got a free ride on the donkeys (laughs). So it’s, it’s a small world you know when you go round. Like, I came to work in Louth in 1948 and lived down River Head in the little council houses down there. I lodged in number two, I think it was. I can’t remember the numbers now but it was the second one along, I know that, and the people I lodged with, the man was the ‒ he looked after all the warehouses down there, down River Head. They were all in the one family, one big ownership of the Jacksons, and he worked for the Jacksons and looked after all those, ‘cause in those days they were all full of corn and all that sort of thing. They’re all changed into something different now, those that are left. One of them used to be a restaurant. I don’t know if it still is. It was down Thames Street that was. I have an idea they might have had a fire there at one time but I can’t remember. And further along there, originally, there was the gas works. They became Ludermeaties [?]. ‘Cause Ludermeaties[?] were in Eve Street at one time, off James Street, and they outgrew that business and moved into the gas works down Thames Street. I know a lot of history of these places. I’ve been around too long.
Ah: Well, I think that’s all. Thank you very much.
DB: No problem. Do you want me to sign that, do you?
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ABrewsterDG160617
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Interview with David Brewster
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eng
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01:31:23 audio recording
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Pending review
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Anna Hoyles
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2016-06-17
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David Brewster grew up in Alford, and has memories of watching the Luftwaffe bombing convoys at sea, a dog fight and watching bombers take off from RAF Strubby and RAF East Kirkby.
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Civilian
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Horncastle
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Christine Kavanagh
Beaufighter
bombing
childhood in wartime
crash
He 111
home front
incendiary device
Lancaster
memorial
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Strubby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/215/3355/ABrownE160314.1.mp3
4fd76aed8c310e6b2fefa29f02007102
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Brown, Eric and Phyllis
Eric and Phyllis Brown
Eric Brown
Phyllis Brown
E Brown
P Brown
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One oral history interview with Eric Brown (1591325 Royal Air Force) and his wife Phyllis.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-03-14
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Brown, E-P
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AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre the interviewer is Anna Hoyles the interviewee is Eric Brown the interview is taking place in Mr. Brown’s home in Holton-le-Clay on 14th March 2016.
EB: I originally started er learning before I er
AH: Can you speak up a bit more?
EB: Yes well I could I suppose yes, I used to work with this accountant and er war was coming obviously and so by this time I was about sixteen seventeen rather and decided that I would join up with the rest and so I went off volunteered to er go I wanted to go with aircraft and I was accepted to go and I suppose I was about two years or a little bit less than that at I had to choose what I wanted to do and er being that bit older of course I wanted to be into something and eventually I got into that and er you then had five choices with regard the aircraft and what you were going to do and er so I became the man who sat at the [laughs] [unclear] and er I was responsible for all the feed for drinking for no drinking feeling [unclear] and checking all when you had every so many hours you had so many checks on that and er you were responsible for the seven of us that’s er what you tell you what we were going to do now everything was all was different er and er we used to go what we were given to do er and that’s about about hundred in that altogether and er we got close to Germany as it was then and of course that is when the danger came out and er you sometimes I’ve known we’ve had gone off home leaving about seven or eight men all shot down and there were an awful lot shot down the Germans used to you know pick you up and that was it and er you got there but what we could do we could get a bit lower and be be hoping somebody would come along and hit it and er we’d be all right by night and so I did an awful lot of flights there for for [unclear] haven’t got any yes these it’s what the award was eventually we were afforded one of those but er it was an awful thing though our own men your own men friends those you lived with getting shot down, its funny now I don’t know whether you read in the paper in Lincoln they are building a big thing er for all the men who didn’t come home and funnily that one night er I was talking to him before it was his turn to go off and er that was it we didn’t see any more of him and er we had an awful lot though and er but you you had a job you did the job and er that’s why we had the chap with the guns [unclear] two guns we had two men who were older than us I mean I was about thirty thirty odd then and they decided they wanted to go on this particular way and er it was nice because you took different people with you at night but er so we we just had me it was my job to look after the [unclear] in front we had four we haven’t got four there have we?
AH: No
EB: See but er yes four knives off you went er petrol just right and we never got too much or little of anything [laughs] you always had something which was [unclear] but the worst part as I’m was concerned was as you came to the prison to the arrived there er and if your guns were fire guns were fired and Germans were sent to what we could send to us over there and you had to make your way back home and hope are we going to be lucky, I do remember one night they had the Germans used to have these special things that came out when it got dark and er we decided one night we got stuck down there and we had to get back up but we couldn’t for a while but er you had to look after yourself once you got to France France you were all right that was the best bit but we did lose an awful lot I mean it was nothing to lose nothing to miss rather other than to er perhaps ten or eleven one night and er so you were you used to have your food when you got back home if there was any left or if you didn’t felt like eating you ate it but er I mean it there was something about it all the time you was were as one you know you didn’t pick on anybody or get anybody all wanted friends all doing the same job on er we went from up North to Norway er down to er France and that’s how it was at night keep going and er fires fires from the Germans they sent hell of a lot and er you just hoping you hoping do what we can and er once you got on that situation then you had to look after it and hopefully get back again. How you doing?
AH: Good. What planes were you in?
EB: What?
AH: What planes?
EB: Er I’ll show you it, we got one?
PB: That’s the Lancaster
EB: The Lancaster it’s the one that everybody is talking about now.
AH: Yes
EB: That’s that’s the one you had that that’s it there
AH: Yes
EB: That was at Lincoln.
AH: Oh yes, and what were they like to fly in?
EB: What were they like?
PB: Noisy.
EB: Very good very good wonderful aircraft best of
PB: Noisy [?]
EB: Yes excellent, the most Stirling’s they were they were dangerous [laughs] we didn’t get on very well on them but [unclear] you managed just about some nights if we got hit but er you got there all right you had a meal when you got home and then you ready for the next day again start again that’s how it went six or seven nights you would be on things like that doing that.
AH: How did you feel when you were doing it?
EB: Well it was all number one you know it was look after number one, I being the the pilot was there I was the second my responsibility that we had four engines to go with and four to get home with and er.
PB: That’s him in his flying gear have you seen it?
AH: Very nice.
EB: So we had a chap sat at the end of the aircraft he was the gunner we had a man mate half way up this thing another friend another gunner and er you had two men who that’s the hold but they were from Australia and er their job was to sit in get covered up and when you got to Germany and stop all the things that we get coming at us so then we got to me I was responsible for four engines and er the pilot was very good er er but er I went going sidelines to that some years after the war I joined the Police force and I was walking home one night and er a young somebody an ex friend stopped me and he said ‘oh you know Chick Arnott don’t you?’ I said ‘yeah’ ‘oh’ he said ‘he’s got a factory in Germany’ not Germany oh where he lived.
PB: Australia, Australia.
EB: Mmm and er and I got a letter from him and two or three years after I got another letter and er I then thought of going over to to Australia but er I didn’t I kept in the air force and er got home one night he came with this girl a friend of his wife er had come back over to Australia and er she came to tell us that he had been killed he er he used to drive a car I know he was a bit mad when he was driving cars he did have one of his own er and er that was his end yes weird thing he did all that and er [unclear] and er he got killed.
AH: What was he called do you remember?
EB: Now then now Arnott yes have we got anything of him?
PB: Arnott yes what did they call him?
EB: Chick, Chick.
PB: Yes Chick Arnott.
EB: Chick Arnott his friend he was, but we were fourteen not fourteen we were lads really er five of us were lads and the balance were fifty they being the Australians they were desperate to get there mind you and er that’s what happened to him [takes a puff of something] certainly when you look back its.
PB: Have a little drink.
EB: Me throats not very good.
PB: Have a little drink.
EB: That was me a willing worker [laughs] with [unclear] I don’t know why they did that because
PB: Have a drink.
EB: You know I was doing that on aircraft all the time.
AH: So you were demobbed in 47?
EB: Would be about then yes.
PB: Was it 47 you were demobbed in yeah?
EB: Yes I joined the Police force.
PB: Cos’ we were married in 47.
EB: Yes.
AH: Were you part of Operation Manna?
EB: In what way?
AH: Did you fly to Holland?
EB: Er no I don’t think so.
AH: You flew to Norway?
EB: Yes there one night er didn’t do that much but I did definitely a trip there it wasI remember now because we didn’t hit what we wanted to hit ‘cos you couldn’t see where you were actually going to and er this clever dick he decided that he couldn’t see anything but he’d find something ‘cos he came down to the ships and when he got there he got shot down.
PB: Your voice clear your throat just take a bit.
EB: That er that was the end of that one. It was always nice to see a German[laughs] but er.
AH: Were you in the same squadron all the time?
EB: Yes yes once we got that squadron that was it that we stayed but of course then the Australians went home and er we that was me when I got home that was it, this thing says here assesses you how good you could be ‘I am a keen and willing willing circa[?] a keen and willing circa[?] with intelligent appre apprehension of technical matters’ [laughs].
AH: Is that true?
EB: Yes it was it had to be I had to be but er my [unclear] to keep four girls not four four types of tanks of water of petrol I did funnily come across one night and er I don’t know how it happened but we got ourselves caught out as when people were coming in but er for some reason we got out of it we had one or two sticks but er that’s life in’t it.
AH: Was it frightening?
EB: No in a way because you were too busy too busy you didn’t know who was who what was coming at you but er I never knew anyone didn’t know anybody who [unclear] that got about it as I say we had that much to do compared to the work we did we got home after that but the [unclear] over France we started losing petrol but we did manage to get home so and er when there’s a thousand aircraft a night all coming home to have something to eat and er it was there the skies were it was just there and er once you left where you were starting from that was it you didn’t see anybody until you got to where you when actually you got to the target then it was hell let loose it was all these red things all these things going out and er you just hoped they’d miss you as soon as you can get lower the better. Did I tell you that’s my Police medal you found this here, that’s a foreigner I don’t know who that is I put Norway for that but I don’t know why?
AH: No it’s the EU? Paris.
EB: Is it.
AH: Where were you based?
EB: ER Coningsby did you know Coningsby? Lovely aircraft lovely place to be at it very good there wasn’t far to carry the goods anyway er get over the water get yourself hidden away and er we thought Lincoln was a shocking place to be all aeroplanes [laughs] didn’t have many people up north doing things like that but er where we were based generally it was the place where it all happened really did I don’t know, you didn’t didn’t have old men none at all but I stopped from that after the war and er became a policeman and er that place we went there for.
PB: That which is Chick Arnott on here look?
EB: What he’s the boss.
PB: That’s Chick
EB: That’s Chick
PB: That was the one that got killed in the accident and that’s Eric again this end you see.
EB: He was very he used to stutter a lot I think his father was something to do with car money rather er.
AH: What was he called?
EB: I can’t I’ve got five damn things all written down here look that’s it that’s Ken,
PB: Ken navigator, that’s Dave
EB: That’s Dave they were all over thirty, er that was me, Chuck
PB: Chuck, Chick.
EB: And that was the other Australian he er I think he used to do [unclear] at night earn his money that way but er he used to like his money and he used to like his water water as well.
AH: Did you always fly with the same crew?
EB: Yes, yeah I think I only knew of one and that’s I did work with somebody work with somebody else because there was no reason for not using it we were there together, yes I written there the Pathfinder Badge.
AH: Were you a Pathfinder?
EB: Yeah, yes that’s when it all started again really but er that’s what we used to do keep it low get in deep problems and then er come back home.
AH: Were you always a Pathfinder?
EB: Yeah, yeah.
AH: What were you doing in 47?
EB: Er
AH: When you were in 57 Squadron?
EB: No we didn’t do a 57 I don’t think.
AH: Is there anything in?
PB: 47 look here you’ve got something down here for 47.
AH: Oh your log book.
EB: 447 in’t it [pause]. That’s after the war that.
PB: No that’s 43 Eric.
EB: Mmm training some people [coughs] you didn’t talk much when you were flying the two gunners were too occupied doing what they were doing and er the same thing went for us really, er four things the guns, the petrol so that was my job the pilot was looking where he was going and it just left the two men who when we got there they started and er did what we could.
AH: Did it take a long time to train?
EB: What direction?
AH: Before you before you took part.
EB: How that happened I remember that well I joined this thing as it was this thing at the time and I think I was sent off to a place north of er before you got to Scotland anyway and er I got what we had as kids to me I what we had as a kid so I got a week in this place er I had to stop there as I was sweating or something and er I nearly lost my place and er as a boring when you were training people you couldn’t there was an awful lot involved typical of what they did they used to pick people out at night er for you for going out there to watch to guard it really this was in Wales where we’d been trained and so you used to be given you gun and off you went and you sat on that thing for about three hours and all you could have after that was a break you were six weeks before six hours six hours before you could get back and shut your eyes [laughs] so those who didn’t do that we sat up peeling a potato every night same thing same potato and er we were training nearly a year and er.
AH: What did you do before the war?
EB: Accountant.
PB: You were in the office weren’t you.
EB: Yeah, because it was war then wasn’t it they were [unclear]
AH: Did you have family in Grimsby when it was bombed?
EB: You what love?
PB: Yeah.
EB: Yeah.
PB: Yes your mum and dad lived in Grimsby.
EB: Er yes ‘cos my father was a policeman er one sister works in the
PB: Joyce went in the army.
EB: She joined the army, the next one up
PB: Gladys
EB: She worked on er
PB: Ammunitions munitions
EB: And the eldest I don’t know what happened to her
PB: She still
EB: Oh she had a baby didn’t she?
PB: Yes that’s right yes she got married
EB: Marilyn yes that’s right that we had there [going through papers]
PB: It will be here somewhere look when you went on these here trips then where you bombed
EB: All these look you see.
PB: You dropped bombs
EB: [unclear]
AH: Hamburg?
EB: Yep
PB: Here you are look told you in 1945 45 it’s all the trips that you went on.
EB: Yeah Karlsburg, Dortmund.
PB: That’s a German isn’t it.
EB: Yes [unclear] quite a few quite a few trips.
AH: Do you remember any of them in particularly?
EB: No I don’t think I do really there’s all them look.
AH: Karlsruhe?
EB: Wartsburg [unclear] send things
AH: Was that a big raid Wartsburg?
EB: Yeah twenty storage tanks destroyed Tansburg [?] er
PB: What’s this one here look here where you drop flares
EB: Where you drop those flares so you can see what you are doing.
PB: Oh you dropped flares there you did yes.
EB: I think we’ve told you all
AH: Is this from a log book?
PB: Yes but he had but he’s given his grandson it cos it was all down there you see all of his trips want ityou gave Matthew it didn’t you.
EB: Yes well it’s no good to me er it’s worth a bit £2 a time it was a lot of money in those days.
AH: Was your father in the First World War?
PB: Yes he was in the army.
EB: Yes he was.
PB: In the army.
EB: Yeah I now but what about it there’s something about it er I’ve got a photograph of sometime.
PB: Was in the Police Army was in the Police when he was in the Army?
EB: No I don’t think he was.
PB: No
EB: No one time if a man was a coward or wouldn’t fly wasn’t going they had to shoot him.
PB: They did what?
EB: They had to shoot the chap who wouldn’t go they shoot them in France yes.
AH: What was your father called?
PB: William.
EB: William yes, what did they call my mother?
PB: Eh?
EB: What did they call my mother?
PB: Lillian Lily
EB: Lily that’s it yeah aye there were five of us ‘cos my father’s my er grandfather he had the bakehouse but he didn’t go into it because he had five of us to look after and that was what he used to do.
PB: Your mum.
AH: So the baker was your mother’s father?
EB: Yes and how they got together was the fact that my father used to look out for her when he was on the beat and he could see there was my mother cleaning up that’s how they got married grandfather [unclear] but yes he did.
AH: What was your grandfather called?
EB: That’s one thing
PB: Basil, called him Basil?
EB: Yes that’s right called him Basil, it was a lovely house he had and er once a year when we were kids and grandfather had a nice car and er we used to take probably my father did it take us down to my grandfather’s house and off we used to go for a week [laughs] and that was it.
AH: Where was his house?
PB: In the country where wasn it?
EB: Do you know Grimsby at all?
AH: A little bit.
EB: ‘Cos it’s it you were coming out as going to Louth
PB: Grasby, Grasby?
EB: No the other way
PB: Some pond.
EB: Oh no we went there last week last when that had that to do with something oh your eye the eye thing a place they used to do eyes.
PB: Oh yes
EB: And that was it Scartho.
PB: Yes in the bungalow but then your other one where they did the pond that old pond where you used to go visit them.
EB: Yes Kild at er [?], what was it now there we had something there but I never take it or tell it Kild [?]
PB: I can’t remember
EB: and er that was the place they lived in was very nice they lived ad er you could have one in my father my sister doing my mother doing all the work.
AH: And how did you meet?
PB: How did we meet? Well you see when he was at Coningsby at night the buses used to go into Boston and I lived in Boston at the time and we used to go to the dance hall called the Gliderdrome and these bus loads of airmen used to come to this and I met him there you see.
AH: When was that?
PB: That was in 1945 it would be wouldn’t it when you was in the air force?
EB: Yes It was before then.
PB: Was it before then?
EB: Yes yes.
PB: He used to come from Coningsby on the bus didn’t you?
EB: Yes.
PB: To the Gliderdrome
EB: Mmm
PB: Then we used to have a dance then you used to go off on the bus didn’t you?
EB: Yes.
PB: Then I used to go home walk home well with my sisters ‘cos it was dark then there wasn’t no lights in the streets.
EB: But by that time we’d stopped bombing we weren’t doing bombing.
PB: Oh no.
EB: So that’s how it was.
AH: What did you do?
PB: What did I do?
AH: Yes
PB: Well you see I left school when I was fourteen then and then I worked in a little shop where I used to be get the breakfast ready and the farmers used to come in and it was at the end of at Boston at the cattle market want it where the farmers used to come and they used to come for the breakfast and some people used to stop overnight and then er I wasn’t there very long though and this baker used to come in and he said ‘I could find you a job’ and it was where I lived near where I lived so of course I went there but it was from six o’clock in the morning till six at night I used to go in a morning first off to get the bread done in the tins then they used to bake it and whilst it was baking I used to go home for my breakfast then I went back and then the bread was more or less ready used to get it out fill the van go on a bread round and then er come back again to the shop then we used to go for our dinner I were always late and then in the afternoon we used to make cakes and pastries yes it was hard hard work but er you know I well I don’t think I even got paid much for it it was only five shillings a week I used to remember buying a bar of Cadburys chocolate for a treat out of my five shillings [laughs] so it could only have been sixpence perhaps or two and half pence then wouldn’t it then [laughs] oh dear then I did that then I left and went to the cleaners didn’t I.
EB: Mmm.
PB: And then I got married while I was there didn’t I?
EB: Yes.
PB: And you what did you do then?
EB: Still flying.
PB: When you came out of the air force.
EB: Still flying.
PB: Yes you were still flying yes but then when we got married you wasn’t.
EB: I got married.
PB: You got a job at Leicester didn’t you?
EB: That’s right but it wasn’t very long.
PB: No it wasn’t very long no.
EB: Yes that’s right it was with the er thinking of [unclear].
PB: ‘Cos Gladys lived there at the time at Leicester didn’t she?
EB: Yes that’s right she did yes, I had a job there anyway that was.
PB: It was an office job want it duck?
EB: Yes it was yes well they were all I mean there was me eighteen nineteen twenty the rest of them were fifty they’d all not gone you see yes.
PB: And then you came out that job at Leicester and you applied for the to get on the Borough Police at Boston ‘cos I lived with me mum we lived with me mum then didn’t we after we got married you got on the Police Force at Boston and you wasn’t we wasn’t there long and you put in to go to Grimsby didn’t you?
EB: Yeah.
PB: And then it was the chief constable there and he said ‘come on Eric come that afternoon I’ve got you a football shirt ready you playing football that night’ weren’t you.
EB: The good old days.
AH: What was it like to leave the RAF?
EB: I was sorry to leave it but at the same time it was different you know I had a job to get involved in that whereas you could do some something totally different but you had those sort of people who did that but to me I wanted to be off er you were [?] within two days you would be off you quoted this number and off you went and that was it.
PB: What while you was in the forces?
EB: Mmm.
PB: Yeah well it was a routine want it you was in.
EB: Oh yeah yeah they gradually took everybody out that was it.
PB: Pardon
EB: They gradually took everybody out.
PB: Mmm.
AH: And you had children?
PB: Pardon.
AH: And you had children?
PB: We do have yes two daughters yes one’s sixty six now and the other one is sixty. [Laughs]. Mmm
EB: Yes.
PB: Well we shared a house didn’t we while you were in the police force.
EB: Well it was a police house wasn’t it.
PB: No at first we lived with Joyce we shared a house didn’t we we shared a house we had half of it we had the back half of the house we shared a council house they did in those days you see because I was having my our first daughter and Joyce she’d got one little boy she was having her second child so of course she went in the home and the day she came out I went in in January and then of course I didn’t have the baby until March did I, mmm but then we ‘cos you used to come yes you used to come and see me.
EB: Yes
PB: ‘Cos you see it was past the home want it where you lived Nunsthorpe and from there we got the police house in Winchcombe Avenue didn’t we?
EB: Yes.
PB: It was a new one it was a lovely house wasn’t it?
EB: Oh yeah yeah.
PB: But you used to go to work on your bike from there didn’t you?
EB: Yeah yeah [unclear] that’s one end of the thing used to have to go there ready for playing ready for when they were doing it all you started something there and you had to work your way right across there [laughs] and then when it was home that’s when you got out again they had these little places iron boxes and er you used to take your packed lunch with you and er do that.
PB: What those the police boxes you used to go to?
EB: Yes yes mmm.
AH: And was this where was this?
PB: This in this was was in Grimsby wasn’t it?
EB: Yep as it was then whether it’s
PB: It was Grimsby yeah
EB: I don’t know.
PB: Well was it Bradley Cross Roads?
EB: Yeah no it was whether it’s there still it might have something going for it I don’t know.
AH: What was it like being a policeman in Grimsby?
EB: It was funny because with it being a fishing town it was all fishermen there was an awful lot at night to get them on the docks get home or not be all drunk up and er and it was no good at all but er it carried on for quite a while and er we er one or two of us for some reason managed to get ourselves one step up and er from there on of course I went through finished up being a chief inspector I was quite but the boss there in where was Grimsby he was he used to go out he had this car this posh car and he’d go out everynight looking for police looking for policemen [laughs] er he was very unpopular his wife was working in a pub and he finished up later and er I never knew what happened to him but he didn’t do any work that was a fact.
AH: And how did you feel about the way Bomber Command were treated after the war?
EB: Well it er I mean it was terrible in some places I mean we’d got nearly nine hundred policemen to be shot down ‘cos they were and it was terrible but er again you had to look after yourself and er you had a job to do you had to go and you had to get back and the funny thing was though you didn’t see any aeroplanes they were about but you didn’t see them and er that was how it was mmm do you want to be a policewoman then?
PB: A bit different now to what it was when you was on the force in’t it now don’t think you would have coped with it as it is now well you would.
EB: I was an inspector want I.
PB: Well an inspector that’s right yes well you used to do the courts didn’t you.
EB: I was
PB: You still still
EB: Still
PB: You were at Grimsby though
EB: Oh yes I used to go to court every two weeks seven days a week and then.
PB: You used to do the courts at Brigg.
EB: Yes that was every Friday.
PB: On a Friday Friday was it ah.
EB: That was like for country people er and then I finished there of course then it all collapsed didn’t it stopped doing it.
PB: Yes that’s right.
AH: What was it like being in Boston during the war?
PB: Ooh well it was queer really I can’t imagine now what it was like I mean everybody knew everybody else didn’t they?
EB: Oh yes.
PB: I mean you could always go out and meet somebody you knew I mean even your next door neighbour they were all sort of friends together wand it you never got stuck going out on your own because they was always somebody to go with want there?
EB: Yes.
PB: It was a busy little place nice though want it?
EB: Oh yes.
PB: It was a nice place though really.
EB: Not now.
PB: To what it is now it’s all these Polish people can we say that?
EB: Well it’s the truth in’t it.
PB: Well I mean my sister she died a year ago but I mean she used to say she lived just outside Boston and I am pleased she did ‘cos she said going into town it was just horrendous mmm.
AH: Was it bombed badly?
PB: No not really was it?
EB: No.
PB: There want much bombing was there I don’t think.
EB: No.
PB: Want.
EB: No no you didn’t get any.
PB: We didn’t get much at all I mean used to know when they went out on a raid because they used to go over our house and then I used to ring the next day to see if he’d got back [laughs] but we want on the phone at home we used to have to go round onto the main road and find a phone box [laughs].
AH: What was it like hearing them go over was it frightening or was it?
PB: Oh yes ‘cos we used to think well they’ve gone are they going to come back that’s it I can always remember we used to go out of the house and stand in the back yard and see all these planes go over and they seemed to be so low you know they didn’t seem to be high up you know you could sort of see them so plain it was queer really want it.
EB: They used to land a lot of stuff in didn’t they they used to land a lot of.
PB: Oh yes.
EB: They used to land a lot the
PB: Oh yes.
EB: The smaller things not the big fish the little fish didn’t they.
PB: Are you talking about the fisherman.
EB: Yes altogether though weren’t there.
PB: Oh yes Boston yes the fisherman used to be there the same then oh yes you used to go on a Friday and get a big bag of prawns for sixpence [laughs].
AH: What was it like when it when the war started and suddenly all these planes came and?
PB: Well you see when I when the war started I was at school and we used to well when where we lived was in Frampton Place and I used to go to school at Sandland School and it was er we used to have a gas mask you see a little boxes with a gas mask on and we used to walk to the school with the box on and we often used to have air raid practices about every other raid used to go out and one thing and another and er it was funny really want it?
EB: Oh yeah.
PB: I mean you always used to be together you know you’d never sort of be on your own I mean there was a big family of us though there was six seven of us six girls and one boy and then there’s mum and dad you see and er all the neighbours knew everybody else didn’t they?
EB: Oh yeah yeah.
PB: But er yeah yeah there were a lot of nice people in Boston in our time want there?
EB: Mmm, different now in’t it.
PB: Different now yes it is.
AH: I’m just going to put it on pause while I look at the paper.
PB: Pardon, the air force ‘cos you brought me that bag and those oranges straight off the trees.
EB: No Italy.
PB: Italy that yes.
EB: Nice there.
PB: ‘Cos you did some trips would you fetch them home?
EB: Yes the idea was that everybody would get the lads home but it didn’t work it didn’t work like that but er a lot of them we couldn’t find anybody there it was all afternoons in Italy we didn’t go far er but er we didn’t get home we did about four of those trips they were handy for us ‘cos you could buy bits and bobs.
PB: Well it was a rest it was a change want it for you to do that.
EB: Oh yeah yeah.
AH: When was that do you know?
EB: Oh soon after the war finished the idea was to get them back and
PB: Was it soon after the war?
EB: Mmm.
PB: Just at the beginning?
EB: Yeah no there didn’t have that many we were talking about the war of course.
PB: Yes,
EB: I mean and that was war and we weren’t we were getting to there to get and bring it home so we so they must have been poor [unclear].
PB: [Unclear]
EB: They were not very keen of doing anything they were idle ‘cos I don’t remember seeing us [unclear] from there but we did bring them home and that was it nice.
PB: ‘Cos you brought me that basket back didn’t you?
EB: Yeah.
PB: And that leather handbag and you always used to bring some nice oranges want there and that was a treat then to get nice oranges from Italy want it?
EB: Yeah.
AH: So did you fly did you stay out there?
EB: No no only well you you [unclear] lots of people for people going back home so we had to wait for them to go and then it was out turn sort of thing so we didn’t go in a hurry but it was nice you could look at all the stuff that was there it was very nice er there was no war by the look of it we never I don’t think we had a war and I did that.
PB: Do you want a drink or anything?
AH: Could I have a small water please, thank you. Did you speak to the Italians when you were out there?
PB: Did you speak what?
AH: Did he speak to the Italians?
PB: Did you speak to the Italians I don’t think you did did you?
EB: I don’t think so now but er we were so wrapped up in taking [unclear background noise] ‘cos I mean it was nice but it was a shame to do any damage really.
PB: I’ll have to make myself a drink. [Pause while making a drink]. Do you want me to make you a drink?
EB: Aye [kettle boiling in background] I think the eldest was about well in the forties er the third one he was quite well liked [unclear] beyond us all yet he married a girl in [unclear] and went to Australia and the other one there was one there he had a wonder job again it was in the heat and the only one was he was used to doing things like flying to Australia he did and er and then there was the pilot of course he killed himself eventually in his car, he er [unclear] he went home back to help his father in the business which he did and er two or three years later phone rang [unclear] and a girl not a girl anyway we stopped and he said ‘oh I’ve got something to tell you’ I said ‘what’s that?’ he said ‘[unclear] oh I said ‘that’s all right then’ you know he didn’t like it but he would do it and er after two years later one of the colleagues I was working with er came to me and he I was on my way home and he knew me and he said ‘do you know a man who went to Australia with you’ I said ‘oh yes I write to him but I haven’t seen him lately’ he said ‘oh you won’t he’s dead’ that was the father that was the son of the father and er he’s gone too fast and that was the end of the car.
AH: And then you went to Givenea[?] ?
EB: Mmm Givenea [?]yes
AH: I don’t know how to pronounce it? Do you remember that?
EB: I remember part of it yes but er I don’t remember going there, when that fourth down
AH: Yes
EB: Two or three times open the door and that was [unclear] another one mmm tells you the hours spent there we weren’t very long there oh we got recalled look.
AH: Oh yes.
EB: We had to go back one here for nine hours that was mine laying.
AH: Was there a big difference between being a pathfinder and mine laying?
EB: Er yes because we did everything for their benefit you know wasn’t case of going together it was our job to go out do this do that and bring it back again so they so that was the that was the er that what it was all about before we started that you used to have odd cars [unclear] and what we are going to do and then they brought out this and er they also brought out what was the [unclear] it was hell of a way different.
AH: You flew to Kattegat?
EB: Yes
AH: German cruises?
EB: Yes Urst Dam, Leipburgen [?], Dusseldorf that was a reasonable place.
AH: That was a big raid?
EB: Mmm it mean’t going a long way ten hours look you see that’s what it took us.
AH: Oh Trantaine[?] submarine pens.
EB: Mmm.
AH: Do you remember that?
EB: No I don’t any of those nine hours Germany, German Navy there having a good game there.
AH: Oh you got hit by a shell?
EB: Yeah yeah now this could be the I remember we were hit with something er it was a shell want it.
AH: And your wing caught fire?
EB: Mmm.
PB: Yes that’s right.
EB: Yes that was when we were coming out of target and er the fire was on the it was on then er [unclear] that way I suppose.
AH: At Germany Giessen.
PB: Germany.
EB: Course some of these days it was all Germany [laughs].
AH: Was that frightening when you got hit?
EB: Yeah I was with one night one had hit me and er why we went out we’ll never know [laughs] it shouldn’t have gone out it was luck.
AH: But the fire went out?
EB: Yep.
AH: And you went home to your normal base?
EB: Yeah yeah well the odd times you would go to some er to south of London actually only if there was a fire or anything we generally we got home as and when we wanted to but we did have we did have means of doing it if you couldn’t get the other way and we used to have these places just one lot of aerodromes and things and you used to go down onto these we managed to get down there.
