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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1356/22525/ACoombesDC200306.2.mp3
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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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Coombes, Horace
Horace S Coombes
H S Coombes
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Group Captain Claive Coombes about his father Squadron Leader Horace 'Ken' Coombes (1921, 148799 Royal Air Force).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Clive Coombes and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2020-01-13
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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Coombes, HS
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Clive Coombs. The interview is taking place at Clive’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 6th of March 2020. Clive, maybe we could start if you could tell us a little about your father’s life before the war.
CC: My father was born in Birkenhead in 1921. Went to, went to the local school which was the same one that John Lennon ended up going to a few weeks afterwards. They, the family lived in Garston in Liverpool, and my grandfather was a merchant seaman. My grandmother was obviously what’s the official term now, a homemaker? She had six kids that survived, and a couple that didn’t. My father was the eldest and he, following his secondary education joined the Mersey Dock Board with his brother, Alf. And in 1942, if my memory serves he decided that notwithstanding being in a protected employment that he would join up and he joined the RAF as a pilot, and went to training in America. Did all his training at, in Alabama and Florida as a sergeant pilot. Returned to the United Kingdom in ’43. Was immediately commissioned on a VRT commission as a flight lieutenant and joined 582 Squadron Pathfinder Force straight away.
JS: Ok. So —
CC: So that’s his career prior to, you know that takes him up to his first operational mission with 582.
JS: Ok. Spinning a bit in time your, your uncle also has a connection with Bomber Command. Can you, can you tell us a little about him?
CC: Yeah. This is, this is on the maternal side and my Uncle Jack, Jack Hanne or John Henry Hanne was from Llandrindod Wells in, in Mid-Wales but interestingly of German extraction. And he was the husband of my mother’s sister Nancy Vera Morgan as she eventually died, but it was actually Nancy Vera Guildford then. She married Jack and Jack was in the Air Force when they married. He’d actually joined very early. ’34 ’35. Served in Iraq, and was originally a mechanic. I’m not sure if it, I’m not sure exactly what his official trade was but he was a mechanic and having been a boy entrant, so he really was, you know a very young joiner and then was, then converted to pilot and ended up flying in Iraq on 13 Squadron if again memory serves. Came back to UK prior to the war. Still flying. Converted to Blenheims, flew some very early missions in the war and was killed on the 10th of January 1940 flying a 109 Squadron Blenheim from Wattisham on an air raid over Germany. And he was shot down by a Messerschmitt and crashed in the, in the North Sea. So one of the very early casualties and interestingly the first casualty of World War Two from Radnorshire, in Wales. He’s commemorated both at Runnymede, at the IBCC and on his family, sorry, and on the War Memorial in Llandrindod Wells and a couple of months ago on the 10th of January 2020 my wife and I went down and laid a wreath. Sorry.
JS: No. You’re ok. You’re ok —
CC: So, clearly I never knew Jack but I’ve got his medals, I’ve got a lot of his history and I’m quite proud of him.
JS: As you would be. As you would be.
CC: Yeah. Holder of the, he’s got his, probably one of the few of Aircrew Europe Crosses so he’s got the Star. He gave a lot to the Air Force, you know. Joined in ’35 and trained right through and I’ve got some wonderful photographs of his time as a trainer. As an airman. You know. Some wonderful pictures of air crashes and things like that. And then his time in Iraq as well. What I don’t have sadly is any details of his, of his flying time. I don’t have his logbook. I’ve no idea where that went. And strangely, you know Jack is, I mean he died what twenty years before I was born. I think the sad part is that Nancy, my aunt was pregnant when he was killed, and she gave birth to Jacqueline who, who survived for two days. And that was ultimately the only child that Nancy ever had. She remarried a stoker from HMS Belfast interestingly, and I obviously knew him as my uncle. Predominantly not Jack. And he died very suddenly many, many years ago. Strangely at a funeral for one of his friends. He died in the church at the funeral which was a bit tragic.
JS: Yeah.
CC: But Nancy was always I think actually very much in love with Jack and I’ve got some wonderful poetry written by Jack to Nancy and it’s, it’s quite evocative the memories that go with that. So I probably have a strangely close relationship with Jack albeit that he’d been dead for twenty years before, before I was born but I followed it up and, yeah he did some very good things. He did some very good things and sadly lost his life very early in the war.
JS: Early on.
CC: I hope he would have probably gone on to do a few more things but you know it’s, it’s life and death in that environment. But it was a privilege to do the [unclear] which garnered quite a lot of publicity in Wales. It made the front page of three local papers which I was quite surprised about, but, but quite nice. Quite nice. So his legacy lives on and, you know strangely Runnymede and IBCC, it’s nice to have his name on both and I’ve seen both and I’ve visited both and paid my respects there as well. So, no it’s good. Very good.
JS: The memorialisation thing obviously means a lot to you.
CC: Yeah. I think [pause] I guess it’s probably because, you know I’m very proud of what I did. I did thirty seven years in the Air Force. Got to a pretty senior rank. Been decorated. But there’s no legacy because I have no children. I was an only child and when I die my family name dies and so memorialisation as you get older has become slightly more, slightly more relevant I think and I don’t know what to do to commemorate that. I think, you know one of the things I am going to do is contribute to the ribbon at IBCC. And probably ultimately I would be very surprised if the IBCC didn’t benefit from a considerable legacy from the Coombes family. If there’s only some way of the Coombes family, when I say Coombes family, me and my wife of, of memorialising my father, my uncle, and you know in a, could I say entirely altruistic way myself as well because you know I believe that you know over thirty seven years I’ve, I had a pretty good career. I broke a few, a few glass ceilings in what I ended up doing and it would be nice if that was remembered. But there’s, there’s very little legacy in terms of human kind that will remember that because you know I have a half-brother and a half sister who were dad’s kids but they have they have, they have no kids and they’re much older than me. I have no kids. My wife’s sister has one child and they’ve gone different, different, different line. And so there’s nothing, you know. When Coombes, Coombes, this one dies, Coombes name dies which is really sad. So I just feel as I’ve, you know just hit sixty I think I need to do something about it. And this is probably a way of doing it so also —
JS: But, but there is a, the interesting part in this is, if you like long, very long ribbon of service through the RAF from, from your uncle through your father, through yourself.
CC: Yeah. I mean, I think if we, if we look at it between 1942 and 2014 there was only fifteen months that either my father or I were not serving because at the end of the war dad was demobbed. Went back to the Mersey Dock Board, and albeit that I never actually got around to asking him I’m not sure whether it was him who got fed up with the Mersey Dock Board or whether it was the RAF needed QFIs, but he was, he was dragged back in after about fifteen months on a, on a full term normal commission, and re-joined the Air Force as a flight lieutenant and was posted immediately as a qualified flying instructor. And then when he retired it was only a matter of months between him retiring and me joining. So, I think, you know we could probably stretch it to maybe eighteen, twenty months between early 1942 and late 2014 that there wasn’t either my dad or me in the Air Force which, which is interesting. If you then stretch it further back you know with Jack as a family connection, you know it goes back to sort of 1934, 1935. That, that is, you know that is quite a long time serving for three people alone and bearing in mind that Jack’s service was brought, brought to a very sharp end after only five years.
JS: Yeah.
CC: Having been killed. But dad did a full career. Retired at fifty five as a squadron leader. And I did a full career, thirty seven and a half years retiring in 2014 as a group captain. So, you know it’s, it’s something that we’ve given to blue suits. Yeah.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
CC: I’m proud of —
JS: Yeah. Absolutely. You, you spoke earlier about your, your dad doing the training in the US which was very common.
CC: Yeah.
JS: And then coming back and going on a squadron. So, with the [pause] how, what sort of operations was he doing then?
CC: Well, it’s, it’s strange that I mean looking in his logbooks which I’m still privileged to have he, he went, his first operational squadron was a Pathfinder Squadron which I think was probably quite unusual because obviously they, they, you know Don Bennett indicated that what he wanted was the best of the best for the Pathfinder Force and 8 Group. But I’ve no idea why dad went on to that. I’m looking at his logbook, looking at his flight assessments from Gunther Field and various bits and pieces. And interestingly I used to serve in the States and I actually went to Gunther Field fifty years virtually to the day that he graduated from there. Which was purely serendipity but I was, I actually visited the base on duty that, very close to fifty years. But I didn’t know that until I checked it. So he was assessed as above the average in pretty much everything so one would assume that he went back and was sent straight to 582. I go through his, his logbooks and they are standard bombing missions, you know, full time. Dusseldorf on the Ruhr. And they were, you know genuine front line Pathfinder operations. Subsequent to that 582 at Little Staughton, he then transferred to 626 Squadron at Wickenby. Still Pathfinder Force, with the same crew which I have no idea why they, why they transferred squadrons. I know that they used to do that and you know maybe 582’s losses were not high whereas 626’s were and they just transferred crews to 626. But he had the same crew throughout pretty much. One Brit, a couple of Aussies and a Canadian. I don’t know where the others were from. I could check, I think. But, but he flew through. He did twenty four, twenty five missions. I only ever once asked him why he didn’t do the thirty or how he felt not having got to thirty and to get his automatic DFC, and his quote to me was, ‘Had I son, you may not be, you may not have been here.’ But I look at what happened after that, and you know now things come out. You don’t know what, you don’t know the true meaning of it all but he went off to be a test pilot and whether that was because he was suffering from what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder or whether they needed highly skilled pilots to be test pilots I have no idea. But you look at some of the stuff that he did and it’s quite remarkable, you know. I mean, one day in his logbook he’s got I think Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane, Wellington, Mosquito. Pretty much on the same day. If not the same day sort of three days. And you go wow. Hang on a minute. What aircraft am I in today? You know it’s quite remarkable to do that. And yet you talk to friends of mine who I’ve served with over thirty seven years and, you know they have gone through careers commanding squadrons only ever having flown a Bulldog, a Jet Provost and a Tornado. Or a Hawk and a Tornado so you had four types of aircraft. He had five in two days. So, remarkable different world. I guess, I suppose when again I haven’t checked the dates entirely it could well have been that operations had pretty much finished. Formal operations had finished. I know, having checked his logbook very recently that he flew on Op Manna.
JS: Yeah.
CC: So that probably would indicate that formal operations over Germany had ceased by that time. Hence the reason he didn’t do the thirty. But quite surprising Manna didn’t count as an operational sortie. So, you know, that’s, that’s probably why. I don’t know but —
JS: Although, it wasn’t, it wasn’t without it’s dangers either you know.
CC: Correct. Absolutely right.
JS: Many, many aircrew I’ve spoken to flew on Operation Manna and they all talk about that doubt in their minds as to whether they were likely to be shot at.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
CC: You know.
JS: So, you know he went off and did that and then he did, he flew Mosquitoes in the PRU role before he was demobbed. And then when he re-joined QFI flying Vampires and Meteors from Shawbury, where he met my mum having divorced from his first wife. So yeah, an interesting career and then ended up for the [unclear] he converted to, to what we now call, is it aircrew spine or something like that? But he was spec aircrew but in those days you had to be dual qualified, so he was an air traffic controller as well and on his down, on his ground tours he was deputy SATCO at Wildenrath in the late ‘50s. And then in the early 70s was SATCO at Lyneham. So, you know that must have been an interesting time when you’ve got a SATCO with, with two wings. And then he went back to flying and finished as ops officer on, his last flying tour was ops officer on 10 Squadron. VC10s. So, you know, he had a pretty varied career in, in what he actually did. So it was, there’s lots of flying hours. There’s forty seven different types of aircraft in his logbook which is quite remarkable really when you think about it.
JS: And a very thick logbook I’m sure.
CC: Five of them.
JS: Five [laughs]
CC: Yeah. Five of them. Five different ones. Yeah. So, yeah pretty much ranging from sort of link trainer through to Harvard, through to Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster, Wellington, Mosquito.
JS: Yeah.
CC: A Varsity. VC10.
JS: Yeah. That’s not a logbook. That’s a library.
CC: Yes. It is a library. That’s what it is actually.
JS: Very much. Very much.
CC: It’s a very, you know they are quite important documents to me to see what he did. So, yeah. It’s very interesting.
JS: Yeah. Very good. There’s, there’s quite a lot of discussion about how Bomber Command were viewed after the war. Let’s say, sort of just after the war and that part after that. Did, did you dad ever, ever talk about that or give a view about it or —
CC: Not, not to me. And it’s, I think it might be indicative that it probably happened quite a lot that these guys didn’t actually talk about it. Sadly, my dad passed away in 1990 at the age of sixty eight which you think is not necessarily fair given what, what he went through during the war. You know, by that stage I had joined and strangely I was told what must have been two weeks after my dad died that I’d just been promoted to squadron leader and that would have been nice for him to know.
JS: Yeah.
CC: But, you know c’est la vie. Time is everything. So he never really spoke to me about, about that. I did ask him once when I was younger. I was doing a bit of research and clearly, you know his career influenced me quite markedly having, you know literally joined months after he, he retired. I realised at that stage that the Pathfinders were entitled to wear the albatross on their, on their number one jacket, left breast pocket and I asked dad why he didn’t wear his Pathfinder brevet because my understanding was that, you know once a Pathfinder always a Pathfinder and you could continue to wear it for the rest of your career. And he sort of passed it off saying that ‘Well, you know it’s not de rigueur anymore, and nobody wears it.’ And, ‘Well, probably they don’t wear it any more dad is because there aren’t many Pathfinders left.’ And he never really made comment about that. He always wore his medals with pride but it was just the standard four, you know ‘39/45 Star, France and Germany and the other two. The War and Victory or War and Defence. And sadly, stupidly I’ve never as yet applied for his Bomber Command clasp which I frankly should do I must confess. But he never really commented on it. I think he was amongst a crowd of people who were obviously Bomber Command pilots themselves in his QFI days at CFS but I still think he was quite proud of what he did albeit with the fact that he knew that, that flying over Germany however high dropping bombs was going to kill people. But no. He never really spoke about it. I think from my own personal perspective I, I do wish Bomber Command had had more recognition but it goes down to what we, what we as military guys and girls do. You know. We, we do what we’re told to do. It’s not, it’s not for us to question the policies. It’s for us to deliver what’s required. And, you know, you can extrapolate that argument straight up you know to the Falklands and the Gulf War One, Gulf War Two, the whole lot. You know. Was it the right thing to do? Did Saddam Hussain have WMD we don’t know. Still think there’s no proof but the government made the call. You go do it. Ours is not to reason why but ours just get on with it because that’s our job and I think that’s the way dad would have looked at it as well. He, I sense but only sense, I’ve no evidence that he found it quite strange in 1958/59 to be serving in Germany and living in Dusseldorf which is where we did live knowing that only a matter of years previous to that he’d been over it at thirty five thousand feet dropping two thousand pound bombs. That I think was slighty odd as far as he was concerned. And I honestly don’t think they particularly enjoyed their tour, my mum and dad particularly enjoyed their tour in Germany and I think they were quite keen to get home. And when I look at it they only did eighteen months in Germany and during the period I was born there but, but still not the happiest days of dad’s career probably because there was the subliminal issue of, you know, I’ve been here before but at a different height and with a different mission. So, but no he never formally said. I think what is sad, that he never saw the recognition that has now finally come to Bomber Command in terms of the Memorial and in terms of the IBCC. I think he would have been quite proud of that, and I think he would have been very pleased to have attended either the opening of the Bomber Command Memorial or the IBCC had he still been alive. Again, c’est la vie. The way things go.
