Browse Items (15 total)
- Creator is exactly "Chris Johnson"
Sort by:
Interview with Arthur Hulyer
Arthur Hulyer talks about his experience in the RAF. Remembers working in an engineering firm before joining the Air Force. Tells of how he trained to become a pilot. He was sent to America, for pilot training in Oklahoma, but then ended up as a…
Interview with Arthur Peter Smith
Peter Smith was born in Kent and attended school until he was 14. He started working for a woodwork shop and when the war began, they started building army huts. In 1941 he joined the Air Cadets. He recalls how one Sunday he and a friend saw an…
Interview with Colin Deverell
Colin Deverell was born in Croydon. Upon leaving school, he worked for Oliver Typewriter Company, where he gained engineering skills to become an amateur rigger for Imperial Airways, before finding employment with Rollaston Aircraft Services in 1939.…
Interview with Cyril Henry Bridges
Cyril Henry Bridges was born in Ramsgate and served as a flight engineer in the RAF. He tells of his father, a deep-sea fisherman, who fought in the First World War and later helped evacuate troops from Dunkirk. Remembers his early life, taking on…
Interview with Doug Packman
Doug grew up in Kent. He joined the Royal Air Force at 18, as a flight engineer for 630 Squadron at RAF East Kirkby in 5 Group Bomber Command, flying Lancasters. He carried out 34 operations, followed by time as an instructor at RAF Syerston,…
Interview with Edward John Smith
Edward served on 90 Squadron as a rear gunner. Born in 1925 on the Isle of Sheppey, he was employed as a butcher’s boy at the outbreak of the war. Evenings were spent fire watching, for which he received a small wage from the council. He became a…
Interview with Gerald Joseph Abrahams
Gerald Abrahams was sixteen when war was declared. He volunteered for the RAF the day after the Armstrong Vickers factory where he worked was targeted by the Luftwaffe who bombed the local school resulting in the deaths of many children. He trained…
Interview with Henry Leslie Shackleton
Henry Shackleton listened to Chamberlain’s speech on the radio and hoped to be a Spitfire pilot. He began his training and was selected as a flying instructor and was posted to Canada. On his return to the UK he was posted to his operational…
Interview with Jack Delfosse
Jack was born in London and went to Highgate School where he learnt navigation, Morse code and marching. On leaving he became a medical student but left half way through the course. He then joined the Royal Air Force and initially trained on Harvards…
Interview with Jack Edward Simmonds
Jack Simmonds was the son of an RAF serviceman. As a result his childhood was spent moving around a great deal including a few years in Egypt. He joined the RAF and began training as a pilot. He joined 51 Squadron as a Whitley pilot at RAF Dishforth…
Interview with John Harry Waye
John Waye grew up in London. He was ten years old when he was hospitalised with diphtheria. When he was discharged he discovered his mother had died while he had been in hospital. John was working in the retail trade and was in the ATC before he…
Interview with Joseph Henry Cook
Completing school and moving on to work at 20th Century Fox Films, he worked as a fire watcher at the beginning of the war before joining the Royal Air Force. He states that he did that because he always wanted to fly and didn’t want to join the…
Interview with Margaret Sinclair Longmate
Margaret Longmate from Edinburgh came from a family with long links to the RAF. Her uncle had been in the Flying Corps in the First World War and various other friends and family joined the service during the Second World War. Therefore, it seemed…
Interview with Thomas Edward Noton
Thomas Edward Noton was born in Greenwich on the 4th of April 1923. Upon leaving school he began a toolmaking apprenticeship, however, before finishing the course, Noton decided to join the Royal Air Force at the age of eighteen. He explains why he…