AH: Did you that?
EB: Odd times just odd times and I remember one night we er we were far from landing er we stuck out in Scotland out in fog so we came out in this hotel posh hotel and er these seven people fed us all and that was very nice of them and then fog went dash home start again next week used to set about twelve or fourteen aeroplanes at a time in one lot mmm.
AH: Is there anything else you can think of?
EB: I was just thinking I can’t let’s right we did I remember we had one er there was six men going to Italy er and when I say six one there was another one but he was [laughs] funny crew and while he ever got on it I’ll never know and he got out to Italy and he got shot down coming home and they were all they were all er [unclear] did business apart from this fool who we had he had hair down here somewhere.
AH: How come he got shot down wasn’t the war over?
EB: Well they used to follow you but er they the Germans used to hide away and of course they’d been in and out to get the right place and er that was it and there was hell of a lot shot down normally but er it wasn’t too bad in Italy they didn’t try too much there but er Germans were just terrible. That’s the medal but they wanted a special thing so I could put all the er things there Canwick Hill at Lincoln.
AH: At the memorial?
EB: Yeah there’s another one now.
PB: That’s the same one in’t it.
EB: Similar no it’s not I er I haven’t got that one but er they built them there was no end [unclear] South of Lincoln wasn’t it?
PB: Yeah but then but wasn’t it London as well Sandra took those photographs for you, London?
EB: Yes.
PB: What was that there?
EB: You catch the odd one.
PB: Well they’ve built that now haven’t they?
AH: I think so I haven’t seen it.
EB: Want the money expensive.
AH: How do you feel about the Memorial?
EB: That’d be the one wouldn’t it.
PB: This is the one that they are building now Eric they want some more money for it.
EB: Yes.
AH: Are you pleased they built it?
EB: To me it seems an awful lot you know [telephone ringing] seems a lot of money.
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ABrownE160314
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Interview with Eric Brown
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:09:40 audio recording
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Anna Hoyles
Date
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2016-03-14
Description
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Eric left school at 14 and worked in a bakery and then in accountancy. Aged 17 he volunteered for aircrew and trained as a flight engineer. He became a pathfinder and carried out operations to Hamburg, Karlsruhe, and Dortmund, flying from RAF Coningsby. We was with 106, 97 and 57 Squadrons. After the war he joined the police force, rising to the rank of inspector.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Dortmund
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
Terry Holmes
106 Squadron
57 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Lancaster
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/469/8352/ABaronC160321.1.mp3
385c27519d9e75f7bcf44a0808ce8da5
Dublin Core
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Baron, Charles
C Baron
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Baron, C
Description
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One oral history interview with Charles Baron.
Date
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2016-03-21
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Anna Hoyles, the interviewee is Charles Baron. The interview is taking place at Mr. Baron’s home in Louth Lincolnshire on 23rd March 2016.
CB: Here we are I volunteered for aircrew 1940, you can have a copy of this [laughs], I think the calling up system was somewhat chaotic at that time because it took the authorities another eight months to send me my calling up papers, the instructions were that I report RAF Uxbridge where I was issued with a uniform for an AC2/UT/AIROBS i.e. that means an Aircraft Hand Second Class under training for Air Observer close brackets, I volunteered for pilot but my eyesight test discovered that I was partly colour blind and that made it no good so err, when ‘cos I oh yes yes well then I’ll read this and then you’ll see what’s what’s useful and what isn’t, umm err, I volunteered for pilot but my eyesight was partly colour blind I remember that I had whilst I was at Uxbridge I was posted to Uxbridge and that’s where I got this funny title, which consisted of roast beef stroke yorkshire pudding followed by plum duff I remember being impressed and pleased that I had volunteered for aircrew as a meal that size and nature had not been at our table for years. I was then given a train ticket to Blackpool and billeted with several others in a seaside boarding house there were about ten of us recruits billeted there and most of them were friendly except well yes that’s nothing, I spent six weeks marching up and down the promenade after six weeks parading at Blackpool we were posted to a receiving wing based at Stratford on Avon I was here for two or three weeks and wasted my time as it was merely a holding post pending a vacancy for proper training at an Initial Training Wing ITW, this was well worth the wait as early in 1941 I was posted to Number Two ITW Initial Training Wing and billeted in Emmanuel College Cambridge I shared students quarters with two other navigation trainees, tell you I had it soft, the courses were for me actual luxury as I realised quite soon that I had what I had missed by not going to university for further education [laughs]. There was some forty of us billeted in different colleges we livened the local populace by marching everywhere at one hundred and forty paces per minute I remember our first drill lesson [laughs] ? standing for attention and being lectured by an instructor who was an obvious Londoner, I remember very ‘stinctly his first instruction relating to smart appearance which was, [how do I read this] ‘now tomorra I want all your buttorns cleaned’ [imitating a London accent] that was exactly what he said [laughs]. At Cambridge we were initiated in the mysteries of air navigation, air recognition, meteorology, morse and similar too many to remember in detail, the course lasted eight weeks I passed the course and was promoted to LAC Leading Aircraft Hand with my daily pay increased from two and six a day to five and six a day [emphasis]. We were then posted to Sealand near Chester for onward transmission by sea to Florida where where we due to spend six months being thoroughly trained in air navigation by Pan Am pretty good hey, on arrival at our embarkation port Avonmouth four of us found that our papers had not been received and the ship left without us [laughs], we were returned to Cambridge and you can imagine our feelings, this time we were billeted at Downing College where we cooled our heels for some weeks before I was called before the CO and asked if I would be prepared to volunteer for a highly secretive and dangerous training [whispers], as I would have been prepared to go anywhere to serve and play some useful part in the war I said ‘yes please sir’, after a day or so I was sent to Air Ministry where I was given some very odd looking diagrams to study and provide answers to various questions passed out and satisfactorily shortly after my return to Downing College I was posted to Prestwick. At Prestwick I was introduced to air born radar instead of six months full training by Pan Am I received six hours air training in a Blenheim 3 which was a twin engined bomber which had been furnished with a radar set for me to study during which time my training consisted of using the radar to instruct my pilot to follow and close with a target aircraft at night until he could actually see the target I was using a radar set to do this you see and I had to understand how to operate it the object would have then been to be able to shoot down the target I was passed [coughs] above average and then promoted to Sergeant Navigator Radar with a daily pay increase from five and six to, you’ll never guess, thirteen shillings a day [whispers] this equated to four pound eleven a week and was more than I had ever earned as a civilian [laughs], had I been passed average I would have been posted to an operational training unit for further training before being posted to an operational squadron I was bypassed because I passed above average, I think I told you, I was sent to Canadian Operational Squadron at Accrington Northampton er Northumberland where I spent several interesting months, our operation area was the North East included such targets as Newcastle and Durham so I expected a good deal of activity however compared to Southern England it was [?] and disappointing, I teamed with a Canadian pilot Sergeant Hughie Gorr we became very close friends and after the war we exchanged home visits, he and I stayed together as a crew for about three years. He proved his worth as a talented pilot on many occasions but one in particular sticks in my memory that happened quite soon after I was posted to Accrington the squadron oh yes this was Number 406 Canadian Squadron also maintained, you can have a copy of this photocopy of this no problem at all, also maintained a detachment at Scorton near Catterick in Yorkshire where all crews spent about one week in four, on one occasion we were on patrol at night there when one of our two engines failed and Hughie said ‘I think I can make it on one engine if you give me a course for base’ I duly did so but very shortly afterward the other engine failed [laughs] and Hughie said ‘bail out’ I opened the rear hatch and was halfway out of the aircraft with my parachute on and Hughie said ‘ooh I can see base and I am going to make a glide landing’ bearing in mind that this was dead of night his confidence was a tribute to his piloting skill when we less than a thousand feet and too late to bail out he said ‘oh lord it’s a dummy’ in other words a dummy was a false runway close to the proper runway and built to mislead enemy activity, I reluctantly climbed back in the aircraft er closed the rear hatch and settled down to await my fate it was then considered to control the engineless aircraft but kept the wheels up and made a crash landing in a field roughly fifty yards from a small wood I then climbed out [whispers] with a bruised knee, and that was that was quite an experience, er as enemy air activity was very low the squadron was posted for a year to Scotland not far from Prestwick where I had received my radar baptism this posting was also not terribly exciting and when volunteers were called to venture overseas to join the Middle East battle Hughie and I were happy to do so we were then posted to Wilmslow in Cheshire to be fully kitted out for overseas duties and then to Avonmouth where we boarded a steamer bound for Freetown in Sierra Leone our ship was part of a convoy on arrival at Freetown after surviving a few submarine scares we then boarded another steamer bound for Takoradi in the Gold Coast what was called the Gold Coast er that’s now Ghana of course, which went without convoy protection but fortunately we had no attacks from enemy submarines, we learnt while on board to Takoradi that all the passengers were aircrew and that the RAF had built an airport there for the purpose of ferrying fighter aircraft to the war zone in the Middle East, the aircraft had been shipped separately, this is very interesting, in knock down form for assembly in Takoradi the reason for this was that the Germans controlled the Mediterranean and it was considered to wasteful to fly direct aircrew had to wait a few days while the aircraft arrived and were assembled and then flown in convoy to the war zone across Africa, the route from Takoradi to the base in Egypt called Abu Suweir was a long one and we had to stop several times for refuelling and this meant overnight stops at Maiduguri Nigeria, El Fasher in Darfur, Wadi Halfa on the Southern Nile and finally up the Nile to Abu Suweir that’s how we got to Egypt. Unfortunately when we landed at Takoradi I was bitten [laughs] I was bitten by an annapolis mosquito and spent the next three weeks in a military hospital recovering from malaria this meant that Hughie and I missed our convoy and so our Beaufighter was three weeks late we were further delayed because our plane suffered a magneto drop and we had to leave our convoy for an emergency landing in another strip at El Geneina this meant we had to wait another week or so while a replacement engine was flown out to us finally we flew on our own the rest of the way by the time we arrived in Egypt, Montgomery had won the battle of El Alamein, it’s the story of my life [turning pages over] experience. We stayed in Egypt with 89 Squadron for about six months 89 was commanded by a well known commander called Wing Commander Stainforth he was a magnificent pilot and 89th Squadron he was given what was about three times the size of a normal RAF Squadron having a detachment as far away as Malta, Abu Seweir was comparatively quiet and our duties were largely uneventful patrols though I do remember coming out of cloud over Alexandria being mistaken by a JU88 by our own Mediterranean fleet and hastily removing ourselves from a concentrated anti-aircraft barrage. Now around the time this time Hughie was seconded temporarily for ferry duties and I was a spare navigator a squadron leader pilot who had completed his tour of Whitley bombers was posted to 89 Squadron to learn to fly Beaufighters the aircraft Beaufighter and I acted as navigator while Hughie was away Squadron Leader Clements had great difficulty in mastering the Beaufighter which tended to swing to starboard on take off and landing one day we took off as usual but squadron leader temporarily lost control and we were at right angles from the runway before we had got to the end we then wondered around the sky while I showed him our various points of interest Port Said, Alexandria and so on and eventually we approached our own airfield and he began his descent on landing he failed to control the swing tendency but this time on the landing the aircraft was once again at right angles to the runway [laughs] and heading straight for to a Hurricane which was occupied the Hurricane was, its’s engine, where are we, was running because the chocks had not been removed because the people who pulled the chocks away the aircraft er yeah the airmen who pulled them away couldn’t quite rightly saw that if they stayed where they are they would get killed by us you see, so anyway, I still remember I had not yet been [?] so he so that he was stationery I still remember the look of absolute panic on the face of the hurricane pilot as we removed his starboard wing [laughs] can you imagine that as we went by [laughs] the nearest the furthest away he could get so yes so fortunately he didn’t get hurt at all the squadron leader added to our problems by turning around in ever decreasing circles and the undercarriage finally collapsed on the ground we stopped I had a slightly bruised knee for the second time I also remember Squadron Leader Clements saying ‘I’m terribly sorry flight sergeant’ I was a flight sergeant by then my own reply had better not be printed. Fortunately Hughie returned the following day there was very little action around this time and when early in 1943 we were asked to volunteer for a three month detachment in India where the Japanese were reputed to be bombing Calcutta heavily and frightening the local population many of whom ran panic stricken into the jungle we gladly responded positively the volunteer flight of eight Beaufighters was commanded by Flight Lieutenant George Nottage a first class chap he and I became great friends after the war, after an interesting albeit uneventful side trip Dum Dum Airport Calcutta with various stops in the Gulf and in Bombay we arrived and moved to RAF airfield at Bicarchi [?] we then found that the enormous Japanese bombing turned out to be three Mitsubishi bombers flying at night with their lights on, I’m not joking, and carrying antipersonnel bombs, the night after we arrived the first of our eight crews on night readiness was piloted by a chap called Flight Sergeant Pring sure enough three Japanese bombers in formation with their lights on approached Calcutta and Pring duly shot them all down in four minutes his radar navigator W Warrant Officer Phillips didn’t have a much to do, two nights later three more Japanese bombers approached Calcutta this time shot down by an Australian flight lieutenant, the name escapes me, and his radar navigator Warrant Officer Moss unfortunately Moss could not have been looking at his radar set at the time because he overlooked the Jap fighter that was shadowing his three bomber friends and he shot the Beaufighter down happily happily, there is no tragedy in this so unhurt when they crash landed they were picked up by Burmese Irregulars [?] called Force 136 who looked after them and they were taken to the nearest allied post and in due course returned to us, thereafter Japanese night bombing ceased because they didn’t know about radar you see radar was so important to us enough in the war it was one of the keys that got us the win, I forgot to mention on arrival at Dum Dum we were told that as were now under RAF India Command our service was to last three years and not three months [laughs] you can imagine our reply [laughs] but I wouldn’t tell you. Consequently we spent most of our time in Burma what is now Bangladesh we were based in Chittagong resorted to intruder flights over Burma where our targets were mainly trains and convoys of lorries these were fairly long flights and I remember in particular Rangoon and Mandalay we also dropped the occasional senior officers to Infall [?] where the 14th Army were besieged the airport there used to be attacked during the day but we managed without incident, er one hot summer day what’s all this about, oh yes this is interesting, one hot summer day in 1943 I was laying on my Charpoy [?], do you know what Charpoy it’s a straw bed, er where am I oh yes, er perspiring freely, wh en an officer came to my billet and told me to quote his own words ‘George wants you’ and I asked ‘why?’ and the officer didn’t know ‘I don’t know go and ask him’ I duly presented myself at the officers mess and in due to course to George Flight Lieutenant Knowledge Flight Lieutenant Nottage came to the door and said ‘oh hello Charlie move your move your stuff in here you’re an officer now’ that’s how I got promoted this was the sum total of my officer training it’s silly isn’t it [laughs] but it’s true [laughs]. As an officer in addition to my navigation duties I was given various jobs i.e. savings officer, officers mess, bar officer and entertainments officer, every Friday I sat at the end of the airmen’s weekly pay parade and collected such amounts as such as each airman gave paid from his weekly wage to be handed a savings certificate in return for his donation which I then banked. My bar officer duties consisted of replenishing stocks from weekly visits to Calcutta and setting prices for all the different types of alcohol initially I made myself very unpopular by raising the prices but this changed completely when I opened the bar for free for the five days around Christmas, I am considered to be responsible for the squadron leader admin acquiring DT’s. My most memorable experience as an entertainments officer was when I learnt that Vera Lynn was visiting the area this was just after the end of the war in Europe actually and Egypt and so on, I made an emergency flight to Calcutta and at short notice given an appointment and I successfully persuaded her to come to Bicarchi and giver a concert there which was of course highly successful despite the fact the only date we could offer was the Sunday at which she said ‘well it’s me day off really but I’ll do it for the boys’ what a wonderful person she is. Shortly after my pilot and various other officers having completed their flying duties were flown home, my flying duties were also completed but instead of being flown home I was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and posted to Basci [?] Air Quarters in Delhi there I was initially responsible for organising the various training headquarters throughout India for Indian Air Force Ground Crew, excuse me, nearly finished. After a few months I was transferred to the organisational department with the grand title of ORG1A here I was once again promoted to squadron leader and was involved with planning the invasion of Singapore unfortunately somebody dropped an atom bomb and ruined all my work subsequently I handled various aspects of construction on airfields under our control and exceptionally after the war ended this included the Indian Officer Building of British Overseas Aircraft. At long last I was posted home with my wife, not this one [laughs], Winnie was a WAF corporal whom I had met in Accrington years ago we’d been in correspondence since then and she followed me to India via Ceylon at the first opportunity but the disparity in our ranking met with some disapproval but we still married in Delhi and gave a popular ceremonial drinking party on arrival in England in 46 after due leave with my new family [?] er oh yes well after that I mean you don’t want to know you won’t
AH: I wouldn’t mind knowing what you did after the war?
CB: Oh right, my work at Air Ministry was a member of the British bombing survey I was posted to Air Ministry to assist in the analysis of the different bombing targets as instructed by Air Marshall Bomber Harris you’ve heard of him, his policy of bombing towns to break the morale of the German people was considered [coughs] correctly in my view as wrong both strategically and morally because the carriage that resulted the carnage that resulted failed completely to break the German civilian aircraft German civilian morale and cost our Bomber Command fifty per cent casualties the highest casualty rate of any arm of any service in allied command that’s true Bomber Command, well I had an elder brother he didn’t last there you go. On my release later in 1946 the RAF paid for a short course in business admin and a posting for two years, do you still want to hear that, at six pounds per week [laughs] er in a repetition woodworking company specialising in turnery where I was supposed to continue my business training in fact I was in effect an underpaid office manager my boss was so pleased with me that he doubled my pay to twelve pounds per week ‘cos he only paid six of it and the government paid the other however when the two years were completed and the government subsidy of six pounds per week ceased his attitude changed during this time I qualified as a Chartered Secretary my workload kept on increasing and after blazing row I left, still go on. It took me a few months to find a decent job during this time I kept the family in funds by selling insurance door to door you know life insurance door to door for the United Friendly Insurance Company, the branch I worked for used to give a ballpoint every week to the salesman who sold the most insurance during the week after five weeks I had acquired five ballpoint pens and the inducement for all salesmen ceased, during this time I kept on answering advertisements for office managers as a result of which I recognised I acquired a recognised office managers job in Thetford ooh six hundred and fifty a year getting all right, Winnie and Rosalind remained in the rented flat in London for a few months as it took me some time to find suitable rented accommodation in Thetford, er well nothing there really nothing. We stayed in Thetford until 1969 1949 sorry the company I served manufacturing company raw material moulded pulp the raw material was discarded cardboard boxes which by immersion into water produced articles such as baby baths, trays and flower bowls we were in fact the largest producer of babies baths in England, it had another division in a branch factory in Newmarket using vulcanised fibre to make two thirds of Britain’s coal miners helmets at that time the miners workforce in the UK numbered seven hundred thousand, one of the papier mache formed the basis for motorcycle crash helmets which we sold to a firm called Helmets Limited for the vast sum of two shillings and ten pence, when the Duke of Edinburgh initiated the idea that all cyclists should wear crash helmets I persuaded my company to market a new product as we had the equipment and the technique to make completed cyclists and motorcyclists helmets, I was given carte blanche by my boss to devise a new production line and advertise and market the product which I named the Centurion this product rapidly became the most successful of all work and profit doubled during that time I qualified by correspondents course as an AC as a cost and works accountant now enjoys a more prestigious title a cost and management accountant ACMA the company was owned by an absentee board of directors I was congratulated by the chairman who said that as a result of what I had done about the crash helmet I would be given a bonus of one hundred pounds this resulted in my leaving the company and taking a job in Calcutta as chief cost accountant for the largest group of paper mills in India at three times my previous salary, oh you don’t know anymore it goes on you know, well basically after that oh yes of course I was in India, gr oooh, oh yes that could be interesting actually. I left my family with Winnie daughter Rosalind aged eight then she’s now sixty nine now she’s seventy no rising seventy still going strong.
Other: No, no you mean Winnie you mean no no no you don’t mean Ros.
CB: I mean Rosalind her daughter is nearly seventy yes that’s right, er how could she be nearly seventy then? Oh yes of course she can but I’m ninety five. In Aiden I bought a blue Rolex Oyster Royal for fourteen pounds which I still have, [laughs] must be worth a hundred or two, we landed in Bombay proceeded by rail to Calcutta here we were met taken by road to Chandannagar [?] which is on the Hooghly River about thirty miles away where we billeted in a very large flat in a compound with other paper mill executives, errr well nothing very well yes [laughs] well I’ll show you how it changed my life I was soon advised that as cost accountant I was responsible for all the accounts and I controlled the stores at that time two large paper mills the largest being in Chittiga and the other where I was based in Chandannagar [?] I was provided with a chauffeur driven limousine which enabled me to visit both mills every day Monday to Friday at each of which there was a storekeeper controlling very valuable stores for equipping the papermill machines at each mill a large area was allocated for storing of thousand tonnes of bamboo sticks for bamboo we made the paper out of the bamboo, ah and having been cut down by contractors from miles around the bamboo was weighed on arrival before being unloaded and the moisture content which varied from freshly cut forty percent moisture down to seasoned around ten percent was weighed at the main at the mill weighbridge and the contractors were paid only for the seasoned weight this was obviously capable of corruption between the contractor and the weighbridge keeper I very soon found that corruption was endemic in the end this was an example I appointed a [?] the weighbridge keepers who were Indian but understood and spoke English as at the time I spoke no Urdu one of the weighbridge keepers said to me ‘don’t worry Barron saab while I am in your backside no harm shall come to you’ it was impossible to sack anybody at the as the union was very strong so I merely had him sidestepped the other stores housed in large buildings which were locked up out of working hours by the storekeeper this was also subject to corruption and as the chief engineer British was also corrupt I found in due course that control was virtually impossible, the Head Office was in Calcutta and my own boss whose title was simply the boss my own boss he was number one and I was number four answered my query on the subject of corruption by saying tongue in cheek ‘you can take anything which you can eat or drink but nothing which crackles or rings’ there you go, social life was good especially for me, after a few months Winnie took Rosalind home to England we’d already booked Rosalind for a place in boarding school I’d taken the oh yes I’d taken the opportunity to play my violin and in fact I joined the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra as deputy lead violinist the orchestra was composed largely of amateurs like myself and it was conducted by a Welsh Englishman David Jacobs whose family owned several jute mills as Calcutta was on the world circuit of prestigious soloists and I was the only fairly knowledgeable musician we occasionally entertained famous names such as [?] and I was placed next to him keep him entertained at dinner in the luxurious head office dining room [?] and I took to each other and we had a most stimulating discussion about the life of a professional musical soloist he invited me to call on him at the Savage Club in London whenever I managed to get back to England unfortunately he died before my first home leave, I did call on David Jacob’s family in London to go and see, err [flicks through pages], oh yes [laughs] the work conditions were not without interest and occasional excitement as for example when my office was invaded by some hundreds of bamboo coolies demanding a rise in wages this was understandable because they were quote “outcasts” unquote and were at the lowest possible rate of pay thirty rupees per month about ten shillings per week of fifty pence as we now call it my hands were tied but I did manage to have their pay increased as a result of my representation on their behalf at head office this put them on equal pay with the next cast rank above whose member well the members were not at all pleased. I was rather more for more fortunate than the chief engineer of a large engineering company in Calcutta when his workforce through him in the boiler [laughs], as the executive responsible for labour relations throughout both paper mills I was chairman of the grading committee, er oh yes mmm, you don’t want to know about all that, oh yes well during this time yes I got a Dear John letter from Winnifred telling me she was leaving me and wanted to marry my best friend I was naturally devastated there had been no hint of this before I left England, my six months furlough was not due for about another year but my company were good enough to bring my furlough forward for a few months during this time I managed to divorce Winnifred and put Rosalind into a good private school and then er when I came back I had time to spare and I it was six months you see and after a couple of months I got a temporary job in National Farmers by the National Farmers Union as a representative of Joe Nickerson and Company have you heard of them well it’s very big locally er it’s a seed growing company which offered to pay me adequately for introducing a new lawn seed called “Agrosstistolernepherous” [?] to retail seed sundries man and they gave me free rein to go where I wished and call on retail seed sundries man and after, I’m cutting this short, after a few weeks I decided to report and after initial annoyance that I had not sent them weekly reports Nickerson were delighted with the number of seed sundries men I had appointed added to their customers, the annual summer dinner dance I was invited to attend as their guest the organiser was the managing director’s PA and who introduced herself to me during the course of the evening her name was Janet Franklin and we were married about one month afterwards, unfortunately I received an urgent call from my Indian employers to return to India immediately a flight [coughs] a flight had been booked for me to return on Christmas Day which meant I had to leave Janet behind for about two months while she had while she put her local affairs in order and she joined me a eighteen months later ahhh [long sigh]. I soon realised that the salary I received in India could be equalled with the greatest of difficulty and required considerable initiative and therefore initially having qualified for management accountant I decided to use it in the field of management consultancy so the first company I joined was a firm of charlatans and I left them to try my luck as a self employed consultant at this I was reasonably successful but my plants were rarely close to our home in Sussex being largely in Scotland and Northern England and this necessitated almost continued absence so when Jan Janice, not this lady, was hospitalised following a miscarriage we decided on her release to look for a home much closer to her family living in Grimsby and near Louth where she had been educated so then sixty one sold the house er in Sussex where we lived um for seven thousand five hundred pounds er and then we bought The Elms no we bought The Elms for seven thousand five hundred I think we sold the Sussex one for about the same The Elms was a large six bedroom house here in Louth er and then I was introduced to a gentleman called Ken Addison who was a general manager of a polythene film extrusion company owned by Pickford Paper Mills Ken was very anxious to run his own company but had no capital neither did I however in my travels I had made friends with a well to do business man named Anthony Jowell who was prepared to invest three thousand pounds and we needed about ten thousand although I had no money of my own my financial reputation was such that I was offered three thousand by the bank which was then the National Provincial Bank and Addison had a friend in the scrap metal motoring business and I persuaded his friend to buy three thousand to buy one thousand shares and make a shareholder for three thousand pounds and he did so the odd two thousand shares I presented to Ken Addison and he was the MD and I was the financial director that’s when we made some money real money, er do you want to know how [laughs], got pages yet, is that enough?
AH: Yeah [laughs] thank you its very interesting
CB: Cos I made another I started another company double glazing after this we sold our company that was where made some real money the first time but do you know what taxation was then? Maximum taxation of anything over one hundred thousand earnings was eighty five percent and capital gains that was the cheapest way out that was forty percent so when we sold our company we had to give the government forty percent of it doesn’t happen now its about fifteen not fair is it.
Other: If you remember tax on unearned tax on unearned income as opposed to earned income was ninety eight percent.
CB: Yeah the maximum
Other: Can you believe it?
CB: Ninety eight percent for unearned income if you were a rich person that’s the sort of money that they ought to be charging the very rich now but they don’t do they? Well that’s about roughly it oh yes the other company was double glazing
Other: Yes
CB: Yes Primo Windows
Other: Primo Windows
CB: Of course you don’t come from this area and I sold that after ten years having got this three thousand pounds and I sold that for another three hundred thousand ten years later so there we are okay.
AH: And where were you from originally?
CB: Pardon
AH: And where were you from originally?
CB: Islington.
AH: Really.
CB: Yes, 17 Chapel Market second floor above a shop of a er shop anyway where I shared two rooms with my mother, father, two brothers and a sister that was where I started.
AH: And why did you want to join the RAF?
CB: Where did?
AH: Why did you join the RAF?
CB: Well I I thought what a marvellous thing what a wonderful thing to be able to do fly like that
Other: And there was a war on too.
CB: Yes and there was a war on it was either RAF [burps] or army or navy and not being a very good swimmer navy was out for me and the army I didn’t fancy being in those blasted trenches all the time and the RAF sounded much more interesting and they accepted me so there we are [takes a drink], so I can let you have a copy of the relevant stuff if you want it [sifts through papers] er
Other: I can print some off
CB: Yes can you print pages four, five,
Other: Yes I’ll just go get it turned on
CB: Six and seven and eight I think that will do. And er at that time er I was given a job with the British Bombing Survey Unit er what the start of it actually the chap in charge was an air marshall I mean he was this was to have to investigate an air chief marshall’s duties so I I was I was a senior assistant to the bod [?] I forgot who it was now it was a very very well quite a well known name.
Other: Well that was Harris wasn’t it?
CB: No no that was the chap we were investigating.
Other: Oh right yes okay. So which is two cups I think they were actually these are clean.
CB: No these are new ones.
Other: Yes they are, there you go.
AH: Thank you.
Other: Did you have sugar? Lots of musical terms on there [laughs]
CB: Yes, er I can’t the trouble is my memory is not good it really isn’t and I.
Other: Very good you’ve just got ninety five years of memories to to drag out that’s the thing it’s the hard drive that’s full.
CB: What?
Other: The hard drive is full.
CB: Yes [laughs] I reckon.
AH: So what did you do exactly when you were there?
CB: When, when? I was well I had an office and a secretary I think yeah I did and I er I visited a I forget where a lot of information about how many aircraft which type of aircraft had had a percentage more er knocked down by the Germans and so on all sorts of things like that a lot of statistics and the statistic showed um cos I said the best things to do is to look at all the places that we were told to bomb by Harris and what the results were and he kept on um er he kept on giving the giving air command giving er fighter command the instructions to go bomb towns more than military targets and that’s why I said we killed a lot of German civilians and as a result of that that was part of my report when I said that we we er um unnecessarily went for these and put as my real reason which wasn’t quite my real reason the fact that we lost so many aircraft of our own fruitlessly that was really the sum total of what I found and he was disgraced and sent sent er but I wasn’t the only one there we were we were there was about a good half dozen of us going different areas and so on and so forth it was an important thing British Bombing Survey Unit there I had it all written down there so if you want to know [laughs] that’s what I was mainly in charge of or partly in charge anyway all right.
AH: And what reaction did you get to your report?
CB: Report well the report was then read by the top brass in Air Ministry and in due course he got the sack [laughs] well he was er he was dismissed to some very minor post in South Africa and er had no real power or duties after that and it’s only recently that some some idiots have started to resurrect him er as what a wonderful good chap he was but he really wasn’t there you are history can be distorted sometimes.
AH: And was the general view of like your family what did they think of Harris at the time?
CB: He was well they knew nothing any apart from the fact that I had lost a brother who was a navigator on Lancaster’s er I was lucky I was stuck where well I started before he did er and er didn’t get involved in bombing I was night fighting and intruding [?] and you were fine in there
AH: Where was your brother stationed?
CB: Pardon.
AH: Where was your brother stationed?
CB: Oh stationed in England and er his grave which we have visited is at er
Other: Hanover
CB: Hanover in Germany.
Other: That was very emotional wasn’t it?
CB: It was yes yes, he was he was a brainy fellow too and er he was a much brighter bloke more intelligent fellow than his elder brother who was a bit of a well nothing important shall we say yes.
AH: What was your brother called?
CB: Well he was originally christened Emmanuel but then people called him Manny and he didn’t like that so he rechristened himself Ernest and he was then called Ernie [laughs] in the same way as well I might as well admit I was born and christened my parents christened me Cyril and I didn’t like Cyril particularly in the air force where they made fun of it so I said my name was Charles and I have been Charles ever since now well it began with C so that was enough [laughs].