JS: Yeah.
CC: As for Jack I can’t answer the question. I have no idea.
JS: Yeah.
CC: My aunt kept many, many clippings of, you know what he did because he was on one of the very early raids where a squadron commander got a DSO. They were presented to the King as a result of that because it really was one of the, it was a late 1939, very early air raid. And, and I think that’s in the days where you know before we were dropping, carpet bombing. And, and I think Nancy was very proud of Jack as well but again you know clearly I don’t know what he would have felt about it. Probably slightly stranger given that his extraction was German, you know. One generation German. So, I mean his father was a hotelier in Germany. So, you know, came over prior to the war so I think he would have felt quite strange about it.
JS: Yeah.
CC: But he was staunchly British. I understand that. And staunchly Welsh as well, strangely. So yeah, a different world. I don’t know. I can’t answer all the questions.
JS: That’s alright.
CC: Haven’t talked about it for a long time.
JS: That’s interesting. That’s interesting [pause] Because your dad served in the RAF for —
CC: Thirty five.
JS: That period after —
CC: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: And to a certain extent as you’ve mentioned earlier that you were born abroad when your dad was in service. Then, then at the end of the day, that thing, you’d been embedded for the, within the RAF a lot longer than you served in the RAF.
CC: Oh yeah.
JS: I suppose that was the, the thing is do you think it was always likely that you would join?
CC: Yeah. I think it probably, I think it probably was. I mean, I guess I vividly remember at school I mean I was fortunate I got a, I won an academic scholarship to an English Public School and it was a case of, ‘Well, Coombes, what are you going to do?’ And I think, that’s from my careers master and I said, ‘Well, I probably will join the Air Force, sir.’ And he said, ‘Right.’ and that was a tick. That’s one solved. That’s one less issue to worry about.
JS: Conversation over.
CC: Yes. You know, so I didn’t trouble my careers master for very long and I remember I, I went for a university scholarship or a university cadetship and didn’t get it, but was offered an immediate place straight from school and which I accepted. So literally after finishing school in the July I joined in the September of 1978. And clearly knowing I had a job I didn’t do particularly well at A level, and very much enjoyed my last year at school and then joined up straight away and actually have no regrets about that because subsequent to that the training I’ve done, you know I’ve got my, I’ve got my masters level education through the Australian Air Force having served out there on exchange. And yeah it was probably the easy option for me but I have absolutely no regrets. I mean, I think if I do have one regret it’s that my eyesight wasn’t good enough to, to allow me to be aircrew so I became a personnel support officer. But in so doing have had a very, very varied career. Done an awful lot of jobs, served pretty much all over the world and, and enjoyed my time. I guess if I were to be held down and pinned to the wall saying, ‘Do you regret not being a pilot?’ The answer is, ‘Hell yes.’ Because I know I had the aptitude and I proved, you know I went through Aircrew Selection Centre, and had pilot aptitude but sadly couldn’t see, and and that’s probably a regret. But not withstanding that I served in some great places. Had I been air crew I don’t think I would have been as good as my dad. I probably would have been a journeyman pilot flying maybe Hercs or VC10s around the world. Which would have been a great time. I don’t think I would have been good enough to go fast jet albeit that in my career I have fortunately managed to log about three hundred hours on fast jets because I’ve got some very good friends and I had a wonderful time. But I have no regrets being ground branch officer because you know what I did in the end of my career particularly, the last five years I did jobs that were aircrew jobs previously and ended up managing to convince those that needed convincing that actually a ground branch officer could undertake these jobs satisfactory. And I think, you know irony of ironies I ended up, my penultimate tour was in Germany as the deputy commander of the Rhine and European Support Group based at Rheindahlen, and part of my area of command was the former RAF Wegberg site where I was born. And so I ended up actually being the garrison commander of the garrison on which the hospital that I was born in resided. So it was a bit, that was a bit spooky but, but also quite oh wow you know how the wheel turns. So, you know no regrets about that. And I know full well had I been aircrew I’d never have done that so that little thing sort of comes, comes to pass. So yeah. Interesting. An interesting career for me but very much influenced by what dad did and sadly, you know I’d only been serving for twelve years when dad passed away so it would have been nice if he’d still been around to see me go, you know a couple of ranks above what he did, doing things that he never did. But, but there you go. That’s life. You make, you make your career choices as he did.
JS: Well. Yes. But I’m, I’m sure he knew that your career was on the right track.
CC: Well, one would hope so.
JS: You know. I think in —
CC: I do remember my second, third tour was I was the ADC to the air officer commanding in Cyprus and mum and dad came out to, to Cyprus for, for a holiday and they were invited kindly by the, by the AOC to come and have dinner and dad said to me afterwards, he said, ‘Oh, you know, the boss thinks you’re ok. He thinks you’ll probably make wing commander.’ I thought that wasn’t bad given I was a flying officer so that was, that’s ok. And, and to achieve one more than that was a great, was a great privilege, so that, that was interesting. He, he was quite good. I do remember that quite vividly. He thinks you might make wing commander. Well, thanks. That’s great.
JS: That’s good. You, you spoke earlier about Memorials.
CC: Yeah.
JS: Which was interesting. How, how important do you think memorialisation is to the RAF as a whole and also to yourself personally? I think we touched on that sort of personal thing earlier —
CC: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: But it would be interesting to hear your thoughts as a, as a recent serving officer. What, what you think the view in the RAF is on that?
CC: Well, its again interesting. I mean, I joined the Air Force in ‘78 when there were a hundred and [unclear] thousand, a hundred and twenty something thousand people in the Air Force. I, I left in 2014 when there were just a smidge over thirty thousand. Ok. Roles change. Technology changes and you don’t, you know you don’t have eight man crews on Shackletons, and six man crews on Hercules and you know it comes down to single crew aircraft. But I think sadly, you know this sounds like a really crusty old boy talking the Air Force was not, not the same when I left it as it was when I joined it, and clearly that’s, that’s obvious. But I still, I think that that when I joined it in 1978 it was a career. I think sadly now for most people who join the Air Force it’s a job. And that’s why I hope that, that memorialisation of some kind in whatever form is is continued and indeed improved because these, these things can’t be forgotten. I think, you know the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park is very special. I think the IBCC is a wonderful set up, and having visited it very recently for the first time I am hugely impressed. I’d like to see other things go in there. I’d like to be able to help with that. It’s a long way from Edinburgh to there and you know that but things like the RAF Club remain very special, you know. The memories that are in the RAF Club are absolutely amazing. And Runnymede still takes my breath away. We can’t forget.
JS: Yeah.
CC: You know, we did very well at RAF 100. And I was, I re-joined for a year for RAF 100 as a reservist and did, did a job up here, predominantly with the Tattoo. And it was nice to come back in. I think, I think to come back in when you’re fifty nine years old is quite strange and you know you’re dealing with a lot of young people who have a different ethos to you. And bearing in mind that I spent my last eight years of service, three of them in Germany commanding, effectively commanding an army garrison and five years, my last five years working for the Foreign Office overseas in South East Asia where you know you’re just going home when, when the Ministry of Defence comes to work. I really did notice a sea change when I actually re-joined the Royal Air Force having been out of it effectively for a decade and it wasn’t the same. There was a lot of self-interest, and I know that what we tried to achieve in RAF 100 was, was would have been impossible had it not been for reservists and volunteer reserves and part time reserve service people. Which is quite sad given that you would expect to be able to do what you needed to do with the regular people. Those who were actually serving. So, you know we had a big success with RAF 100 but by jingo if it hadn’t have been for the people who’d, you know served before and come back in as reservist there’s absolutely no way we would have achieved it. I do remember the words of the then Chief of the Air Staff Steve Hillier saying that, you know, ‘It’s a privilege to be the CAS at the RAF 100 but all I’m doing is laying a future for my successors, successors successor,’ blah blah blah, ‘Who will be CAS at RAF 200.’ I just wonder how big the RAF at two hundred will be. Not very big I don’t think. And whilst I won’t be here and none of my progeny will be here I do wonder what it will be like. I’ve got a horrible feeling being probably glass half empty on this one that it will be the Defence Forces of The United Kingdom all wearing green uniform. I don’t know. We’ll see. But you can’t take away what’s there. IBCC is there. Runnymede is there. Other memorials are there. Long may it continue as far as I’m concerned and anything I can do to assist with the memorialisation of that then I will continue to do that, and this is a first step for me. And I’m pleased to be able to contribute. And hopefully sometime in, you know RAF 200 somebody might listen to this and say, ‘Jeez, who was that old boy talking?’ We shall see.
JS: Clive, thank you very much.
CC: My great pleasure.
JS: That’s been fascinating. Thank you.
CC: Thanks very much indeed, Jim. I hope it gets somewhere.
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 Clive Coombes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
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
2020-03-06
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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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ACoombesDC200306, PCoombesHS2043
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:37:09 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
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Clive Coombes grew up on Royal Air Force stations, eventually joining and serving for 37 years before retiring in 2014. During this time, he served across the globe, including in Australia and Germany, as a ground branch officer. Clive outlines his father’s and uncle’s service, as well as his own. His uncle, was born in Llandrindod, Wales and joined the Royal Air Force in either 1934 or 1935, becoming a pilot and serving in Iraq before returning to Great Britain and serving in the Second World War. Originally flying Blenheims, Jack was shot down and killed on the 10 January 1940 flying an operation for 109 Squadron. Whilst Jack did not serve long within the Second World War, Clive retains a large amount of information pertaining to his service, including his logbook and a number of poems sent to Clive’s Aunt. Born in Burking Head, his father Horace 'Ken' Coombes joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 as a pilot, training in Alabama and Florida, before returning in 1943. His first posting was to the 582 Squadron at RAF Little Staughton, flying Pathfinder operations over Dusseldorf and the Ruhr, amongst others. He was eventually moved to 626 Squadron at RAF Wickemby. Throughout his service, Clive’s father flew Lancasters, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mosquitoes and Wellingtons. After flying on Operation Manna, he was decommissioned and reenlisted soon after as instructor, later becoming an air traffic controller and a reconnaissance flyer, flying Meteors and Vampires at RAF Shawbury. Following his retirement in 1977, Clive recalls his father refusing to mention his opinion on the view of Bomber Command following the war. Clive wishes that Bomber Command would receive more recognition, especially through the efforts of the IBCC and Runnymede Air Forces Memorial.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Shropshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany
Alabama
Australia
Florida
Germany
Germany--Düsseldorf
Netherlands
United States
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-01-10
1942
1943
1977
109 Squadron
582 Squadron
626 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
Hurricane
killed in action
Lancaster
Meteor
Mosquito
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Shawbury
RAF Wickenby
Spitfire
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1293/17591/PBallantyneWM1901.2.jpg
86381923d989c26f4f633b5ee8a995de
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1293/17591/ABallantyneWM190614.2.mp3
75fb5804dcfe9ab355b6478820a4ddf5
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
Ballantyne, Bill
William Morris Ballantyne
W M Ballantyne
Professor Ballantyne
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. An oral history interview with Bill Ballantyne (1922 - 2021, 1395001 Royal Air Force) who flew as a pilot with 77 Squadron. Also includes his pilot's flying logbook, service training documents and a photograph of his crew.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-06-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ballantyne, WM
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Bill Ballantyne. The interview is taking place at Bill’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 14th of June 2019. Also present is Caroline Urquhart. Bill, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you first tell me a bit about your life before you joined the RAF?
BB: Before I joined the RAF, immediately I was at Cambridge University and I went there just before, just after the war broke out. Just after the war broke out and I had one year there. I’d always been interested in flying. I took “Flight.” “Flight” magazine regularly before the war so there was no question about which Service I would join if I had to join any. I regarded it then as lunatic that we had another war within twenty years of the one which preceded that one but that’s another story. So I did one year at Cambridge and I was supposed to be studying law but in fact, well you could call it studying law. We all knew we were going into the Forces after a year and it was mostly playtime quite frankly. We didn’t do very much so I got a third class degree at the end of that lot and at the end I went in to the Air Force to do pilot training, which was thorough. My goodness it was thorough. The first international training we went down to Torquay and did marching to get fit. That was the idea of that one. And certain basic aeronautical courses like air speed indicators and all that sort of thing and navigation. Basic navigation. And stop in a moment?
JS: No. You’re fine.
BB: Before that, before the war if you want to go back a bit, I was at Dulwich College, which was a fairly rough school in those days. Superb now. Absolutely superb. But in those days it was a rough public school. In retrospect I look back on that with a certain amount of favour. I was beaten eleven times I remember. Terribly clever. You were really beaten. I mean, it was terribly painful so I probably wasn’t all that good. But the one thing it did teach you at public school was a moral code. If you had, if you were a dirty little liar, you were sent to the prefect’s room and beaten for being a dirty little liar. So the moral code was fairly high. And I think people forget that. People forget that dealing with current day values that people have forgotten. To lie these days seems to be perfectly acceptable and in those days you were thrashed if you did it. It was a different story all together. Then after Dulwich I went to Cambridge as I say. You don’t want to go further back than Dulwich, do you?
JS: No. That’s fine.
BB: Quite.
JS: That’s fine.
BB: So, then I went to Cambridge and then went in to the Air Force and did my pilot training which meant a normal course in Tiger Moths. On to Airspeed Oxfords to get on to multi-engine and then how far are we going forward now? Forward now?
JS: Yeah.
BB: And then in the Air Force after a good deal of training, which was rigorous but extremely good I went [pause] where did I go first?
