Browse Items (59 total)
- Creator is exactly "David Kavanagh"
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Interview with Ken Fawcett
Ken Fawcett worked for the Post Office and served in the Home Guard for two and a half years having signed up at sixteen. He joined the Royal Air Force at Lords Cricket Ground in September 1943. He initially requested pilot training but realising the…
Interview with Ralph Freeman
Ralph Freeman volunteered for the RAF in 1942. He began initial training in March 1943 and was posted to Manitoba in October, where he qualified as a pilot after training on Cornells and Ansons. Upon returning to Great Britain, Freeman was remustered…
Interview with Elaine Green
Elaine’s uncle worked as an armourer in RAF Scampton. He first joined the Royal Flying Corps before the organisation was renamed the RAF. He worked with Barnes Wallis at the time of the design of the bouncing bomb. He sustained an injury which the…
Interview with Marian Hollier
Marion Hollier served as a wireless operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force from February 1944 to September 1946. Before the war she worked in a construction firm, The George Wimpey Company, which built aerodromes. She learned the Morse code in…
Interview with Jack Linaker
Jack Linaker was working in a reserved occupation as a steelworker before volunteering to join the RAF. He was originally told he would be trained as a flight engineer but as delays were frustrating he began training as a rear gunner. He joined 9…
Interview with Peter Lovatt
Peter enrolled in the Air Training Corp before joining the Royal Air Force. He went to Walney Island, the Air Gunnery School, and was given the option of becoming a Bevin Boy or an air gunner choosing the latter. Following training on Ansons he…
Interview with Louis Makens
Louis Makens worked as a farm worker before the war but volunteered for aircrew. He discusses his training on Wellingtons and operations flying Stirlings with 196 Squadron including a crash landing, and glider towing. His Halifax was shot down 18/19…
Interview with Harold Mercer
Harold Mercer served in the RAF initially as a transport driver and then trained to become an air gunner. He worked as a milkman before being called up in April 1942. Was sent to Weston-super-Mare, where he played in the military band. Was then sent…
Interview with Bruce Minnitt
Bruce Minnitt served in the Second World War flying Wellingtons on maritime reconnaissance in the Mediterranean and B-24s in India. When war started Bruce joined the Home Guard, and in 1941 when reaching 18 years of age, he enlisted in the Royal Air…
Interview with Ken Oatley
Initially too young to enlist at the outbreak of war, Ken Oatley served in the Home Guard until he was able to enlist in October 1940, when after initial training he undertook pilot training. After basic flying training he went onto Canada training…
Interview with Taff Owen
Aneurin ‘Taff’ Owen was born neat Dolgellau, near Penmaenpool in Wales, and joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 18 in 1942. Taff was a farmer’s son and as such was put into a reserved occupation, so some of the areas of the Royal Air Force…
Interview with Ray Parke. One
Ray Parke worked on the railway before joining the RAF in 1943. Remembers flying forty operations as a flight engineer with 218 Squadron by the time he was twenty. Tells about operations on Essen and the Ruhr. Discusses the Dresden operation, giving…
Interview with George Plant
George Plant was a farm worker. He was waiting for a bus one day in February in 1945 when he witnessed Lancaster PB 812 crash behind Caythorpe Railway Station with the loss of all lives. Years later the relative of one of the casualties put an…
Interview with Jack Pragnell
Jack Pragnell and his twin brother Thomas volunteered together for the RAF and trained together. Jack flew operations as a bomb aimer with 51 Squadron. His brother joined a Canadian crew. Jack was plagued with health problems and was suddenly told…
Interview with Ron Priest
Ron Priest worked in accountancy before the war and then served as a rear gunner, flying twenty five operations with 149 Squadron from RAF Lakenheath all on Stirlings. Describes his training in England, Canada and the United States, under the…
Interview with Neil Ramsey
Neil Ramsey flew operations as a pilot with 75 and 105 Squadron Pathfinders. Neil flew twin engine aircraft, including the Wellington and later the Mosquito. Neil talks about New Zealander Jimmy Ward, who was awarded a Victoria Cross. Neil Ramsey…
Interview with Betty Repton
Betty (nee Jackson) worked in a library in Macclesfield before the war. When the war broke out, she went to Manchester to volunteer for the Air Force and trained as a telephonist. She did a course at Sheffield General Post Office before being…
Interview with Frank Saunston
Frank Saunston joined the ATC in 1941 and then the RAF in 1942. He worked as a transport driver at RAF Peplow and then as a forklift driver at RAF Methwold on the bomb dump. Describes his role and his duties and gives details regarding the bombs…
Interview with Ken Sleaford
Ken Sleaford was born and raised near Coningsby on the family farm. Tells of life on the farm before and during the war, when it was handed over to the Air Force, to be converted into an airfield and incorporated into RAF Coningsby. Mentions various…
Interview with Joan Smith
Before the war Joan worked as a hairdresser. At 17 and a half she applied for the Land Army and was interviewed in her home town of Sheffield. Her first posting was to a farm in Fulbeck. She and about fourteen other girls stayed in a hostel with…
Interview with Sydney Smith
Sydney’s father died when she was a baby. Her mother remarried and had another daughter and son. The son became ground crew in the Royal Air Force.
Sydney lived a few miles from London and attended Byron Court School in Webley. She was five when…
Sydney lived a few miles from London and attended Byron Court School in Webley. She was five when…
Interview with Tony Snook
Tony Snook was an air gunner and served on 115 Squadron in the later stages of the Second World War. A member of the school air training corps, he had his first experience of flight when his squadron partook in a summer camp. He describes how an…
Interview with John William Squires
John was living on a farm and working there when he left school at fourteen. The family of five lived in a two-bedroom cottage and John remembered hearing a plane crashing near Westborough one evening, all but one of the crew being killed. The…
Interview with Frank Stanney
Frank Stanney was working on the land before he volunteered for the RAF. After training he flew operations as a wireless operator with 61 Squadron. One day his pilot took off as a twenty year old and returned as a twenty one year old as it was his…
Interview with Maureen and Sidney Stevens
Sidney was inspired to join The Air Force when he was working as an Air Raid Precaution Warden and one night his own home was bombed. The house next door was also destroyed and the lady who had offered him a cup of tea only hours earlier died. He…