Other: You couldn’t do that nowadays could you [laughs] in fact it is much easier to change your surname than your given name.
CB: Well there you go.
AH: And what was it like working with when you started training on radar did you know anything about it before?
CB: Nothing whatso, well nobody did it was a high ever so secretive and as I say it was a very very important arm of the of the armed forces because we got to it before the Germans did and in consequence our our bomber um our defence night fighter defence er and day fighter for that matter ‘cos you could see them from oh even miles away so then [?] you could trace them it starts off with a ground office you’ve seen those photographs of WAFS with the stick in their hand [laughs] you can see their underclothes and there all round the table pointing at things and these are the directions that they are pointing at because you got the table was the map and they pointed to all and were told as they were told they pointed towards them and it was all done by the people controlling the radar because the radar it was a way of controlling um it would start off with a name radio direction finding that was what it was you see and they are all around us you can’t feel them or anything but there they all are and it was fantastic I wish I could remember the chap who discovered how to use them because he got highly decorated for it I think we met himah what was his name no good if it comes to be I’ll let you know but you can find that out anyway.
AH: Was it difficult to learn?
CB: We didn’t have much time did you, er I um my sole instruction of reading I had to read two tubes were two air tubes and various funny pictures upon them er one the left hand one had a line there straight along and that was the line started with the ground and ended and ended much in line with the heavens and if you were at ten thousand feet for example a little blip occurred at ten thousand it was all measured so that you would know if he was above you or below you and also how much above or how much and the distance and then you had another one like that another line like that and and there it was to the right of the left of the line either they were east or west as you were flying and however near you were or near they were to you or however further away and the idea was for us to move to use the radar which we could direct which we could find where if there was an aircraft in front of us within our our distance and our distance at that time was above er the distance we were above the ground so the higher we went the longer the tine the longer the line and this little blip was you could have a half dozen blips er above or below and there was there was also you could tell friend from foe by because they had a little er piece of equipment that once the little thing you looked at looked for and once you got the line you tried to follow it and catch it catch up with it then your pilot who had who had in a Beaufighter ohhh um four canon and six machine guns you could then shoot it down and he wouldn’t even know what hit him you see and a lot of people did that when the time came I was quite good at it as it so happens er it was as a sergeant a flight sergeant although we were on duty a lot when the commanding officer or senior officer came and there was a raid on he took over and he then went up when there was an aircraft there to get shotdown before we got a chance at it we used to get very cross about that but we weren’t officers [laughs] but there we are there all sorts of things I could teach you it would take years.
AH: Did you have to stare at it all the time?
CB: No no if the er we had loudspeakers attached to our ears and if the command if we heard there was ‘action is required’ or whatever we then we then stared we then stared at but we used it for all sorts of other reasons we used it for I had a map in front of me and if I wanted to get to a particular place a particular place say we were fifty miles away I could er I could use the radar to check where the objective was roughly and then get closer to it and closer to it until the pilot could see it so it was quite interesting – ahh I can’t remember it all that well it was a long time ago.
AH: What were the Beaufighters like?
CB: Oh great stuff um I’ll show you one.
Other: Oh right where is it its not a very big one
CB: There’s your Beaufighter [shows a picture] the pilot was there and I was there okay and we communicated by radar by telephone that’s it very manoeuvrable it was oh yeah and he was thank heaven for me he was a first class pilot and he seemed to think I was a decent navigator so we got on well in fact we got to know each other and he visited us after the war and we visited him in Canada, yes but he’s dead now died of natural causes.
AH: How come you went to a Canadian Squadron?
CB: That was when at the time it was the nearest definite one that was available that’s all I cannot tell you why I was picked in the Canadian Squadron or not I was very pleased about it eventually it didn’t make any difference to me whether it was Canadian or English but the Canadians were a good lot they really were, yeah I imagine that they were ones that had been they had been fully equipped and were and had so they were granted an airfield and off we went.
AH: And when you were flying to Rangoon and Mandalay were they Beaufighters as well?
CB: Oh yeah yes they were Beaufighters as well very very serviceable aircraft then they were outgrown in speed er and er by the Mosquitoes you heard of the Mosquitoes and I but the last couple of months they finally because we were the forgotten air force really out in India um we had to put up with Mos with Beaufighters for two and a half years really and then for a few a couple of months that was all I was I converted to Mosquitoes and then they said ‘no you are an officer now we’ve got an office for you now in Delhi go there so we went there do as you are told’.
Other: It was in Delhi where everybody ran screaming into the when the Japanese came over everybody ran screaming into the woods in Delhi.
CB: No from Calcutta which is east east they came and they took over Burma
Other: Oh yes
CB: And eventually they couldn’t they didn’t take over what is it now part of India called Bangladesh no it’s separate now which was Bengal which was at this end of Burma and so they never took that over completely although the British Army had a had an army which was defended they defended itself for who what was the number of that [?] well it’s in there somewhere I think anyway and er they defended themselves but they didn’t couldn’t defend them from the Japanese taking over Burma and that was when we had to fight from in the air to get it back and at that time the east part er the north east that way we managed to hang on to that bit and I was stationed at Chittagong you’ve heard of Chittagong look at the map and you’ll get a rough idea I suppose it would interest everybody it would interest at that time all we wanted to do was get home of course but three years [laughs] – and as I always did what I was told I got promoted [laughs].
Other: Don’t believe a word of it [laughs]
AH: Could you describe a flight for example to Rangoon?
CB: Could I describe a flight most of the time it was boring it just went boom boom boom for a thousand miles or so from where we were was it no it wasn’t quite as far as that it was about six or seven hundred miles oh yeah easy um that’s right then we had to find where we told to shoot at which we did through radar [laughs] and fly back unhurt we were lucky.
AH: What did you do in your spare time?
CB: How dare you [laughs] I don’t know what I did in my spare time probably got drunk half the time we had quite a lot to drink but that was in our spare time we were not supposed to well we had those of us who survived anyway had the common sense not to get drunk so that we couldn’t operate decently after all we had a family at home.
AH: Were there other people that didn’t though?
CB: Well people did get killed yes, Pring the man who shot those first three he didn’t survive so it was one of those things, ah.
Other: Still there can’t be many more survivors around really.
CB: Oh there are.
Other: No there can’t be you’ve got to be
CB: No not now who are still alive
Other: You’ve got to be seventy five upwards haven’t you at least may be more
AH: Yeah more may be
CB: Oh yes you won’t have any youngsters, I was always twenty years younger than the century very easy to remember.
AH: And was your father in the First World War?
CB: He was but er he wasn’t English he was Rumanian and my mother was Lithuanian and I am a Jew as you’ve gathered.
AH: So when did they come to Britain?
CB: Oh they came they came to Britain from their relative countries before the First World War before the First World War to escape the er Pogroms, Russian Russian and Rumanian Pogroms and er they had relatives that I lost touch with I’m afraid a long time ago they had relatives in Manchester and er and er in London so er we ended up in London and er I cannot understand this but we ended up in London but the people who to be honest I can’t explain it but the people who they got in touch with who they were related both my mother’s relatives related to people in Manchester why my parents and co ended up in London and settled there I just cannot tell you but they did and of course there was quite a large Jewish population in the east end of London and er.
Other: Anyway London was nearer to Europe.
CB: London was nearer to Europe so it was easier to get to I suppose yes, there is so much of my early years I just cannot understand the domestic situation all I know is that we were not very well off you see there we are.
AH: Were you aware of the build up were you like Cable Street and?
CB: Cable Street
AH: Yes
CB: Cable Street that was Jewish yes that was Jewish but we didn’t live there that was the east end for some reason or other we settled in I no there was in Chapel Street London it was a Rumanian Jewish settlement and it was a market and they used to have stalls stalls stalls rather outside shops some of them quite a few of them had er either owned or rented the shop and were quite well to do but my parents did have a shop and had to rent a stall so there we are no we weren’t very well off shall we say [laughs] there you go it happens.
Other: So the remote chance of you being in North Lincolnshire at this point in time amazing isn’t it.
CB: Well as I say that that you’ll find in there as to where why we came to Lincolnshire why I came to Lincolnshire we didn’t come together my first wife had gone off with my best friend and my second wife I hadn’t met until I er was asked by these Nickersons who were very very wealthy farmers in where we are very wealthy now and er by Nickersons to er and I volunteered I put an advert in the Times ‘cos I’d done the divorcing bit and I had four months to spare before I went back from my six months furlough back to my accounting firm in India you see and er it was then I put this advert in the Times saying I had this four months did anybody want to employ me and they did having interviewed me here some in Grimsby yes and given me this job er particularly it was rather nice for them no no no this was a long time after after [?] I’m getting myself confused I’m sorry but er
Other: You know there used to be in the time when lots of people worked in India and other places and they would normally do two and a half years overseas and then come back for six months.
CB: This is what I did.
Other: This is what he did and I’ll tell you they were a bit of a menace sometimes because they were coming back with nothing to do for six months can you imagine it.
CB: Well as I say.
Other: Particularly if they didn’t have families you know.
CB: Well I had lost my first wife I’d divorced my first wife and her daughter had been born then Rosalind who’s alive now but er I’d got her into what’s the name of the top class school?
Other: Roedean
CB: I got her into Roedean so she had a Roedean education and on holiday she used to be with my sister my sister had a home in London and it was quite a nice home her husband was the you see that carpet there in the next room have you had a look at it it’s a very good one he used to be the branch manager of Derry and Toms Carpeting department [laughs] and I got that comparatively cheaply but I suppose probably wouldn’t make much difference now I’ve had it some considerable time but it’s a very nice carpet do you want to have a look at it? [laughs]
Dublin Core
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Interview with Charles Baron
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Anna Hoyles
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-03-21
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01:09:51 audio recording
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ABaronC160321
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Pending review
Description
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Charles Baron grew up in London and volunteered for aircrew in 1940. He trained as a navigator and on radar. He later volunteered for overseas duties and was posted to India where he flew intruder operations over Burma. After the war he worked training Indian Air Force ground personnel and with the British Bombing Survey. When he left the Air Force he qualified as a Chartered Secretary and worked in India and the UK.
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Jackie Simpson
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
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Burma
Egypt
Great Britain
India
United States
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1943
aircrew
Asian heritage
Beaufighter
Blenheim
entertainment
faith
final resting place
forced landing
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
navigator
perception of bombing war
radar
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/483/8366/PBullockWEJ1601.1.jpg
e627ecce44c4059c1c2fa2c19bc04d9e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/483/8366/ABullockWEJ151030.1.mp3
bd718c14898350813bae5fe77b18d09f
Dublin Core
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Title
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Bullock, William
William Edward James Bullock
W E J Bullock
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Bullock, WEJ
Description
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Two items. An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant William Bullock (1916 - 2017, 566069 Royal Air Force) and a memoir. He served in Egypt and Iraq before serving as an engineering officer at RAF East Kirkby and Coningsby.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by William Bullock and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles [AH]. The interviewee is William Bullock [WB]. The interview is taking place at Mr Bullocks home in Horncastle, Lincolnshire on 30th October 2015.
[noise]
WB : What?
PH: You can start now.
WB: Well, What? I was born in Marshfield.
PH: Yeah.
WB: Yeah in Gloucestershire, September 30th 1916, That’s right. And after two or three years we moved into Bath, and eventually I got a scholarship to the secondary school, and, in 1932 I took the entrance exam for the RAF apprentices, and I got through alright. When I went to Holton as an apprentice for three years and I passed out in 1935, and went to Altarum[?]. It was an ex-naval Air Station, way back, and we kept time with the ships bell in the guard room [chuckle]. in the guard room. Anyway, in February ’37, well, we got posted to Egypt for Florin[?] Training School and when the war started we moved from Egypt to Havaneer[?] in Iraq. And in, I think it was in May, May ’41 the Iraqis were trying to get us out of their country and let the Germans in, and they surrounded the camp and they shelled us and bombed us for five days, day and night, bombs and shells. And, anyway, we gave a good account of ourselves and when we killed a lot of them, and in the end they decided to pack up and go. Then in, well, about May I came home, and I went to Cranwell on a Coastal Command Station, and anyways, was there for about eight months. Then I got moved to Wigsley which was is a Bomber Command training unit, training pilots for Lancasters and whatnot. And, ow, I think that would be May, May ’41 was it? I, I decided to take commission and I was commissioned as an engineer officer and I moved around various places. I did a year at East Kirkby as the Technical Adjutant doing all the paperwork and whatnot. And, anyway, I did a year there, and then I moved to Metheringham, 106 Squadron, and anyway I was there, they, they worked me fairly hard and the engineer, the group engineer came down and he said ‘Right, I want to move you Coningsby, to pathfinder squadrons, forty Lancasters. Do you think you can cope?’ I said: ‘I’ll do my best sir.’ He said ‘Right, get there on Monday. You can be a Flight Lieutenant on Friday.’ Anyway, I got there and I worked hard for, oh, three, four months and always kept me forty Lancasters going. And well then, of course, the war packed up. The Japs, the Germans packed init, and I moved to Strubby we were’re living in tents and we were waiting to go to Okinawa to bomb Japs. And then the Japs packed in, so we moved, I was there for a bit and then I we got moved, got posted to a unit over by Chester, 54 RUP. And I moved in, I reported in to senior officer. And I said: ‘RUP?’ He said: ‘Yeah.’ I said: ‘ Well, RUP? R U Repair Unit, P what’s planned.’ He said: ‘Oh bulldozers, excavators and that sort of stuff.’ ‘Oh, I’m an aircraft engineer, I’m going back to Strubby.’ He said: ‘You’re bloody well not. You’re gonna Singapore next Wednesday.’ [chuckle] Anyway, we got, I got a fortnight leave before I went to Singapore and in that time I did quick and got married to Mary. Dashed into Lincoln, got a licence from the Bishops, whatever-he-was. And we got married, got married on the Wednesday and on the Saturday recalled from leave and the next Wednesday Singapore [laugh]. And got out there but the unit I was with they never really did get never got off the ground because we, we were supposed to be repairing all sorts of, you know, bull- bulldozers, and excavators and all that sort of stuff [belch] but the machinery never turned up and in the end, in the end they more-or-less disbanded the outfit and they kept me on and all the airfield construction plants, masses of bulldozers and cranes and all that sort of stuff, they said: ‘Right now transfer that to Air Ministry Works Department, the civvy lot’, so I spent all the this time getting this stuff transferred. And then the unit at Hong Kong closed down and all their stuff came down to Singapore by ship. And they said: ‘You will collect it from the docks and take it up to Changi. And it was hard work. Anyway, we managed it, we got it there. And in the meantime, we were living in tents. But anyway, I did me spell there then, and oh what, I decided to relinquish my commission and come home. I weren’t all that happy, so I packed up and came home, and I went back in the ranks as a flight sergeant, and I soon became a warrant officer and I did, oh, I did a spell at Waddington and Hemswell home on and Spalding Moor, and then got moved to Germany, up at Sylt, up on the north Frisian Islands. And I broke[?] there for a couple of years, and came back and went Shrewsbury I’we did six very nice years at Shrewsbury, very nice years at Shrewsbury and then I got moved again up to Lynton-on-Ouse and blow-me-down if they didn’t send me back to Germany [laugh]. At this time we went to Cologne, just on the Zeiderhorf on the outskirts of Cologne. It was very nice and Mary came out and joined me there [sup on tea] and had a couple of very nice years in Germany. And then when we came back, where’d I go? Where’d I go from [pause] I can’t think where I came back to [pause], not sure really. Sure, I can’t remember. Turn that thing off.
[restart of recording]
WB : I can’t remember, what was it year? Anyway, in Germany, I was up at Sylt and there was six of us. It was in the Cold War time, so called. And there was six of us trained on this Enigma machine and, you know, it was quite the thing and one day I got there and they said: ‘Your best blue is, in the back of that van is one of our Enigma machines and it’s got to go headquarters at Buckleburg [?], 200 mile away.’ And they said: ‘You are taking it.’ I said: ‘Oh.’ He said: ‘Your orders are get it there and if you need this, don’t hesitate to use it.’ And they gave me a revolver and a box of ammunition. They said: ‘You have to use it, use it, but that must be got there!’ Anyway, we got it there, no bother, and coming back the following morning the battery packed up. We called into an RAF camp, they didn’t want to know us. A bit later on we met a RAF, an Army camp and called in there and said: ‘Can you help me?’. They said: ‘Yeah.’ Gave me a new battery and then a bit further on the throttle control spring on the engine broke and we couldn’t control it so and I didn’t know what to do and we came to a very nice old lady’s shop, and I said: ‘Stop.’ And I had a flash of inspiration and I went in the lady’s shop and I said: ‘I want some elastic that wide please, so she said there, and I said ‘It’s for my car.’ And we went out and wound it round and round and round these two stops for the throttle spring and we drove 200 miles on a piece of elastic. [chuckle] Anyways, that was in Sylt, then what -
PH: Bill, what, why don’t you tell the story about Old Sarum [?] when you went up with your boss and nearly clocked the cathedral?
WB: Oh yes, that was at Old Sarum. I went up flying with the boss in an open-seater aircraft and it was foggy and it was about 400 feet and the boss said: ‘I’ll come down to 400 feet and we’ll see if we can follow the railway back down to the town’. And we were down there in the fog and I looked and I was I was ‘Look! Look!’ and we were heading straight for the cathedral. The spire was sticking out through the fog and we were going straight for it, and we managed, and somehow we missed it. That was, that was that one. And then another time, we were flying and it, it you were in the back cockpit, you had a harness with a chain going down to the floor to hold you in, and a cable rather, and we were going along and we hit an air pocket and the plane went down and I was out! and the chain tightened and I went ‘Bomp’ and pulled me back down again. [chuckle] So that was two I’d missed.
AH: Could you, could you tell me a bit more about when you were in Iraq?
WB: Iraq?
PH : You were twenty-one, weren’t you?
WB: Yeah, yeah somewhere around there, yes, it was hot there. It was a hundred and, it got to an hundred and thirty in the summer, really hot. And when these, [unclear] and when they were bombing and shelling us, it went on day-and-night for five nights and you slept under your bed and you ‘whee’ [emphasis], you hear the head of shells going over and that one’s going for the bomb dump, and ‘whee’ and anyway we did it for five days and they packed up, and then we went on normal and we heard a different noise. And we said: ‘That’s something different’, and we looked up and there’s three German bombers coming down. And we said: ‘Where the heck have did they come from?’ And the Germans had come into Mosul, it was about a couple of hundred miles up and they came down bombing us. They came at eight in the morning, and four in the afternoon, regular as clockwork, the Germans bombing and, machine guns, anyway. We shot one or two down and in the end they, they packed up, then we followed them back to Mosul and then got them when they landed, with, with our the Hurricanes. We, we got them on the floor and they packed up, so that was peace. And, anyway decided come home. And –
PH: You actually popped a few shots with your gun didn’t you?
WB: Yes. There was a man diving at me with his plane and I managed to get me Lewis loose gun on him, but he didn’t hit me and I didn’t hit him. And we came home and [sup of tea] [loud thump] we came down, we were in Bombay for a couple of weeks waiting for a ship and then we came over to Mombasa and then we came round to Durban, and we had a couple of, eight, weeks in Durban living out in tents on the runway and then we got down to Cape Town and I managed to get ashore and go up Table Mountain. And you go halfway up in the bus to the land and then you got a cable railway for a mile [shudder]. And we got up there, and had a walk round, that was very good. And coming home, we got up to Lagos and I’m afraid I went down with Malaria, and I was in the ships hospital for about a couple of weeks with very, very bad malaria. Didn’t do me any good. And eventually we got home.
PH: Weren’t they going to chuck you overboard?
WB: Well, yes. They, I, I, I met the orderly who dealt with me sometime, I met him in Boston. And he said: ‘When you came in’, he said, ‘you were pale blue and we didn’t think you’d last the night out. So we said we’d chalk you up for over the side in the morning.’ But, anyway they treated me with MNB243 tablets, you know, anti-malaria and no doubt, they brought me round when I was still having quinine six months later to get straightened up with it. Oh.
[restart of recording]
WB: Yeah we’re in Egypt 1937 at Abusir about sixty miles away from Cairo up near the Suez Canal and we had sand yachts there and we used to have races out in the desert. And in ’37 they decided to see if they could get to Cairo. And there were seven yachts and twelve men and a dog and we set off from Abusir and we went across the desert for five days heading for Heliopolis, just outside Cairo, and we got there alright and the, the station commander landed one day, he said: ‘Where are you on the map?’ They said: ‘We don’t have a map, Sir.’ He said: ‘How do know where you are?’ And the leader amongst us, he said: ‘Well, over there,’ he said ‘you can see the Suez hills.’ ‘Yes I can see them.’ he said ‘Towards the end there’s gap.’ And he said: ‘Yes.’ ‘We’re heading for that gap in the Suez Hills.’ And we hit the gap and went down, down to Cairo. Had five nice days in Cairo, out to the Pyramids and all the rest of it. And we came back another way and got back in four days, and it was quite an exciting trip, and we’re were the only people who’ve ever done it. And we had a sailing boat down on the - we were twelve miles away from the bit of lakes on the Suez Canal. We had a sailing boat there and the air was quite nice, you go sailing.
PH: What about when the CO spotted you first?
WB: Eh?
PH: When the CO spotted you arriving over the desert?
WB: Well he came down, landed, he came down more or less, you know two or three times -
PH: But, but he didn’t believe that he could see sails, could he?
WB: Oh yes, we, one night we were camped and we’d seen a plane going on down the bombing raids during the day, and anyway we bedded down for the night and we saw lots of flares going up in the distance. And some of our blokes they walked over to see these flares and there was an army camp there, just based. And they took the CO, and said: ‘What, what are you lot doing?’ And they said: ‘Well we’re the sand yachts. [unclear] He said: ‘Sand yachts! All day long I’ve seen bloody sails, and I said I knew there was no sea over there.’ And they said: ‘What, what’s all these flares?’ I said: ‘There time expired pyrotechnics, I think we’re just getting rid of them.’ So, anyway he wasn’t very pleased. [chuckle] But then anyway. He said: ‘I and been seeing all these sails and I knew full well there was no sea over there.‘ [chuckle] Oh, well anyway, we had a nice time in Cairo. Quite nice town. Err, what else? [sigh]
AH : What was is like coming back to Britain?
WB : Pardon?
AH : What was it like coming back to Britain?
WB : Coming back home?
AH : Yeah.
WB : Cold. [laugh] Yeah. We came, we came round Durban and Cape Town, and we just came out of Cape Town and we had, there was two, two troop ships and we had a couple of naval battles with us, and a cruiser and a couple of destroyers, and we were coming out somewhere and they said [?] ‘All hands on deck, put your lifebelts. Lifebelts on.’ So we all got on deck, and one of the destroyers it came near, and there must have been a German submarine down below and he threw depths charges up. And [intake of breath] their ship came up out of the water and we thought it’s never going down. 22,000 tonnes of ship, and we thought it was never going to a stop. But anyway, the sub didn’t get us, whether we got him or not; we, we got on home [sigh]. And we came in round the Atlantic, we c. Came into Liverpool. The night we lay there [inaudible] ladies[?], we were up on a transit camp at West Kirby, outside Liverpool and we were there and they came and bombed Liverpool. [chuckle] Oh dear. [sigh] And then when we were down at Kirkby there; a plane it took off and an engine failed, so it decided to come back. So he came back and he turned round and he came back and he, he force landed. He crash landed. And he was sitting there and he was rocking on a 4,000lb bomb. [chuckle] And we took it in turns to go in, they got the crew out, there was one man in the bomb bay. He was still, his head had gone through a partition. And we took it in turns to cut through to get him out. And we were there, and there, there were a couple of WAAFs who worked for me in the plump bay and they were outside, hugging each other. ‘Oh, Mr Bullock’s in there.’ And I said: ‘Well, if the bomb had gone off you wouldn’t have stood much chance would ya?’ [chuckle] Anyway, it didn’t go off. We got them out. [deep sigh]
AH: And what was your job role at Kirk-?
WB : Pardon?
AH : What, what did you do as what [sorry]
PH : What was your job at East Kirkby?
WB : I was, I was what they call the Technical Adjutant. I did all the paperwork and books and things and returns and all sorts of stuff, that kept me busy for a year.
PH : Did you have to clear the beds in the mornings after the raids?
WB : Pardon?
PH: Did you have to clear the personal possessions away?
WB : Oh yeah. Oh well, when the, yeah when the if any got missing on raids, yeah you had to go round and collect the kit, and I, I collected the kits of, I think, of 120 people while I was there. And we just collected it all up, put in a bag and took it to what they called ‘The Committee of Adjustment’ who sorted everything out, and actually down in East Kirkby now there’s a memorial and there’s a very nice poem, very nice poem at East Kirkby to that we lost a thousand men in three years. Yeah, that was pretty good. A thousand men in three years. [sigh]
PH : What about the plane that came in upside down?
WB : Oh yes. We, we heard a terrific roar and when we got out, there was a plane up there and, and it was coming down and one engine was on fire, and it was heading down and eventually crashed and blew up, and there was one man, they got him out, they took him away on a stretcher and he [unclear] [chuckle] And anyway we said: ‘Well what about this engine on fire?’ They said: ‘No, it wasn’t that engine, the other one.’ They said ‘when you saw him it, it was upside down.’ And he went in, oh, dear oh dear, six, six of them killed. [sigh] Yeah. I got a job there, I had to keep, keep a good supply of engines and propellers, and the engines, they had to, Rolls Royce, Glasgow they dealt with them, and, if, you know, I had a lorry load and a rear Corporal in Boston called Tom caught on, and I said: ‘Tommy, I’ve got a load for Glasgow.’ He said: ‘Right, send your lorry.’ And he sent me lorry and trailer to deliver with a load of all these engines. And up and off they went to Glasgow. And came back with another load. But the, the more powerful Rolls Royce engines, the Merlins they went to Derby, Nightingale Road, Derby. So, so we sent them there, and oh – yeah, err. Now what else?
PH : What about the Tirpitz?
WB : The Tirpitz? Oh well, erm. Yes, the erm, this [stutter] the group engineer he came to me at East Kirkby and there were the more powerful Merlins, 34s. He said: ‘I want all your 34s with the broad propellers in sets. He says ; ‘It’s nothing to do with you what I want them for,’ but he said: ‘Get me in sets of four and when you get a set let me know.’ So, so I’m getting them all, got all me, changed all the, the little engines, but took the big ones out. Got them all rolled up and anyway, he came and he took them, and they went to 9 Squadron at Bardney, and it was for bombing the Tirpitz. Yeah, so at least we had a hand in that. [sigh] Oh yes, when this, when this one crashed and landed and a big piece of the airplane, it went through the guardroom, and there was a man, a man in the guardroom locked up on punishment. And this piece of metal, huge leg that went across and through the wall in the Nissan hut, over a bed and out the other side. And the following morning the padre he was around, he saw it, he said: ‘No matter where the evil doeth, the wrath of the Lord shall seek him out.’ [long chuckle] Oh dear, oh well at, yeah, Metheringham, we had what they called FIDO and it was pipes down each side of the runway, all the way down, with little holes in and when it was really foggy, they’d fiddle with the flares all down each side of the runway, and we had it once and it burnt big holes in the fog. And they landed, and an American landed but he had to come for some, he came in, and in a a fighter plane, and he went down and he slewed off the runway, he hit all my FIDO pipes, went back on again, and when he got to Traffic Control, he said: ‘It’s a mighty good thing you got there for keeping people on the runway. [chuckle] Yeah, Gibson, Guy Gibson, he was, when he’d done his job he came to us at East Kirkby for a rest. And he wasn’t a nice man. Very unpopular man. ‘Don’t call me Guy. Call me Dam Buster.’ But his dam, his bomb didn’t hit the dam, it missed it. Oh, he wasn’t a very nice man at all. And in the end, he accidently got shot down by one of our own bombers. Yeah, they mistook him for a German and they shot him down.
PH : Didn’t, didn’t some Canadian guy clock him one?
WB : Yeah, yeah he was getting a bit too familiar with, when they went to Canada, he was getting a bit too familiar with some blokes wife. A great big Dutch man, so he just went up and he dropped him. ‘THUNK!’ He said: ‘Leave my wife alone.’ [chuckle] He wasn’t a popular man at all. [long sup of tea.]
AH : And how did you feel about where -? How was morale?
WB : [still supping on tea] About what?
AH : How was morale when you were at East Kirkby?
WB : Oh all right. Yeah I did, I did me year on paperwork [laugh].
PH : Did, didn’t you, get to advise somebody at the Battle of Britain Flight about how to get a propeller prop off?
WB : You what?
PH : You advised somebody at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight how to get the propeller off because they were struggling to get the nuts off.
WB – Don’t get that –
PH : You got two awards for doing inventions, didn’t you?
WB : Oh, oh the thing the thing for taking propellers apart. Yeah [sniff sigh] Yes, when, yes that’s when I was at Waddington, and the big four bladed propellers on the, now then, they were Lincolns, not Lanc- Lincolns. You get the pulling them apart, and you shovel a big ring in and you had a big lever and pulled it, pulled it, pulled it. And, oh, it took men all day trying to get these damn things out and I said: ‘No.’ So I invented the little, a little gadget, a little tube about that long with a big nut and bolt in it and I put it in between the two blades and tightened it up, pushed them out two at a time. No bother. And I got a £15 reward from Bomber Command for inventing it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I did something else, I did somewhere else. Yeah, at, you took the cylinders off jet engines and you put them in some horrible acid stuff and soaked them to get the carbon off, and you had to heat it with big immersion heaters, and it was in this wooden box, and it took all day to heat it, and it didn’t get anywhere, so I thought, no. So, when, when new batteries came for the aeroplanes, they were in big polystyrene packs, and I collected all these sheets of polystyrene about a foot wide and about three feet long and glued them all around this container, and it heated it up quickly, and kept it warm. No both rugger, and the Air Ministry gave me £5 for thinking of it, for saving electricity. [chuckle] Yeah. - Oh, a thousand bomber raid, well I didn’t get mixed up with any of them. The first one, we were at Wigsley, we sent our planes to Swinderby, we operated there, a thousand bombers –
PH : How did it actually work?
WB : Eh?
PH : How did it actually work? How did you get a thousand bombers up at the same time?
WB : Well, eh, I they were all over the place, weren’t on they? Just came up. [deep sniff and sigh]
PH : When you were at school you used a tray, sand tray.
WB : Yeah, yeah when we were in the infants school. We had a little tray with sand, you wrote in it with our fingers and they did the same in Mereman [?] Fen. I was talking to a man once said: ‘We had these little trays with sand now, you do it with your fingers.’ And then eventually you got slate and you had a piece of rag pinned to your jersey to rub the slate out [laughter and sigh]. The things we did.
AH : Can you tell me more about Coningsby?
WB : Pardon?
AH : When you were at Coningsby.
WB : Well, that was in ’45. Yeah, I had 40 Lancasters to look after. Make sure they were there at the right time, otherwise if you didn’t, you’re chucked you out. Anyway, I always got them there right. No bother.
PH : You were part of Pathfinders, weren’t they?
WB : Eh?
PH : Were they Pathfinder Squadrons?