CU: Is it not —
BB: No. Not in there yet. I went to initial training at Torquay and then went, I can’t remember I’m sorry where my next training was after Torquay. Anyway, I was then sent for basic training to get my wings to South Africa. We were the first course to go to South Africa and I was posted there to Durban in the beginning, and then at Durban we did Tiger Moth training which was the usual start. It was like flying a birdcage I’m afraid. Very rough stuff. And Tiger Moth training, I was very lucky with Tiger Moths training because I went on to Hawker Harts, Audaxes and these were forerunners of the Hurricane which was great. Marvellous training. To be sent up in South Africa with the beautiful weather, just enough cumulus cloud to make it interesting and say, ‘Would you mind going up Ballantyne?’ And you did two hours aerobatics. Bliss [laughs] Absolute. The really, the only part of flying as such, real flying I really enjoyed. That was absolutely marvellous. Then from that, passed out with that, with my wings, and then went up to Pietersburg on the Rhodesian border to train on to Tiger Moths, and after doing Tiger Moths I was sent up to [unclear] Kenya for a little while, to spend at a place called [unclear] and from that I was posted to a squadron, a flight base place in, in Egypt in LG, LG 227 it was. LG227 in Egypt, waiting for posting and some of the people were posted from there, from my course were posted. No, on to Wellingtons bombing aircraft. Very nasty job indeed. Suicide [laughs] absolute suicide. Shipping strikes in Wellingtons not anybody’s idea of a joke at all. Not at all. And then I was waiting and then I was suddenly posted to 267 Squadron which was in Transport Command which wasn’t what I was expecting at all. So I spent quite a lot of time flying. In retrospect very worthwhile stuff what we were taking. Supplies up to the front line and obviously flying back wounded people and it was a worthwhile job actually. Quite a good job. But it didn’t suit me because I wanted really an operational job where I could be shot at and by some extraordinary [laughs] extraordinarily, we were like that. I was twenty two then. I think that’s the way we used to think. And anyway [pause] eventually the CO of 267 Squadron came to me and he said, ‘Ballantyne, you’re not going to make a transport pilot are you?’ And I said, ‘No, sir. Preferably not.’ He said, ‘Right.’ He posted me down to another squadron down in the south in, in Cairo in fact, and I ended up flying Beauforts. An extremely difficult aeroplane to fly. Extremely difficult. I remember the logbook said, “If one engine fails make no attempt whatsoever to keep this aircraft in the air.” [laughs] Which struck me as ominous at the least of it. Anyway, finally the, do you want all this? Are you sure? The CO of that squadron said to me, ‘Look, will you go to London and fly a Beaufort out to us?’ And I said, ‘Ok, sir.’ But I said, ‘I’ll tell you this, sir. If I do go to London I probably won’t come back.’ He said, ‘What the hell do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, I want to get on an operational squadron. I don’t want to fly Beauforts.’ I mean to fly Beauforts in operations against shipping would have been the absolute kiss of death. I mean, dreadful. So, he said, ‘Well, don’t talk to me like that,’ he said ‘Go back and bring the aircraft back.’ I got back to London and luckily my father had introductions in various high places. He introduced me to get me an interview at the Air Ministry where I went and saw a wing commander and I explained the situation to him. I said, ‘I’ve been doing all this stuff I don’t really enjoy. I want to get in to the, a real squadron.’ I said, ‘A fighter squadron if possible.’ He said, ‘We haven’t got anything in fighter. I’ll put you in Bomber Command if you like straightaway. We’re very short of pilots in bomber.’ I said, ‘Right. Put me in Bomber Command.’ So, that’s how I got into Bomber Command. Then I did the Bomber Command training which was superb. The training was absolutely superb. I had to start on Oxfords again because I had never flown in the UK. It’s a very different story. Flying in the UK is a different story from flying in Egypt. You know, you’ve got, you’ve got no landmarks. You’ve got to be able to read maps and in fact this is a different story altogether. So I did that. I got [pause] the interesting point of that was in my initial flying on Oxfords again in in in this country, the UK my flight commander was my old captain of fencing at Dulwich College. I just touched lightly on the fencing, you see. We were extremely good fencers with a sabre. We, we formed a team called the Gladiators. Three of us, and we toured the country and we beat everybody. Absolutely everybody. We were very very good. Anyway, that’s, that was that. So, where have I got to?
JS: You were talking about Bomber Command training.
BB: Bomber command training. Superb. From Oxfords went on to Wellingtons. Did more flying training on Wellingtons and then eventually got to a Conversion Unit to fly on the four engine stuff which was a different story altogether.
CU: Where, where was this training?
BB: This training on Wellingtons was at Lossiemouth. And after that we went down to Yorkshire to train on [unclear], and stuff at [pause] I’ve forgotten where it was. I must have it in here somewhere [pause] Record end. Here we are. Sorry. Do these gaps matter?
JS: That’s fine. No.
BB: I was in the Cambridge University Air Squadron as well. I’ve forgotten to mention that. And then Regent’s Park, Torquay, West Kirby, Heaton Park, Arundel Castle, Clairwood. We went to South Africa in a convoy which was very interesting with a lot of other boats. That’s Lyttelton, Wonderboom, [unclear] Pietersburg. They were the places I did night flying training in South Africa. So then SS Lancaster. RAF Gilgil [unclear] [Castries,] then up to 267 Squadron at Cairo West. And then, well then I did quite a long period on Bomber Command. We recorded all sorts of strange places. Do you want all the name of the airports? I can give you the list.
JS: No. We’ll scan the —
BB: Do you want to have a look at my logbook? It’s got them all in. And then I was on 77 Squadron until the end of the war in, of course in 1945. So I went to, I went to 77, 77 Squadron in, just before Christmas in ’47 so I was quite late. That was lucky because the losses were less. I think the Germans were running out of petrol I think and hadn’t got too, hadn’t got as many fighters as there used to be. So it wasn’t so, it wasn’t quite as dangerous I don’t think. Anyway, and we were in retrospect I’m not proud of what we were doing. We were bombing civilians. I mean you can see from the targets here it’s mostly cities. Names of cities. And I think in retrospect we were actually bombing civilians at Harris’ idea in order to frighten the German into surrender, which you didn’t do. Germans didn’t do. Didn’t find they were that sort of people so that didn’t work. Anyway, in 1945 it finally did work and that was the end of that lot, and then that was it really. I can’t think about, nothing else in the Air Force except that now I’m a member of the 77 Squadron Memorial Club which holds meetings in York. I don’t know whether you know about this. I’ll give, give you a lot of details about what we do in York. And they elected me. Last year they elected me president. So I said, ‘Well, I don’t mind being president. What do I have to do?’ And she made the arrangements, ‘Nothing at all. Just lend us your name.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s easy. I’m not too worried about that so long as I don’t have to do any work.’ And I haven’t done a damned thing. I go up there, have a couple of years as president and give them a talk. I’ve given them a couple of talks which they seem to enjoy and that was that. So that’s, that’s, that’s my career really. I think that’s about it.
JS: Good. Good.
BB: I’ll tell you all, now in between of course you can see from my brief survey which is I think with my photograph, RAF photograph I’ve been an international lawyer in the Middle East with Arabic dealing with most of my stuff in Arabic with Arabs. Bliss. Marvellous. I had a wonderful, I had a wonderful time. Absolutely wonderful time because I used to deal with the Arabs when they were really Arabs. They’re not Arabs now. They’re completely messed up. I don’t go there anymore, but when they were Arabs, it was a great life. I had a marvellous time and that’s another story. I’ve a story to tell you all about that if you like.
JS: Good.
BB: All sorts of stuff happened. Has happened in that lot but I mean that’s another story altogether. So here we are.
JS: Good.
BB: That’s where we are now.
JS: Looking back at your, at your time with 77 Squadron what, what, what I’ve read it was quite an international mix of aircrew.
BB: Oh yeah.
JS: That were on 77 Squadron.
BB: Yes. I think it was quite. Yes. Let me think now. My crew were mostly Scottish I think. I had an interesting point in 77 at one of our meetings that the descendents of one of my air gunners wrote to me and said, ‘Look, firstly thank you so much for getting our grandfather back safely.’ And I said, ‘That’s all right.’ [laughs]
CU: Her father.
BB: Her father. For getting her father. I said, ‘Well, it was me as well [laughs] Don’t worry about that.’ Anyway, here we are and they said, ‘Can we meet you?’ So I met them. These people up at one of the dinners we have. You know, the dinners we had. I told them about, I told them about certainly about one, I mean I can tell you all sorts of things about the episodes in the flying if you want.
JS: If you would do. Yes.
BB: I mean they said, I said, ‘You’re lucky to be here. I’m lucky to be here and so is your father,’ because I had the one episode. I don’t actually frighten. I don’t get scared. I’m lucky actually. But I had one episode in my life, which is the nearest I’ve ever been to death. We were bombing a place called Goch. I think it was Goch. Anyway, it’s in here and when we went there we missed the target and we firstly we were fired, fired by anti-aircraft battery from a Canadian. They should have known better but they got it wrong so they advised us to stay up. And then we went, missed the target on the way through. I think when you missed the target unfortunately you had to turn around and face everything coming the other way, and it was, you had to keep a sharp lookout you know otherwise and fair enough I was watching very carefully obviously flying back and suddenly a Lancaster came at me absolutely head on. I mean absolutely head on so I plunged the stick forward and thank God he must have been concentrating on the target. Normally, in that emergency he would have done exactly the same.
JS: The same.
BB: And then we would have blown up. No question. And luckily he didn’t see me. So I just, just missed him underneath. I mean absolutely head to head. So the crew hit the roof. It was [laughs] the language of the crew was very marked. I won’t repeat it but it’s very local stuff and I said, ‘Don’t worry chaps. We’re ok. Thank you very much.’ But that’s the one episode. And when I got to York and met them I told them about this. I said, ‘The luckiest thing you’ve ever had because you wouldn’t be here at all. Your father wouldn’t have been here at all.’ I remember him. Nice chap. Air gunner.
CU: I think he was your wireless operator.
BB: Sorry?
CU: He was your wireless operator.
BB: Was he? Was he not an air [pause] Yes. He was a wireless operator. You’re quite right. He wasn’t a gunner.
CU: But you had a story about him taking out the earphones or something.
BB: He used to do that as soon as he heard the flak. He used to hear, ‘I can hear the flak,’ and he would take his earphones out so he couldn’t hear it. Very sensible [laughs] There was no harm in flak. Flak never did any harm. A few holes in the aircraft but nothing to worry about. Flak was alright unless it was predicted. If it was predicted you were dead. But you didn’t get, you didn’t out of the flow. If you got out of the flow alone you would get predicted, radar predicted. Then you were dead. But luckily that didn’t happen to me. But anyway, yes that’s the one episode I still think about before I go to bed at night. It really was. It really was. That was a close call. That was a close call. Now, where are we getting to now?
JS: How, how, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
BB: Oh, terrific. Splendid. I wasn’t as matey as I should have been I don’t think, in retrospect and I haven’t met any of them since. Just at the end of the war Halifaxes stopped of course but we were still fighting the Japanese so they, and then we converted as a squadron on to Dakotas. I haven’t mentioned this yet. I’ve been flying Dakotas in Transport Command so for me it was easy and I got on to that. And then I got diarrhoea, bad diarrhoea and luckily, luckily I escaped the posting to India. I’d had two and a half years in the Middle East anyway. I didn’t really need to go to India and again I think my father had a quiet word somewhere because I was [laughs] I was demobbed very early. So in 1946 right at the beginning I was let off. Got out. I resumed a very different career as you will see from my CV. Very different. So, there we are. That’s where we got too really. That’s about all the flying bit, I think. I now hate flying. I won’t go anywhere near it. If I [laughs] if I can keep away from an aeroplane I’ll keep away. I don’t like them. They’re not natural at all. They’re not, nothing like a bird. They are just nasty, mechanical devices. Anyway, that’s another matter. Shall we look at this and see what I’ve missed? [pause] Right [pause] Seems to cover it, I think.
JS: Ok. So the squadron was at Elvington. Is that correct?
BB: Yes it was. And we were at Full Sutton. We moved from Elvington. At Elvington I think it was the [pause], no. The French. The French followed on at Elvington. The French took it over and we then went to Full Sutton. It was at Full Sutton when I joined it. The French. Not my favourite characters. In bombing we were always briefed of course to fly at a certain height and if you were in a top height you were nice and easy. You were not going to get bombed on. If you were in the bottom of the line you could get bombed on, and I remember going over one, one raid and I said all right to [unclear] in the top lane. No problem. I looked up. Just before we got to the target bomb doors opened. I looked. There was a bloody French squadron all up above. They believe in it you see. The French don’t queue up [laughs] They said, ‘No. We can’t be, can’t be down there. We have to be — ’ [laughs] the bombs whistled down, went literally between my main plane and my tail plane. They always used to turn over on the way down. I never knew that until I saw them. But anyway that was a lucky business. The French haven’t been my favourite citizens ever since I must confess [laughs] Not, not cricket. Definitely not cricket. So, anyway that’s what happened. The French took over at Elvington and we went. We had Full Sutton. A nice place to be.
JS: What was Full Sutton like as a base?
BB: Very nice. Pleasant. Basic but, we were in Nissen huts of course. We were sleeping in Nissen huts. Nothing fancy about it but —
CU: You had your girlfriend’s in York.
BB: Yes. I had a girlfriend in York which took up most of my time when I wasn’t flying. Nice woman. She must have been, must have died years ago actually. Most people have [laughs] Oh dear. There’s not many left of my confabs as it were. Anyway.
JS: So, how did you get to and from York from Elvington?
BB: Well, I was never at Elvington.
JS: Oh, sorry. I mean, sorry at Full Sutton.
BB: No. I was at, I went straight to Full Sutton. Yeah.
CU: I thought you had a bicycle?
BB: Sorry?
CU: Did you not use a bicycle?
BB: No. I had a car. I had a car on the squadron. That brought back something. No. I don’t know what that was, something flashed by [pause] No. That’s about it I think.
JS: Thank you.
BB: Anything else?
JS: No. Thank you very much for that. That’s been, that’s been a really interesting history.
BB: I hope so.
JS: And some, some interesting thoughts in that. Thank you very much.
BB: Well, I don’t know, fairly explosive normally, most of them. Can I have the rest that we’ve got? The photographs.
[pause]
JS: That’s great. So you certainly had a a variety of locations and aircraft.
BB: Yes. Absolutely.
JS: To go in effect from Transport Command to Bomber Command and then back to Dakotas again at the end.
BB: Oh, absolutely. Quite a lot. Yes. The Dakota is a marvellous aeroplane. Absolutely fantastic. They’re still flying. The same aircraft. They haven’t varied it at all. Used to fly through sandstorms and never had an engine problem. Nothing. Marvellous. Marvellous aeroplane.
CU: You think Halifaxes are better than Lancaster as well.
BB: Oh yes, if you want to compare the two. The Halifax was a far better. A far better aeroplane from the crew’s point of view. Faster rate of climb. Much better aeroplane.
JS: I think, I think I’ve heard that from a number of —
BB: Really?
JS: Halifax crews, yes
BB: They preferred them. No question about that. There’s nothing. Anyway. Now, this was a thing they asked Association. Nickels. This was the latest one. Nickels, Nickels we used to drop on Berlin. On Germany you know.
JS: I looked.
BB: Yeah.
JS: I had a look at the website.
BB: Yeah, very good, very good.
JS: The Association website.
BB: Some very good stuff. Yeah.
JS: Quite, quite extensive. Great. Well, thank you very much.
BB: It’s very good actually.
JS: And I will just stop the recording.
BB: That’s a spare. You can take that one.