WB : Pathfinder, yeah. The ones who went in early and dropped flares for the others to bomb. They had them at Coningsby, yeah. And I had to keep 40 of them ready, all the time. No bother.
PH : How did you manage to do it in the winter?
WB : Well, you just did. Mostly they didn’t give you a lot of trouble. You didn’t get a lot of trouble. But in the winter, it if it, if it was bad out, you sprayed the wings with the de-icing stuff, to get [unclear], to get the ice off, and the propellers. You had to get the ice off before they could go or otherwise it was they were, you know, heavy and all the rest of it. Had to get this ice going. [sigh] Yeah. [long pause]
AH : What was it like being in Germany?
WB : Pardon?
AH : What was it like being in Germany after they’ve been bombed? And then you...
WB : It was all right in Germany, they, they weren’t hostile at all. They were just mixed up, ordinary people. It wasn’t their fault we bombed them and they bombed us. But Hamburg, was a bit of a mess. Nice town Hamburg. Yeah. Yeah, we had a nice holiday in Hamburg. We went down to, oh, Ruhpolding, had a nice holiday there. And then we went down, we went down as far as Venice once on holiday. It was very good. We went down on, went down in the bus to, right in the corner of Germany and then we got a bus down to Venice. Four, four, five days in Venice. And we were way up in the mountains, and over, about a mile away there were two or three big American lorries. They were letting big black balloons up, and they were going up and over. And the bus driver stopped and everybody was looking, and I said: ‘I know [emphasis], I know what they are.’ I used to take The Reader’s Digest and there’d been an article in there about this lot, and when the wind blew in a certain direction over from Germany to Czechoslovakia, they used to let these big black balloons up full of leaflets and they would drift over to Czechoslovakia and drop all the leaflets down. So I told, there’s a man there who spoke English and I said: ‘I know what they are.’ And I told him. ‘Oh’ And they said: ‘Oh, the Englishman, he knows.’ [chuckle] They was alright. We had a nice holiday in Venice. You did, didn’t you?
PH: Yes. What was your nickname in the RAF? Was it Abdul?
WB : Abdul. Yeah, they called me Abdul. ‘Cos when we, I was always out in the sun. I was the colour of that table. And, when we got to, we went from Egypt, they moved us to Iraq, and got there, and of course, they all called me Abdul. And we had a, one of the locals, he looked after the bungalow, kept things clean, made the bed and all the rest of it. He said to me one day, I wonder. He says: ‘Why you in Royal Egypt? You Egyptian?’ I said: ‘I’m not a bloody Egyptian. I’m an Englishman.’ He said: ‘You black, why they call you Abdul!’ [loud cough]. And I never convinced him I was Englishman. Never. Oh dear, dear, dear. Oh, we had fun. Better out now [unclear].
PH : Did you have much entertainment off the base, at the village halls?
WB : No. [door bell and distant voices.] Father he joined the army as a bugler boy, and in the war he was called up to Air Ministry, and they said: ‘We want to put you in charge of, of a training squadron, you know a transport, a training squadron, and we’ll up you to squadron leader.’ And the man who was dealing with, he said: ‘You were my bugler boy when you joined the Army, weren’t ya?’ [laughter] Anyway, dad, he did very well as squadron leader. Yeah, he worked hard. [sigh] Did 41 years all together in the army, RFC and Army and Air Force. He was number 150 in the RFC. Very senior. Still not the first day and his brother was number 700, he joined up the next day. [chuckle] My brother did 22 years, my sister did four and a half in the Army and then she, she was civil servant with the, with the Navy in the Admiralty. And she, she was the personal private secretary to the Director Technical Polaris. Very, very important job and but if any of her admirals where going anywhere, she had to arrange all the transport, the right flags and, this, that and the other. And, and one of them one day said: ‘We’ve never seen you at one of our launches. You know when they launch one of the Polaris.’ She said: ‘I’ve never been invited.’ He said: ‘You will come to the next one.’ So the next launching, they laid a staff car on for Betty, picked her up, took her to the station, first class travel up to Barrow, entertained her, put her in a hotel, staff car took her out to the launching, came back, and when, when she left they, they gave her a carriage clock, and on the side of it was something-or-other : To Miss Betty Bullock [coughing] Aminu Ensis[?] to make the war work to seven admirals, and there were all these admirals names, and that was, that was good. She did a very good job with these admirals. Seven. Twenty-one years she was an admiral’s secretary. They took her out to a nice posh dinner and saw her off well. So we did our share. I did 34 years. My brother did 22 years. My dad did 41. And my sister did, oh heavens only knows how many. [sigh] Yeah.
AH : What did your dad do in the First World War?
WB : Pardon?
AH : What did your dad do in the First World War?
WB :` Oh, he was in the Flying Corps. Yeah, he was an Engineer Officer with the Flying Corps – Number 1 5 0. They did all sorts of things.
PH : What sort of planes would he be working on?
WB : [growls] Well, I know De Havilland something or other. Bristol fighters, Sopwith Camels and all sorts of thing. There was one there that had a rotary engine and instead of the engine being still and everything going round, the crankshaft was bolted and the engine went round it. No, no rotary. The engine went round [stutters]. You wouldn’t imagine it, would you? Anyway it did.
PH : What year did you join the RAF?
WB : I joined up in ’32 and I came out in ’66. Yeah. I went everywhere from AC1 to flight lieutenant and back again. [Long sniff] Oh, I wasn’t all that happy with being a flight lieutenant, I don’t know, I, anyway I ditched my commission and I went back and I was a warrant officer for about 13 years, and I was much happier as a warrant officer. You didn’t have big mess bills and expenses at all. You, you were well off. [coughing] No, I usually had jobs in charge of workshops and it was a real, you know, nice job. Workshop jobs. Where the work was. [coughing and long pause].
AH : What did you do after the war? After you left the RAF, sorry?
WB : I came out the year I went down to Horncastle Rural District Council and the rating department, collected money and all this that and other. And then did that for about eight years. And then when this reorganising took place, I got moved to East Lindsey District Council, and oh, oh I don’t know I did paperwork all the time. Yeah.
PH : It wasn’t particularly a cosy job at times though. You got followed, didn’t you, one time –
WB : Eh?
PH : You got followed because you got money in the car. Didn’t –
WB : Oh. no, I didn’t get stopped.
PH : No, but didn’t somebody follow you all day.
WB : Well, that were coming back from Wragby. Somebody once said to me: ‘I used to collect rent at Wragby and you got several hundred pound in your bag.’ And somebody once said to me. No, no it was me wife, she was in the dentist was down the dentist in the town there, and they were talking this and said: ‘You know when that rent collector goes over the level crossing at 4 o’clock’, they said, ‘He’s got an awful lot of money in that bag.’ And Mary told me, she said: ‘Oh.’ Anyway, the next time I came out when I went over the level crossing, and there was a car, there was a van there. I thought: Oh. So I put my foot down and came back about 70 mile per hour and I told the boss and he said: ‘Right, so from then on, someone was seen to see me in the afternoon and take a big bag off me with most of the money. So they didn’t, I didn’t have all that money to people to pinch off me, but I wasn’t very happy with people following me. ‘Cos they said: ‘If every you’re attacked, just let the money go, don’t argue.’ I said: ‘No, not if I been collecting it, bugger it. I’m not let them have it.’ [chuckles] So, anyway, we didn’t have any more bother. But it makes you wonder, don’t it?
[long pause]
PH : You seen a lot of changes in aircraft design, haven’t you?
WB: Yeah [sniff] yeah. The one, the one before the Lancaster was a Manchester. It had two, two big engines, 3,000 horsepower engines. Two. There were, the, the Merlins two like that and the [unclear] Vulcan and it had [stuttering] X’s. Vulture, anyway they were the two big cross engines and it only had a single tail rudder. The old Manchester it was useless as an aeroplane. It was slow and it was cumbersome. It didn’t carry much big load. Anyway, they soon turned it into a Lancaster, and it was a marvellous aeroplane. Marvellous aeroplane. They made 700, 7,000 odd in the war. Yeah, it was the best plane that came out of the war. [inaudible]
PH : What’s the one after the Lancaster?
WB : Lincoln. A bit, bit, bit bigger. Four bladed props against the Lancasters three. Yeah, I think it had bigger, didn’t have a Griffin engine, I think the Lincoln. A bigger engine. And it was a big aeroplane. It was East, erh, Waddington. [pause] Yes [long pause]
AH : Is there anything else you’d like to say?
WB : Pardon?
AH : Is there anything else you’d like to say?
WB : Do what?
PH : Is there anything else you’d like to say?
WB : Well I don’t think so, I can’t think of much. No, no not much to do with the RAF. There are things not to do.
AH : How do you feel about the way Bomber Command was treated after the war?
WB : Does she what?
PH : How do you feel that Bomber Command was treated after the war?
WB : Well...
PH : ... with Bomber Harris.
WB : Bomber Harris, they didn’t treat him well. They - everybody got a knighthood, but not, not Bomber. They, they, they ignored him. They didn’t treat him right. He did a good job, Bomber Harris. They said he was brutal, but he only did his job. He just said: ‘If you can’t get the factories, get the people that who work in them.’ Well, fair enough, but you can’t blame him for that. He got these bombers going. No, he wasn’t treated well, Bomber Harris – ha [long sigh] There’s a man just died, Marshall of the Royal Air Force, Sir Michael Beetham. And he was down at East Kirkby, and John Chatterton, he had to test pilots, and he said: ‘I remember this bloke Michael Beetham coming through, and he was too good, he said he had, had to rate him above average, cos he’s way above average.’ And he finished up Marshall of the Royal Air Force, Sir Michael Beetham. And I met him, nice man, met him down at East Kirkby. Yeah. And there were two ex-apprentices, got cadetship and went to Cranwell. They both finished up as Air Marshalls. Yeah. Some did well, very well.
PH : What, what were you days at Houlton like?
WB : Eh?
PH : What were your days at Houlton like?
WB : All right.
PH : What were you know as?
WB : Oh, Trenchard Sprouts [chuckle] Yeah. Oh, it was a good life, yeah, yeah it was a good life. You worked hard, but they trained you well. But they always said: ‘If a bloke was ever trained at Houlton, he could walk straight into a job at Rolls Royce. That was that Houlton training, you can go straight to Rolls Royce as a workman. [sniff and sigh] Yeah. Three years. Jolly good.
PH : Who was Trenchard?
WB : Eh?
PH : Who was Trenchard?
WB : Well, he was a General in the First War and then he, he started the, more-or-less, started the Air Force, as such, Flying Corps. General Lieutenant, General Sir whatever his name Trenchard, and he started the apprentice scheme, the apprentice’s scheme; hence the name Trenchard Sprouts. He was a good man, Trenchard. Not a big man. Yes he started the RAF. [loud crash and bang] Ohi.
AH : Well, thank you very much.
WB : Pardon?
AH : Thank you.
PH : Yeah, well call 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 William Bullock
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-30
Format
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00:57:49 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABullockWEJ151030, PBullockWEJ1601
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
William Bullock was born in Marshfield in Gloucestershire in September 1916 and joined the Royal Air Force as an apprentice in 1932. He was posted to Egypt for training - after serving in the Middle East he joined Bomber Command as an engineer. After serving at RAF East Kirkby, William moved to 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham before joining Pathfinders at RAF Conningsby, looking after and maintaining 40 Lancasters. William was in charge of moving aircraft around from location to location and tells about his role as a technical adjutant and supplying Merlin engines for the attack on the Tirpitz. He also describes his technical innovations and of his meeting with Guy Gibson. William tells about his post war family and service life, with details on his posting in Sylt, Germany where he saw the extent of bombing damage. He also elaborates on Hugh Trenchard, Michael Beetham, and Arthur Harris.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Sylt
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
North Africa
Iraq
Iraq--Mosul
106 Squadron
bombing
FIDO
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground crew
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Metheringham
Tirpitz
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/508/8409/PDixonAS1501.2.jpg
f02964fdfafb37d33692b060246c6078
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/508/8409/ADixonAS151106.2.mp3
54a81115d09ad9d86498297a44c1d90e
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
Dixon, Alec Stuart
A S Dixon
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dixon, AS
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Alec Stuart Dixon (178872 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Alec Dixon. The interview is taking place at Mr Dixon’s home in Cleethorpes on the 6th of November 2015.
AD: Well, we start when I was nineteen and I thought there was going to be a war so I thought I’d better get myself the best job of all. Be a pilot. And there was an opportunity because the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve had opened up Waltham Aerodrome as a training centre so I applied for the interview. There were three wing commanders I had to convince that I was the type of person that would make a good pilot and I succeeded in that but my entry was delayed because of a tooth that needed filling. When I got, when I finally got signed up it was on May the 3rd I think, when I signed up for flying at Waltham. The aircraft I was flying was on Miles Magisters and we attended every weekend for flying and during the week we attended the town centre for lectures on various subjects and this continued right through to August when there was the stunning announcement that we were to be all called up and Waltham Aerodrome would be closed down. This did happen and we all hung around waiting for something to happen that would accelerate our training. We were all posted down to Hastings where, if the Germans had had any sense when we were there it was absolutely full of potential pilots and if they sent a stream of bombers down the sea front they’d wipe the air force out without any trouble at all. Anyway, they didn’t do it. They weren’t as bright as they thought they were. From Hastings I went to Burnaston in Derbyshire and continued single-engined training and from there I moved to Little Rissington where I went on the twin-engined aircraft and during that procedure we were asked what we wanted to fly on ops and I opted to fly for the latest thing they had which was the Beaufort torpedo bomber. I thought that sounded rather good and anyway when I’d finished my training on Ansons I was posted to Silloth and there I was trained as a Hudson pilot and when I say trained as a Hudson pilot they had a particularly, method of crewing. Normally you get a pilot, second pilot, navigator, flight engineer, wireless operator and air gunners but a Hudson pilot the two pilots had to be trained on all those things. We used to fly one trip, one pilot would fly, the next trip the other pilot would fly. The second pilot would then be a bomb aimer. Maybe the flight engineer. He had, he had to be good at aldis, the lamp and at Morse. Very high specification and also operate the gunner, the gunnery turret or the side swivel gun. We had Vickers, no, yeah a Vickers gas operated. On completion of my training I went to a squadron at Leuchars in Scotland where the task was reconnoitring the Norwegian coast, the Baltic, and any shipping sailing in that area. For the first few trips I flew the squadron leader who was the flight commander. Anyway, we didn’t stay there very long and when we got over to Limavady, no, to Aldergrove. Aldergrove in Ireland which has a runway which is more like a, I forget the name of the thing. Switchback ride. It was, it leaned over on one side and back on the other and I was pleased to get to Limavady where we only had a mountain to negotiate on the circuit. There we did convoy escort and looking for submarines and that and one day I was flying, I was due to be pilot and my navigator, the other pilot hadn’t turned up and it so happened that he’d been collared by the CO, Wing Commander [Curnow] and we were after the Bismarck so I said, ‘Well you’ll want me won’t you?’ He said, ‘Oh yes. You can man the side gun.’ So there were three pilots on board and we set off and straight across Ireland. We didn’t take any notice of the neutrality of the country. We went straight on course to the station that we’d been, or a spot where we were told to patrol. I think we could see the Bismark quite a long long way away and then we caught up with a Heinkel and it turned tail and started running away from us. The CO chased it. Fired the front guns at it. Didn’t do any good. We drew alongside. Not quite near enough and [pumped lead?] at each other. I was shooting at the starboard engine on the Heinkel and I think I saw a puff of smoke come out but anyway the, my co-pilot had decided that we were running out of petrol so we’d better break off the chase and get back to Ireland which we did. Straight across neutral Ireland and that was that. Sometime later, I did quite a number of trips on the Atlantic convoy business and then one day on DROs they were asking for volunteers for PRU, Photographic Reconnaissance Unit and the chap who interviewed me said, ‘It’s more than likely you’ll go on to the new Mosquito.’ So I thought well that would be smashing. And there was a bit of a hold up in me leaving, leaving the squadron and when I got there they’d filled the course up with applicants and I was excluded so instead of hanging around they said would you like to do the Spitfires? And the Spitfire on PRU was rather a splendid aeroplane. They’d removed the guns from, and the ammunition boxes and all that from the wings and fitted it with petrol tanks which gave us a range you start here and you can go six hundred miles and come back. Twelve hundred miles altogether. Nearly about nearly six hours flying depending on the height you were flying at and everything. And it was, I was posted. When I finished the CO said, ‘Have you flown a spitfire before?’ I said, ‘No. I’m a Hudson man,’ and he said, ‘Well there’s the handbook, go and sit in the aeroplane, on the flight line and I’ll see you at 2 o’clock and ask you questions about it.’ So I had to learn all the controls and everything and he came up, ran me through and said, ‘Well you’re alright then. Off you go.’ Now, I’d been told that the Spitfire was very light on the stick fore and aft and on a Hudson it was a two handed job shoving it forward to get the tail up to get speed for take-off and I’m afraid my delicate touch [laughs] didn’t suit the Spitfire at that time. I went down the runway nearly like a camel and off on my first trip which was the, some channel ports, Languedoc aerodrome which was to the northwest of Brest, Brest [pause] and Brest and I photographed there and nothing happened. And I did most of my photography at twenty eight thousand feet which is the best suited for the cameras to give the most detail and down the coast again to where was I going then. Oh, St Nazaire. St Nazair, [?] [Dulon?] quite a lot of small places. Right down to Bordeaux and the River Gironde and then to, along to the Spanish coast and go down on the way to [?] on the Mediterranean. I never got as far as that but I used to take photographs of between, along the French Franco Spanish border in case people wanted escape routes and I thought they’d be helpful. Nobody ever said anything about, about it being useful but it might have been. And then back to base which was, you know an uneventful event and we occasionally saw the odd fighter aircraft but a Spitfire at that time was fitted with a special engine which you were allowed to use full throttle for twelve minutes and it gave some phenomenal speeds. A normal indicated speed was about a hundred and eighty knots which had to be converted according to temperature and that so you had to do all your own navigation and it was fairly easy getting the right places on the coast. Coming back, we usually came back inland photographing any aerodromes that might be there and always photograph the coast as you went out ready for the invasion. I did quite, quite [coughs], quite a few trips and then on one trip I was, we did occasionally get flak but on one trip over Brest they put up a bloody big barrage and I could hear the shrapnel hit my tail, or the fuselage behind but I had three miles a minute, a hundred and eighty miles an hour. A hundred and eighty yeah, three miles a minute. I soon finished the run along Brest harbour, turned left and went into overdrive because radio in England had said there were some bandits about. I thought that’s just what I want, cheer somebody up tell them there’s some bandits. Anyway, all of sudden the windscreen covered in oil, the canopy in oil and I couldn’t see a thing so I thought this is really a cheerful trip and I tried opening the canopy which I did and got my goggles all oiled up so I had to get, lean over to the other side of the cockpit to get looking through about a two inch gap but it didn’t give me much view and all the way back St Eval. When I got to St Eval I was feeling pretty tired and when I made my approach I was, and due to the fact that I couldn’t gauge things right because of the oil on the windscreen I came in a bit too high and landed a too far down the runway. Well that was alright. I’ll put my brakes on. I put my brakes on. Course they’d got oil on them as well and they didn’t work. I knew there was a hedge at the end of the runway so I just trickled along, switched the engine off so that it didn’t put a load on the engine, or the propeller, ran in to the hedge, tipped gently on the nose and wondered how to get out. I needn’t have bothered. There was a jeep alongside me and the flight commander and what not helped me out and that was that. They decided then that I should go to Fraserburgh as an instructor which I did and at Fraserburgh, this is another [laughs] the medical officer apparently got a bit of dual from the dual flying with an instructor and I was asked to take him up one day and I did do and we were coming in to land and I thought he’s going to be short on runway but just couldn’t tell but what I didn’t know was that the concrete runway was about ten inches higher than the ground preceding it and he touched down about a couple of feet on the grass, wiped the undercarriage off and there was another thing to explain. Anyway, they decided it wasn’t my fault and anyway he shouldn’t have been flying and it was all hushed up and off we went. When I left Fraserburgh I went into the village with my friend and at night we used to catch the train back to the camp and the driver didn’t turn up so my friend, he knew how to drive a train so he waited until the departure time and drove it back to the station and everybody got out all, no late coming back, you know, absent, or without leave sort of thing. That was quite an interesting event. But anyway, we went down to Dyce and there Aberdeen was the town and there was also a railway station just outside the entrance to the camp and we quite often, we’d overstay and sleep on the train in Aberdeen station and get back ready. The flight office was just around the corner from the entrance which was next to the station ready for flying. From there I was posted to Gibraltar and there I flew a Gladiator and a Lysander on meteorological flight and it was a devil to land at Gibraltar in the Gladiator because if the wind was in a certain direction from the southwest, yeah, southwest, the rock used to divide it and you would be coming downwind at one end and into wind at the other and the Gladiator would fly on, fly on in a breeze and wouldn’t touch down so it was quite, quite an experience as a pilot. From there, I only did a short spell there and I went on another course to, I forget the name of the aerodrome near Edinburgh, on a refresher course where I managed to get an above average assessment and posted to the Middle East. To [pause] Cairo where I had quite a smashing time and then from there I was posted to [Al Shamir?] in Palestine as a staff pilot and flying Navigators around Palestine and quite a cushy job. And then I decided I should go back. Oh I was recommended for a commission there. I was a young warrant officer at the time and I passed my commission and I was posted to an operational squadron in, due to invade Greece but when I got there the boat had left and I had to wait for transport to get me to Greece. At Greece we chased the Germans up Greece and past Salonica and from Salonica we set out one morning to bomb the marshalling yards at somebody slimovic or something like that. Peculiar name. And on the way I had engine trouble and the engine kept cutting and I couldn’t maintain speed in the squadron so the CO said you’d better turn around and go back if you can and the misfiring became more obvious and I picked out a piece of ground that looked a bit boggy and I thought well if I land in there wheels up I should be alright and I did do and I got out the aeroplane. Started walking. I don’t know why I walked in that direction but I did. Two men popped out from behind a hedge with guns levelled at me and I was, ‘Englesi. Englesi.’ They looked rather doubtful. Anyway I managed to convince them because we were dressed in battle dress which was grey and similar to the German stuff and the Germans had wings on their right hand side and we had ours on the left and we went to the village. Well they took us to the schoolmaster’s house and he spoke a bit of English and we all sat down nattering away and that night they all came, quite a few of the village came around and they have a system there where when they’ve made the wine and they then make a very potent brew. I don’t know what they call it but the idea is you toss it down and then they have a plate of jam on the table and you just stick your fist in it and then slam the jam down your throat. It’s the only way you can drink it and you can imagine after about a half a dozen of these everybody’s face was covered in jam and I woke up the next morning very [fit?] [laughs] from which I was very pleased with a terrible headache. Anyway, I set off to walk back to Salonica. I managed to get a ride on a horse and cart for a short while. In the meantime I’m carrying my parachute and everything with me and eventually when I got near Salonica which I don’t know whether it was the same day or the next day. I can’t really remember and that was the end of that episode and the Germans were still running away up in Macedonia which incidentally was where this place I’d had the drinks at and I saw the CO when I got back and he said, ‘I’ll send you on another course.’ And back to Egypt to take a single-engine pilot’s gunnery and bombing course. Instructor’s course. So I did that, completed that and found out that my squadron had been disbanded. It was getting quite late on in the war and I was posted to 43 squadron which was in Italy and I packed all my gear, called in at the aerodrome. They said I couldn’t take my gear with me. I said, ‘If I can’t take my gear with me I’m not going.’ Anyway, I got, got my way to Italy and just in time to do my last operational flight. It was because in Italy the Italians surrendered on May the 3rd which was the day I’d joined six years earlier of continuous flying. And when I’d been commissioned I was, it was a sort of an agreement that I would stay on in the RAF after the war and probably take up a permanent commission and I thought that was good but after the excitement, as you might call it, and interest of wartime it seemed damned silly playing games for something you’d been doing for real for six years and I decided that I would take the option of being demobbed in the normal way which happened to be sometime before Christmas in ‘45 would it be? Yeah. Forty. Yeah in ’45 and I was home for Christmas and my favourite drinking place was the Lifeboat Hotel on the seafront and whilst I was going in there one night and I heard my name called and the sister of one of my friends introduced Audrey. My wife-to-be to me. And I think it must have been instant attraction. Love. Whatever. She’s a wonderful girl.
[machine paused]
AD: [?] in the mess and the CO came in and said, ‘I want six of you to disarm a German group,’ and we went there and we found there was an SS and a load of Italians. I don’t think they were on full strength. I don’t know how many there were. So we marched them forward, pistols here, rifles here, grenades there and I think they were quite happy to see the end of the war. From then on, I’d given my intention of leaving the air force and I came off flying and did the adjutant’s job while he was on leave. I think I sent too many people on leave. We got into trouble for that. [laughs] And then I was home. I’d missed a bit, got a lot of that mixed up, meeting Audrey in, in The Lifeboat. From there I went back to my job. I took some shares in the business and we decided we’d build a bungalow or something. A friend of mine was a builder and he built three bungalows. This one, the next one and the one. Had a garden a hundred yards long to start with and then the Corporation took so much for road widening, grass verges.
[phone ringing. Machine paused]
AH: Carry on.
AD: Yes. So we made plans. We made plans to get married. We married on April the 24th 1948 which was a Saturday and we moved in to here for our honeymoon. We couldn’t afford to go away after paying deposits and that and started married life together which has been great ever since. Except she’s getting a bit bossy nowadays. [laughs] Don’t put that. Yeah.
[pause]
AD: Oh I didn’t tell you about when we were in Greece we used to fly over to Crete which was occupied by German troops. Landed in Heraklion. The aerodrome about midway from the main town and there the Wellington would land unload, some hundred pound bombs. We’d stick them underneath the Spit, take off and go and bomb the, what we were told was an ammunition dump. As we were getting near to the end of the war and nobody particularly fancied bombing an ammunition dump from the normal height that we bombed targets at. I’m afraid we, nothing happened. It was all false information to start with. Everybody was very happy and then that’s when we went back to Salonica and that’s the end of the war.
AH: How did you get home to England?
AD: Oh back to England. There was another story there. We went by train through Switzerland, France -
Other: I’ll switch this light on. It’s getting a bit dark.
AD: Calais and there we were camped for a night and caught the boat the next morning. There were six officers I think. Six. And probably about two hundred men and we sort of paraded on the front and the, called all the officers in to the office. Searched us all. Searched the kit and nobody discovered anything so that was fine and we got out and they just marched the men straight through without any, I thought rather discriminatory. Reversed some way or other. Do you want any more?
AH: And did you get leave when you got home?
AD: Oh yes. Yeah, I got, I was on leave for my overseas tour and demobilisation tour so I became a civvy for quite a while before returning to work where I’d, after a while I discovered that the firm were not quite on the straight path with me so I left and started my own business in the same line and then the owner of the business died and there were three accountants who were friends of his, who lent him the money to start the business and they were naturally interested in getting their money back so they approached me and asked me if I would take charge and go back to my old company which I did and we built up a really good business. Grimsby Corporation, Cleethorpes Corporation, Grimsby Rural District. Most of the solicitors including the big ones and most of the garages including main dealers. All under contract to us. Stationery Office. We even did the American Air Force at East Kirkby and so I continued until I was sixty five and I hung on three months and let the other two, and three run the business. And since then I’ve been gardening and enjoying life until I went blind. And it’s been a slow process. At first I couldn’t believe that I was registered blind. Macular degeneration. And it rapidly got worse and worse and worse. Practically total. And that’s the end of the story. Anything I missed Daniel?
DS: I think -
AD: [?] An engine failure on take-off and the aircraft swung and I managed to hold it after it had swung so far and run off the runway on to the grass because the rest of the squadron were ready to take off and unfortunately I didn’t know they’d dug a small trench parallel with the runway. The wheels got stuck and we swung around even more and I shouted evacuate ‘cause we were loaded with mines. Not mines, depth charges but I was too late they’d already clustered around the door, opened it and were out so I got myself out as well and that was the end of that. When I was flying I think I flew about ten different aircrafts. Different aircraft. I managed to have about five accidents on them. None of which were my fault thank goodness and that’s about it.
AH: Was it a shock? Was it strange to come home and not fly anymore?
AD: No. Not really. I was enjoying myself. New girlfriend. Plans. I’m busy with them. You know, running my own business and then joining in with my old firm. No. It seemed quite the natural thing to do. I have flown since. I had a lot of photographs that it’d, I don’t know whether I ought to tell you this really because it’s all water under the bridge. Might delete it later. Benson held a reunion for sixty years in existence, a PRU and I was invited there and asked if I had any photographs taken on operations which I had a photograph album full. So I stripped most of them out, handed them in and never got them back. And Daniel I met, here’s another strange coincidence. I met Daniel in Marks and Spencers. I was sitting near the entrance and this bloke came in and sat, he was waiting as well and we got in to conversation and found that he was air force and I was and we’ve been friends ever since. Jolly good.
AH: What did you enjoy flying most?
AD: What did I enjoy flying most? I don’t think anybody can fly anything better than a Spitfire. Mosquito was alright but it gave a lot of trouble. They only had one, its prototype, and it gave a lot of trouble and of course was extended and extended. Eventually they got things right. The Gladiator was a nice aeroplane to fly. As an aeroplane it was very sharp on turns and it was nicely aerobatic. You could do rolls and whatnot which you weren’t supposed to do if you were on a Met flight flying but you have to do something to make it interesting. Yeah. A Spitfire I’d plump for. I flew. I’ll tell you what I flew. Miles Magister. Anson. Oxford. Hudson. Mosquito one trip. Boulton Paul Defiant. A German aircraft I picked up when we went into Greece. An Auster. I’m sure there was one or two more. The Spit was definitely the best aeroplane to fly. I think most Spitfire pilots would tell you that. Oh, I flew a Hurricane as well. You tend to forget these things you know. I’m the same as any other ninety six year old. I can remember some things but not others. I thought I had a good memory but I’m beginning to think it’s not as good as my wife’s. She’s got family relations tied down no end. Tells me stuff from years back that I can’t remember. It’s a pity really. Pity? No. Not pity. It’s very unsettling.
[pause]
AD: Yeah.
[pause]
AD: Anyway. That’s about it dear.
AH: Thank you.
[machine paused]
AD: The essential to the German army that they had the use of that otherwise they had to give way to the Russians.
DS: But I think Coventry and the blitz were previous to that so -
AD: Oh it was tit for tat.
DS: Yeah.
AD: It was the same with London wasn’t it? There were no civilians in the war. Everybody was in it except those wide boys who lived on the black market and I think everybody patronised them. They were essential to keeping the job going really. Very unfairly but -
AH: Had you always wanted to be a pilot? Was it -
AD: Yes. My uncle was in the Royal Flying Corps during World War One and he had a garage and a cycle shop and motorbike agencies in Cleethorpes and I wanted to go and work for him when I left school but he had to get somebody in. The business had got too big and there wasn’t room for me. My mother died when I was about six or seven and a simple dose of antibiotics if it had been invented would have probably [pause]. Yeah.
[pause]
AD: Yeah. I often wondered what it was like being on a bomber crew. I think they were a very brave lot.
AH: Did you know any?
AD: Hmmn?
AH: Did you know any?
AD: Oh I lost quite a lot of friends. You see there were eighty of us I think at the beginning of the war and I’ve never met more than a dozen people afterwards. I’ve forgotten most of their names. You wouldn’t think you could do would you but you do.
[pause]
AD: Yeah. I remember when I was at St Eval. Ted Phillipson had joined me who was my, we used to motorbike together. He was a great friend. He turned up at St Eval. I didn’t see him but I had a phone call and I arranged to see him at his digs when he’d returned from a trip down to patrol the bay in a Whitley and I was going down to Bordeaux and back and it would take him all day doing it and he didn’t turn up. His body was washed ashore.
[pause]
AD: Oh dear.
[pause]
AD: That was a painting done by a friend of mine and he personalised it by putting, I forget whether it was a squadron in Greece or Italy. All PRU machines were, flush riveting and filled in and smoothed and a dull finish. Blue. And we had some pink ones which we used for low level photography. Bruneval being one fine example. You know the German radar station on the French coast. We wanted to find out all about it. Sent a PR Spit on a cloudy day, photographed the, and brought it back and did they ever send a raiding party across?
DS: I’m not sure.
AD: I’m not sure. Anyway, it ceased to be of the use that it was before it was done. You know, important little things like that in PR used to happen and all taken in as part of a day’s work.
AH: What was it like flying off to - ?
AD: Hmmn?
AH: What was it like going somewhere to photograph?
AD: Well I always had a faith that I would survive. Self-confidence. And it’s a belief without being religious but you are, believe that the Gods will look after you. If you haven’t got that you can suffer all kinds of things. It didn’t bother me a great deal because I was sufficiently confident. Perhaps over confident. I don’t know. Anyway, I survived. And I’m also very lucky what the Gods did. Anyway, I hope you got something out of all that lot.
AH: That’s lovely. Thank you.
[machine paused]
AD: Funny thing was we were never debriefed. You know when crews got back from an operation they always saw an intelligence officer and were debriefed as to what had happened. All the little incidents, whatnot. We were just told the target is this place, that place, that place. The was briefing before we had, and I used to have a map with return home points in case you got in to trouble and when we got back nobody asked you if anything had happened. You never bothered, nobody bothered very much about telling anybody they’d been shot at, chased or, I think it was regarded as [a bit in for a dig?] It might sound as if you’ve been boasting or something like that because the photographs were the whole purpose of the trip. They were the evidence that you’d been there, you’d done a good job. What more could you tell them? Nothing about their job of interpretation. I did hear later on in the, after, was it after the war? Yes it was after the war. The Germans had a photographic unit and of course they had some special Leica lenses that we didn’t have and they used to get some really clear photographs but we only had the first phase interpretation. They looked as if there was nothing obvious. They were just put, stored under February the 4th, 4:30 so and so and that was all they did whereas on PRU at Medmenham there was a second phase, a third phase of interpretation which is why that rocket at Peenemunde was suddenly discovered on one of the photographs on the third stage. It had been missed on the first and second and then that resulted in a bombing raid on Peenemunde. It was quite a satisfying job. Allowed you a great deal of freedom and licence. I remember when I finished my course on learning to fly the Spitfire the CO said, ‘I want you to go now and learn the coast from the Thames to the Humber and then next week we’ll do the south coast.’ And I flew up and I thought Humber? Well that’s where I live. So get up to Cleethorpes and have a look around. I can see the street and I went down to about a hundred feet and flew over it, pulled up and thought I’ll go around again and I went down and years later I met a bloke who lived in, opposite and he said he was upstairs looking out and he could see me in the cockpit. I was so low I must have caused a lot of consternation on the street then. The trouble was my father didn’t see me. He was ill in bed. Never recovered. There’s been a lot on radio recently about going back into the past. Wondering how it affects you. Yeah. Really got to try and find yourself haven’t you? [pause] And you’ll be wanting to go home now, won’t you?
AH: It’s very interesting. Did you have any brothers or sisters?
AD: I had a sister [she’s not?] two nephews. Keep in touch with them. My mother’s name was Dixon before she married and quite a big family but I think there was some trouble with things.
[pause]
AH: Thank you.
[machine paused]
AH: This is a continuation of the interview conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre with Mr Alec Dixon. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles and the interview took place at Mr Dixon’s home in Cleethorpes on the 6th of November 2015.
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 Alec Stuart Dixon
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
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
2015-11-06
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADixonAS151106, PDixonAS1501
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Format
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01:12:07 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Alec Stuart Dixon volunteered for the Royal Air Force via the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. After training he flew Beauforts and Ansons, then trained as a Hudson pilot. He flew convoy escort operations and reconnaissance flights looking for submarines and the Bismarck. Recollects flying over neutral Ireland. Alec volunteered for Photographic Reconnaissance Unit and flew over France, the Spanish border the Mediterranean and Peenemünde. Followed sustained damage on one operation he became an instructor, was posted to Gibraltar flying a Gladiator and a Lysander on meteorological flights. Successive posts were Cairo, then Palestine and Italy with 43 Squadron. After the end of the war, he returned to his old workplace then started a company with friends.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
France
Germany
Germany--Peenemünde
Gibraltar
Great Britain
Ireland
Italy
Mediterranean Sea
Middle East--Palestine
North Africa
43 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
Anson
Bismarck
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
demobilisation
faith
Hudson
Lysander
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
pilot
RAF Silloth
RAF St Eval
reconnaissance photograph
recruitment
Spitfire
submarine
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/PHolmesGH1604.2.jpg
134f273cd93e015a7d789b8e877b159b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/AHolmesGH161016.1.mp3
cc225552ec17450d62364d1a1b362db0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Holmes, George
George Henry Holmes
G H Holmes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Holmes, GH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer George Holmes (b. 1922, 1579658, 187788 Royal Air Force) his log book, records of operation, newspaper cuttings and photographs of personnel. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 9, 50 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-21
2017-01-14
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Mr George Henry Holmes. The interview is taking place at Mr Holmes’ home [deleted] Lincolnshire on the 16th of October 2016.
GH: Yes. I had some very lucky escapes. We had, we were going to [pause] I’ve written it down. I’ve got a terrible memory.
[pause]
GH: Stuttgart in Germany. And of course they originated in France thinking possibly that there wouldn’t be many, many night fighters there but we got caught and we got shot and it took off the bomb bay doors. They fractured the starboard wheel, ruptured the main spar and left us with cannon shells stuck in the fuel tanks which is actually really instantaneous. And we did a belly landing when we got back and I was one of the first out and running. Somebody said, ‘Are you frightened?’ I said, ‘Have you seen a Lanc go up in flames?’ And the bloke said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well. Well, when you do you’ll run faster than I do.’ And actually they took these cannon shells away by the, if you handled the armament, whatever and emptied them they found out that the cannon shells actually had been filled with sand instead of explosives. Otherwise we would have gone up in one. And that was once. And another night someone on a circuit when we were coming, of course I was at Skellingthorpe at the time and there were about five or six airfields all around. And we had a bump and nearly got tipped over by the windstream of another aircraft. And when we landed there was about five foot off the end of the pit, of the end of the aeroplane gone. That was, I think we could call a very near miss. And all through my career they used to say you’ve got to get it right. The good crews survive and the bad crews don’t. But when you’re dealing with an aeroplane that’s attacking you at about between five and six hundred mile an hour you don’t have time to work out all the superlatives. You just learn how to, well you have to try to get him in to four hundred yards for the ammo to be, do any damage whatsoever. And these would wait about a thousand yards and pump these things in to you, you know. But, yes we lost a lot of young men at the time. Look back sometimes and I think how the hell did we get through it?
AH: How did you come to join the RAF?
GH: Mixed feelings. I was living in Kettering at the time and I would be about six years of age. I’d only just joined school which was a joining age in those days of about six years I think and I saw the R100 or the R101 in the sky. A most amazing sight. And of course everybody was reading Biggles books so I wanted to be a Biggles man. And my father wouldn’t sign any papers for me so when I was eighteen I went down and joined the RAF as an air gunner. But there were so many enlisting at the time it was over twelve months I think before I was called. And they wanted me to be a pilot or navigator. I said, ‘No. I want to be an air gunner W/Op.’ Anyway, I finished up there. They made me a wireless operator / air gunner. Well, up to going into the air force I’d hoped to be a semi-professional musician because I played the violin from seven years of age to when I went in the air force, eighteen. And I played the violin, trumpet and a mandolin. And the man who was teaching me he used to make instruments and he was going to teach me how to make them. And, you know when I went in the air force I was in the air force for just over five years. I couldn’t get back to the standard that I was in and work for a living at the same time because you’ve got to put about two to three hours a day in you know, to it. So I abandoned the musical stuff. And actually I was at an old miner’s school. A corrugated tin hut thing and when we moved to Leicester and I was a top boy at the school. The teaching, they taught us in that stinking little old tin hut was beyond their, what they were teaching us in there. They told me I couldn’t do joined up writing. We’d got to go back to scroll, you know. But I went to a school that was attached to the College of Art and Technology and I was studying textiles and hosiery. And I earned a very good living through the entire working life producing socks, stockings, knee socks and things like that. Of course you got paid in on production in those days. You didn’t get a standing wage. The more you made the more you got paid. And you were allowed ten needles per week and if you broke more than that you had to pay for them. Six pence each I think they were then. The unions would go bloody mad now wouldn’t they? [laughs] I had a very good education really. I was very fortunate. I was almost fluent in French. The French master said, ‘I can’t understand you, Holmes. You’re the worst pupil I’ve ever had. You’re always talking, take no notice, I can’t understand how you’ve got top of the class in French.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s simple. You gave us a half an hour’s homework and I always got an hour. So I worked harder than anybody else.’ [laughs] But I had a very good — my parents were not wealthy. My dad was a manager of a, the management of a grocery shop. You know these, what they were before the war. Several strains of food, food retailers and I really thought I was going to be a semi-professional musician. But I abandoned that scheme altogether and I got my sleeves rolled up and got stuck in this hosiery thing. ‘Til the war of course and then I couldn’t get, I couldn’t wait to get in the air force. And I finished up as a wireless operator / air gunner due to the fact, I always presumed, I don’t know whether it’s true or not but the fact that I had learned music, got some dashes and all like that. Morse code came easy and I was a very good operator. But apart from that I had a very happy marriage. I’ve got one son. He’s sixty seven now. And a he’s a fourth [unclear] at Judo. But life is a wonderful thing. Not to be wasted. And when you look at the war and see the number of thousands of young people who were wasted in the war. And the building and the costs. At the end of the day you have to sit around a table and talk it over from the first day. Save a lot of trouble and strife. But of course in those days Bomber Command was the thing.
AH: So you wanted to join Bomber Command?
GH: Oh yes. But then when you say wanted to join Bomber Command I’d always worked shifts. Night shifts and three shifts and things. I thought if I go in to the air force I’d be alright. And what did they do? They stuck me on Bomber Command. It was night work. But it wasn’t altogether good so as you look in the book you’ll see I did quite a number of daylight operations.
AH: Where did you train?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Where did you train? Where did you do your training?
GH: Where did I do my training? It was wonderful really. I I went to Blackpool first of all. That was the Number 10 RS something it was called. Signals Reserve or something. And they were all radio personnel in the air force up there. And we had a bloke called corporal [pause] I forget his name now. Corporal. Used to take us to the arm drill and foot drill. And his stage name was Max Wall. Can you imagine a man like Max Wall teaching you? Amazing. And then I went down to Yatesbury for a radio course. And I was posted then to Manby in the ground wireless op ‘til they could fit me into an air gunner’s course. Well, Manby in those days was number 1 AS. Air Armaments School and they taught bomb aimers and air gunners. We kept going to see the groupie and saying, ‘Get us on the course for air gunners.’ ‘No. You have to wait until you come through officially.’ When it did come through we was at a place called Evanton. About forty mile north of Inverness. First time I’d been to Scotland. In June it was. And it was a wonderful summer. And it was the first time I’d seen the shaggy Highland cattle. And I was taken by Scotland ever after that. Then after that, the gunnery course, I was sent to Market Harborough which is now a prison. And I used to push off home every night. After being there about three weeks the CO said, ‘We’re getting rid of you. You’re never here.’ It used to take me an hour to get home from Market Harborough on the local bus through all these villages. Little villages. And I was posted to Silverstone. And at Silverstone if you went in and out by railway you could get a train called the Master Cutler which was a high speed train from Sheffield to London and back. It used to do that in forty five minutes. That was quicker than being in [laughs] And I got crewed up there then and joined the [unclear] so to speak but I suppose if you were young men you had to be in something. You had no objection. I mean, no one wanted you to be a conscientious objector or anything. There we were. I joined Bomber Command and I was very lucky because I got with some good crews and I must admit I was commissioned towards the end of the war as a wireless op and I got operational strain and one thing or another. I was a bit of a drunkard. The only way of overcoming some of the strenuous [pause] I mean the beer we were drinking in those days I think was 1.2 percent alcohol. The water you washed the glasses in was stronger than the beer.
AH: So did you drink mainly beer? Or did you drink other stuff?
GH: No. No. The doc said, our doc on the squadron, ‘Go out and get pissed. It’ll do you good. Don’t go on spirits.’ And I was based around here. Around Louth. One way or another. It’s so that when my wife and I decided to come and live here it was after I’d retired. It was a home away from home really.
AH: Where were you first based? Where were you based first?
GH: Where was —?
AH: Where were you first based? Which was your first base? Where were you sent first?
GH: Oh. At a place called Bardney. Just outside Louth. And we got there. The place was, looked vacant and we got out the transport and looked around and looked in the ditches and it was full of bodies. We said, ‘What are you doing down there?’ They said, ‘Bugger off, there’s a fire in the bomb dump.’ So we said, ‘Oh, we’ll leave you to it then.’ But anyway a guy put it out. And then we went from that place. I did six ops there. And then we went to Skellingthorpe where the pilot was made up to a squadron leader. And we were only allowed two or three operations a month due to the losses of experienced crews. And by the time we’d done twenty trips together he, the pilot and the navigator went over to Pathfinders as the rest of the crew did. And the, the crew got sort of crewed up but the wireless, he didn’t want a wireless. He brought one with him, the pilot. So I was a spare bod and I went with an Aussie crew. His name was Cassidy and he’d got it painted on the side of a Lancaster. “Hop Along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.’ And I finished up at the one near Boston. What is it?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Coningsby. Yes. Yes.
AH: What squadron were you in first?
GH: 9. And then I went on to 50 at Skellingthorpe and then I went on to 83 at Coningsby.
AH: And what planes?
GH: Lancs. Well, after the war, if you look in the book look I went on a tour to South America. They sent three what were called Lancaster Mark 21s I think. But in actual fact they renamed them to Lincolns. It was a bigger aircraft that the Lancaster. Especially built for the war against the Japanese. And we went right down the west coast of Africa and then across over the Atlantic to Brazil and then right down to Santiago. Flew over the second highest mountain in the world I think it is. Aconcagua. But by then I’d decided I would take a course, this course on radiography, radio operating and get on to the public airlines. And I’d met my lady who I married and I found out that to be on public airlines you were away for home for anything from six weeks to three months. I thought well that’s not right. So I docked that and as I say I stayed in the hosiery trade. Yeah. Had quite a varied existence one way or another.
AH: What did you do in South America?
GH: Demonstrated the aircraft. I think they’d got that many four engine aircraft they didn’t know what to do with them and they were trying to flog them to anybody who’d buy them. God knows where all the aeroplanes went to. They just suddenly disappeared.
AH: And what was it like there?
GH: Pardon?
AH: And what was it like? Were they interested?
GH: Interesting.
AH: Were they interested in the aircraft?
GH: Oh very much so. Yes. Yes. Whilst we were there there was an earthquake in Peru and they wished us to send someone who would take some supplies over to Peru for the earthquake. And the air force said they couldn’t be allowed to do that because although we’d get to Peru and land they hadn’t got an air force runway long enough to take off so we’d be stuck. But yeah. Funny thing was we all decided when we were going to Brazil we would get together and learn Spanish. And when we got to Brazil they didn’t speak Spanish. They spoke Portuguese [laughs]
AH: How long were you out there for?
GH: Oh not very long. I should think, well if you look in the book it’ll tell you how long. About four weeks I think. We did one leg of the journey per day. And —
AH: And when were you demobbed?
GH: When? I think it was June of 1945.
AH: And how long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Pardon?
AH: How long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Only a few weeks. Not very long.
AH: What was it like?
GH: Quite an eye opener really. Mainly we were supporting the invasion. In fact that was the first time I’d ever seen the white cliffs of Dover coming back from France on D-Day. As I say all the boats going over.
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Have I —?
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Satisfied I would think would be the only expression. That we were doing something. And of course that’s another point. I mean I don’t know whether you’ve watched it on telly but they give you films of the actual landings in France and they chuck the blokes out into the water that was about six foot deep. They were drowned. Never got to France at all. Instead of waiting for the tide to go out. Some damned idiots in this military attitude.
AH: What did you think of Bomber Command?
GH: Well organised. To a certain extent they were very well organised. Many actual Bomber Command crews packed up before they’d completed a tour of course because it was a great strain. I remember doing a daylight on, I think it was at one of the flying bomb sites when they were launching flying bombs. And of course Bomber Command never flew in the way the Yanks did. They had three people from leading in and everybody was sort of doing what they called a gaggle at the back. And we were close up behind this three Bomber Command [pause] well, leaders I suppose and I looked up and saw an aircraft above was opening his bomb doors. I thought it’s going to drop on him shortly. Anyway he did. He dropped them and then it just floated down. Hit the aircraft on the right hand side, the starboard, knocked his wing off and he spun over and tipped the wing of the other who went that way and he tipped the wing of the other and went that way. And there were bodies without parachutes floating around and everything. And it was Cheshire who was controlling the raid. Called the raid off because he said the chaps didn’t stand a chance if we bombed it. So we flew back to the North Sea and dumped the bombs and went home. But the things like that they were happening every day. You know, I mean I’m afraid you accepted it.
AH: Do you remember where you were going on that raid?
GH: Not completely. No. Because there were one or two launch sites for flying bombs. I mean at one time as far as I know they were, they were launching something like ten thousand pound. Ten thousand flying bombs in a matter of a month or whatever, you know. I mean they were really showering the south of England with them. And —
AH: And how did you feel when you saw the bombs coming?
GH: I hope to God it misses me. To be truthful. But it was a sight, you know. Their only, these aircraft which they hit and damaged were only about a hundred, hundred and fifty yards in front of us. A matter of three seconds or something isn’t it? The speed we were flying at it could have been us. But many of the young lads who joined up when I joined up never finished. They were killed. A great deal of loss of human youngsters. Many of them technicians and people we missed after the war finished because of their experiences. And if you take that you promise me I will get it back?
AH: Yeah.
GH: Because I applied for the Aircrew Europe Star which was allotted to everybody who did two or more operations before D-Day which I did and I was told I didn’t, I hadn’t done enough. So when they issued the Bomber Command medal at the end of the war they said I couldn’t have that either because I’d got the 1939-45 Star or something. I don’t know. I thought well that’s great. I did twenty one ops and I never got a bomber medal. It’s unbelievable some fairy in Whitehall who was domineering the life span of the one doing the work. But the main thing I need at the present moment is some backup somewhere to get, I mean I mentioned to you earlier how much it cost. I was only getting two hundred and ninety pound a month. That’s about seventy pound a week towards the cost of being here and it was costing [pause] what was it? Well, a monthly, the monthly cost here is three thousand and forty one which is quite expensive. I think it’s a very good. I get my monies worth. But I think the company, the government or whoever, the Department of Works and Pension allow me something to help me pay for it and they want [coughs] they just knocked off the pension credit. I’m about two and a half thousand pound a month worse off when I got a pay rise of two pounds and fifteen pence [pause] In other words hard luck isn’t it? You know I mean I’m not the sort of person who is laid back and you handed something but I’ve worked all, all my own life. What I’ve got I’ve chased the work of one kind or another. Whether it was in the air force or out. And I’m disgusted actually to think the money that gets wasted.
AH: Could I just ask you a few more questions about the war?
GH: Yes.
AH: What did you think of the way Bomber Harris was treated?
GH: Disgustingly. As I said earlier he was blamed for bombing the population whereas the targets were selected by the War Committee. And the two leaders of that were Lord Portal and Winston Churchill. Bomber Harris was behind his crews all the way. Next question.
AH: Where did you go after 9 Squadron?
GH: With 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. That was, it was so far to the sergeant’s mess from where we were displayed in Nissen huts we used to go into Lincoln for breakfast [laughs]
AH: What sort of squadron was it?
GH: What 83? Er 50?
AH: 50.
GH: Very very compatible actually. The man who was my pilot took his place as flight commander was Metham. He finished up deputy leader of some bomber group. Was it Metham? He’s a well-known, established leader of the Royal Air Force.
AH: Was that a Pathfinder squadron?
GH: No. No. They only had two Pathfinder squadrons. They were both at Coningsby. 83 and 97.
AH: Were you in them at all?
GH: I was on 83. I did, I think nine trips with 83 Squadron. They said that it was easy on Pathfinders of course. You, if you’re first flare leaders putting the flares down you went over and laid your flares and shot off home but they didn’t tell you when you started laying your flares you had to put it in automatic pilot and you couldn’t drift. So by the time you got to the end of laying the flares the Germans had got all the information of what you were doing [pause]
GH: And I have the greatest admiration of the German people and Germany itself. Moreso than any other European country. I have a great ideal, great ideals of them. They’re a wonderful people. We should never have gone to war against them. Well, should we?
AH: What do you think we should have done?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What could, what could Britain have done instead?
GH: Shot Adolf Hitler. It was a dictator. A man who believes beyond his experience. I think, well what’s happening in the world today? I mean we’re now fighting the, oh ethnic crowds that we were fighting in the days of Christ. For two thousand years we’ve been fighting. Still doing it and we’ll lose in the end. Of course people say they mean good. If you read the Koran as far as I remember the first rule is thou shalt now kill. And I think the fourth one is thou shalt kill all non-believers. So it leaves you in a sticky mess. And they’re gaining popularity all the while.
AH: When did you read the Koran?
GH: I haven’t read the Koran. I’ve read extracts from it. I’m quite interested in reading other people’s religions and of course in actual fact I believe in the bible which says when you die it’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I don’t think there’s a heaven up there. I don’t think there’s anything like that. I think it’s just, you’re just dead meat. Unfortunately. And many many people leave their readings, writings and paintings to be perused over and you get the benefit of their experience.
AH: Have you written anything?
GH: Written anything? Only rude things on the wall [laughs]. No. I wish I could have written things. I was too busy with music. As I said I went to a school where we had possibly an hour to two hours homework every night of various kinds and I didn’t really get out amongst other young fellas of my age because I was doing one to two hours music training as well. Now, the school I went to had started a school orchestra. Violin, banjo and drums. And I loved music. But as I say when I went in the air force I didn’t take a violin with me and I should have done I suppose. After being in five years my fingers were all stiffened up with, didn’t work. So I abandoned it straightaway and got on with earning a living
[knocking on door]
GH: Come in.
Other: Sorry to disturb you.
AH: I’ll just put this on pause.
[recording paused]
GH: They don’t look like reading my writing for a start. But there’s a cutting in there I think I mentioned it earlier on from Stalin who stated he wanted the Bomber Command to burn Dresden because they were using it to refuel the battlefield. And it wasn’t so because after the war I were working with some of the replacement Polish people and they said they’d been in Dresden and there were no army facilities there at all. There was no reason for them to bomb it.
[pause]
GH: And I have a younger sister who’s ninety in October. Laurie. So we’re quite a long lived family aren’t we?
AH: How old are you?
GH: Ninety four. Feel a hundred and four [laughs] some mornings. Yes.
AH: You’ve got a picture here of Squadron Leader Munro.
GH: Yes. He wanted to crew up with us. He’s just recently died you know. A New Zealander. That was when I was at gunnery school at Scotland.
AH: Which one’s you?
GH: How dare you say that [laughs] I haven’t changed that much at all surely. I’m the shortest one. Yes. And that’s my favourite photograph of myself.
AH: That’s nice.
[pause]
GH: Yes. It’s a wonderful world and I’ve met some wonderful people and I’ve had some wonderful friends and relatives. It’s been enjoyment. Mixing the good with the bad makes you appreciate it all the more. We came out of there as you go in.
AH: You talked about the strain of it. What was the worst strain?
GH: Being with Bomber Command? Well, naturally the, the operations themselves. They were well organised, I don’t mean like that but I mean they always taught us the best crews will get through. Did I mention to you before luck has a lot to do with it? And I mean a matter of seconds in some cases. I never flew as an air gunner though. I was in the Home Guard before I went in the air force. In Leicester. Well a little village outside Leicester called Narborough. And they used to send me out on a railway bridge defending the bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broomstick with string. I don’t know what you were supposed to do with it. I had a few thoughts. But by the time I went into the air force I was fully trained and I’d got a Canadian Ross rifle that was in a cloth bag with about two inches of grease all around it. And I cleaned it up and the stock of it was beautiful. Lovely gun. And one of the chaps, he was a sergeant. I think he must have been a sniper. He said, ‘I’ll teach you how to fire a gun George.’ Because,’ he said, ‘Let’s face it. Who’s the last person that knows when you’re going to pull the trigger?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Well you don’t pull the trigger. You squeeze your hand. And you don’t jolt it.’ And I could hit an eight hundred target, a bull at eight hundred yards. Which is quite good shooting I think. But I never did fly as a air gunner. I flew once as a tail gunner. And the tail one was like that. You knew all I got it I knew I wouldn’t have that for long.
AH: Did you get bombed yourself?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Did you get bombed yourself? In Leicester.
GH: Well, Leicester got bombed while I lived there. But we lived on the outskirts. And of course like most targets they usually go for the city centre first where all the main multiples are. And I was, I was quite happy in the Home Guard because we got very very good training. Initially it was useless. For the first two years. But when they got organised they got organised. And I sit and watch “Dad’s Army,” you know. And I I don’t know who picked the cast but it’s amazing to think [laughs] they look like real people [laughs] Anything else?
AH: Did you meet your wife during the war?
GH: No. I met her after the war. One of the boys who’s died in the last two years from Leicester was in training with me all the way through and he finished up at Coningsby on 97 Squadron and I finished up on 83. And his wife and my wife or future wife or his future wife, they used to go dancing Saturday nights together. And I met this girl one night in the RAF club. And I can’t understand that, I can’t explain the feeling but she was wonderful. And I said, ‘Can I see you again?’ And she said, ‘Well, I can’t see you for two weeks because I’m going up to Lincolnshire. To a town that you’ve never heard of.’ Well, I’d done all my training and everything here so I said, ‘Well, try me then.’ She said, ‘Louth.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got news for you. I can’t go to Louth again [laughs] They’d shoot me.’ And she was always dying her hair. I think after the first two months I knew her she must have had about six or seven changes of colour. She was lovely though.
AH: What was her name?
GH: Barbara. And when we first got married we had to live in the front room of my mum and dad’s house until we could get somewhere. Everyone does I suppose. And her uncle was a butcher and he used to do all the joints of meat for Leicester. And this friend of his, a friend of his or someone in the trade he dealt with was the housing minister for Leicester. And in those days you couldn’t get housed if you hadn’t got a wood licence. You had to have a timber licence. And he mentioned to this gent that I was having trouble with my wife’s breathing because my mother and father had a dog and she was allergic to dog hair. And he said to this young gent, ‘He’s just come out the air force and he definitely wants a house but, and his wife is allergic to dog hairs and has to get out, you know of home and have his own place.’ And the fellow twiddled it a little bit and got me a timber licence and away we went. We bought a semi for nineteen hundred quid. And then after a while we bought, we bought a complete des res like, you know what do you call it? A house on its own at, in Oadby near to Leicester at the back of the racecourse and you got a full view of the racecourse. And I used to say to people, ‘I’ve got a nice place. There’s about four furlongs of grass at the back and they came and cut it, you know regularly,’ [laughs] But as I say we had this problem with this hooligan who was threatening her so that’s how we moved to Louth. But I mean moving to Louth was like going next door to the pair of us because we’d both been here so many times.
AH: Did you like Louth?
GH: I think it’s very nice. And I think once you get into Louth the people will do anything but they’re a little offish at the start. But it’s a lovely little town. I was born in Mansfield. In the Sherwood Forest. But I did like Louth there. Very much.
AH: What was your home like there?
GH: Where?
AH: In Mansfield.
GH: Well, I was brought up with my grandparents. I wasn’t brought up with my mother and father. They couldn’t get anywhere to live in, although my sister had been born. They wouldn’t accept anyone with two children so they farmed me off with my grandparents. My grandmother Holmes, when I was six or seven or eight years of age taught me how to sew and darn and knit.
AH: Did you have use of that later?
GH: Yes. Because I went into the hosiery trade and it was the machines that knit things make exactly the same loop as you do a knitting pin. And of course as I say I, I had a quite a few jobs. The job I had at Byfords. The other chap working next to me who was in his forties hadn’t been taken to the army. Hadn’t been called up. With a wife and two children. He always used to go down smoking in the toilets about once every hour and I used to run his machines as well as mine. And one day, you used to put your earnings under the table where they kept all the yarns and everything. He had a sneaky look and he found out I was earning more than him. So he went to the manager and he said he didn’t see any reason why someone’s underage that were in machinery should be earning more than he did. So they said, ‘Oh alright, we’ll give you two of his machines. They had me in the office and they said, ‘You’ve been bragging.’ I said, ‘What about?’ They said, ‘What you earn.’ I said, ‘I daren’t tell my father what earn. He’d go mad.’ I was earning as much or twice as much as my dad. And they said, ‘Well, we’re going to take two of your machines off you and you’ll run them for him.’ So I said, ‘I have an idea now. You can stick them up your arse.’ And they gave him the bloody lot. I got sacked for insolence. I got another job. I was never out of work. I got training that was necessary and I could go anywhere. I worked at Byfords. They sacked me three times after that incident and a very good job. The only snag is when I went into it before the war you were using cotton and well, wool and the machines were covered in like a white powder from the cotton in the wool, you know. And after the war when they started using synthetic fibres I think the synthetic fibres were so small you swallowed them. And I have a difficulty with breathing actually which is due to that I think. But nobody would say so because you then would jump then and say I want paid for being. I don’t think, I don’t think there’s more than one or two hosiery factories left in Leicester and it used to be the main city for hosiery. But that was all, that was all shift work. Night work and not very conducive for family life. I used to go to work because I mean you were busy. It didn’t bother you but my wife was stuck at home on her own you know and I didn’t realise until after I’d lost her that that’s what the problem was really. Basically. But we had a good life together. Yeah.
AH: Was your father or your grandfather in the First World War?
GH: Both my father and my wife’s father were in the First World War. My wife’s father was stationed at Louth here. In the Leicester, what did they call it? It was a mountain brigade. And he was only a little bloke. Smaller than me. And he looked like, well you just couldn’t imagine him sat on a horse.
AH: What he was called?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What he was called?