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 Bill Ballantyne
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
2019-06-14
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABallantyneWM190614, PBallantyneWM1901
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:28:02 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Ballantyne was in his first year at Cambridge University and a member of the Air Squadron when war was declared out in 1939. Upon joining the air force, he was posted to South Africa, where he trained as a pilot on Tiger Moths. He joined 267 Squadron based in Egypt, and completed Transport Command duties by delivering supplies to the front-line, and returning wounded servicemen. He describes how his lack of fulfilment in this role motivated him to volunteer for Bomber Command. Ballantyne trained on Oxfords and Wellingtons at RAF Lossiemouth, before joining 77 Squadron, based at RAF Full Sutton. He recollects the events of an operation to Goch where, after missing the target they turned around and nearly hit a Lancaster head-on. He also describes preferring flying a Halifax to a Lancaster, the basic conditions of his Nissen hut, and visiting his girlfriend in York. He was demobilised in 1946 and resumed a career serving as an international lawyer in the Middle East. Ballantyne notes that in retrospect he is not proud of his role bombing civilians, and also recalls meeting the descendants of his wireless operator at a 77 Squadron Memorial Club meeting, who thanked him for returning their relative home safely.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
South Africa
North Africa
Egypt
Great Britain
Scotland--Moray
England--Yorkshire
England--York
Germany
Germany--Goch
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1945
1946
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
77 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Halifax
Lancaster
love and romance
mid-air collision
military living conditions
Nissen hut
Oxford
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Lossiemouth
recruitment
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1260/17133/AGoodallOR190510.2.mp3
44539d1ad0c860a2e7faa7c8479c7fd0
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
Goodall, Oscar
Oscar Ronald Goodall
O R Goodall
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Oscar Goodall (b. 1924, 1573376 Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunner.
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
2019-05-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Goodall, OR
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
OG: Go on. Away you go.
JS: Ok. I’ll just start. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is Jim Sheach. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Oscar Goodall. The interview is taking place at Oscar’s home in Perthshire, Scotland on the 10th of May 2019. Oscar, can you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
OG: Yes. I was born in Australia and my father was a machine gunner in the 47th Regiment of South Australia and was wounded seven times. He was a machine gunner and he died through his wounds before I ever was born. Two months before I was born my father died. He had a bullet in his back which was beginning to move about and as he was employed by the South Australian government I suppose looking for water in the way back, and with a bullet in your back and your nearest doctor two hundred or three hundred miles away it wasn’t a good idea. However, he decided to have an operation to take it out before I was born. However, he died during the operation. And I lacked a father greatly and I would hang on every opportunity that I could find to try and find out from other relatives what sort of a person he was. And it appears that he was very well liked and very brave and I think this influenced my affairs when I decided to join the Air Force. I was the, one of three in Perth, up here the first three to be accepted for PNB. I was in the aircrew. I was in the Air Cadet Corps and I passed all the exams for pilot training. I was at Perth Academy and joined the Royal Air Force when I was twenty. No. When I was seventeen and, seventeen years and three months or something of that nature. I’d been playing cricket in Dundee and was knocked out rather early in the game and in a fit of rage I went away and joined up [laughs] I wasn’t taken immediately of course. I had to wait and eventually I went down to London and I was at Aberystwyth University for the beginning of my career. Passed all the exams. Got, was pushed forward into Elementary Flying Training School, EFTS near, don’t ask me the name of it, I can’t remember, near Liverpool and passed out with a strong recommendation for a possible promotion, commission and, and for pilot training. But nothing else. My maths weren’t up to the mark I don’t think for navigation. I didn’t want to be a navigator anyway. And then we all went up to Manchester waiting to be taken to Dallas and we waited and we waited and every so often fifty or so out of the two thousand of us waiting, now, I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t know the right number but that’s what I always think it was and I got fed up waiting so decided I would go and see the commanding officer and try and know. To find out how long we all were going to wait. I was told that it was, there was no way of telling. The Germans had U-boats following anything they thought might, might hold people going to America to learn. So he offered me [pause] I would be a glider pilot. He said, ‘I could get you on a course next week if you want to. But I must tell you the chances are you’ll get a commission but the chances are that you will [pause] you will be kept waiting there and having to do a military career thing for about eight, eight weeks.’ Or something of that nature for the military.
JS: Yeah.
OG: Because I had in actual fact had a go at doing a glider near Grimsby. It was more of a joke and I sat beside the man who was doing the job. The job. I didn’t fancy it very much. He said, ‘Well, it’s about all I’ve got for you but just a minute [pause] We’re short of gunners. Machine gunners. I could get you up in to a place in Inverness within two days of today and you’d be, if you’re any good that is you’d be on the job within three or four months. What would you like?’ ‘Well, I can’t make up my mind just now. I want to go back to the hut.’ It was raining. It always seemed to rain in that place you know. And one guy said, ‘What, what are you going to do then?’ I told him, ‘Become a rear gunner if possible. I don’t fancy the mid-upper turrets much. I don’t know why.’ He said, ‘Don’t you understand it’s a, it’s a dangerous thing. A lot of people get killed doing it in the rear turret. Are you still going to do it?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’ And I must tell you that at the time I thought this was a gorgeous opportunity to prove to everyone that I’m as good a man as my father was. And that’s how I become a gunner. I went to Aberdeen. Went to Inverness. But first we had three days in London. Our reactions were being taken but evidently my reactions were pretty good and still are if I may say so [laughs] So I went up there and Ansons. There were only Ansons and to get an Anson on to the ground someone had to do this. And the guy that was flying the thing wore this thing on his tie and I asked him, ‘What is that? That looks like a German tie.’ And he said, ‘Yeah. It is. I was. I flew briefly as a Polish pilot in Baron von Richthofen’s place. And then when the war came on I escaped from Poland and offered my services as a pilot and here am I.’ He said, ‘It’s not much of a job but —’ he said, ‘I like it. I like it in many ways. I got the Iron Cross for being with Richthofen.’ And he blathered for a while, He said, ‘I’ll tell you but don’t you tell any of the others.’ He said, ‘I tell them all that they have got to be ready to, when I come in to circuit, and circuit one and in that circuit you’ve got to put that things down —
JS: The undercarriage.
OG: ‘And you’ve got to count them. Sixty five turns and if you don’t get it we’ll crash.’ I sort of believed him but not really [laughs] but the rest were all terrified and he had them all counting. Every so often he would look over his shoulder at me and wink. Finished. Got up. Got away down to Market Harborough OTU. Operational Training Unit in Wellingtons. And that wasn’t a good time. We lost two or three people and one in particular we were counting them coming in after we’d been over the North Sea somewhere and we heard heard the last one coming in. Everyone was standing counting. Just one more to come and here he comes. Here he comes. Here he comes. Then there was a noise as if there was tearing canvas. Like that. And we think that it was a German had followed him in until the landing lights went on and the thing went over the top of us and went some distance away and then we heard it hit the ground. I don’t know whether it was a German that hit it. No one. We weren’t allowed to go near it. About four of five of us the next night went out to try and find out more about it but the RAF had a police force of its own and they’d got hold of us and said, ‘You’re not to go any further forward.’ However, we got leave after that and went down to, went down to four. Four. Four engine job. That was [unclear] One phrase which I will never forget. I taught it my, I taught my son what the words were and it kept him in good form. I was worried about getting lost and I, we were all choosing each other as to, and I went to my pilot and asked him, ‘What do you do if you get lost?’ He said, ‘Keep your eyes open. Look at the horizon. If you see any flashing going on and possibly search lights go there because there you will find your friends.’ And that has been in my mind at various times in my life. I’ve said that to myself. But all the time I had somehow in the back of my mind it came up every so often my father being a machine gunner in 1917 where he was very badly wounded and I was determined I would follow in his footsteps. I did my best. I didn’t have a wonderful career. The war was beginning to teeter to an end. But I was in a most horrendous crash. We were asked to take a plane, a Lancaster up about eighty miles away to an airfield which was mostly grass and it would be, the aircraft would be taken to bits and anything which was worth keeping would be worth keeping and it would be put to some other aircraft or whatever. So away we went and went around and I was conscious at the far end there was a lot of pretty rotten looking aeroplanes. Bits off them off and bits of them on and we did the circuit and he said, ‘Right. We’re going now.’ When the flight engineer who was a Welshman, no he wasn’t, he was a Yorkshireman, said to the skipper that there was a flashing red light on this, on the landing front of the roundel area. So we went around again and it was still there and there was only one thing to do. The skipper just said, ‘Look, hang on everybody. We’re going to have a go.’ Well, it was, I was, I was in the rear turret and I undid the, undid all my straps because I had been told that there were more people burned from petrol because they couldn’t get their straps on in time. So, I took that in mind and down we came and there was a hell of a crash and I couldn’t tell you anything about it. Not one. Not a thing could I tell you about it. I was lying in a, in a, I think that the [pause] the propeller had been cutting a trench as it went along and I had to stay for a while in this hole. In a hole. I just stayed where I was and did all the things I was supposed to do and tried my feet and hands and could I do this and whatever and then I heard a voice saying, ‘There’s another one here. There’s another one here.’ And then two heads appeared over, looked down and they said, ‘This, don’t go near. Don’t. Wait. We’ll do something here. This guy’s covered with petrol. He’ll go off like an incendiary bomb. Tell the ambulance to, to, not to come near this place.’ So, he did and sooner or later I was hauled out and the doctor at this place was away playing golf [laughs] And sooner or later we, none of us were seriously ill but we didn’t fly for a week or two during which time the war went on its way and we did some things. But I was in the mess one day and Jock said, ‘Hey Jock. It’s you again. You’re on the battle order.’ ‘Oh, ok.’ So, we went in. Had this briefing room. It was filling up and then the door opened and we all sprang to attention. Then he, ‘Sit down gentlemen.’ So, the gentlemen sat down. He said, ‘Now, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do it. You’re all volunteers. You’re going to go to Rotterdam and the target is a football pitch with things around about it and you’re going to, you’re not going to bomb anything but our men there think that you may be allowed to go by the German troops. But as yet our men on the ground up there we haven’t heard from him since. There’s a chance that you’ll get off but we’ve got to do it now.’ So, I think we did it, I can’t remember how many times we did it but there was a happening which changed my life. We got over the sand dunes and there were German troops rushing to get in to the safety but we weren’t having any and away we went and I began to notice in farms, “God bless the RAF.” And then we came to the outskirts and Germans were thick on the ground. They had a lot of anti-aircraft. Twenty millimetres on lorries. And the men were keeping us in their sights. So we got to there and it wasn’t to the pilot’s liking. ‘We’ll do another one.’ Meanwhile they were piling up. I don’t know how many of us were there. I didn’t see any, any Halifaxes or German or Americans. They joined later on. And the bomb aimer who was a Welshman anyway, he said, I think I was right, there was a lorry. We were going to go right on top of this lorry and they’ve got a twenty millimetre on top and they were loading. However, there was no way we could stop going. But I hung myself out of the back of the turret because we didn’t have any Perspex at the back and I got hanging in between the guns and twisting my legs over them and then suddenly remembered that my feet could come out of the boots and, ‘Watch it, Jock. Watch it.’ So, Jock stopped worrying about his boots and looked down and this was a woman, climbed up on this lorry and it was, she was fast and she had a baby and was holding the baby in front, in front of the gun. And I can’t forget it. Some of the guys the first time around got fired on but we didn’t get fired on but some did. I don’t think anyone was downed but if any of them had one of the engines hit there would have been a sudden drop and we were doing a hundred and fifty feet up. Every church we went past I was looking up at this still. And that changed my life. That changed my life. I got, my daughter had a film and I think that I was being shown in the film but she wasn’t very sure and she phoned them up to see if she could get a better film, I think. I think this is what happened. She works in Paris. And I got a medal about two months ago for the people. The people. That’s more of a value to me than anything.
JS: I think, I think everyone I’ve spoken to.
OG: Hmmn?
JS: I think everyone I’ve spoken to who took part in Operation Manna —
OG: Yeah.
JS: The dropping food.
OG: That’s right.
JS: Was really really proud of what they did then.
OG: Well, the first time around was a disaster. Not for casualties but, but for the food in that I was fortunate enough hanging out this turret at the back. I saw the big bags of flour, stuff for children, just add water and whatever and had vitamins in it but every one that we dropped burst on landing. And there was a guy with an empty pram and he was, he was running out and I think he got hit with one of the bags but I saw him getting up again before we disappeared around because we were coming in very very close together. We had a skipper, an Australian and we had to go over this and keep flying in to German territory. The reason why we had to do it was the German Army. They had a huge German army still there. A huge number amount of tanks and whatever. The lot. And they had eaten all the food. So I think we went back quite often because the next time we went around they had a smaller bag put in a big bag and the smaller bag burst but it didn’t burst the big bag and we all cheered when we saw our bags go down on the football pitch. Now, my, my mother had given me a silk scarf to wear in the turret. Former pupil of Perth Academy scarf. And I think the third time we went I had chocolate and I wrapped it in my scarf and I put my name on it and heaved it out the back. I never saw it landing. We were away by that time. Someone in Holland has an old boy’s scarf. I’ve tried to find out something about it because I used to take a lot of adults over to Holland to Remembrance and all the rest of it and when I was there I used to ask, ‘Does anyone know —’ or whatever. But no one, no one knew so I just let it fly. When I went back once and had a look at the football pitch but by that time football was making a lot of money and I couldn’t see the one which we dropped food on at all. No. There was a big thing for people watching. But I don’t know. To anything after that [pause] was just a waste of time. But I did see, I don’t know what we were going, where we were going or why we were doing it or, I can’t remember but it’s seventy seven years ago or something of that nature. But what I remembered was that there was, there was a lot of us and in daylight and it was wonderful for me to see it in the daylight. It was a very sunny day and we were letting out Perspex those things that shimmered in the light.
JS: Window.
OG: What did they call it?
JS: Window.
OG: Window. That’s right.
JS: The radar deflecting —
OG: That’s right.
JS: Aluminium.
OG: I was busy looking at this. It was so beautiful and we were coming up to the coast and suddenly I had to shout out, and I don’t know, there was a, a rocket. A rocket number two I think it must have been. It came right through where we were and very fast and I tried to say to, ‘Did you see the rocket?’ But I don’t think anyone did. And I can’t remember what we were doing. I think we were going to Flensburg to give the Russians a fright. We weren’t bombing but Flensburg Canal and this was one of the first. I’m sure this was one of the first rockets that hit London or something because it was the way it went and when it got really high it left a vapour trail. And by which time we were well away. We could just see it And I think that’s my history, aye.