GH: His surname? Evans. Evans. Good Evans. I went to Edmonton for my gunnery course and we had a group captain called Group Captain Evans Evans and he got awarded the French medal. The Croix de Guerre. And he said, ‘Although I flew in World War One I’ve not flown in World War Two and I don’t think I deserved it. So I shall get a crew together and fly.’ So I went to my CO and I said, ‘Look, old Evans Evans is getting a crew together.’ We had a chance to get in because at that time I was a spare. And he said, ‘No, I don’t think so. My wireless op is covering that because he’s one behind everyone else in the crew and we all want to finish together.’ And off they went and they were shot down by the Americans before they got to the war. Before they got to the war line they were shot down by the Americans. And the only one that got out was the rear gunner. So that was another lucky escape. Just how the penny drops isn’t it? Am I boring you? Say so if I am. Anyway [pause] I am suffering really from the breathing quite badly.
AH: Shall we finish?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Do you want us to finish?
GH: Yes.
AH: Thank you very much.
GH: Quite all right. If it’s been of any —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with George Holmes
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-16
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHolmesGH161016
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Brazil
Chile
Germany
Great Britain
Peru
Chile--Santiago
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Stuttgart
Temporal Coverage
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1945
1946
Description
An account of the resource
George was born in Mansfield and was bought up by his Grandparents until he was seven when he moved back to his parents in Leicester where his Father ran a coffee shop. He was a semi-professional musician playing violin, trumpet and mandolin. He studied hosiery at college and worked in hosiery production his entire working life. He joined the Home Guard in Narborough, and recalls how he defended the railway bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broom stick with string. After volunteering for the Air Force he was sent to Blackpool for training. The corporal who taught him foot drill went on to be the comedian Max Wall. He was then sent to RAF Yatesbury for his radio course, and then forwarded to the Air Armourers school. After completing the course, he was posted to RAF Evanton for a gunner’s course. His next posting was to RAF Market Harborough, but was only there for three weeks before he was sent to RAF Silverstone for crewing up. His first station was RAF Bardney with 9 Squadron for a few weeks. He remembers that when they arrived at Bardney it was deserted and they found everyone lying on the floor in the kitchen as the bomb dump was on fire. The crew were then posted to RAF Skellingthorpe in 50 Squadron and they completed 20 operations. George recalls a daylight operation on a V-1 site, and he witnessed the Lancaster that was above them blown up and seeing the bodies of the crew falling past their aircraft. The crew were then split up when the pilot and navigator joined the Pathfinders and he became a spare bod. He eventually joined an Australian crew in 83 Squadron at RAF Coningsby and completed a further nine operations. His pilot was called Cassidy and the nose art on the Lancaster was “Hop along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.” After the war he took part in a tour of South America and discusses an earthquake in Peru. He discusses his religious beliefs and how the war, Bomber Command, and Arthur Harris have been remembered. He met his wife Barbara after the war at a dance in the RAF club and they had one son.
Format
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01:08:02 audio recording
50 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bomb dump
bomb struck
bombing
civil defence
crewing up
faith
forced landing
Home Guard
Lancaster
mid-air collision
nose art
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Bardney
RAF Coningsby
RAF Evanton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/898/11138/AIsherwoodRC160401.1.mp3
821a61ef834a090f75a92e12292c399d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Isherwood, Raymond
Raymond Charles Isherwood
R C Isherwood
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Raymond Isherwood (b. 1923, 1805405, 164931, Royal Air Force). He served as a navigator in Transport 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
2016-04-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Isherwood, RC
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Ray Isherwood. The interview is taking place in Mr Isherwood’s house in Laceby on the 1st of April 2016. Could you tell me a bit about you early life?
RI: Oh. I grew up way down south in Watford. My father although he was a northerner had moved down there soon after the First War because things got so bad up north and he found a job. And so I grew up, as I say in Watford. Watford Grammar School. And eventually in the Grammar School they formed a branch of the Air Training Corps. I had been interested in aircraft as long as I can remember and we had been to see the Hendon Air Displays which weren’t far away. Not in the grounds I should say. We could park, my father could park at a nearby layby and we climbed up the hill and could see all that was going on in the airfield below us and that encouraged my interest in aircraft. As school formed a branch of the Air Training Corps when that was formed before the war sometime and I joined that and went along to the parades and lectures. They hosted local people who had any connexion with the Air Force to give talks on their experiences. And then eventually I got a job in a government laboratory which turned out to be a Reserved Occupation which meant that you couldn't be called up. The only exception being for aircrew so I escaped from that and was called up eventually. Went through all the rigmarole of initial training on the South Coast usually in hotels which were commandeered for accommodation. And then I went across to Canada to finish my aircrew training and finished up there a fully fledged pilot officer navigator. I came back to this country and we were crewed up. This, appreciate this was in Transport Command so I was crewed up with, the theory was that the, that all the pilots with assemble and pick up their navigators randomly but in point of fact the pilots had access to your records so each pilot could perhaps pick up one that he thought was suitable. Anyway, I was collared by a pilot who had many many hours already flying and so we got on very well together. I went to Transport Command and we were transported all over the place. Our longest trip was right out to Cairo. To Cairo and beyond to Calcutta which was quite a long trip. Which reminds me that on the way back from Calcutta of course we had to travel by passenger transport and I flew in a Sunderland for a long way, a Flying Boat and it really was the first time I had flown in one and it really was like a Flying Boat which was sort of porpoising along and it was the nearest I've ever felt to being air sick. Anyway, I managed to survive. Of course, it's a bit different when you are just a passenger as opposed to when you’re part of the crew itself. Anyway, it got me back to this country and carried on. But the crew was trans, was posted out to West Africa. West Africa Communications Squadron of all things. It was a sort of a relic of the time when aircraft were ferried across the Atlantic from America and then across to Africa to the South of, from [Kurna?] to, no [Kurna?] to the southern end of the Nile. Up the Nile to Cairo. Anyway, I did a lot, a lot of that before eventually being posted back to this country and I can't really remember much else about it [laughs] Oh yes. We flew, ferried planes as I say ferried the planes as they say from the tip of Devon. Took off across the Bay of Biscay to North Africa. And this went on for some time and eventually the war was finished. We didn't have to go to Japan after all and so I was demobbed and back to civvy duty when I got married and resumed my job. First in the government laboratory where I'd left and so we sort of pottered on and on. Fortunately, I have one beautiful daughter who is still with me. Still looks after me and there we are. I don't know that I can add very much more to that [laughs]
AH: Why did you go to Canada for training?
RI: Oh, well there was such, there was a large number of cadets requiring training in the air either as pilots or navigators. And there wasn't sufficient aerodrome space in this country and anyway it would have been quite dangerous having sort of untrained, partially trained pilots and aircraft flying about this country which was so near to Messerschmitts nipping across the Channel to pop them down. So they formed what was called the Empire Air Training Scheme. Which made use of the fast areas in the empire. Some went to Rhodesia, South Africa and I went to Canada. The other side of Winnipeg in the [laughs] in the Prairies. So it was an experience anyway. But as I say there was plenty of safe room and as a navigator I was flown by bush pilots. Bush pilots who could fly with their eyes shut. Anyway, but that went on. We went on and I was qualified then and came back to this country. I was crewed up with a pilot who had a lot of experience flying so we got on very well together actually until eventually the war ended and we were demobbed and went back to civvy duty. Oh, I know as I was in the Air Force I got a grant to go to London University so as I was living in Watford I thought I'd go down and attend London University as a day student. I had to travel down and back. It was a bit of a bind but anyway I did it and there was swatting up in the evenings and weekends. But all this was paid for by virtue of me being in the Air Force and then eventually I did manage to get my degree. And that was it. So back in to Civvy duty.
AH: What was your degree in?
RI: Chemistry. Chemistry and physics. So then I was back to Civvy Street and I got married, had Sarah and sort of, time just went on as normal.
AH: Did you enjoy flying?
RI: Oh, very much. Yes. Yes. I would take it up again if I could but no I enjoyed it very much indeed. I don't know quite why really but mind you I was never involved in any accidents or hazardous times and so if we’d had a crash or something it might have changed my mind but no I enjoyed it very much. And then as I say that all came to an end. Had to get back to Civvy Street and got married and eventually had Sarah who looks after me very well.
AH: What was it like going back to civilian life?
RI: Yes, it was a bit of a bind. It was a bit awkward but in one way you were, you were glad really. I mean it meant the world was over. And although I didn't do any sort of active work in the war I wasn't fighting anyone but even so it was, could have been hazardous at times. And then, yes settled back to Civvy Street. I find it extremely hard to remember what I did actually. I must have got a job and got on with it and there we are and had our usual, you know through the year. Went on holidays and as I say had Sarah. That was an event. She’s done me proud anyway. So, we just, just carried on back to Civvy Street. I don’t know that I can add any more to that really.
AH: Did you, did you choose to go into Transport Command or were you just posted?
RI: No. Just posted there. No. No. As a, as a navigator it was probably the best posting I could have had really. It wasn't a very happy experience really being a navigator in Bomber Command because as I understand it and sort of heard from some of them you know you couldn't do anything. You were just doing your job as navigator and a lot of it you had a lot more, not such a great support from the ground in the way of beacons and all the up to date facilities that weren’t available to people outside. But even so really I was jolly lucky. I might well have been posted to Bomber Command and that may well have been the end of me as it was for a lot of other folk. But anyway, we seem to have won the war [laughs] so they say. And here we are today. But —
AH: What did you do when you were in West Africa?
RI: I find it very difficult to remember. I have to [pause] oh we, yes, we just, we just formed a transport squadron to ferry people about. They were all civilians of course. A considerable civilian population. European civilians besides the natives, I mean who administered the country and it was, before the war it was a very civvy job doing that because you were white men among all the natives and you know your command was law and you just ran the thing like [pause] just off the [unclear]. I know one place, we had to stop in places overnight sometimes the ritual was on getting up you had a large glass of gin [laughs] you know, before you had your bacon and egg. Just these colonial types. I mean they were different. Grew up before the war and they were a different breed really but there we are we anyway got through that lot and got demobbed, came out, came home. As I’d been in the Air Force I got a grant to go to London University. I lived down in Watford so I used to travel down to Kings College, London University, you know, day by day as a day student and got my degree in chemistry. It was a struggle at times. But having been away from sort of academic learning you have to get back to it. Anyway, whether they had pity on me and gave me a degree I don't know. But I got one in the end. So, you know, I find it very difficult to recall what happened really after that. I would have to look up diaries and to be reminded and such like but anyway we had a happily married life. Produced Sarah which was a great boon. That was a great boon. But eventually poor Thelma died. She as I say she went to sleep on a Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night and she was gone. I don't know whether she died of anything in particular but anyway that was some time ago now. I find it difficult to think. We've got this lovely bungalow. It’s all mine. No [laughs] no mortgage. And the support of Sarah and people around about her very friendly as well. So I could do a lot worse. A lot worse.
AH: Did you have any siblings?
RI: Any what?
AH: Siblings.
RI: Other children?
AH: Any brothers or sisters?
RI: No. Me? Oh me. Oh gracious. Did I? Yes. I had, I had an elder brother Vincent. That's right. I can't remember really. Yes. He, he went into the Air Force. He went into the ground staff. He worked for the GPO, General Post Office before the war. He was a bit older. He was older than me and when he went into the Air Force he went into the Telecommunications branch but funnily enough he was posted down to Australia. Why, I don't know. But I didn’t see much of him really. Poor chap. Eventually he died so I'm, I'm the one left of that branch. I think I’ve got more cousins up north still. Every now and then I think I must go and try to get in touch with them but I sort of never actually get around to it. But there we are.
AH: Were your parents in the First War?
RI: Not, not actively. Oh, no. My father in fact would have been what is called now a Reserved Occupation. He was an engineer in Coberley Water Company keeping the pumps going and that sort of thing. I'm not quite sure how old he would have been. It’s going back a long way. So —
[pause]
AH: What planes were you in?
RI: On what?
AH: What planes?
RI: Planes. Oh, I have a job to remember. I think when we were training we were in planes like Ansons. Of course, I wasn't the pilot. They had to be planes which had accommodation for the, for the navigator. Planes like Avro Ansons. And then eventually I was flying with Dakotas. The old favourites. I think the Americans must have churned them out by the millions but yes so, so I was very lucky. I had a pilot I already had hundreds of hours in Training Command and we, as I say flew in Dakota's which were probably the most reliable, or certainly one of the most reliable planes at that time. There are probably still some running somewhere. So —
AH: And you were in Wellingtons as well.
RI: Yes. Yes. That was in Canada. But never, I never went on active duty or anything. I never dropped bombs on anyone. It was, it was only [pause] only through fortunate posting really [pause] because the casualty rate was fairly high actually amongst aircrew.
[pause]
AH: Do you remember VE Day?
RI: Pardon?
AH: Do you remember VE Day?
RI: Oh. I can't remember VE Day very much but I can remember VJ day because we were in Africa at the time and we had parades and things and I think I’ve got some pictures. I think that was VE Day but —
[pause]
AH: How did you feel on VJ day?
RI: Oh, very relieved. I thought with VE Day passing we should all be shipped out to Japan you see. But of course, they dropped the bomb on them didn't they and that finished it. So from that point of view I was very relieved.
[pause]
AH: What's the steam engine?
RI: Oh yes. I don't really know. Must be out in West Africa somewhere [laughs] I’m not [pause] No. I don't really know. It just attracted me so I took a picture of it. Funny have some of these have stayed the same and others have deteriorated haven't they? He was the, in effect the batman. We had a servant a line so the one between four or five of us and he was the one [pause] Oh dear. It seems a long time ago now. Let’s hope it never comes back again too.
AH: What did you think of Bomber Command? I know you weren't in it but —
RI: Oh yes. No. Well, at the time I was all in favour of it. I mean you were getting at the enemy the only way they could because they weren’t, until the time we actually invaded it was the only offence we had. So just rather horrible in retrospect the damage done to, mainly to civilians of course but I’m afraid it was all part and parcel, wasn't it? I think it’s, I think was it Churchill who said they, they started it and they reaped the whirlwind. I think Hitler thought we would be a pushover and get it all over with within a few weeks but, of course it didn't work out that way.
AH: And you saw the Jarrow March.
RI: Yes. Yes. Those were the days. It’s terrible conditions we were to live in. I mean, no work I don’t think there was any old age pension in those days. You know. A pension. Just had to live as best they could. So they all got together up in Jarrow up north and right down to, in to London. It was quite, it wasn't just a few men. It was several hundred marching along. Of course, a couple a lot of them had been in the war of course who were used to that sort of thing but terrible times really.
AH: What did they look like?
RI: Oh, they were just ordinary chaps you know talking walking about in civilian clothing. You know, I mean but yes I think they thought were doing something anyway. They were so helpless really with conditions as they were. They were sort of trapped in the, in the circumstances. But anyway whether it did any good or not I'm not sure but as I say it had an effect on me all right.
AH: What did you think when you saw it?
RI: Oh, very very sad. Very sad. Well, the school was turned out on to the footpath to watch them go by. It was very sad. But there we are. Got over it I suppose. Time went by. [pause] I keep getting lost I think.
Other: Yes [laughs]
AH: You liked, you liked the Air Force before you joined it. You liked building models.
RI: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, I was, as long as I can remember I was building 1:72nd scale models. Little tiny things and made some flying models out balsa wood and wrapped in tissue and glorified elastic bands which you were, never had. And I did this in Carpenter's Park. I don’t remember any, you probably don't remember that. Nearby in this local park and I’d switched it off and it went sailing across the road into someone’s garden. So I had the experience of knocking on the door and saying, ‘Please can I get my aeroplane from your garden?’ Just thought nothing of it at the time but it must, rather peculiar really. But, yes I’ve been interested in aircraft for as long as I can remember. I suppose it was being near Hendon to do with it. Father being engineer was on the practical side of things as well. So of course, aeroplanes were the new thing when I grew up. It’s a funny life, isn't it?
AH: Did you like the RAF?
RI: Very much, yes. Yes. I did. Yes, I think I [pause] well yes, it’s a, it was a different thing though after the war. It was a different attitude, you know as against life outside sort of thing. You were much more confined and constricted and very much a sort of officer class if you were a flight lieutenant. But [pause] which didn’t suit me. It didn’t. At all. Anyway, no, I was glad to get back to civvy life and married life and all that entailed really.
AH: How did you meet your wife?
RI: Good question.
Other: Was it at work? The building, what was it called? The Building Research Station.
RI: Research.
Other: Building Research.
RI: Yes.
Other: BRS.
RI: Building Research Station. Yes. That’s where I worked for some time. I must have, I must have met her at work I suppose. Yes. This was during the war and I think one of the other chaps and I were leaving and he had this mad idea arrangement. He arranged a dinner in London at one of the posh hotels. So we had to get on the train and go and you were sort of all dressed up and Thelma was one of the party I think. We all trooped down to London and of course we missed the last train back [laughs] I don't know. I don’t, I can’t really remember what we did. We must have got back eventually but [pause] A funny idea. It's funny how these things come back to you isn't it?
Other: Yes.
RI: Yes. It’s sort of buried in the recesses of your brain somewhere.
Other: Yeah [pause] Did you ride bikes to the works? To work.
RI: Yes.
Other: You and mum.
RI: Yeah. Yes, it was bicycles all the time. Yeah. Did we have a car? I can’t, did father have a car? I don’t think he did.
Other: Can you remember when you went on holiday? Did you go on holidays with your mum and dad?
RI: Yes. I must have done.
Other: Did you have a car?
RI: I think, I think we just went by train you know.
Other: Yeah. Yeah. Because he worked, he lived where he worked. Didn’t he?
RI: That’s right. Yes.
Other: So —
RI: Yes, we worked, we lived in the works cottage. The Cottage, Coberley Water Company. That was my address.
Other: So he wouldn't need a car would he?
RI: No.
Other: No. And I don’t think gran drove did —
RI: No.
Other: Well, in those days.
RI: No. I think he had. He had a car.
Other: Oh. Did he?
RI: Yes. Yes.
Other: Oh.
RI: And it was handy for him in that he could have all the maintenance done on company site.
Other: Oh right.
RI: You see. By friends who were in the trade and that sort of thing. I think there are some photographs up there.
Other: They’d be in a different album I think.
RI: Yes.
AH: What was it like being in London during the war?
RI: I don’t know that I was in London a lot.
Other: I, probably mum would have known more wouldn’t she?
RI: Yes.
Other: That side of it. I think you were out of the way weren’t you?
RI: I was out of the way in the forces.
Other: Yes. You didn’t have anything, like the rationing didn’t really affect you, did it?
RI: No.
Other: The food was ok where you —
RI: That’s right. Yes. Yes. Oh dear.
Other: They fed the troops alright. Yeah. And your mum didn’t take any children in or anything like that? I don’t know Watford, whether Watford was bombed. I don’t know.
RI: I don’t think so. There might have been some. I think the zeppelins flew over once or twice.
Other: Oh right. [pause] But London would have been bombed.
RI: Oh yes.
Other: A lot, wasn’t it?
RI: Yes. Yes. You could see the flashes.
Other: Oh.
RI: From a nearby hill you could look over. Right over to, to London and you could see the flashes going off.
Other: Did you have an air raid shelter? Or —
RI: I think so. I think so. I don’t think we ever actually used it, you know. It was one of these Anderson things in the garden.
Other: Oh right. Yes.
RI: Oh dear. It’s ancient history, isn’t it?
Other: Because when did you sign up then? How old were you? I mean were you —
RI: Eighteen.
Other: Eighteen.
RI: Something like that. ’23. ’33. ’41.
Other: So, the war had been going on for two years then.
RI: Oh yes. Oh yes. Yes.
Other: Oh. Had you been at school then dad? Were you still at school?
RI: No. I had this job, didn’t I?
Other: Did you?
RI: I think so. Yes.
Other: Oh. What doing then? Oh, at this BRS. Yeah.
RI: Building Research Station.
Other: Oh, right. Yeah. So you would have been there two years when there was bombing then.
RI: Yes. Yes. That’s true.
Other: Yeah. And rationing.
RI: I’m afraid that was someone else’s trouble [laughs]
Other: Yes.
Other: I think I was more concerned with the rationing of chocolate and such like.
Other: Yes [laughs] You couldn’t get the sweets quite the same. Yeah.
[pause]
RI: Oh dear. It all seems like ancient history, doesn't it? Now.
Other: Yeah. Would, where grandad worked would it be a target or not particularly? A water company.
RI: Not really.
Other: No.
RI: I don't think they came out as far as Watford anyway. The bombing was more in Central London.
Other: Oh right. Yeah. Of course, you lived a long time, I know it was after the war but near Bletchley, didn’t you? Where the [pause] at Bletchley where the, I can’t remember what it was called.
AH: The Enigma.
Other: Yeah. The Enigma.
RI: Yes.
Other: Well, I suppose it’s only now really it’s coming out.
RI: That’s right. Yes.
Other: All about it isn’t it?
RI: Didn’t know anything about it.
Other: No. No.
RI: No. I’d like to go there sometime. But it’s a, it’s a tourist attraction now, isn’t it?
Other: Films have been made about it.
RI: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
Other: Yeah. Yes. I don’t know whether they used it after the war, you know. Carried on.
RI: Might have carried on a bit I suppose.
Other: Yeah.
RI: Not for much.
AH: And you went to the Hendon Air Displays in the ‘30s.
RI: Oh yes. Yes. Yes, it was the —
Other: I think. Your father was quite interested as well, wasn’t he?
RI: Yes. Yes. He was quite interested more perhaps in the engineering side of it. As I say he couldn’t afford actually to go into the aerodrome itself so there was a convenient by-road where you could park the car down there and walk up the hill and look over. Look over Hendon.
Other: See the —
RI: See all the flying going on.
Other: Yeah. The early aeroplanes.
RI: Yes. The old biplanes and things and they had simulated bombing attacks. They had sort of rough huts put up in the middle of the airfield and these, the aircraft would fly over. I’m pretty sure they had the bombs inside them.
Other: Do you think?
RI: They’d got the bombs inside the hut so at the appropriate moment set them off. I’m sure they would have had a hut.
Other: It would have been a bit close [laughs]
RI: Yes.
Other: In case they dropped them at the wrong place.
RI: That’s right. Exactly. Yes. But funny days [pause] No. They rather frown on displays now, don’t they?
Other: Well, they’ve had a couple of accidents haven’t they?
RI: They have had accidents. Yes.
Other: Yes. They get so complicated don’t they?
RI: Yes.
Other: The area aerobatics.
RI: Right.
AH: Thank you.
RI: I think we’ve —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Raymond Isherwood
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-04-01
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AIsherwoodRC160401
Format
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00:45:06 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Description
An account of the resource
Raymond Isherwood grew up in Watford and when at the grammar school he joined the Air Training Corps. His first job was at a government laboratory, which was a reserved occupation except for air crew. As he had always been interested in aircraft he decided to train with the Royal Air Force. He was sent to Canada and, on completing his training, came back to this country and worked with Transport Command. The Royal Air Force paid for Raymond to attend London University, where he gained a degree in chemistry and physics. He had postings to Cairo, Calcutta and West Africa. He was never on active duty but flew in Dakotas and Wellingtons. When Raymond was demobbed he returned to laboratory work, met his wife and had a daughter.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--London
India--Kolkata
India
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
Africa
Canada
North Africa
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
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1945-05-08
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
aircrew
C-47
navigator
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/925/11168/ALenthallG160401.2.mp3
cec8de68d3c369542e86beed2c99b46b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Lenthall, Geoffrey
G Lenthall
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Sergeant Geoffrey Lenthall (1925 - 2018, 3040138, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Lenthall, G
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Geoff Lenthall. The interview is taking place in Mr Lenthall’s home in Cleethorpes on the 1st April 2016. Could you tell me a bit about your background?