JS: Good. How did you —
OG: I’ve got a, the war was coming to an end and we were getting new aircraft because the Japanese war was not at an end and 100 Squadron had a lot of Canadians, Australians and, what was the name of the extra special daylight job? It was bigger than the normal bomber. They were practicing and practicing and practicing and none of those people got away. But I remember there was a hell of a noise coming from the sergeant’s mess and the officer’s mess. I went up to the officer’s mess because Nick, our navigator was a New Zealander and very fond of the bottle. So I went up to see if we could get a bottle of whisky because everyone was shouting and hip hip and all the rest of it. I got in but already there were no whiskies in the sergeant’s mess. A gang of officers had bought the lot. But what, what were we crying? What were we shouting? I wanted to know. They’ve dropped a bomb but I can’t remember whether it was Nagasaki or the other one and they’ll never beat it. No. No, we won’t have to go to Japan after all. And then I didn’t know enough about it so I went in to the dining area where it was quieter and got hold of someone asking a whole load of, and we were convinced but I think they dropped another one. That was the same. And I was like the rest. I got drunk. It wasn’t until a good month after that when someone, some American newspaper had it that there had been forty thousand people killed by two bombs. And they were expecting thousands in the next two or three years. Babies and everything. And I felt sorry. I felt wrong. There was no good saying look at all the soldier’s lives that they saved because the history of weaponry. My father what became a soldier because men in lorries were going around in Australia saying, ‘This is a war to end wars.’ And we were having the same thing going on here and I knew they were going to be wrong. I was sure they were going to release something worse than that and they have done. And I never, I felt that I should never have got drunk and cheered and jeered. You see the [pause] we had gone on to .5 machine guns because there were six hundred young men in Tokyo who had trained with a fighting aircraft that was designed not to land again and we had to get something that would knock them out of the sky but, and we did this. We were asked to test and we went away over the North Sea and when I moved the rear turret with the .5s on them around. The plane went on the running in for the dropping and we never flew in that plane again. They didn’t make any more. I’m sure of it. And we didn’t, we didn’t have to go to Japan after all. But there was two things. The dropping of food and the dropping of the atom bomb have influenced just about everything which I’ve done. I became a teacher and I taught more than just my subject [pause] and I was lauded by some and sneered at by others. Will that do?
JS: Well, I hope it was more of the former than the latter.
OG: When I, when the war ended we had a most interesting time and especially when we went to Italy and there was a place to land not far from Naples and we landed. But it was finished. Nothing there. There was something wrong with our aircraft and we were put on to this place and before we went some of the ground crew said, ‘Hey Jock, you’ll be alright if you take chocolate with you. The girls will lie on their backs and kick their legs in the air if you give them chocolate.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t care about that but I’ll take chocolate.’ So I did and I put it, and we had, we had special uniforms. Lightweight stuff. And I saw three females coming up and one male and I had a good look at them but they were children and I put, they said something to me and I didn’t know what they were saying. So by this time some engineers were coming up to see what was wrong and one of them said, ‘You’ve got chocolate? Give it to these children.’ He said it in English. I think he was a military, Army man. He’d been in the desert as well. ‘Yes. Yes. You give them. Give them this chocolate.’ And I said, and I took it out and the heat from the sun it was dripping all down me and I said to a little girl with fair hair, beautiful fair hair, I said, ‘No. No chocolate. No chocolate.’ She looked at me and said, ‘You goddam son of a bitch,’ in broad American [laughs] That’s another one I remember.
Other: Why don’t you tell Jim about the time you got frozen in to the turret?
OG: Eh?
Other: Tell Jim about the time you got frozen in to the turret.
OG: Oh yeah. That was awful. That was the coldest. It was the same, same time as the Germans, the Germans loosed their super tanks. What was it?
Other: Tiger tanks.
OG: It had the Russian, the Americans running for it.
Other: Oh, the Ardennes?
OG: Ah and evidently on the ground everything was frozen stiff and they’d chosen that time to put their big heavy tanks on the ground and they would break this. Well, for some reason we were, went there and it was very very cold and I don’t know how we did it and how anyone did it, I really don’t know. We came home and it was terribly cold and my oxygen thing got frozen up with wetness coming from my breath and then freezing on and I was terribly cold. And I believe it was the coldest year. Coldest of that, of the war and when we landed it was a hell of a job landing evidently. But we landed and everyone was getting out and someone, I heard a voice saying, ‘Where’s Jock? Where’s Jock?’ So I shouted out that Jock was in the turret but the turret wouldn’t move. So they got me out of it and there was a little thing you could get in to the aircraft at the back. You went out there. And a guy came along and, ‘How are you doing, Jock? How are you doing?’ Well, Jock was doing fine. ‘Here. Here you are,’ and he put a cigarette in my mouth but I couldn’t hold it. I couldn’t hold it at all and so he went and got another one. I had a cigarette here in my mouth and there, and sooner or later it was beginning to go up my nose and it was very cold. No. I believe that that night caused more rear turrets and men freezing. There was just, put to a standstill for two or three days I believe with people getting frostbite. And I was always very wary about it after that but never did I experience the cold of that night ever and it was the only night when I was given a big glass of rum by someone from the officer’s mess. I don’t know. Then the war ended and we’d been away somewhere. We came back and oh the WAAFs were out on the run, on the runway and some of them had white sheets and others from the officer’s mess and the sergeant’s mess. White stuff off the dining tables and everyone was shaking. Shaking it as we went through. The war was over. And there was a long time, I took Andrew and his mother we were going to a wedding and I noticed that it was pretty close to airfields and we found one of them that I knew of and we were in a car and we went there. And they did something I was, I’d never had before and will never have again. It wasn’t the same place. I can remember going in and out but there was a Lancaster. It was an airfield but there was a Lancaster outside and I asked if I could take them in the rear turret to see it. ‘No. But I’ll do better than that.’ And he put the, put the, put the put the guard salute [pause] and it wasn’t for me. It was for the fifty two thousand. Now, there’s something that happened and I don’t mind anyone knowing about it but I, I, I’m frightened maybe that some people are still alive or of this thing. That my sister was a little girl three years old when I was born and she had a wee friend who was five. A man, a wee boy in the house next door. His, their father had been a soldier as well. And we came home and life went on and then my sister got a letter from Ian. It was, “Do you remember me? We played together. Well, I’m over in Britain. I’m a pilot. And it’s not just [pause] I get leave —” As we all did, “I get leave every six weeks. I’ve got a week’s leave. I’ve no place to go. I can’t go back to Australia and back again in that time. Could I come and visit you?” Yes. So, he appeared and I have photographs of them sitting on the beach at St Andrews. I’m not giving you the second name but Ian, on the 12th of February, at twenty one thousand feet the plane blew up outside Frankfurt. All, the pilot and the other crew, and the rest of the crew could never have survived. And my sister never married. She was in love with children which she never had herself and she was a very good teacher. When I was in hospital not long ago there was a woman and her son, ‘Is your name Goodall?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Was your sister the head of the children at the school? Because if she’s still alive will you tell her I learned more from her in a year than anyone else.’ We went to Australia, my wife and myself and we went to see the house and I really wanted to go and see the house next door. Their father, the people in that house were the same as my own people. They were one of the first of the people to land in Australia and I perhaps, perhaps it’s a different people there. Perhaps they didn’t know what happened to their son. I chickened out. If it was they’d done their, I felt their done their sadness times. It was not, it wouldn’t be nice to bring it back on again.
Other: Do you remember telling me the story of the thermos flask that fell out the aeroplane?
OG: I’ve forgotten it, Andrew. I’ve forgotten a hell of a lot. I can’t remember.
Other: And it hit the propeller. When it got sucked in to the propeller?
OG: Well, you tell it then.
Other: No. No.
OG: I’ve forgotten it.
Other: If you’ve forgotten it you’ve forgotten it.
OG: I’ve forgotten it.
Other: That’s ok.
OG: Those are the ones which I’m telling you are things which have influenced my life.
JS: Could you, could you tell me something about the rest of your crew?
OG: We decided that [pause] ok, right, the Australian, the Australians got away straight away. There was no more fighting to be done. Straight away the Australians. The Canadians straight away. The New Zealanders straight away. There was only us and we were terrified that the same thing would happen as happened in the ‘14/18 war and after the Napoleonic wars. You had a huge number of young men coming on to and the only thing they were good at was killing other young men. So we were let loose in dribs and drabs. Not before we’d gone down to the local and we told the man in charge of it that we wouldn’t be seeing each other again. We won’t going to be coming in here again. We’re going to be say tonight goodbye. I’m not, I’ll go back to Perth, to Scotland when the time comes, the Welshman will go his way and none of us will try and follow each other about because [pause] because we have put up with something to which no sane people would want to happen again and we had a good night’s drinking and goodbye. I certainly wasn’t going to go in to Wales. It was maybe a great disappointment or, you know. So, we did. We never got in touch with each other. Some, some did and got highly disappointed. But the solitary bit, seven people in a fuselage is one thing. Seven people spread out from Perth to Wales. No. No. No. [pause] I haven’t, I’ve had no trouble going on any aeroplanes. I know some people have or had. Or had. I was in one aeroplane which wasn’t too happy for a while in the air but I’ve had no problem at all. But I’ve no real interest in trying to, ‘Do you remember the time when —' No. Because I think it was unique. Absolutely unique. It will never never happen like that again. To start off with the aeroplane was never going, is never going to need a crew. It’s going to be done all with someone in a nice warm house doing it. So, you’ll excuse me if I —
JS: Thank you very much.
OG: I nearly cry sometimes.
JS: That’s absolutely ok. Thank you very much for sharing that with us.
OG: I went to Germany and I chickened out. I just came, I just came straight back. I haven’t been to Germany. I’ve been to every place in Europe. What I saw in that six months after the war was over in Brussels. I went to prison. I went to places where they burned people alive. But since then, no. I’m quite certain that had I gone I would be able for it but I would say that I would probably get on better now with a man who’s been a pilot in a German night fighter than anything else. I would understand him and he would understand me but the chances are that wasn’t going happen so, and then it was too late. The Germans don’t want to be reminded of it all and I think that [pause] sorry. That’s why I gave away to my grandson. Give it to him and they have framed it each. Let it stand at that.
JS: That’s good.
Other: Do you want to take a break or get some —
OG: You see, there’s a thing that happens to people like me and I’m feeling it when my wife died. When I first met her. When I knew this was going to last longer than just an evening I have a feeling of guilt. Terrible guilt. When she died two or three months ago I still have it. That I hadn’t done enough when she was alive. And that started [pause] a long time ago. I shouldn’t —
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Title
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Interview with Oscar Goodall
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-05-10
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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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AGoodallOR190510
Format
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01:05:22 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Oscar was born in Australia. His father was a machine gunner - he was wounded seven times and died from his wounds two months before Oscar was born. His example influenced him to join the Royal Air Force. As an Air Cadet Corps member, he went to the Elementary Training School near Liverpool, passed the exams for pilot training, and joined when he was 20. They he was posted to Manchester waiting to go to Dallas. Due to the long delay Oscar was offered a course to be a fighter pilot or a gunner, he chose the latter and was sent to RAF Dalcross near Inverness to train on Ansons. He then went to RAF Market Harborough for training on Wellingtons. Later in his career, Oscar’s crew were asked to take a Lancaster to an airfield where it would be dismantled and parts reused. The aircraft crash landed, and Oscar was covered in petrol. No one was seriously injured but they didn’t fly for a week or so. He mentions an operation to Rotterdam and an instance when it was so cold that he was frozen in the turret. His crew only met once after the war.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Leicestershire
Scotland--Inverness-shire
England--Manchester
Netherlands--Rotterdam
England--Lancashire
Creator
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James Sheach
Temporal Coverage
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1945
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
100 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crash
Lancaster
mess
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Dalcross
RAF Market Harborough
recruitment
sport
training
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1199/11772/AWilkinE170607.1.mp3
cca523af9536a22c394ad3e0db9b01f1
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Title
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Wilkin, Eric
E Wilkin
Description
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An oral history interview with Eric Wilkin (b. 1924, 176578, 1868779 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 7 and 115 Squadrons.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-07
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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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Wilkin, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Eric Wilkin. The interview is taking place at Mr Wilkin’s home in Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross on the 7th of June 2017. Eric, thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
EW: Well, I was a schoolboy [laughs] I left school at the age of sixteen. Went to work on the London North Eastern Railway. Great Eastern Section, Cambridge. And then I was keen to get into the RAF. Didn’t want to be pushed in to the Army if I could help it. I had a chance when they, the soon as the school I got an offer to take a course, an engineering course down at Dagenham College and I went down there. I got temporary residence. Lodgings. And the day after I arrived Jerry came over and bombed a load of the Ford workers out in Dagenham. So they came around and told me that the house I was in which belonged to them for the workers at Dagenham and so out I was on the road. Nowhere to go. So I went to the Trinity Halls in Cambridge and joined up. Joined the RAF. I wanted to be a pilot. ‘Well, you can’t be a pilot. It’s twenty two months wait before you can become, start your training.’ What can I be then? ‘Well, you can probably be a [pause] you might be able to get in as a wireless operator. We’ll give you a test.’ And they sat me down in front of a machine and there was bleep bleep and bop bops going all over the place. I wasn’t making any sense of that so I wasn’t any good as a wireless operator. And they then passed me on to, ‘Well, there’s only one thing left for you and that’s a gunner.’ So, I said, ‘Well, I don’t mind that.’ My father was a machine gunner in World War One. He did his, he, in fact he helped to open the Machine Gun Corps at Belton Hall in Grantham. And he was also chatting about machine guns, machine guns, so ok I’ll be a gunner and in I went. Alright. Get home. Sign everything off. ‘We want you back in seven days.’ And I was in, just like that within seven days as a gunner. So they were short of gunners obviously. From there I went down to London. To the place where all the recruits went. The zoo. And from there it was a question of moving across to Chipping Sodbury, Bridlington and up to Scotland to Number 2 Gunnery School there. And I passed out a gunner. When would we be now? I’ll just check.
[pause]
EW: It would be in [pause – pages turning] If only I could feel my fingers.
[pause]
EW: I passed out as a gunner at, in [pause] can we just hold there [pause] while I check on it.
[recording paused]
JS: Ok.
EW: Ok. I was on my gunnery course at Dalcross on the 17th of July ’43 to the 28th of August ’43. I passed out on the 28th of August ’43 with eighty eight point nine percent result. ‘Very good type. Always at the fore when any work to be done,’ said the chief instructor. And I was first on the course to go up and salute him and take my brevet and stripes and march off. That was in Dalcross. And from there I came down south to RAF Station Wing. And at RAF Station Wing we did another gunnery course and then we crewed up there. Now, my first pilot was an Australian. Evan Chitty was his name. And I was in the room along with a whole crowd of other chaps and a tall fellow came across to me. A fellow by the name of Frank Leatherdale, who became our navigator. That fellow there. And he came across to me, he said, ‘Have you crewed up yet?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, would you like to join Evan Chitty’s crew as a gunner?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘A mid-upper gunner.’ I said, ‘Yes. I don’t mind. Nobody else wants me.’ You see. And so I went across and was introduced to Evan Chitty and we went through the whole training course as a crew with a rear gunner named John Wagner. Now, John Wagner did five trips with us, this is jumping forward a bit and then decided that he was unfit. And he was unfit. He was terribly ill. And so he retired from the crew and we got another gunner then. But I went to Evan, with Evan Chitty and we went flying around the country on Wellingtons. In fact, I did a nickel with him to Paris [pause] In August it was. It would be about then, did this nickel to Paris. And after we’d done the, that we were doing other training around the country. Flying Wellingtons out of RAF Station Wing. And he flew with a very bad cold one night and he got pneumonia. And of course they put him straight into Ely Hospital, put him in an oxygen tent and he was there for three weeks. So, I was without a skipper. So, then I met up with McKechnie. Don McKechnie. He was a Canadian who had been flying navigators around Canada with one foot on the control column and a dish of food in the other hand. He’d done it that frequently that he was, you know absolutely bored rigid with it. And he came to us as — I was going to say clueless. That’s nearly good enough. Clueless. Tail less pilot. And he was fixed up with the crew that I was with because we were floating you see having lost our skipper. And anyway, Mac took over as pilot. Donald S McKechnie. A spoiled Canadian boy he was. Never hear from him. Never heard from him. Wrote every year. Sent him Christmas cards and all the rest. And it was the final reply we got from him, the whole crew this was, was a handwritten sheet telling what he’d done, what he hadn’t done since he’d been out of the Canadian Air Force, or out of the Air Force after he went back. And he then had it photostatted and sent to all of us. That was the last we heard of him. That was Mac. So, but if you wanted Mac you could always find him shooting crap on the billiard table in the officer’s mess with his other Canadian friends. That’s where you could find Mac always. And he and I never really got on well together. Although he would never fly without me, we never really got on personally well together. In the same crew we had Frank Leatherdale. Now, Frank was like a big brother to me. Very very military type, Frank. Died only about a fortnight, three weeks ago. And he was marvellous chap, Frank Leatherdale. We had — Ken Denly was the bomb aimer. Arthur France was the engineer. He was the boy who went in for the dough. And then we had Bernard Payne who was [laughs] a bit of a dude. Always wore leather gloves. Always had his cuffs turned back and, and Bernard was, he was a loveable chap. We used to box together he and I. And the last man of course was Joe Wagner. George. John Wagner, as I say, who eventually left us and was replaced by Joe Hayes. A nice little fellow from Wrexham in Wales [pause] Of the crew I, they’re all dead. Frank died just as I say a few weeks ago. Ken Denly, he died oh six years ago. Arthur Franks in ’86. Joe, he died about five years ago. Bernard Payne got run over by his own car. He’d parked it on a sloping drive and went to open the garage door and it ran over him and killed him. And that was the end of that crew. But that’s the crew there. There’s the Canadian skipper. That’s Frank Leatherdale. That’s Ken Denley, the bomb aimer. That’s Arthur France the one who wanted to get out and make the dough. That was Bernard Payne with his sleeves. You can’t see them. And that was Joe Hayes. And myself there.
[pause]
Now, as a, as a crew we went first to Waterbeach and did our training on Stirlings. Then from there we were taken off Stirlings and put on Lancaster 2s. And we were then taken over to 115 Squadron at Witchford and we were on Lancaster 2s. Those were the ones with the radial engines. Nice aircraft. Very very quick to get off the deck. Much quicker than the Mark 3 and, you know they sort of went to the end of the runway and went up like that. But once they got up there they waffled you know. They hadn’t — and then I did a tour at Witchford with McKechnie of twenty nine because he did one as a second dickie. So, I got one short there off thirty. I went then to Oakington with the same crew. Except Arthur. Went with the same crew to Oakington. And we were alright there. Flew with McKechnie there. And then when he came to the, his twenty eighth trip, ‘I’m going home.’ So, right — the crew broke up and all went their various ways. I was left high and dry. I’d, although I’d finished a tour, the actual second tour I didn’t want to leave because you see Oakington RAF station was six miles from my home. I saw Oakington built. I loved Oakington. I worked at Oakington Railway Station. So, it was a home from home for me. So, everything was nice and comfy. I thought I’d try and stay on. So I went and saw the gunnery leader and he said, ‘Ok. You can do. You can join Flash McCullough crew. Now, Flash McCullough [pause] What a lad. He was a Liverpudlian. Looked like Don Ameche. Just like Don Ameche.
[pause]
EW: That’s — there he is. Flash McCullough. And there I teamed up then with the new crew altogether. There was Lucky Hudson, Barker. Myself there. This fellow, Griffiths was a w/op. And this was the engineer Syd. Very quiet chap from Stockport. And of course there that’s Tiger Smith. Not Tiger Smith. They all called him Smithy. He had a standing joke. He always said Smiff. You know. He caused trouble on paper raids by saying he was Smith with two F’s [laughs] Things like that. That was Smithy but I called him Tiger because the first time I met him was when I went to join the crew and he was grinning from ear and I said, ‘You know, you remind me of the poem, “The tiger that always smiled.” So, he became Tiger. Only to me. No one else in the group called him Tiger. They called him Smithy but he was Tiger to me. And his daughter is the one I think whose put you in touch with me. Mrs Brown. Yeah. So, he was a lovely lad was Tiger. Marvellous man. Wonderful gunner. A wonderful gunner. That was it. And I went on to Oakington as I say and I did twenty eight there with McKechnie. And then when he went away and I joined this crew I did another fifteen with them. So, in all seventy three. Seventy two trips. Some very good. Some very not so good. But I got this book here of my own personal reminiscences. You might like to look at them. They’re all my own comments. Little things that I picked up. Like nickels and that that we dropped. And comments there. Actually, the worst trip I think that we ever did was, going back to McKechnie was about the 7th of June 1944. ’44 — to Chevreuse, south west of Paris. Now, that was the time we’d landed in France on the 6th of June and they were bombing all the railways to stop the troops being brought up from Italy to reinforce the troops on the, on the Channel. And they said there was a railway line there [laughs] Pardon my laughing but this is funny. They said there was a railway line there and we went to bomb it. And when we got there there were no rail, there wasn’t a railway line. It was thick fog and there was, from Witchford they sent twelve aircraft and lost six there that night. Including the flight commander. And all we were doing was flying around in this fog. And then you’d suddenly see a shadow come looming out. You’d draw on him and he’d be a Lancaster. And then you’d — the next thing there’d be another one. You’d draw on him and he’d disappear before you could fire. It was a JU88 or a Focke Wulf 190 because of course we were right next door to the German airfield in Paris. And to lose half your squadron on one night that was a very very bad night that. A night I never forget and never will. I always will remember. The station was absolutely miserable. Absolutely miserable. We had some wonderful ops. Some wonderful ops. The finest one that I went on was the one to that crafty little German chap. Was a chum of Hitler’s. He got bumped off, didn’t he? Do you remember him? Well, he brought up a —
[pause — pages turning]
EW: There’s that Chevreuse one.
[pause – pages turning]
EW: It was a beautiful raid. I’m trying to think where it was now. But [pause] Villers-Bocage. He’d got all his tanks and everything there. And they called us, rushed us out, bombed us up and sent us off. And the whole lot arrived there all together. Halifaxes, Lancasters, hundreds of aircraft all showered bombs down on this place. And I’m told, I didn’t see it myself, I’m told that a person who went to the place there was a German tank on the roof of a house that had been blown up there. They really did plaster them. That was the finest raid I ever did see. There was just one big black cloud when, when we left. It was the best one I — it was a cracking raid that. And then of course I was on the one to the pottery town. The one that caused all the trouble with Bomber Command and everything. I was, that was a good raid that one. The Germans were miserable about that. They were saying, you know you came over here and they were on our raid err TV claiming that the chaps who took part in that raid ought to be prosecuted as terrorists and all sorts of things. But they’d got — they got a hundred thousand young girls from Eastern Europe working in the factories in Dresden. In the tobacco factory making ammunition for the fighters. In the glass factory making gun sights and torpedo sights and everything. And these poor girls were — had one solitary overall. They didn’t have any clothes at all. But oh no, and they were made to stay ten hours a day in the factory. Working there. Bitterly cold. And then we go over and we blast that and the people who get killed are those girls because they didn’t have air raid shelters. The Germans would have their air raid shelters you see. They got killed. They were the people who were piled up thirty five deep in the market square after the raid. Aye. That was. Then of course the whole blooming shooting match took on to that. There was that wing commander. What was his name now? Woods, was it, who was the chief, chief padre for the RAF? He started it. Running us down. Letting us down. Saying we were criminals and all the rest of it. And then we didn’t handle that very well at all. And that’s why Bomber Command didn’t get any recognition until about a couple of years ago. Over that do down there. I mean poor old Butch Harris he didn’t get a anything out of it. They didn’t make him a lord. Should have done. He was smeared with paint and everything — his statue. It made me mad that did. I lost patience with it. In fact in some of the books there I was looking the other day and I made some very caustic remarks about it. That was the — but anyway I finished up as I say doing seventy two. I got the DFC and bar for it and I had the sad misfortune of getting it when King George the 6th was very ill. So, again I had to go down to London to collect mine. Walked into this office. It must have been the Air Ministry. There was a sergeant there, a discip standing behind the counter. ‘Name?’ Told him. Climbed the steps. Threw it. Threw it across the counter. I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ Yeah. Just threw it across the counter. It was, you know, he could have handed it to me. But there we are. That’s life. That’s life. I’ve enjoyed, I enjoyed my service career. I had never got hurt at all. Never got hurt. I got frozen up several times. I’ve broken icicles off my oxygen mask eighteen inches long when we’ve been flying. And my legs have been dead with pin — with [pause] what do you call them now? When you get aches and pains. Not pins and needles. Hot aches. I’ve been hopping around the station for three days with hot aches in my legs. And it was that that was [unclear] The trouble was you see with the turret, the mid-upper turret you had the ammunition boxes on either side of your legs. So, in order to get electricity to your feet and slippers that you had, electric shoes, socks, they had these strip wire down and this side of your leg and that side of your leg was totally exposed. Bitterly cold. In fact, I thought [laughs] for claiming a war wound stripe. We ran into a, a JU88 night fighter. It was a clear moonlit night and you could see them. Ours and theirs floating around in the sky. Just like fairy, fairy things you know. And there were four in a row. One, two, third was a JU88 and another one. Seven or eight hundred yards away from us. It was that clear you could see them. Bright night. And suddenly this JU88 loosed off a couple of cannon shells and stopped one in our petrol tank on the port wing which didn’t go off and the other one into the flaps on the port wing. So we had to land at Woodbridge because we couldn’t put flaps down you see. And then we had to leave the aeroplane there and they towed it away and got the shells out of it and blew them up. So, that was the nearest I ever had to getting the chop. But on that, on a particular night we were flying and a shell burst near us and it, it, well it made a colander of one side of the aircraft and a piece of fragment went into the ammunition box alongside my leg. And I felt some sharp pain in my leg when — bang, you know. And I couldn’t wait to get down and see what had happened. I rolled my trouser leg up carefully and looked and I’d just got one little bruise there. What had happened was a piece of shell splinter that was meant for me should have come through and smacked in to my leg. Smacked into the base of a couple of rounds. 303. The bullets came through the aluminium casing and hit me in the leg. So it took it all off. So that was the nearest do I ever had to getting my wound stripe up [laughs] Oh happy days. They were happy days. As I say, my earlier life was spent in Cambridgeshire. The village I lived in was Cottenham and my father was a farm labourer. Served in World War One. He was wounded five err wounded three times. Gassed five. And he had an open wound in his back in 1931 from World War One. And he was pensioned out of the Machine Gun Corps on half a crown a day for a week. And that was his pension. World War One. He came out. Started up a fish and chip shop in Nottingham. Doing great guns mother and he. Both of them, 1924 five hundred quid each in the bank. Wonderful. 1926 — the local pit struck. They were coming, ‘Could they have fish and chips on the tick?’ You see. And they came and dad said, and then the husbands were coming. And dad was one hundred percent against strikes. He was furious. He said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll set tables up in the shop. The women and kids can come in. They can have free fish and chips. They’re not having them.’ Had the windows smashed, the door was kicked in. Another one. All bang crash wallop. But it was fun when you look back on it now but dad said to the mining leader there who came in, he said, ‘You know, you’ll go back on pit boy’s pay.’ And he did. And he did. Went back on pit pony boy’s pay. Can I get some down? Am I talking rubbish?
JS: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
EW: Oh.
JS: That’s been absolutely fascinating. You know, you spoke about —
EW: Now —
JS: When you, when you came out.
EW: Pardon?
JS: When, when you came out of the RAF after the war.
EW: Ah well.
JS: Coming out from Bomber Command. What did you do then?
EW: It was when I came out of the RAF I went to the demob centre and I had trouble there. I’m trying to think how it came about [pause] I was handing him the kit and I had a .38 Smith and Wesson that belonged to the RAF and had been issued to me. Oh, I know what it was. Yes. We had a fire in the hut and it burned my [pause] kit bag with all the data about this pistol and I never bothered to go and have it re-registered to me. And when I got to the centre to come out of the RAF I handed what over they wanted off me. And I pulled this pistol out. I said, ‘You can have that now.’ ‘You can’t. We can’t take it. You’ll have to wait.’ So, I went and sat down. I sat there all day. And at the end of the day I said, ‘Well, what’s happening?’ They said, ‘Oh, we can’t take it. We can’t. We’re trying to find out what we’ve got to do with it.’ And so I sat there for a whole day before he said, ‘We’ll take it in custody and look after it. I said, ‘Well, what have I got to do?’ ‘You come back tomorrow and get your hat and your togs,’ you see, ‘But you can come back tomorrow.’ So I lost a complete day there over a blasted pistol. I didn’t want the flaming thing. I’d used it mind you quite a bit but I didn’t want it. As a matter of fact I used to take it home with me and go out in the fields behind my house where I lived at Cottenham and I used to put a target up in the base of a tree and shoot at it. And I was quite good at it. I went back about seven or eight years afterwards, after I’d been plugging into this tree and the tree had died and blown over [laughs] So, the only thing I ever killed with a pistol [laughs] The only thing I ever killed. Now, Frank Leatherdale, the navigator on the first crew he had a luger. One of these wooden holstered ones which he lost when he was in Korea. He went to Korea, Frank did. And it’s in the river [unclear] or whatever it is there. He threw it in there rather than be captured. We lived in Nissen huts at Witchford and Frank was a fanatic wooden aircraft modeller and I used to go and sit with him and watch him modelling away and do little bits for him in his billet. Used to sit in the corner. And he always used to be eating something. He used to go to the NAAFI and buy loads of cake and stuff, bring it back, put it — have a nibble of it and put it down. And a mouse got to hear about this and of course the Nissen huts there had been built — well you know how. They just put down a concrete flat and then bolted it around the outside. And you got all these corrugation all the way around. Of course, Frank then saw this mouse at it. Jumped up and got his stick and went after it and it was through this hole and outside. Frank said, ‘Right, matey I’m ready for you.’ He loads up his luger and he waits. The next day the mouse came in. I wasn’t there at the time but I heard about it. And he put this pistol down the hole the mouse went and banged until he’d emptied the magazine [laughs] and went outside expecting to see a dead mouse. He’d blown a hole through the concrete footpath. Oh, he was a lad. Lovely time. It was that sort of thing made life worth living. Poor old Frank. Aye. I spent hours with that lad with an astro compass at Wing. Shooting the North Star. He was going to teach me navigation but he never got around to it. He was too busy all the while doing something or other on his own navigation. But he was going to teach me to navigate so that I’d be able to move over into the navigator’s seat if ever I needed. But my theory on navigation was steer 270 and that [laughs] that’s was about it. But that was Frank. But oh, we did have some fun. It was a great life. A great life. I wouldn’t be against anybody. My younger son who is looking after me now has just come out. He’s done twenty two and a half years and —
[telephone ringing]
EW: He’s not. Wait a minute. She’ll come around.