GL: Yes. I was, I was born in Langold in Nottinghamshire. Not many people have heard of that. Then moved to Brigg. And finished up at Scunthorpe where my father was a linotype operator. I went to school at the Henderson Avenue and then the Scunthorpe Grammar School. And I still in fact go to reunions there. They have them every two years and I am the oldest member there. And I still have my old school cap which is in great demand. People want to have their photographs taken in it. And we also have a get together at the Kingsway Hotel. Just a few of us of the local school boys or ex-schoolboys. I then, from the school I left when I was about sixteen as a, to get a job in a bank. I happened to know through my uncle who knew the bank manager said, ‘Oh, there’s a vacancy for a junior.’ So I went along there and they took me on but they said, ‘If you fail your school certificate you’re out.’ Well, fortunately I passed. And my uncle by the way was, he was the father of Joan Plowright who is now Lady Olivier. I did try to get her to come to the reunions because she was at the grammar school. But anyway I I worked in the bank for a while doing the usual boring jobs of answering the phone and fetching stamps from the post office and joined the Air Training Corps and I became sergeant there. We were doing continuity drill and studying aircraft recognition, Morse code, principle of flight. All the usual things. We were all eager to get in and have a go at the enemy and I volunteered around about seventeen and a quarter and, but unfortunately went on deferred service and I was gone eighteen by the time I joined up in July ’44. Went down to London, my first visit, to be greeted by bombs and flying bombs. Doodlebugs. V2s. And that was the Aircrew Receiving Centre and we lost quite a few casualties and so moved to Torquay which was much more peaceful. And from there I went to the Initial Training Wing of Bridlington. Another seaside resort where we did all sorts of continuity drill and exercises to toughen us up. Getting up early and all the rest of it. And from there I was misemployed unfortunately as a — in the pay accounts at Kirton Lindsey working on officer’s allowances. The funny thing was there I had a desk and the airmen used to come in and salute me thinking I was an officer but I was just a plain erk. Anyway, I then thought well I shall get on aircrew training soon. And I was then sent to Blackpool to learn to drive. They obviously thought that was a good idea. Anyway, I learned to drive in Blackpool and moved down to Melksham in Wiltshire to finish off the course and got my licence down there. And I was getting a bit fed up by this time. Frustrated. Disappointed at not getting in on to do aircrew training. And having read the papers and all this and seen all the raids that were taking place and thinking I should be up there instead of down here. But anyway I was sent to Sango which was way up in Scotland. At the top left hand corner and pretty isolated. I used to, to drive the mountain rescue people. And I remember seeing a German submarine which had been captured. It came in and we saw it in the bay down below. That was my first glimpse of anything of the enemy. And I was then, I volunteered to go overseas but they classified overseas as Northern Ireland which I suppose it was over a sea but [pause] there I was, I was billeted with an Irish family. He was a teacher. She was an excellent cook his wife. And they had two attractive daughters and there were two of us staying there with them. And we used to stay up into the early hours talking about religion. They were Catholics. And the father was very strict and you know there was, there was no hanky panky with the daughters or anything like that. He wouldn’t have that. But we got on very well. She was an excellent cook and we were living the life of Riley really. And it irked us a bit the fact that we were enjoying life while people were out there fighting. And anyway we duly carried on. I was driving the men to a radar camp about seven miles away. And this continued for a while and we got on well. I got to know, this was a bit of romance came then. I met a girl called Bernadette who was an Irish girl. Very attractive. We kept in touch even when I was sent, transferred to Manchester which was a transit camp. And that’s when things started to move and I actually moved from transit camp to radio school in Madley, near Hereford. From there we flew in Proctors which were just the pilot and radio operator doing these radio bearings etcetera. The usual stuff. And then we went into the De Havilland Dominies where they were, they were fitted with four or five positions for different radio operators. And eventually passed out and got my sergeant’s stripes as a qualified radio operator and then went to to Topcliffe in Yorkshire where, which was an air navigation school. Then the cadets, they were training to be navigators and the, most of the pilots were veteran. Polish veteran pilots. A lot of them were, were quite mad. I remember one. He, he had an excellent singing voice and he, he taught us a Polish song and he got us singing this and I got on well with him. Another one was [Zachiorski?] He was, he’d got a handlebar moustache and I went up with him for the first time. And on the way back there there was a Polish resettlement camp just near the airfield and he had a lot of friends there and he liked to do a bit of showing off. And so, I hadn’t realised this. Anyway, he got back to base and we got all the instructions for landing etcetera and then he put the, this was an Anson, put it in a steep climb and eventually the left wing dropped and it stalled. And this was deliberate apparently. Then it went spiralling down to near this Polish resettlement camp and eventually he landed at the airfield. Anyway, we got out, he said, ‘Did you enjoy that?’ I said, ‘Well, it was unexpected but I shall know next time.’ He did it every time apparently. He was an expert pilot. But I spent about four years, three or four years at Topcliffe and I know we lost a couple of planes. Wellingtons then. And one of them it stalled on take-off. And anyway the pilot — and he managed to survive. He baled out. The rest were killed. And the other one disappeared over the North Sea somewhere. Never found any wreckage anywhere. It even got in the local papers. And they never did find out what happened to it. So, and then we got to, I was then occasionally called on when there was no flying to drive the ambulance as I’d taken this MT course. And you had to be on call there and everything was timed to the minute. You had to get to, if there was an emergency you had to get there in a certain number of minutes. And I also had to drive a [pause] some airman had gone mad. We had to take him into a mental institution in York and this was quite interesting. He was in the back with with two other, two men. He was in handcuffs because he was quite violent. So, they got rid of him anyway. And we used to have nights out in York and I then, I became very friendly with with a Scotsman, Jock Campbell and a chap from Bournemouth. Bish we called him. He looked like a, he used to put a collar on back to front to look like a minister. We were great buddies and anyway they said, ‘Let’s, let’s go,’ he said, ‘I know a WAAF,’ he said, ‘Let’s meet up in York and get her to bring two friends.’ So off we went to York and I couldn’t believe that the one of the friends was one I’d met in York where, the transit centre there. Another Irish girl who lived in London. In Crouch End. And we became very friendly and retained that friendship until after I came out the RAF because she came to Cranwell and I went to see her down there. Anyway, I’m rambling on a bit am I? Anyway, from [pause] it became time for demob and we’d gone out on a usual demob party as we did, in Ripon. And we’d, we’d had a few drinks of course. A bit of a singsong. And on the way back to the station my friend Bish who was a bit mad, a very quiet man normally but if he had drink inside him he was a changed character, Jekyll and Hyde and he started to climb over a railway bridge on the way back to the station. Anyway, we managed to drag him down and then we got to the station. Got in the train. And it, as it was about to move off they [pause] Bish decided he wanted, he was going to get out on the wrong side. On the off side. So he climbed out. We yelled at him. I climbed out after him to bring him back. And he was trying of all things to try and unhitch the train so that it would go off with one carriage missing at the end. Anyway, he couldn’t unfasten it of course and so I dragged him out. Then the whistle went. Train started moving. There was my friend Jock peering out of the window shouting at us. We ran but we couldn’t get in and so the train went off. Left us on the track. And the, the guard, he was there, he was shouting at us so we set off walking down the track. It was only probably three or four miles to the station we wanted to be off at near the camp so we walked along the track. It’s a stupid thing to do but fortunately at that time of night there were no no trains. And we arrived exhausted back at this station getting on for midnight and there were celebrations going in the mess even at that time. Anyway, we found Jock and he said, ‘Oh, thank goodness you’re back. We wondered what had happened to you. We were going to send out a search party.’ Anyway, that was partly Bish was, was a strange man. He was a very good friend but he got this idea that one evening he he had this idea of getting on the phone because we had a station warrant officer who wasn’t very popular and anyway Bish got on the phone. He rang the fire brigade and he said, ‘Oh, the SWO’s house is on fire. Can you come immediately.’ We, anyway, put the phone down. We went off up to bed and we heard the fire engine going and the following morning two pilots had been arrested for ringing up the Fire Brigade. And anyway, we being gentlemen we confessed and said it wasn’t them it was us. And I was, I suppose aiding and abetting and so we finished up on a fizzer and went in jail for the weekend. We were escorted to the dining room by guards and of course all the other lads thought it great fun. You know. We, we, in fact I still have a card which they’d all signed and there was a fire on the front of it and it made some comment from all the lads there. And anyway we were, we were both duly not court martialled but we we had a good ticking off from the CO and said, ‘Don’t do it again.’ And so that went on our record. But on the final night of demob we decided to fly when we get back on that to base and for some reason we managed to persuade the three radio ops to take their places. And this would be about eleven or twelve in the evening and so I’m surprised that we were let on. We must have been reeking of beer. And we went in for briefing and we got all our gear and we went off. There were about a half a dozen planes went off and so my friends Bish and Jock they were in separate planes as they were both radio operators. And we went off on a six hour navigation trip somewhere over the North Sea and back again and with turning points. And eventually got back in the early hours. Back to Topcliffe. And there was thick fog. We couldn’t land. So we were redirected to Linton on Ouse and had a Polish pilot as most of them were. Anyway, we were heading for Yorkshire, this other aerodrome and all of a sudden I heard on the intercom, ‘Christ,’ or some, it might have been a Polish equivalent. The plane shot up like a lift. He pulled the stick back and apparently it was a place called Stanage Edge which was like an escarpment and he had been flying low and he had just spotted this. So he pulled the stick back and zoomed up. And anyway we were then redirected. Of course fog had come down at Linton on Ouse. We went down to Lakenheath in Suffolk and by then we were running short of fuel but anyway we made it to Lakenheath and fortunately there was no fog. We landed there and they found us accommodation in the hospital actually. Comfortable beds. And the following morning we woke up and would you believe it there was fog. So we couldn’t take off. And this, this we should have been at Demobilisaton Centre by this time. Anyway, we were detained there because of the weather for a week before we got back. So they weren’t very happy and they had to rearrange our demob. And we got another ticking off for that. And so we had about another three months where they seemed to punish us by making us fly every day but we didn’t mind that because we enjoyed it. And so eventually we we were properly demobbed and three of us we went down to London. Decided to celebrate and have a week there before we went back home. And we went, we’d had a few drinks as we’d normally do, went round the night clubs and did the usual things and we decided to visit the American Embassy and volunteered to join the US Army Air Force to fly in Korea. We thought we didn’t want to go back to Civvy Street, you know, it’s too boring. Anyway, we got all the information and forms to fill in. Went back home and all three of us decided we wouldn’t do that. We went back. I went back to banking. Jock went back on the railway. And Bish went back to the estate agent office. And I thought that was the end of that but poor old Bish. He [pause] he suffered from, he was a bit [pause] what shall I say? When he’d, I know when he’d had a few drinks he was a changed character. But the Morse code was affecting his mind and he eventually suffered from Morse Madness and which, which — you know the continuous noise on the brain of the dit dit dot and all this sort of thing. And anyway he, he had, he finished up in a mental institution and he died before he was thirty which, you know was very sad. We were great buddies and we’d been down to Bournemouth. Met his, met his family as well. And anyway, we [pause] we kept in touch for a while and we used to have reunions back at Topcliffe. Jock and I. And we managed to get a bed you know in the sergeant’s mess no problem. Meet the lads who were still there. And then as things happen we drifted apart. He went back, stayed with his job. I went back to banking. And it was only about three years ago that I I had a message. An email on Facebook saying, “Are you the Geoff Lenthall who was flying from Topcliffe in Wellingtons?” And I wrote back. I sent him an email. I said yes. And it was, it was my old friend Jock. And so we decided we got together and we, he came down. It didn’t cost him a penny because of his special rates on the railway, as he worked there. He came down to York and I travelled up there and we found a pub and we had a meal and well we had a few drinks but I couldn’t have many. I was driving. It was alright for him. He was on the train [laughs] He could have a dram or two on it. So it was good. You know. We talked. We had a lot to talk about of course and we met each year. But last year I had problems driving and so we didn’t meet up. But we’re still in touch. Which is great. So that was more or less the — oh I did join the Volunteer Reserve for five years. And this, it was, we used to get paid for it. And it didn’t go down very well with the bank because it took a fortnight. I’d still got my allowance from the bank for the holidays but I had to have two weeks at an RAF station. And that was when I went to Binbrook and flew in Avro Lincolns. Operation Bullseye I think they called it. Went out to practice bombing in Heligoland. And that was one of the trips. And other times, other times we went to Doncaster which is now a civil airport and we used to fly to Jersey. Went down for the Battle of the Flowers and things like that. We had a weekend in Germany. All on the RAF of course. And this was at a time when one of the English planes was shot down near the Russian border and I know there were emails flashing around saying, ‘Are you ok?’ You know. They thought it was that we were over there we’d been shot down. But anyway we, we were ok. And so five years with the Volunteer Reserve. And then, so I met my wife. So I was transferred to, from Scunthorpe to Grimsby and we, I know I joined this tennis club and there was this girl in bright red shorts. And anyway I got talking to her and we became friendly and I walked her home. And in due course we were married. And as I say she died nine years ago. We had a very happy marriage and when I retired we were able to do a bit of travelling around. And we went to Australia because the sort of friends who lived near us they decided to emigrate to Australia and said keep in touch. And so we went two or three times to stay in Melbourne and we were very fortunate really. And they had a big five bedroom house. They have four daughters. And anyway the daughters married out there and one went to live in Sydney so we called on the way down in Sydney to see them. And then we drove down in his car to Melbourne. And we had a great time because they had friends who had a boat on an island off the coast and we went down there and went on this boat around the islands. And they were, I know that they used to call us poms but we got on very well with the, with the Australians. And they tried to persuade us to go and live out there. And he said, oh, he said because I then was working on a magazine, Lincolnshire Life and they said, ‘You can start, start a magazine up out here. No problem. Come and join us.’ We never actually did but we went to see them. But I joined Lincolnshire Life after leaving the bank because I was getting nowhere. I finished up at Loughborough. I went to Leicester branch. Then they moved me to Loughborough. And I was getting a bit bored with banking. It didn’t seem to satisfy my yearnings at all and so I resigned. And I went of all places on the fish docks because my father had a fishing business. My father in law. And anyway, he said he could get me a job so I went back to Grimsby from Leicester and finished up at this this company owned by one of the trawler companies and I was going around visiting customers and getting new business for the company. It was a complete change from banking to fishing and I had to go down to the docks at seven in the morning to be amongst all the fish there to see what went on. And it was a real eye opener. And so I had to learn a bit about it before I went on my travels. And they gave me a car allowance and so it became, I used to leave Monday morning and come back Friday. My wife got used to it in due course and I worked, I did it for about two years. But I used to have a talk with the MD every Friday and he, I said to him, ‘Things are not really working out.’ He said — I said, ‘You know that there’s a resentment.’ Of course they’d made me a director of the company and this didn’t go down very well with the staff. They’d been in it probably from leaving school. Working their way up you know, and this this chap comes in, ex-banker, white collar worker and he’s there you know eighteen months they make him a director, you know it just wasn’t on. I could tell there was a resentment and I said this to the MD. And so I resigned. So at about forty then out of a job and so I looked around and saw this job advertised in Lincolnshire Life. Do you know Lincolnshire Life? And they wanted a sales representative or advertisement manager. Anyway, I applied and I got the job and I had one week with the previous ad man. And he said, ‘I don’t know whether you realise or not but not only will you be doing this but you’ll be also the motoring correspondent. And,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a car test lined up next week for you in Lincoln. An Alfa Romeo.’ I thought this sounds interesting. Anyway, he went off and I took over and I was given a car to run around the county in. I went to Lincoln. Picked up this Alfa Romeo and they just let me loose for a couple of hours on the roads. And that was fine. I enjoyed that. But then of course I had to write about it in the magazine which I’d never done before. So, this was a labour of love and I eventually got into it and enjoyed it. And from then on I got other motoring tests to do as well. But we were in, in Brewery Street I think it was there and we moved to Dudley Street. The magazine. And the owner Roy Faiers, he lived in Cheltenham and he’d started This England magazine which is a very worldwide and he would fly up from time to time. He had learned to fly in his forties and got his own plane and took me for a flight in it from Humberside. And anyway, this went on for a while and there were quite a few perks with working for a magazine and I I used to get invitations to [pause] I went to Sweden for the opening of a golf course by an Englishman and things like that. And I met a few celebrities. I don’t know whether you remember Crossroads. It was a television programme and two of the people on it, Meg and Benny, they were at this hotel that was newly opened and they were guests. So I met them. Had photographs taken. All the rest of it. But it was a totally different life from banking and fishing. And there was an end product every month when they, you looked at the magazine and you know you felt well we’ve helped to do something towards this. I used to go down with the editor at the end of every month to the printers to put it to bed so to speak. Do the proof reading. And it worked very well and I I was able to, I met a lot of interesting people and part of the driving part I mean I wasn’t an official motoring correspondent. I wasn’t even a member of the journalist’s Union. But they used to send me these invitations and we used to go to a place called, in Yorkshire called Sherburn in Elmet which was a testing ground for the Mintex people of the brake linings and things. And they had a track there on an old aerodrome circuit. And each year I used to go there and I used to take a friend of mine Brian Hammond who was in the choir. And we used to spend the night there in a hotel and then on the Sunday morning we’d go around the track. It was all very well organised. We had a pep talk before-hand saying, ‘This isn’t a racetrack,’ you know and all the rest of it. We had name tags with our photograph and all the rest of it. And so we used to drive around there. Test the cars and we, a second time I had a Rolls Royce and that was great fun because it wasn’t allowed on the track. There was a special ten mile course outside. And so we took the Rolls Royce. They briefly said this does that, that does that you know. The controls. So Brian and I used to drive this Rolls Royce waving to people you know like royalty and that was great fun. We got to test a lot of cars. The, the BMW, Mercedes and anything from Minis and things like that. That was an interesting part of the job. And I eventually decided to [pause] I’d had an offer. No. That’s right we took over because he wasn’t paying very well and I thought well am I going to leave again? Find another job. And I I mentioned about a rise but there was nothing forthcoming so I had a talk with my wife and my father in law and my banker. And in the end I made an offer to buy the magazine from, from him. And he accepted it. He wanted more than we wanted to pay but anyway we settled on a figure and got the first loan to organise and finished up as owning a magazine. And Joan used to do subscriptions. My father in law did the accounts. And I took on ladies in different parts of the county to sell advertising. You know, on a bonus basis part time, as I wasn’t able to get out and do it myself and I had a part time editor. David Rawlinson. He lived in Louth and he used to come in about two days a week and between us we put the magazine together and I’d get all the ads together and he would bring the editorial. And so we did that for a few years. And then I had an offer from one of the big companies. They owned Yorkshire Life and Lancashire Life and they wanted to buy Lincolnshire life. So they came up to Grimsby and took me out. Wined and dined me as they do. Made an offer. And I thought well I’m enjoying life really. I don’t want, I don’t want to give it up yet. So in the end I was reaching I think I was about sixty two when I had an offer from LSG. Lincolnshire Standard Group. And they made an offer and we decided to sell out and retire. And so we, we did that and that’s when we were able to travel around a bit more and enjoy life. I joined the Male Voice Choir. My father in law was in it. He was the one that persuaded me and so I had an audition and we [pause] a great bunch of lads. We had, at one time nearly seventy members and we travelled around. We went in various festivals and we also organised trips abroad. We went to Holland. Germany. Sweden. France. And they were very good. We had a week with the people. You know. The Swedes or Germans looked after us very well. Then they came back the following year and stayed with us. Then we’d have a joint concert and I’m still in touch with some of them which is good you know. We exchange cards at Christmas time and it worked out very well. And there was a tremendous spirit between singers of all nationalities because they organised at Cardiff Arms Park, a huge concert. Ten thousand male voices. There were about nine hundred and something in the end but actually there were choirs from all over and we were invited. It was a tremendous success and the feeling there singing at Cardiff Arms Park which is huge. We were alright. We were in the sheltered area. And I’ve got a video of it actually. And one year we had Tom Jones as the guest singer and the following year Shirley Bassey. And so I was able to put on my CV I have sung with Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey. And they were great occasions and there is a tremendous comradeship in the male voice of choirs. Of course there were people from all walks of life but you all get on well. They’ve all got this love of singing. And in due course I took over the, I’d started a newsletter for the choir and did that for about fifteen years and but I was finding I was having to write most of it as the contributions weren’t coming in very quickly. People seemed a bit reluctant to do this but I managed to get one or two in the choir to twist a few arms and I got some contributions coming in. And this used to come out once a quarter. And so I did this for a while and I enjoyed it. I was just paid the expenses of the, you know I used to do it on the computer and print it out. And had great fun. And then it got to the stage where I wasn’t getting enough in really to make a go of it. So by then I was getting on in years and I said well if no one else will take it over you know I’m calling it a day. And there weren’t any volunteers so it just stopped like that. Which was a pity. One man a year later said he’d take it over but he said, ‘I’ll come round to the house and we’ll talk about it.’ But that was it. No more was said. And I’m still in touch with the choir and still go to some of the concerts but unfortunately they’re down to oh about thirty from, you know. They’ve lost half their members. Old age. This is the, or they move away. I mean the average age must be well over sixty. Probably seventy. But you just can’t get youngsters to come and join. They don’t want, they don’t want to be with a lot of old fogeys you know. They’d rather be out enjoying themselves. It’s understandable. And so I gave that up and I joined the, or Joan and we both joined the U3A and I I decided to — she was interested in gardening, flower arranging. I went on a computing course and there are about thirty odd different groups in the U3A and you can choose whichever one appeals to you. It’s either a hobby or an educational thing. I went in computers and then learning German because I’d taken it at school and we’d had a refresher course when we went with the choir. And so I, there were only about a half dozen of us used to go every week to this house. She was a German. She’d come from near Cologne and lived in this country for many years. But then she, she’d done it for twenty odd years and she gave that up. And I joined armchair travel which was, we used to meet up and show films of where people had been and talked about the different places. Quite interesting. And, and there was a, I became interested in, we had our own website and anyway when the person who was doing it was retiring I offered my services. So, I took over the website which meant I had to join the committee as well which I wasn’t very happy about but I used to go to the meetings as well. I did that for a while. Are we ok? And —
[recording paused]
AH: So why did you want to join the RAF?
GL: Why? I always had a love of aircraft and obviously as a lad you know I’d read about the, and about the exploits not only of Bomber Command but fighter pilots as well. And its, I thought well this this is the one for me. I didn’t really fancy the army or the navy. The air force really was the only place and we all joined. All the friends of us. We got ourselves very fit. We used to go for morning runs at the Air Training Corps. And we had, went every week to classes for — well learning all about flying really. About the various navigation, Morse code, air craft recognition. I could recognise any of the German planes I thought at that time when our memories were good. And to me it was the only thing that I wanted to do was to get up and fly. And I did later on take a gliding course in Norfolk which was a great thrill but that was later on in life. But it was, I knew one by one we we either volunteered or were called up. All the aircrew were volunteers. And one of my friends he he went to the Fleet Air Arm and he got in before me. And also I met an air gunner who, about the same age as me and and he’d done about twelve operations and I thought how was that? Anyway, we talked about this and he said, ‘Well, I volunteered as tail gunner. Said I wanted to be in straight away.’ And had I known I would probably have done the same because as I say being the same age he got in quite quickly. They were short of air gunners because they were very vulnerable at the back end of the plane of course and so he he couldn’t understand this. He said, ‘Why don’t you do operations?’ he said. Of course that was so disappointing for me. I thought well had I known would I have done the same thing? Volunteered as a tail gunner? Probably not have even come back. I mean he was lucky. He managed to survive but I know there were fifty five thousand more than that who who never came back. Who just died. Which was a, you know was a tremendous casualty list. But even so you know it was the thought of getting up there and it’s, and the thing is, I know that people when they say when they bombed at Dresden. There was a lot of talk about that. And there were so many casualties but after all it was war. They were bombing us the same way as we were bombing them. They bombed Hull and London and all the big cities and so it was. I don’t know whether any, there was any Christianity came into that. I mean there were some people who’d say, ‘How could you possibly go up there and drop bombs on innocent people?’ But you were just, just doing your job. You thought no more about it than that. You couldn’t really do anything else. If, if you didn’t, I mean there was some on the training who, who refused to, to do the training. This was at Bridlington where they had to jump into this, off the edge into the quayside, about twenty foot and with a Mae West on. And they refused to do it. And so they, they wouldn’t do it so they, they were taken off aircrew training. That was all part of it. You had to jump down, swim to a dinghy and climb aboard. All part of the training. But you just had to do this if you wanted to be in aircrew and it was an ambition of mine. And I mean when I wrote the book eventually that was my — I wanted to be a pilot. I think which most youngsters did anyway. I did actually get behind the controls of a Wellington bomber with a pilot by my side. Dual control. And he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You can take over now,’ he said, ‘Piece of cake,’ he said, ‘Just get a compass bearing and hold the stick and keep it steady,’ and he said, ‘I will land it though when we get there.’ But he said, he said to me afterwards, ‘You can take off if you like.’ He said, ‘I’ll watch you.’ We managed to get off eventually. Not very, not an ideal take off but then he said, ‘Fly it up to Yorkshire and I’ll take over.’ But it was a great thrill and, and then the flying in the gliding course as well. And I did think when I retired that was another thing I will do. I will, I’ll learn to fly at the local flying school. But so many other things to do I never got around to it. So it was sad really. It was disappointing. I mean I’ve watched many films. I’ve read lots of books. And of course when Dambusters I mean which was a tremendous thing there. Incidentally, I’m having the Dambusters theme at my funeral. I’ve already got it planned and I’ve written all this out for my daughters and I said, ‘Play that when people are coming in and then we’ll have the hymns etcetera and then at the end I’m going to have Perry Como singing, “For the Good Times.” Which was one of my favourites. And it was one my wife’s as well. Anyway, I’m getting off the beaten track aren’t I?
AH: Could you tell me a bit more about the training? What you did.
GL: About the —?
AH: The training. The training.
GL: Trailer.
AH: The training.
GL: Training.
AH: Yeah.
GL: Oh yes. Well, most of that was well in London of course we were just avoiding the [pause] the V-1s. That was more or less Reception Centre but Bridlington was where we did the training. Where we, this was where we had to jump into the sea and swim to the dinghy. And you were, I think the expression was LMF. Lack of moral fibre if you refused to jump. But we had assault courses and things like that and of course we used to go into was it the, one of the big concert halls there to do the Morse training. And we had to pass out at eighteen words a minute. And at the radio school which was at Madley I remember there. This was when we first got into aircraft, you know. Until then I’d never seen an aircraft. And we, I know that several of us went to work at Hartleys Jam Factory which was quite nearby. We used to get paid for that. But I digress. The actual flying and learning the Morse code I I didn’t really have any great difficulty with. At the, as I say we passed out at eighteen words a minute and I still look back and if I’d go on short wave I’d try to take any Morse messages but some of them were very fast. But I remember we [pause] I got to know a chap who lived in Essex and he was a married man. One of the older ones. And he, I sort of, I looked I looked up to him because he’d been around and he was an older man and anyway sort of looked after the younger ones. But there were some who found out that when they went up flying they suffered from air sickness. That was another thing. Just unfortunate. They just couldn’t cope with it so they had to find a ground job then. But the, I was just trying to think of the [pause] from the Isle of Man when we were in Jurby we were on Ansons then and the wing commander he he lived in [pause] near Grimsby actually. And anyway I had a talk to him and I managed to get a flight. A flight back from Jurby to — we landed at Binbrook in this Anson and I got home from there. He went to his home and we had a weekend at home. I know my parents couldn’t believe it. But yeah there were perks like that in flying but I think, you know the sheer joy of being up there. I know that it wasn’t, it wasn’t so pleasant you know, having seen all these films. You know when you were on the air raids on Germany and the cities etcetera with all the flak coming up and anti-aircraft and the fighters attacking you it wasn’t a piece of cake at all, you know. They really went through it. I admire the — I look up to them. They were always my heroes really. I mean people like Alec whom you’ve met, you know. I mean he, he was flying a Spitfire with no armament at all. Just took photographs. But I mean people like that I’ve always looked up to. And in a way I suppose I thought well why wasn’t I one of them? You know. A sort of feeling of not inferiority but disappointment in the fact that I never made it there. But I know there were several of my own age who were, who were in the same position. You know they, because I have met them and they say, oh yeah, they felt the same way. It was just one of those things. So, so the next war I shall probably volunteer as a tail gunner to start with if there is such a thing. Of course times will have changed. They’ll all be jets now. And I mean this is one of the joys the reunions. I was an associate member of 9 Squadron because I’d met someone in Lincolnshire Life who came. We used to sell books. Aircraft books. That’s how I got an interest in it as well and he was a rear gunner and he put me on to the Aircrew Association in the first instance. And in fact he was a local man. I used to see him at Tesco. He’s gone now unfortunately. And this is it with, well they’re not all old aircrew at Aircrew Association. There are some younger ones that came in after the war of course. You know, the jet men. A different school. But we used to meet up at these 9 Squadron reunions. The older ones and the younger ones. It was interesting you know to have talks with the young jet men, you know. To see how different it was. But I’m just trying to think of anything else of interest which [pause] No. Better switch off now. I’ll have to have a think.
[recording paused]
AH: What was it like coming to London from Lincolnshire?
GL: It was quite different. I’d never been to London before and to be uprooted from the wilds of Lincolnshire to the big city was quite something and I remember going down on the train. And there were several servicemen there and I remember one saying to me, ‘Why aren’t you in the forces?’ I said, ‘I’m on the way to join.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Good for you mate.’ And I said I would join the RAF. And but approaching the city you could see all the ruined houses and everything there. I thought they’ve really, they’ve really had it pretty hard. And it was, it was so different. I mean in Lincolnshire we’d had the odd, the odd raid and I remember a Heinkel 111 shot down near the steel works and we went to see it as boys do. But in London the — everything was so different. And when we got out of the train the first thing I heard was an explosion. I thought well that’s the first one. And we had to, we had to be on every so often we’d be on duty to warn people of a coming raid or an approaching doodlebug. We used to have to go up on the roof. We were on St Johns Wood and we’d taken over a lot of the luxury flats and anyway if we saw a doodlebug coming we’d got a whistle with us and we used to go in. We were in pairs and anyway as soon as the engines stopped that’s when of course that’s when it went down. So we blew the whistle and run like mad to try to get down in the basement and all the others were there by then. But we used to march and we used to wear steel helmets when we went from place to place. Once we, we went to the zoo. We used to go to the zoo and I remember we, if we night watching, if we were watching the, we’d sleep on tables and the reason for that was when you got down you put your foot down you could hear the crunch of the beetles you know. Oh they were awful. There were so many of them there. And apart from that I mean we had raids pretty well every night. And we got used to the idea but we knew that you know eventually we’d have to move and this is why we went out to Torquay. But life in London was so much different. Rural Lincolnshire we, I suppose we were spoiled up here. We don’t, we don’t see a lot of it. we used to see the odd doodlebug. They used to launch them from planes apparently from the North Sea. But we never actually had any in Lincolnshire at all. As I say the, Hull used to get most of the bombing. We could tell. If we saw a red glow in the sky, ‘Hull’s getting it tonight.’ But considering we had two steelworks in Scunthorpe I’m surprised we didn’t get more raids really. My father was a warden, sector leader, and he used to come and see us you know in the shelter from time to time there. We had great fun building those. The old Anderson shelter with grass sods all over it and a stirrup pump if it got flooded and so cold we had these oil heaters. But we spent quite a bit of time in the shelters. And you could, there were Morrison shelters as well which were in the house. They were reinforced tables. Quite strong actually. Which I suppose were better than going out into a cold damp Anderson shelter. But it all seems such a long time ago now and you just wonder when the next one will be. I mean they’re talking World War Three with the Russians and all the rest of it, but it would be people like you and the grandchildren who are around. We shan’t be around that much longer. Well, I’m optimistic. I mean I hope to reach ninety one. We shall see. But yes I would, I tend to I say to my grandsons, you know ‘Whatever you do if the time comes, if you have to join up, join the RAF,’ I said, ‘It’s the only one.’ The Brylcreem boys as they used to call them. I know we did get a few comments about that. But it was a good life. I really was fortunate. I had about four years and I enjoyed my time which is more than a lot of people who’d been in the RAF. I mean they had a pretty tough time a lot of them. Some never came back. But I was very grateful for the fact that I, you know had served my country to some extent. Little though it was. But it was an enjoyable time and a good experience. And it broadens your mind certainly because you meet up with people from all walks of life and they all have different views etcetera. And I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Anything else you want to ask? No?
AH: What do you think about the way Bomber Command was treated after the war?
GL: Well, that was pretty awful I think. I mean Bomber Harris he took a lot of the brunt. I mean, partly because of Dresden. But they were only doing really what they had to do. They said they were, they were bombing civilians rather than bombing targets but I mean what happened in London or Birmingham or Hull? They weren’t just bombing targets. They were just indiscriminate. And I don’t really see why they was so much criticism of them. I mean after all they, they joined the air force. They joined Bomber Command to to go, take part in raids over Germany or wherever. Italy. And they, I know that the bomb aimer was the person responsible for dropping the bombs but I’m sure they didn’t have any, any feelings about what they were doing or what was happening down below. They had a job to do and it was, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Right a bit. Bombs gone.’ And that was it. They were just doing their job and I don’t really see how, how they can criticise. I know that they made a lot of Fighter Command. You know. Saving the country which, yeah but Bomber Command they certainly did their part and Bomber Harris was was respected by all the people who were in Bomber Command. Although he was heavily criticised afterwards but you’ll always find this. There will always be someone to criticise when its all happened. You know. Especially if they weren’t there and they don’t know what it was like. I mean it must be terrible when when you read of say ten thousand people killed in a raid on Dresden. Innocent people. You know, women, children. But that was war. And they were doing just the same to us and I see, I feel very strongly that there should be no criticism. What’s war is war and you do what you’re told to do and this is what they did. So [pause]
AH: What was your friend Bish’s name? Your friend Bish. What was his name?
GL: It was John Bartlett. Yes. We all called him Bish. He was always known as Bish but the poor devil he got the doolally tap I think they called it. Which was Morse Madness. But he was a great friend and as I say very quiet. Being a southerner I think you know we got on very well. He was rather reserved but he’d have a drink or two and he’d just be a changed character. He’d come back and he’d throw people out of their beds, you know. Tip the bed over. Things like that. I couldn’t believe the things he got up to but he got away with it because he’d got this smile and [pause] strange really. But it got to him in the end. You know. The Morse madness and it was so sad that he lived through the war and then just died like that. In such a way. But it did happen to quite a few people apparently. It didn’t affect me at all but I know some were badly affected. And one of these days I’m going to buy myself a Morse key and see if I haven’t lost the touch. No. I know that Jock he he was being a Scotsman he admitted to me once, he said, ‘I can get, I get a bit aggressive when I’ve had a drink or two.’ You know. Och aye tha noo and all that. And we did have one or two skirmishes I remember in London but he said, he apologised afterwards, you know. He said, oh he said, ‘We’re buddies,’ he said, ‘Don’t mind me. This is me. That’s how I am.’ Anyway, he’s now happily married with four, four sons. He’s way ahead of me. And he married the girl he was, he wasn’t a Catholic then but he took conversion lessons to be a Catholic and that’s what he wanted. We used to pull his leg about it of course as you do. When you’re out with the lads. Because I’d met this Irish girl and I said it’s love at first sight. Red hair and blue eyes. A beautiful girl and well I put in the book there you know we went on the balcony of this hotel we were in and I went to kiss her and would you believe it I asked her permission? You know. Would you find this these days? It’s straight in you know. But I was so naïve with, with girls particularly and it was so [pause] Anyway she put me at my ease and we had a kiss and that was it. But we did we did keep in touch. But she married her boyfriend. One she’d known from the Catholic from early days. Are you recording this as well? Oh dear. [laughs] I wonder if I’ve said anything I shouldn’t have said. Anyway, I haven’t sworn. But do you find this of interest really? Is this all going in the permanent thing at Lincoln? Is it? So who will listen to this then I wonder.
Dublin Core
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Interview with Geoffrey Lenthall
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Anna Hoyles
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-04-01
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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ALenthallG160401
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Pending review
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01:19:10 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
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Geoffrey Lenthall was born in Nottinghamshire but spent most of his youth in Scunthorpe. He happily volunteered for aircrew but found himself working as ground personnel. He eventually trained as a wireless operator and was posted to 9 Squadron. He had a friend who suffered eventually from 'Morse madness' which led ultimately to a mental institution and an early death. After the war Geoffrey returned to banking and then to the fish markets and finally to the Lincolnshire Life magazine.
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Julie Williams
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
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1944-07
9 Squadron
aircrew
demobilisation
Dominie
entertainment
ground personnel
military discipline
military service conditions
Proctor
RAF Madley
training
V-1
V-weapon
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1053/11431/AOttawayM161121.2.mp3
d38c11a1b8b0125239c232cec6f51ab0
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Title
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Ottaway, Margaret
M Ottaway
Description
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An oral history interview with Margaret Ottaway MBE (b. 1933).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-21
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Ottaway, M
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AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Margaret Ottaway. The interview is taking place at Ms. Ottaway’s house in Louth, Lincolnshire, on the 21st November 2016. Can you tell me a bit about your childhood?
MO: I can. My mother and father were married before the First World War and they both grew up in Grimsby, Cleethorpes area and my father was one of twelve, and very poor and my mother was one of three and I don’t know why they came to Louth but they came to Louth, well, before I was born and before my late brother was born. But I think there were seven children and I am the sixth of seven. They lost two little boys, one when he was three, I think it was, and the other was three months and of course in those days there was no family allowance or help and of course the standard of the food was very poor and especially in a dock town and so my parents had that to cope with and I don’t know how they coped with it really, they came to Louth and then there was my brother who was seven years older than me, my sister was ten years older than me and I had a brother who was five years older than me and then we had a little sister, Prue, I don’t know when, a long, long time ago now we found out that she was Down syndrome and you can look at the photograph and see she was and we came to live in Louth and they lived in several houses before we lived on the top of Grimsby Road and the A16 as it was and when I was a little girl was a semi-detached house and of course there was not the population and there wasn’t the traffic and there weren’t the dangers even though it was wartime, as a child, you know, and I was always, had this outgoing attitude, I must have had because I can remember going into nearly all the houses both sides of the road, my younger sister didn’t come with me very often but she did come to some of the houses and you know, when you are a child, if you have a community, you are very cherished and I’ve realised that obviously more as I got older cause I love children and I’ve always loved children but anyway, oh, I know my father was in the army although because of his health he actually was registered in the army for a very short time I have some information about that and my mother was, worked in the Toc H in Louth and there were three houses and my maternal grandma who lived in Cleethorpes and was killed with my mum eventually, she spent a lot of time in our house because there was always sowing jobs to do and she used to make dresses for us and all that sort of thing, so my mother didn’t work and we always had a cleaning lady, some lovely cleaning ladies and one is still alive now and we had a very happy childhood from what I can remember, I know my brother who was five years older than me, he was always aggravating me and my older brother that by that time he’d gone into the RAF and in 1941 he was in [unclear] down in Bedfordshire but they were always at me, like big brothers are but I think it’s been a really good training because then of course my father started with a, in the 1920s with one lorry which was solid tyres which of course I’m drawing off and I got a photograph of, that’s a thing I must say, it’s staggering, we all know when photography started, well, I don’t know the exact year, but you know, it’s all these photographs, they are so important, and it’s alright having things on gadgets like computers but they can be wiped off and the hard copies that I am about to show you, it’s amazing, anyway my father started with one lorry and by the time I was around, there were about thirty, which is a photograph over there, and so he had thirty drivers and his business yard at the time was down in what is now Church Street, opposite the bus station but it was called Maiden Road and it was, I can see it now, because as a child, you know, you did lots of exciting things, really, like children do today but a totally different scale. But we had, always had this cleaning lady, the one we had at the time, she had brothers and they either had a small holding across the road, at the top of Grimsby Road, or they were, her father was a farm worker, of course we had a big farm at the back of us, relatively big not like today, called Howard’s, Mr and Ms, Howard and then we had Fanthorpe Lane, which is still there, but it’s dissected by the bypass and I used to go down there to take Sunday papers to this family called [unclear] and this family is been established a long while and people have said to me, in some of the things I’ve done in my life, the stability of families in an area like this does contribute to the community spirit that people that are strangers say, there is, I know there’s a community spirit but they feel it when they come in, so I’m very lucky because I have all sorts of proof about what happened to me because I didn’t know what happened to me except that my godparents were from King’s Lynn and they used to come and stay, we only had three bedrooms and we had, you know, Len, Darcy, John, Margret and Mary and mum and dad, so where we all slept I don’t know, we also had an air raid shelter, cause my father having thirty lorries was a very wealthy man for the time and but the family had a phone call from my auntie in Grimsby to say they were coming over for tea on Sunday afternoon, because one of her brother-in-law’s got a gallon of petrol from the army, that was a fatal thing to do, I can tell you, so they came from Grimsby and there was my auntie Violet, my uncle Walt, Genie, who was five as far as I know, and my uncle’s brother and his wife, they came in this, in the car and parked outside and they stopped for tea, usually one of my sister’s best friends used to come up to the house to keep me, to see my mum as well and my elder brother’s girlfriend used to come, when, if there’s anything on the siren, to keep my mum company and with the children, you see, on this occasion, because they knew the Grimsby family was coming for tea, they didn’t come, so they were all getting ready to get back to Grimsby, according to my late brother, who was in the house and he was upstairs, we were, for whatever reason, downstairs, my sister, my cousin and myself, we’d been put to bed downstairs in the front room, obviously we couldn’t all get into the air raid shelter, but I had no proof of why we didn’t go in but I assume it’s because of too many and as soon as the siren went, my father got his uniform on as a special constable and together with another lady called Ivy Platt who was very, very deaf and who was, the Platt family were big friends with my father’s, even when I was a little girl of four, [unclear] the photograph there and I don’t know how long they’d been friends but I think Ms Platt’s husband probably got into some financial difficulties, he was a grocer in Louth just up the road from where we are now and my sister Dorothy was an air raid warden at seventeen so they went down into the town, they took Ivy to her mum’s, Ms Platt and then dad went on duty and my sister went on duty with the air raid wardens cause they had different areas that they did, I mean, I don’t know cause I never asked her you see, you don’t ask [unclear] and I have all the records and just exactly what the gentlemen wrote Mr [unclear] that roughly it gives the time, it’s the official document, give the time, two screaming bombs were dropped on Louth at the top, at Grimsby Road, we don’t know exactly where but later found out it had dropped on a house and people were killed and injured, we later found out, seven were injured, seven were killed in that incident, we later found out that it was A W Jaines, Arthur Jaines, a special constable, it landed at his house so he’s lost with his daughter who was an air raid warden, fellow air raid warden, they lost seven of their kin and the seventh one was actually the lady who was visiting her daughter next door. And all I can remember is being aware that I was under rubble, trapped in rubble and that’s all I was aware of, you know, then I heard a drill and then I remember very little about being actually rescued and then the next thing I remember is being in one of the either the Toc H houses or the red cross places and you know those little beakers they used to drink out of, with the little spouts, I’ve got an example upstairs. Well, I can remember being offered that and a seven year old, as I say, I must emphasize this, you weren’t like you are today, are today, and I remember the atmosphere in that place, and there was someone brought in on the stretcher, now I obviously don’t know and I’ve never investigated it if it would be one of our family because of course it’s not far from the top of Grimsby Road to the hospital and then, so I don’t know about that, I do know that my brother who died last year, John, who was thirteen, I do know that he went somehow, my father wasn’t allowed to go up to Grimsby Road, which he wanted to do, and obviously my sister would be with him, and they went to Ms Platt’s because Connie was a red cross nurse although she was only seventeen and she was engaged to a police officer and so their home became a sort of centre for my dad and my sister and they had one of those metal shelters under their table cause they lived behind the shop and the shop, you know, is packed with things and they have this metal table and my, Ivy was also under the table and I have a tape where my Ms Connie who became my step aunt, she recorded it with her son cause I kept saying to her, why don’t you write it down? Cause I think, because she was seventeen, and far more aware, she couldn’t face writing it down, so her son, who’s, I think he’s retired now, but he has two chairs at the university, I think one was Cardiff, and I’ve been meaning to speak to him about it really, but anyway, so I also remember, going to my, being taken, I don’t know who took me but to my uncle’s house on Brackenborough Road, just near the post office on Brackenborough because my, a lot of my cousins of my generation have all died and with my father being one of twelve, some of the family came here, four of them came to live here because my father was here, and the others stayed in Grimsby so we’ve like two families. And my cousin who died several years ago now, she often used to tease me, she said, when you came that night, she said, it was about midnight I think, and you got into my bed and it was just like sleeping in a bed where you’ve been eating biscuits, that’ll be of ruttle, wasn’t it? And she said, I remember when you went to the lavatory, it was all lino in those days, the grit fell out of your trousers and she used to tease me about that but I, the next day I went to live at [unclear], uhm, I don’t remember being taken there, I think I must have been in shock, you know, and I think I was traumatised and people have said different things but I went to live with this family called John and Ethel Clark and they had a daughter, Beryl, who was a bit older than me and a son called Jim who was a bit younger and the [unclear] school I went to it has a church and it has a big house and we were in the big house, her mum and dad lived there and John Clark’s younger brother Henry lived there and they had cows of course and gas man and the village at the time had a school, a church, and you used to have and walk up cause it was very deep in the Wolds you’d have to walk up, and there’s a museum out there now, with farm machinery and a smith’s family lived there and a railway line runs through there and I can remember, I never seem to be unhappy, I don’t remember being unhappy there, Jim used to tease us a bit but I those days they used to raise money for the prisoner of war parcels and there was a big barn of course and had garden [unclear] and things like that and we went to church [phone rings]
AH: I just switch off.
MO: We always used to walk up to catch the bus at the top cause there’s several [unclear] you know, they’re all the same but if you look at a map you will see from Louth you can go several ways up to the Bluestone Heath Road, which is one of the longest roads, from, you can go from the Lincoln Road right through to the, if you were going to Alford and Skegness and we used to stand at the top there and it was chalk, you know, and it was freezing cold and things like that and then we used to go and I was sent by Ms Clark, bless her little heart, she was a very, very old fashioned lady and it was one of the best things she could have done for me, because I went in the, what they called the kinder garden which, if you walked down Schoolhouse Lane, and facing you is Suffolk House and it says, I think it’s three or even four stories high and then there’s the cellar, and that was where I went to school and I never achieved anything in exams or anything like but I did use to, but it obviously affected me and my teacher, who was a, taught scriptures as we called it and she became the first major of Louth, she would, she’d died unfortunately, her partner, lady partner, she knew me as the major of Louth, but it was amazing really what influence that school has been and still is because I’m still involved with it now all these years on. Anyway, I had a really happy time there, I used to go on the back with the big carthorse and the, you know, the all sorts of different carts on, and we used to, I used to go with Henry, I don’t know how Henry would be now, must ask his son cause his son’s living in Louth now, and I used to go and take the food with him and I was with them from September about the 9th until after Christmas because my dad, of course there was no house left, and we went to, dad lived at Ms Platt’s I think, just along the road here, and my sister, and we were all scattered really, but I don’t ever remember anybody saying to me, I remember one day when I was in the car with Mr Clark, he always had lovely cars and Mrs Clark was very old fashioned really and he was a bit of a lad I’ll have to say [unclear] my dad could have been as well, as most dads are, although not yours of course, and I don’t know why but I just feel that he might have, I might have been with him when the funeral was on cause obviously I wasn’t involved in that and I never asked my brother whether he was but it’ll be, I’ve got the list of the funeral of mourners and everything so that’s another thing we can, I can look at, but about, be about I think three months and then we moved up into a house just opposite the catholic church, in Upgate, they are very big houses those, and because my father had all these workmen, he had one chap called Sid Day, and Sid could do anything, he was actually like the yardman for my dad and his wife, they lived down in Upgate, they’ve widened the road now, [unclear] flow, you go up, there’s no garden and you go up the side of the house and it was all, there was no car pits or anything and it was like a room, but it wasn’t a room, it was more like a big shed but it was within the house, you see, and then you’d go into the kitchen, and then there was a front room which we hardly ever used and she had a big family and there were three girls and four boys I think, and there was a grandma was always there, but they used to babysit me and I used to wander about, you know, a seven year old, I used to go with my dad, seven year old children in my day, you didn’t and if dad happened to be in the Masons Arms, I was allowed in but girls weren’t even allowed in pubs, children, you see, so I’ve had a very different life from any other child at that age and I think that’s why I’ve got so much confidence you see and the other thing is I’m an avid cook and baker, all normal, ordinary stuff, and I can make meringues, I can make lemon meringue but I’m not into this, all this fancy stuff and Mrs Platt had a big kitchen and we all met up in there, cause of course there was a range and it was behind the shop, behind where they weighed all the soutanes and you know, I had a wonderful childhood and lots of love and still do have love from those families, especially my stepfamily and my dad’s friends, you know, four generations on. And not many people can say that, but I do get on people’s noses and I think it’s, my attitude is that bloody Hitler didn’t get me and nobody else did and I had to be tough, I had to be tough, anyway I obviously went to school, I was at Kidgate school but I was very independent and I can remember my, the cousin that I slept with that first night, she had an older sister called Pam and we decided, I should think Pam decided and I was well for it before the bombing that we would cycle to Grimsby and see our granny who lived on [unclear] Road and so, we didn’t tell anybody, and I had a fairy cycle and she would have one a bit bigger and I can remember doing that as if it was yesterday and we stopped at a house for a drink of water as you do, when we arrived at granny Jane’s, she was a very different cup of tea from my other granny, granny Walt, who was killed, we got told off and she rang my dad and we put on the bus and sent back. Now my cousin that I stayed the night with, on the night of the bombing, she actually married a German prisoner of war, which of course upset my father and, but he was a lovely man, much better than the one that Pam married, but I was sent, as I say, to the girls grammar school when I was seven and I went through the school until I was sixteen but I don’t think I got any qualifications, I don’t remember getting any qualifications, and so I left at, well, of course, and years later none of my brothers really encompassed education. Fortunately they’ve had sensible mothers but my father by this time had married Ivy Platt who was a lovely, lovely stepmother, she didn’t have a lot of maternal things with her son but my father was going to be the major when Michael was eighteen months old and so I was, well, I was told that I, cause I loved him anyway, so I looked after Michael so I didn’t go to work and then when the [unclear] was over, I decided I was going to go on work, I decided, I really wanted to be a [unclear] nanny but my father wouldn’t pay, it wasn’t that he couldn’t pay but he wouldn’t pay and probably didn’t want me to go away cause I always have felt for many, many years that I thought my father was protecting me, see, in actual fact, I’ve realized I’m the one that supports everybody else, I’m the tough one. And because I was always with my father and he died when I was twenty four of cancer but he was a very kind man, he was beneficiary to this little hospital, Crowtree Lane hospital, and St Margret’s children home, children’s home and with a group of the business men of the town, you know, they all and of course the war effort, Louth was an amazing place for raising money, you know, and all the railings were cut down and there was concerts in the town hall and it was, you know, I think that’s why I am like I am because there was so many good influences around, had plenty of bad ones but I’m four and [unclear] [laughs] but it was, it was very hard because I wanted to get a job and I went to the international stalls and made an arrangement to see the manager and my father found out and, oh, he was crossed, he was furious, you are not going to work behind a shop counter! If only he knew the things I’ve done to earn money since he died [laughs]. Anyway, I got a job at the Louth district hospital and, as receptionist, and it was five pounds an hour for forty eight hours and we lived at the time back up Grimsby road in a different house and when Michael was born, we actually lived at the house which is called Mount St Mary’s at the bottom of Grimsby Road where you go over the river lodge and where the floods came down in the twenties and then in 2007 and it’s next to the old cemetery and we lived there and then my father’s insurance man didn’t tell the whole truth about licencing and my father had to go to the high court in London, cause I was not really aware of all this, and he was fined fifteen thousand pounds and so he had to sell the house where Michael was born and we went up to Grimsby Road, so but, you know, my father had a rough time and then in the nineteen late forties, early fifties, the Labour government nationalized all [unclear] so, you know, we had no choice, and it broke his heart, broke his heart it did, cause you know, it was his baby, he did actually start another business for a short time but it wasn’t long, he died when he was sixty two. So that takes me as far as me getting married. I don’t know whether I’m telling you what you want to know or if you want to see some of the photographs of the bombing.
AH: I do in a bit but if you carry on.
MO: Right. Well, my late husband was a watch repairer and he used to park his car near the mount near the [unclear] saw him on a regular basis, you see, and so we started to go out a bit cause in those days you weren’t, you didn’t walk in and say to your parents, oh well, so and so has invited me out so I am going, there’s none of that, and so we used to go very regularly to Grimsby to the cinema or Cleethorpes and then to the lovely hotel called Kingsway for afternoon tea and believe you me, if you ever get a young man like that, enjoy it, because if you get married to him, it’ll all stop [laughs] but he was a gentleman, oh, he really, really was, he was often late, he was very casual about his business and at that time he’d been in the RAF, it never occurred to me that he was a lot older than me, he was actually twenty years older than me and he lived with his mother, his widowed mother in Alford, but he also had through his uncle a huge interest, which he was aware of, when they went fishing in a boat up where Bempton Cliffs is, in that area, and he was taken by all the birds and his uncle was interested mildly but anyway he had been in the RAF conscripted, he could have stayed at home and looked after the shop that they had in his, when his father died, this was before I knew him and he decided he didn’t want to do the shop, he was never interested in being a jeweller in a watch repairer but he’d done the training, eight years he was training at Lincoln at Mannsell’s and I have a letter from his father telling him really to pull his finger out and anyway he, at that time he was friendly with people obviously in Alford and they were starting the Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve and he is one of the people that started it, Charles Lenton Ottaway and a lot of the memorabilia that they sent down there after my husband died of course was washed away in the floods, I’ve never been back but we got engaged down there and he was a gentleman of the top order, he really was and we had a lovely wedding and then, as I say, we were living with his mum, he had a sister who didn’t like me apparently, there’s a surprise but I was shocked the letters she wrote to me four years after my husband had died and I looked after her mum for twenty five years, not all the time, but you know, and she was in a nursing home for ten and died when she was ninety six. You get lots of things like that, you know, you do your best and then I think my sister in law never got over the loss of the father when she was eight, it was very bitter and I don’t, I know that when I was twenty two I remember when we had, we moved from here cause we needed another bedroom but kept the shop and I remember thinking, what sort of woman do I want to be? And I decided that I didn’t want to be one that was a bit of a like [unclear] floozy, I wanted to be a proper mother and wife and cook and do and the lady across the road that, her husband used to be a partner of Eve & Ranshaw’s she, I’d known her all my life cause my sister went there to work when she was fourteen I think and if the children were poorly, she would come across and or if she was poorly needed some shopping I would do it and that’s who really, that sort of person is what I wanted to be and I’m not a warrior and I’ve learned over the years that you have to accept some things that happen to you and you don’t have to respond to people unkind to you, you feel sorry for them, I have a huge faith, I am grateful that I married my husband because he brought intellect, no common sense, I’ve got the common sense and no, hadn’t done the intellect got a bit now with the years and a lovely community with my mum and dad and the families that have been so lovely to me and still are, so that’s on the school. The school, my faith, my husband and my family and community and those are the four things that have stood me in good stead really and I am still very motivated, you know, I like to know, [unclear] my finger on the pulse, I get muddled [laughs], I went to put the milk, [unclear] with the milk just this afternoon, I thought you silly woman, you know, you, I was just tiding up I think and I put it in the cupboard, that’s right, where I bought the new porridge to put it [laughs], yes, but the extraordinary thing about the bombs dropping, there were two bombs dropped in February, February the 19th, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, 1941, and they were aimed at the railway station and I really just started to research the names on the memorial although I knew some of them, over the years I’ve known some of them, and the bombs seemed to roll, or one of them did, so it damaged the railway station and it killed a boy who was a grammar school boy and his father was a vicar, and when you walk down Eastgate, past Morrison’s, you come to, you can just see some of the railway bridge and he lived, they lived on, in a smooth brick house which is now for adults with learning difficulties and that’s, I could tell you, I don’t know if it’s [unclear] but the name is still the same and he and his friend had come home from the grammar school and he was a messenger boy, on a bike he used to that and he, his mother sent his friend home who lived across the road, he was from Grimsby really but their family had been evacuated from Grimsby to Louth and his father was a major in the army and he was under the kitchen sink. Now I think the kitchen sink would be like one I got out there now, an oblong of thick porcelain I’ll call it, you know, not, and he was killed and he was sixteen, another lady, there were two or three names on the war memorial where people were injured elsewhere and then died in Louth hospital, that’s why [unclear] war memorial. It’s all very fascinating, it’s all in paperwork I have but it was a obviously it’s, it doesn’t leave you and because of the way my life has gone and it’s now, you know, there’s lots of lovely people, I mean, this picture here, his name is Drewery who has hedgehog care and her daughter is Swing Out Sister, the lead singer in Swing Out Sister and she’s been a jazz singer and she, when I became the major, which was a huge honour, she send me a card and said that she liked and tried to paint a portrait, could I send her a picture of the, of me in the roads with a nice expression. And it’s on hardboard [laughs] and she brought it in one day, to see if I liked, if I was alright, just, if you don’t like it, you know, just put your plants on it, it’s lovely, I think, and I haven’t really realised because I don’t do things for attention, I really, really don’t but I know and a friend said to me yesterday a lady not, she’s older than me, and of course they still remember they’d been in Louth and she said, you’ve done so much for Louth, and everybody is always telling me that, cross with me now because I don’t ask them to do things for me now, but I didn’t realize I was doing it, you see, I was interfering really, I think it’s an interfering busybody, that’s what I am [laughs]. Yeah, if I was to go out and down the passage and see you off and somebody was mouthing off a lot of language, I’d be shouting, I shout out the window in the middle of the night, they wake me up, you know, I’m not scared of anything but mice, I put my grandchildren, my son thinks it’s hilarious, they really do but I’m so grateful that all these things here, you know, there was an exhibition in March in the museum and without people and then here’s an example, this is a letter, I was just tell you this because nowhere or I think only once have I seen my name mentioned in any of the newspaper accounts, the newspaper accounts they don’t say in Louth, in Lincolnshire, they say an eastern market town and G W Clark actually became my step uncle but at the time he was a nineteen year old police officer, he was engaged to Connie Platt and there was a mix up with bodies and because he was a family friend, which obviously he was because Connie isn’t on there and [unclear] isn’t on there but the little girl that I said was Margaret next to me with more hair than me, her mum is just behind her and she was Connie’s elder sister and Ivy was Connie’s elder sister as well, Connie was the youngest of four girls and two boys but this was sent to Bill although it’s G W Clark, Imperial War Graves, 21st of October 1941, Dear Sir, I have to thank you for returning the forms which was sent to you and for the information contained in your letter of the 15th, a form in respect of the late Ms Ward was sent to you with the other forms but apparently had gone stray I’m enclosing another form and would appreciate it if you would kindly complete it and return it to me. Your assumption, that Roland Hallett’s name will be included in the record of his Majesty’s forces is correct. Well, Roland was the brother of my uncle Walt. And it says, yours faithfully, G W Clark, which is really P C Clark, one of their [unclear], now the tape I’ve got, it’s not all as I have been told, you know, she was only seventeen and she brought this copy of this tape and she sat where you’re sitting, and I think I was sat here and she said, I thought it would be nice if we listened to that together, well, I didn’t want to do that, I really, really didn’t, cause I couldn’t say no, so we had a coffee and after the tape had run, I said to her, Connie, is there mentioned in all the press cuttings I’ve got, about why I survived when Mary and Genie didn’t? We were all in the same, if we weren’t in the bedroom we started, we obviously were very close, so she said to me, do you really want to know? And I said, I do, and of course it wouldn’t be easy for her to tell me she said, well, when Bill was sent, well, he went up there obviously because it is all much more casual then it is now, and I mean the whole, the area, there were a lot of people injured and as I say, Howard’s farm, one bomb dropped in the field just on our hedge and then the other one dropped just outside our back door as our two uncles were getting ready, getting the car revved up and ready to go back to Grimsby and so they took the full force, you see, my auntie Violet, who lost her husband and her daughter, she was trapped in the house and it was, you sort of went in and I think there must have been a sink there but it was arranged like [unclear] and she somehow was blown into the fireplace and a police officer was given an award, he’s only been dead a few years now, and he got a commendation for rescuing us, he was very seriously injured, so she said, do you really want to know? I said, yes, so she said, well, they got Genie out and Mary out and they were going to get, and they got to you and they thought you were dead as well and they protected me so that was a bit hard, really. But if it hadn’t been for Bill being there, and you see, because Mary’s name began with M, but on one of the paper cuttings it does say Margaret, but it’s only one. But so what you just have to think that you, I’m driven, I’m absolutely driven, I won’t say I hate being old because, I mean, that’s something that we all get to be, but I hate it that I can’t do and interfere [laughs], some of my fellow counsellors which I drop off the perch [laughs], they’ve had it [laughs], that’s where the, this house wasn’t there then, there was another bungalow and that’s, they were very seriously injured in there and this is the rebuild, and it’s not 32 now, it is a different number, but that was the site and I’m not quite sure what to do about some of these because, was trying to find the house, and that’s the back of the house
AH: Oh Gosh!
MO: And this is not our house, that’ the neighbours, and if you look, this picture here is a bigger one, if you look at these, the window here and our house is here, and this would have been taken down, our house, our remains would have been taken down because it wouldn’t be safe.
AH: No.
MO: Because my brother was upstairs in all this and so, it wasn’t quite as flattened as that, but that shows you, doesn’t it?
AH: This is completely gone.
MO: And my brother, when he went to, cause Connie was a very regular visitor, I think she got a red cross uniform on, went round to the red cross, that’s right, and John was there and so on the recording, I’ll lend you the recording, I’m a bit loathed to do it but you’ll look after it, won’t you?
AH: Yeah.
MO: And it’s about half an hour long and it’s very moving, it’s not exactly as I‘ve been told but Connie was very, very fond of my mum and when my dad married Ivy and then Ivy died, she, I was fifty, nearly fifty when Ivy died, and people loved to tell you, but of course your father was carrying on with Ivy, I’m not saying that he was, cause I’ve said already, my dad was quite, cause Ivy couldn’t hear, she was stone deaf and she couldn’t get a job very easily so dad let her work at the office and eventually when she married dad, she had the first, really, the first hearing aid in the town and it was, if you have a hand bag that’s like that, you know, one of those old fashioned sort of handbags and the batteries were in there and hearing aids were sort of very, very rare, by the time she, Amplifops it was called, by the time she died, she had these little hearing aids, but I mean she was always with us, always, and she wasn’t , you know, she wasn’t like some of these, you know, when we get themselves dressed up now, cause the young women got themselves dressed up with all the heavy lipstick, so that’s come back, hasn’t it? But the whole family, and I am still in touch with my cousin Margaret and my cousin Anthony, his mum and dad were in the RAF at the time, and I met him and his wife in Lincoln for lunch not long time ago, yeah, so it’s been lovely, but I’ll, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll let you take the tape, now I’ll just show you this, and you’ll see on here, these are the ones that were killed and these are the ones that were injured and some of them, this is all on the night of the September the 7th, you see, it’s amazing, I knew this chap, this is Steven, he was a police superintendent I think,
AH: And this, what’s this? Were they aiming at Louth, do you know?
MO: No, that’s the next piece of, oh, here is one, no incident in area d, that we all did a quick dive for the floor as two bombs streamed down over the town, we could not make out where they had fallen at the time but found later that they had dropped on the Grimsby road, regret seven people were killed and others seriously injured, we express our deepest sympathy to A W Jaines special and D Jaines fellow warden in their bereavement, six members of the family were killed, now there’s
AH: You read that, sorry.
MO: My uncle Walt, he was my, he became my uncle Walt, come in!
AH: Just put on pause.
US: Hi!
MO: When, I’ve been so lucky to get all these cuttings from people and this is a copy of the cutting I got, I think from my auntie Connie, a sympathetic note, I find it difficult to express here in these simple notes the sympathy we all are feeling today for Mr A W Jaines and his family in the tragic loss they have sustained. Ms Jaines was a canteen leader in the second talvert house, she gave herself on sparing [unclear] for this work, and her cheerfulness was an inspiration to us all, it was only three days ago that I was with her at the second house and it is difficult to believe she has passed on. She gave her time to us knowing that other mothers were doing the same for her son who was serving, to all who are bereaved and to the sick and sorry I send these lines hoping they might be of some help in the difficult days in which they are passing. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. And I put, added, one died on the September the 7th 1941. And this tribute was written on the 10th of September 1941. Now, to not have a [unclear], and know, because everybody’s told me, and I mean, the cleaning ladies we had, they’ve all said the same thing, and the funny thing is, the most amazing thing to me and I must give her a ring because I haven’t heard from her, when my mum and dad’s friend was Mrs Whitfield, the one on the left there, holding a little boy, when our mother was killed, my sister Dorothy obviously, well, through dad as well I suppose, used to keep in touch with her, and of course when Dorothy died, I took it up and Mrs Whitfield’s now died so I’m in touch with one of her girls, it’s on that photograph, we’ve been corresponding as families all these years, and her father used to work for Vickers, Vickers aircraft in Newcastle and I thought he was in the army but he wasn’t and this is only coming out recently cause one of her sisters, she was called Evelyn and I’m in touch with her, one of her sisters is called Daphne and my daughter, Linda, was named after Linda Lorden Smith, very elderly lady who used to live in Upgate, and my husband used to do her clocks for her and everything and so when we had Linda, I said, why don’t we call her Linda? Well, Linda’s daughter, Linda Lorden’s daughter died and I remember, Mrs Lorden’s was saying to me that the girl, the lady that used to help her, named one of her daughters after Daphne, Daphne was in her nineties, so I was saying to Evelyn on the phone, I said, cause they’ve bene to see me and her mum must have been born round her but I haven’t quite found out her maiden name, and she came, they came, two of the girls came and stayed in a B&B and went visiting people that they were connected to down on the coast but I never twigged that she’d worked for my mother and it was only a matter of two, three months ago, I said something about, cause her surname, her maiden name is Whitfield, and so she said, my mother used to work for somebody called Jaines, cause she hadn’t twigged either that that was my name [laughs], I said, you’re joking, she said, oh no, and you see, we’ve always sort of picked a lot up as we went along, she went to work for a lady, this Mrs Whitfield, went to work for a lady before she was married, down on the coast and she was a maiden lady and she had two little girls and it was Ms Measures that she worked for and we, Evelyn doesn’t know anything about Ms Measures, so I’m trying to research Ms Measures cause she was horrible to their mum and that’s all come through I think through my sister to me, cause I can’t remember where I’ve heard that, but I wouldn’t make that up and so my mum and Evelyn said that this lady wasn’t very nice to her mum and so that’s why she was working for my mum. And so that tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Now you see, I don’t think for one minute, my, Ivy’s son, Michael will know all about that, he knows all about dad cause he bores everybody to death with it, cause dad was a very, very successful man for his days but I met him the other day, I was with a couple, Michael that is and he just come out of the solicitors, but I was walking arm in arm cause it’s going up a sloop right Rosemary Lane, it’s not much and I, we are only acquaintances really but we are friends if you know what I mean, and then Michael came out the office, he didn’t look down, he just, so I said [unclear] and he turned round and he came back, he never does that, and said, these are friends of mine, that spent half the time in France and half here, so he says, l alright, I said, this is my brother, he says, hallo, he said, I don’t suppose you knew that dad walked down here and walked into the wall cause it’s an adjacent, there’s as wall that sticks out and then you go down a bit and then there’s another wall and he was a special and he had glasses you see and he liked his whiskey and so I said, no, I don’t think I did know that, oh alright and then off he went [laughs], our niece who lives opposite the Brown Cow, where Michael drinks now with his partner, she said, she came in on Saturday and she said, he never says anything, when I walk to the pub which, they don’t go in as much as Michael, he says something to her about dad every time, he’s so boring [laughs]. Anyway there’s plenty more for you to go at, has it given you something to start with?
AH: Yes, that’s lovely, thank you. What’s your date of birth?
MO: My date is the 25th of the 6th ’33.
AH: Thank you.
MO: And I’m lovely with it. Now if you’d like to.
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 Margaret Ottaway
Creator
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Anna Hoyles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AOttawayM161121
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:58:49 audio recording
Language
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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
Description
An account of the resource
Margaret Ottaway lived in Louth, the sixth of seven children, and tells of her childhood there. Tells of an air raid shelter they had in the house. Witnessed, as a seven year old, an enemy air raid on 19 February 1941, which caused damage and casualties and gives a vivid account of it. Tells of herself being buried in rubble and discovering many years later how she survived the bombing, unlike her sisters. Tells of her family: her father a special constable and a business man, a seventeen year old sister serving as an air raid warden. Talks about her marriage and her husband, a watchmaker who was among the establishers of Gibraltar Point Natural Reserve. Tells of a memorial dedicated to the victims of the air raid.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Louth
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-02-19
Air Raid Precautions
bombing
childhood in wartime
civil defence
home front
memorial
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1248/16389/PDavisEF1801.2.jpg
b85b6b11f391604c1d7e496714df3c07
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Davis, Elsie
E F Davis
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Elsie Davis (b.1918).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-07-15
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Davis, EF
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 Elsie Davis
Description
An account of the resource
Elsie Davis was raised in Balham by her mother after her father died when she was a child. She worked in a factory and then at the start of the war she went to work on the buses as a conductress because it was a Reserved Occupation. She witnessed bodies being brought out of bombed out houses on an almost daily basis. She accepted rations and difficulties as just something you got through.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anna Hoyles
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
2018-07-15
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ADavisEF180715, PDavisEF1801
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Format
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00:40:45 audio recording
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
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
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
bombing
home front