JS: That’s it.
EW: She’ll stop it.
[recording paused]
EW: No. He’s done twenty two years and I don’t think he’s enjoyed it as much as I did in my four and a half. I don’t think as much. After I finished at [pause] at Oakington I went to Market Harborough. Gunnery. And I was in the gunnery section there and I had a wonderful time. I — do you remember this or did you know the scanners they used to scan film on in the RAF? And it used to go click click click. A square at a time. Well, I converted one of those into a scan to scan night vision shots that were taken of a Hurricane attacking a Wellington. The Hurricane had two infrared lamps set a foot each inside the wingspan and they showed up as black dots. So we got a film, a picture with two black dots. Two black dots up here and they get bigger and come around like that and I’d got to try and scan them. And what I did was eventually to get these [pause] a template put over it and I could draw a line across between these plots and plot them. And we were able to assess that. Now, the wing commander in charge of gunnery in that group was named Windmill. He came down, patted me on the back and gave the gong to the fellow who was in charge of the section for doing this. So, I was — but I didn’t want it. It was a what do you call it now? Galloping horses. He got that. Corky got that. And I had a wonderful time there at Market Harborough. And then of course that closed down. We moved from Market Harborough then to RAF Station Manby. That was the station where I believe the CO route marched the whole station because of an incident on parade going on Thursday. Route marched the whole lot, men and women — and in snowy weather. And they had to go around with ambulances picking up the women who’d passed out. That was at Manby. Well, it hadn’t changed very much. But I made the best of my time there by joining in with a drama group. And with a couple of German soldiers, prisoners of war, we knocked down the old stage in the number two hangar and we brought all the wood down to the upper deck of the airman’s mess and we built a stage there with these two Germans. And one was an electrician so I said, ‘Would you wire it?’ He’d love to, he said. So I said, ‘Righto then. Tell me what wire I’ve got to order.’ ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’ve seen the wire.’ He’d seen all the scrap wire down on the dump. So, I had to go and accompany him down there and he was pulling this out, rolling this up and pulled this out. Do you know we had a stage there as good as a West End stage. Yeah. The fairy godmother could disappear. She did once. She fell through [laughs] But they could disappear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. We had some wonderful days. Shows there and pantomimes. And the old man was quite pleased with it and he was quite pleased. He came on the stage and said he liked to see a good old fashioned pantomime where everybody knew what everybody was going to do. So that was Manby. And after Manby out into the wide world. I was ready to go. I was demobbed [pause] And I just got married and living and here we are. You know. That’s a crude effort that of mine but that’s roughly what the way it went. Now, of the people I met that I’ve rated highly I rated Flash McCullogh. His wife lives at, down on the south coast. His widow. Flash McCullogh. Lucky Hudson. Of course, Tiger Smith. Yes. He’s, he’s dead and gone. Tiger. Syd James. I’d rate him high but I think he’s gone. That’s McCullogh, McCullough’s crew. McKechnie’s crew — they’re all dead. All dead. Apart from me. And I am, you know in the knacker’s yard as you might say. Yes.
JS: What, what did you do —
EW: That’s what I say to the doctor when he comes to the house, ‘If I’d have been a horse you’d have shot me six years ago.’ And he look at me gone out. He can’t understand why, you know. Clinging on to life and that. Anyway, then McCullough. That was all I had really in crew.
JS: What did —
EW: I can’t think of anything else to tell you.
JS: What did you do after the war?
EW: Somewhere in here I’ve got a write up I did on Oakington RAF Station. When it was built and all the rest because I worked at Oakington Railway and I used to love to go up the signal outside. Peer across and see what they were doing. It was funny you know. Oakington RAF. I wasn’t there at the time but when the 5.20 to Kettering came down and it was one of the old fashioned ones with huge wheels at the side. Went from Cambridge to Kettering. They used to be loading the Stirlings up and they used to bring all the Stirlings right around the airfield and park them alongside the railway line. Tail on to the railway line. Bomb them up and everything. And you could virtually see the carriages lean over as the people all clawed out of the way. I thought what a marvellous way, ‘Hello. Is that Herr Watson? They’re coming tonight. They’re loading up at Oakington. I can even see it.’ You could almost hear them saying it. It was an absolute give away. And those poor old Stirlings used to get knocked the hell out of it. But I flew a Stirling with — when Chitty was a pilot. Chitty always said that if ever he was knocked out I was to take over. And we were at Wratting Common. What a place. It was just being made an airfield. It was all mud and water and the billets literally they ran with, down the wall. If ever we went in, if we lit a fire — condensation. Condensation right across the room like fog. And I found a way of breaking up some trees there that had been chopped down. They were silver birch. By picking them up as a log, bashing them on this metal trough they broke, they sheared off and we stuffed some, the fire with these logs. And the lads of course they could do it. Bernard and the rest of them they kept stuffing them in and the chimney pipe went red. It went straight through the roof red and was glowing red outside. They had the station police down, ‘Put that out.’ [laughs] What a blooming effort. Yes. That was it. But they used to hang the sheets up and they used to steam. That was a wicked place. But anyway I flew a Stirling at — when Chitty called me up alongside him. Sat me on the co-pilot’s seat. Said, ‘Right. It’s all yours. You fly it. Let me see how you can fly an aeroplane.’ And I flew completely around the cross country we were doing. A lot of, you know jittery but never the less I did it. And he called the crew together when we finished and said, ‘Right. If I get knocked out Eric takes the wheel.’ And they understood that. The lads understood that. They’d say, ‘Before he takes the wheel let me know and open the escape door,’ you know. And that sort of thing.’ They were quite genuine, the lads [laughs] Now, I wish we were all together again for a good do. You know. We’d have a right good do. Anyway, I hope I’ve been helpful.
JS: That’s good. After the war what did you do in civilian life?
EW: Pardon?
JS: After the war what did you do in civilian life?
EW: Oh. I went, I got married in 1956 err ’46. So I was married seventy three years last year. I’ve got the old thing hanging up there from the Queen. And I joined Stanton Ironworks Company near Nottingham. And I went to work there in the slag sales department. Accounts section. Doing the accounts which was in an awful mess. It had been left to a number of girls and they got in an awful mess. You know, you were constantly having telephone calls from customers saying — look, I bought so and so on such and such a date at fifty five and six and I had some the next day and it was fifty seven and six. Why? You know. They’d got all everything all munched up. So I sorted that out. And then along came the chance of being the assistant welfare officer because the assistant welfare officer shot himself on the range at Stanton. He’d been mucking around with the girls and got himself into trouble and he shot himself with a 22 on the range. So, I joined Colonel [unclear] OBE or MBE one of which. And I did four years with him in welfare. He and I got on like a house on fire. And then the job came up for — they were wanting a representative for slag sales. That’s the blast furnace slag crust turned into roadstone coated with tar and bitumen and what have you. So, I was lectured by the assistant commercial manager and told that it had been let go badly which it had. Old Palmer had had an easy life. He wasn’t very keen on selling slag. And I made an effort there and got that on its feet and along came a chap from Amalgamated Roadstone Corporation. A Jock Turner. And he was friendly with Cameron and said to Cameron, ‘I’ve got a good job going. Do you know anybody who is good?’ You know at Roadstone and that? And Ken said, ‘Oh, we’ve got the class. We’ve got the lad.’ Cameron got me in. He said, ‘You want to go there. You’ll be a director in two in two or three years.’ I went along. He was the biggest twister out. This chap. I stuck it for six years. Do you know I was waiting for my expense account to be settled four months after I’d spent my money? I’d [eleven?] pounds then and the expense account wasn’t very heavy either because I was always very keen to keep it as low as possible. And anyway I went in, went in to the office one day and then I said, ‘By the way, I’ll be leaving in a month. Here’s my notice. Goodbye.’ Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. I thought he was going to cry. But anyway, I left and I joined ICI at Buxton. Now, a fellow who works at, also worked in the Leicestershire field, Don Bell was the sales manager for ICI Roadstone. And I got in touch with him and he said, ‘Yes. You’re just the man we want, Eric. Right away.’ Went up to see him. He interviewed me. I was in, and I was with ICI until 1978. Then along comes this smart fellow who knows how to do everybody’s accounts. Do you remember him? Johns was his name. Remember him? Thick set fella. ICI closed down after he’d been there. He came along and tried to close [unclear] down. Do you remember the series? I watched him very carefully, he closed ICI down and ICI sold the paint to a Dutch firm and making thousands out of Dulux that Dutch firm. He sold it and they just kept the chemical works. Not the chemical as much as the medical stuff over at, over in, near Macclesfield. And I came out with a reasonable pension. They’ve been very good to me. I get my pension regularly and they write to me and tell me how they are and that sort of thing. They were a good firm to work for. A pity they ever packed up. I went in to the salt mine in Cheshire on one occasion. What a sight to behold. Go underground and face a seventy foot face of salt with cranes, big diggers shovelling up. Underground. You couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. That was a wonderful wonderful firm. But what I liked about ICI was no matter how high up a manager was if a junior person came along with an idea of some sort they would listen to it and if it was reasonable say, ‘Right. Go ahead.’ If it wasn’t reasonable say, ‘Well, we’ll talk this one over. Don’t do anything yet.’ They were very, very very reasonable. A remarkable firm to work for. Pity they ever folded up. Pity they were folded up. And that was after. Then when I retired I came up here. Now, I used to be an enthusiastic gardener. Look at the mess it is now. What a mess. I used to put three and a half thousand bedding plants out a year here and a beautiful show. And the lawn which is like a grass field now was like a bowling green. And we used to play carpet bowls on it. I’ve got a carpet bowls set in the back there. I used to play carpet bowls with the kids. Up and down it. And that kept me busy. And then in 19 — in the centennial year 2000 I was looking after my son’s dogs and he lived at Brechin. He’s the eldest son. He was a dentist and he was divorcing his wife. Or his wife was divorcing. I don’t know which but they divorced. And we were looking after him, my wife was from Monday to Friday. And I brought the dogs over here and looked after them and the pair of dogs and I went four and a half mile walk each day. I had a wonderful time. And on centennial night, the year 2000 I was over in Brechin and I took the two dogs for a walk. And we went into Brechin Park and I stood on the top of a grassy slope that leads down to Brechin War Memorial listening to them chiming in the New Year. And I slipped and fell and broke a rib. And I swear to this day that’s what started this. I’ll swear it’s that because nobody knows what causes this except they know it’s the finger, fingertip nerves that have been cantalised, eaten, torn away but you can hardly bend your fingers. And anyway in 19 — 1903 I bought myself a second new car. We had a caravan up to then because we used to travel around with these sons. Getting rid of wives and having children and that. Used to travel around in the caravan. I got rid of the caravan. Got rid of that car. Bought a new car. A little — a Japanese anyway. A lovely little car. And I ran it for three years. My granddaughter, I gave it to her. She lives in Aberdeen and is an accountant. And she’s driving it now. 1903 was a good little car and I turned my driving licence in the same year. Of course I did this. I realised I’d got to. I drive on the roads to the bottom here and there’s a halt sign and when I went to put my declutch put my foot down and the car lurched and jumped. You know. That sort of thing. And my wife, ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ You know. That sort of thing. So, I knew I wasn’t fit to drive. So, I packed the car up there and then and as I say gave it to my granddaughter. And that brings me right up to present.
JS: Yeah. That’s been really super. That’s been terrific.
EW: Has it?
JS: Magic. Just let me stop the record —
EW: What I will try and do is find that —
JS: Can I — yeah.
EW: Sheet of paper about Oakington for you.
JS: Can I just stop this recording.
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 Eric Wilkin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-07
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWilkinE170607, PWilkinE1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:04:56 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Erik Wilkin worked on the railways before he joined the RAF. Initially he wanted to be a pilot but it would be a significant wait for training. He trained as an air gunner and was posted to 115 Squadron. On one occasion his aircraft made an emergency landing at RAF Woodbridge after been attacked by a Ju 88. On another occasion he was injured in the leg from a shell splinter. Eric’s first pilot showed him how to fly the aeroplane so he would be able to take over if the pilot was injured. Eric was awarded the DFC and bar but did not receive any courtesy in its award.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Suffolk
France--Chevreuse Valley
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-07
115 Squadron
7 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Oakington
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Witchford
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1098/11557/PRobertsonH1701.1.jpg
f9ee64052969beda426cbcab62837c71
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1098/11557/ARobertsonH170823.2.mp3
708ae4d6dafe6ab1a78c7e400f067d25
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
Robertson, Horace
H Robertson
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Horace Robertson (1919 - 2019, 632619 Royal Air Force). He served as an electrician in 617 Squadron. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Robertson, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: That’s good. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Horace Robertson. The interview is taking place at Horace’s home in [buzz] Edinburgh on the 23rd of August 2017. Could you tell me a little bit about your life before you joined the RAF?
HR: From when?
JS: From, from school?
HR: From school?
JS: Yeah.
HR: Well, I went to Broughton School. Yeah. Then I left at fourteen and joined my father who had a shoe repairing business and I worked for him until I was called up at nineteen and that was me in.
JS: And were you, when you were called up were you sent to the RAF or did you have a choice on where you went?
HR: We had a, had a wee exam which was really just adding. Could you add up this and add up that? It was more like the Air Force recruiting place and that was it. So just joined up then. That’s it, because at that time they didn’t call the night, when we were called up there was something about they didn’t want to cause any bother in Germany so they weren’t called soldiers, airmen or anything they were called, I can’t remember, a funny name. A very political sort of thing. You know. But we weren’t, weren’t called up as the Air Force or anything like that so I don’t know why. I read in the paper the other day about it and they had a fancy name for us and it wasn’t until the war was declared that’s when we came under the name like the Air Force. That’s right. Yeah.
JS: So where did you go first?
HR: Cardington. Basic training. Cardington. Yeah. Very good. There’s a photo there somewhere of me at Cardington. That’s right. So that, I went there for I can’t remember how long. We weren’t allowed out you know until we had done the basic training and we were called up. Sorry. Yeah. Then after that I went to Henlow on an electrician’s course. So that was going to be, of course the war wasn’t on then so it was supposed to be a three year course but of course, as soon as the war was declared that was scrapped and we were hustled right through, you know. So I become an electrician then after that and I mean there was no electricians at that time. They were all wireless or electric mechanics so we were the first lot of electricians to come out you know. That was it. Yeah.
JS: So, so what was expected that your role was going to be? What?
HR: Just electrician. That was all. We did, we did a course on electrics, motors and then you know wiring and it was like a college. We were at a college. That’s right. Yeah.
JS: So, which, which squadron did you go to first?
HR: I can’t remember the number but it was at Finningley at Doncaster. It was Hampdens there you know. Twin engine Hampden bombers. I think we had two. I think we had two bombers. I think that’s all we had. Yeah. And my job was to make sure the batteries were always charged up for the aircrew. They had an individual one for their stuff and they all had to have them always charged up every day. So that’s all I was there. For that. And my uniform lasted just a few months and it just crumbled away with the acid. Fumes off the acid you know. So I was only there a few months and then I was posted to Hereford on another course. Electrician 2s course. So that was that. So I went there and I passed out there. Got my electrician 2 and then I was posted to Newcastle and it was a wee bit of grass and a wooden hut and that’s all it was there. So it was 83 MU and it was a Salvage Unit so we used to go around picking up salvage from crashes and that was, that was a good job. And there was no billets so the police just came along and went, knocked on the door, ‘Right. I’ve got somebody. You’ll have to put this lad up.’ And all the crew and everything all went into private houses. So we just lived with the people. So that was good. Yeah. And that were extended from the top of Scotland right down to Darlington and everything that crashed that was to be picked up you know. So I was there for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a good, that was a good job. Yeah. Picking up aircraft and we were, we’d be away in Durham, we were over in the, over west and all over the place so it was a good. That was a good one. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember we were down at Whitley Bay. There was a, I can’t remember the name of the place but a big house there and a Spitfire had crashed so we were down there and we picked it up. So we drove along the front at Whitley Bay and I can’t remember the name of the hotel but anyway they were all recruits and they were being drilled and we come along with an old wagon and all the, all the muck and everything and the flight sergeant came out. ‘Get them out of there. Get them out of there.’ That lot, you know and I can remember you’d never seen such a, I mean we’d been working up to the ears in mud all day and that’s right. So that was quite funny that. Yeah. So I was there for a while and then I got posted down to [pause] I can’t remember where now. Anyway, we were working on Lockheed Hudsons this time you know. That’s right. And [pause] what happened was they used to land badly and the undercarriage went upwards and both petrol tanks were split. So that was and that was this crowd here by the phone. Civvies. So we worked with civilians working on these Lockheed Hudsons you know. So that was quite a good thing. I was there for ages and ages and ages there and then from there we went to 57. I was there a wee while and then was transferred to 617. That was it. Yeah. And then I went on as I say the unit and we went on this taking the engine out and putting them in and you could see the [unclear] when they did the Tirpitz. You know when they bombed the Tirpitz they changed all the engine on that. That’s right. I can’t remember that but I remember working on the engines you know. That’s right. And then after that I got moved again on to this new unit, Bomber Command Film Unit and that was the where two thingumyjigs there. And the war was to finish then so we were on Tiger Force. Yeah. Was on Tiger Force for that one. Yeah. And then I got posted to Gib and went on a troop ship. I mean why didn’t they fly me there? Went on a troop ship. Full of soldiers they were. They were saying all these ha ha you know. So we had a bit of a [unclear] getting out and then I was only there three months. Flew home, was demobbed and that was it. You know. Simple as that. Yeah.
JS: How did you, when you moved around as on ground crew did you tend to move around with the same people all the time or were you working with [unclear]
HR: Not really. We just seemed to be, you just, I mean we just got posted somehow. One minute they said, ‘Right. You’re off.’ And that was it, you know. That’s right.
JS: How, how, what was the relationship like between ground crew and aircrew?
HR: Didn’t do anything with them. Never saw them really. I mean you, you were on ground crew all the day you know. You never saw the ground, you didn’t see the aircrew until they came out at night, you know. That’s right. Yeah. You didn’t. I can’t remember ever seeing any. Being with them you know because we were so busy. I mean that when we went to East Kirkby it was such a huge ‘drome by the time we got out in the morning and walked over to dispersal, did our job it was time to come home for lunch. So in the end they had to get bikes. Everybody got a bike there because that was the only way they could do it. It was such a huge place. I’ve never seen such a place so big, you know. That’s right. But never, didn’t have anything to do with the aircrew at all. The only time we were coming away with aircrew was when we used to repair Ronson lighters. That was a good job. You know when they used to break we used to make the spring and there was always some aircrew that wanted that. That was the only time you saw them you know. But otherwise, no. Yeah.
JS: So did you work on, if you were at that aerodrome like East Kirkby you would work on lots of different aircraft. You wouldn’t just work on the same one.
HR: No. It was only on Lancasters. That’s right. Yeah. That’s the only ones we had. That’s right. Yeah. I remember flying to Derby I think it was to pick up a plane. One had landed and we saw planes there with two engines and they were doing experimental with jets you know. That’s right. And we couldn’t believe it. We thought, ‘They’ve got no propellers.’ You know. That’s right. So that was that. That was the only time I flew was when we flew down there to pick it up. One up. That’s right. Yeah. So, but nothing very exciting I’m afraid. But I mean that night with the Dambuster’s now we worked on there and we hadn’t a clue. I mean the planes were blacked out during the day and they were flying about and we were putting extra stuff in, electrical stuff but we had no bombs. And it was just about a day I think before the raid the bombs arrived and everybody looked at them and the armourer said, ‘I haven’t a clue. What are they going to use them for.’ So everybody got the idea they were going to be used against the Tirpitz. They were going to drop them and they were going to roll along and hit the Tirpitz. And that’s, that was the story. Yeah. I mean we hadn’t a clue that night. I was on duty that night and all I know. Yeah. So, and then I went to Gib and this, it was a lifeboat thing and it was underneath a Warwick plane and it was built by a guy called Uffa Fox. He was a famous boat guy. And there was an inboard motor and a twelve volt battery and that’s what I had to do was to make sure the battery was ok. So we got out this day, sailed around a bit and then what did they call it? A York was it? The civilian Lancaster. This arrived this day and this lady got out and she was the something of education, the Ministry of Education and she was going to fly from Gib to Malta. So this boat had to be got ready for her and put in to make sure that she had something. If anything happened on the way out she would have this boat you know. But I never heard any more about that, you know. That’s right. Yeah. But so I was at, I forget. Hendon I think I went. Anyway, and I went around with the guys and I said, ‘Now, you don’t have a lifeboat here?’ And the boatmen went, ‘Eh?’ They didn’t know. They didn’t know about an airborne lifeboat. That’s right. Yeah. And I see it was up in north, up in the north of Scotland. They had the, after the war they had the unit up there. That’s right. So, but that was it, that finished me off then. I just flew back to Manchester and was demobbed and that was it. So it was nothing special you know. Yeah.
JS: You, you mentioned being on duty on the night of the Dambuster’s raid.
HR: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: So if, if it was secrecy beforehand and nobody knew what was happening and whatever what was the, what was the feeling like on the base after?
HR: Well, we knew there was something on because the Red Caps were on the front door, the phones were all cut off and nobody was allowed out for ages. Now, we knew there was something but when you’re inside you just didn’t know. We were just, you were just keeping, getting on with the jobs you see and that was that. It was the same at night. It was just like an ordinary flying off at night. That was it. That’s right. And we didn’t know when they came back what was. We never knew then. It wasn’t until we heard about it the next day. That’s right. It was very, it was very secret. Yeah.
JS: And what was, what was the feeling like on the base when the news came out the next day?
HR: I think they were more surprised than anything you know. It, I mean then it suddenly dawned that, was that what the motor was underneath? Was that what that was? But I mean it wasn’t until we saw the actual films and that we knew what had happened. Yeah. Because, I mean they used to, you’d be working away beforehand and I mean you’d see the plane coming but the side windows were glazed over and things like that and the guys were flying blind. Well, not blind but flying in dark. In daylight darkness. That’s correct. Yeah. But I can’t remember much about it really. I mean it was just, you were just doing your normal jobs. You didn’t know anything special was going on. You just got on with what you were doing you know. You got a paper and you had to do something on, put something in and that was it. Yeah.
JS: But there must have been special visitors to the base after with the, like now.
HR: Well, once again we were put back behind bars, not bars but you were back on, on the old duty going to, you were just working away, you know. That’s right. It was over and it was over you know.
JS: So what, so what did you do after the war?
HR: What I’m doing now.
JS: The time when you were demobbed.
HR: What I’m doing now. Shoe repairer. Yeah. [unclear] Avenue and I’ve been there from 1946 when I come out. I’ve been there and I’m still there. So nothing happening [laughs] no.
JS: There’s nothing wrong with that.
HR: No.
JS: With, with as a Bomber Command veteran how do you think you and Bomber Command were treated after the war?
HR: Blooming rotten. I think so. I mean I read in the paper every day somebody saying that. [Dresden] of course that killed it dead that did. But I mean there were one on here the other night on about saying we should never have bombed Germany. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t this. But I mean it didn’t say about London and Coventry and you know everything else did it? No. And they’re still, still on. People. I know. Yeah.
JS: Do you think it’s, it’s changed at all?
HR: I don’t think that. Well, there still must be. Maybe. Maybe this lot. But even the younger ones. I’ve been reading about it and they’re on about it and saying it shouldn’t have been done. And I mean I can show you on here some Berlin at the back end you know. That’s what. That’s what I get when they see people running about in and they get but of course that bit was the Russians so that had nothing to do with us. You know. That’s right. I don’t get it. But there’s so many. Even the ones in parliament are still nagging on. Yeah.
JS: How, how do you think what was the feeling about Churchill at the time do you think?
HR: Didn’t have any. Never used to worry about me or any other and we just got on with the, you just got on with the job. You didn’t worry about them. It was like when I was at [pause] I can’t remember the place now but we were in bed on the Sunday morning when war was declared you know and somebody said, ‘Are you going over there for breakfast? Will you bring me a mug of tea back?’ And that was all that was mentioned. The war was on and they were talking about bringing a mug of tea back. You know what I mean. You couldn’t believe it. And that day the war was declared we got a gas mask, a gas cape, a tin hat and we had to go on patrol up in the hills there to guard the water tower with a pickaxe handle against the IRA. Now, I mean that’s what we were fighting. Against the IRA when war was declared. I mean you couldn’t believe it. It’s just unbelievable. This was with a pickaxe handle. I mean it’s crazy. And then, then one of the guys got smallpox so we were all confined to barracks. Nobody could go out so they used to bring the meals, put them in the door and they used to bring the morning papers and jigsaw puzzles and things. We were there a fortnight. Couldn’t go out with smallpox you know. That could be dangerous so the Red Caps used to come down and used to walk you up in the hills and then bring you back. That was it. But I mean that was the day they declared war and that’s all. That was it, you know. Still can’t believe it. Yeah. But I ended up, you know in doing the two courses. That took quite a while you know. That’s right. Yeah. And then of course you went up a scale. That meant an extra few pennies. A few pennies a week. Yeah. I know. So funny. Yeah. So —
JS: That’s great.
HR: Nothing very much I’m afraid.
JS: No. That’s been really really good. I’ll just stop this.
HR: I beg your pardon?
JS: I’ll just stop this.
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 Horace Robertson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-23
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ARobertsonH170823, PRobertsonH1701
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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00:24:30 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
Description
An account of the resource
Horace Robertson was working with his father as a shoe repairer in Edinburgh before he joined the RAF. He trained as an electrician and his first posting was at RAF Finningley where he worked on Hampdens. He was then posted to a salvage unit and travelled around the country to collect crashed aircraft. He was based with 617 Squadron and discusses the security on the station before the Dams operation. He was eventually posted to the Bomber Command Film Unit before being posted overseas.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
57 Squadron
617 Squadron
ground crew
ground personnel
Hampden
Hudson
Lancaster
RAF Finningley
Tirpitz
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1091/11550/PReidAB1701.2.jpg
7df3f64424f539e1338898f4c98ae98b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1091/11550/AReidAB170725.1.mp3
f02e3cdca009c91222c5f5330024272b
Dublin Core
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Title
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Reid, Arthur Baxter
A B Reid
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Arthur Reid (1920 - 2019, 177101 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-25
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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Reid, AB
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Arthur Reid. The interview is taking place at Arthur’s home in [buzz] Edinburgh on the 25th of July 2017. Arthur, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
AR: I think we were very normal. Grew up. I went through the schools. I ended up secondary at Boroughmuir. And then from then I ended up with a seven year apprenticeship in a grocers. So, it came out about you know volunteering. I thought, so as soon as it came out I went straight up to the RAF and I volunteered. And I think they were just starting it. Anyway, they took my name and they said, ‘We’ll put you on the Reserve.’ So at the same time I popped into the Navy place and asked them. I said, ‘I want to be in submarines too.’ So they laughed and they failed me. I don’t know why. Because I didn’t have enough teeth. Teeth in my mouth. They failed me. They stopped me for that. And as for the army you can have that. I wasn’t going there. So anyway, there was a gap in between being called up so I joined the Home Guard. I spent about six months in the Home Guard and then I got the usual railway ticket and instructions and I was qualifying for a wireless operator/gunner. So, I had never left home at all. Anywhere. So I found myself with a little case and a railway ticket and we went out. We went away in the old Caley Station. Do you remember that? At the West End. And just went straight down to Blackpool and there were thousands of us there in blue uniforms. And the funny thing was we were never that popular because most of the people were put up with the landladies and of course they weren’t getting much pay from that. So, anyway we were there for, I think about three or four months on different courses. That’s right. And the funny thing was I had a good friend. We still are friends of course and we both went to the old tram station in Blackpool where we did the Morse. Learned the Morse code. Now, I find that the Morse code is something special. You pick it up or you don’t pick it up and he couldn’t pick it up at all. So they said, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t be what you want but we’ll re-muster you and you’ll be a gunner.’ So he re-mustered as a air gunner. Should get a drink of something here. I’ve got tea here. And so then I was posted. I had my first posting and I was sent up to Lossiemouth. At Lossiemouth I spent a few months up there in the ground station so that I would learn all about communication. Air and ground. And it was on there that I had my first experience. There was a rule of course in flying you must have a pilot and the wireless. That’s the rule. So I see him later in the officer’s mess that night [unclear] and the plane we were taking up had a new engine. And so they had to get a pilot and then they had the wireless operator. And I was a trainee in the station so they put me in the plane with the guy. And when we got in the plane at the very beginning I was [unclear] and he’d been similarly he had got himself all fixed up with a lady and they whipped him out and told him he was to go up in the plane. Well, the two of us went up in the plane and he threw it all over the place and it was ok. So he decided then that he would teach them a lesson in the officer’s mess for doing that. So he flew right over them. Blew them up. When he came to land he overshot the runway so we left it and we went into a field. Right across the field. And there was an air raid shelter I remember and we ended up halfway up the thing. And then the next thing the plane went on fire. That’s right. So being a good pilot he immediately opened the pilot’s window, leapt out and left me in the plane burning. And the funny thing was I was never, never frightened. I don’t know why. But it went up. It was burning. So we always had an axe in the plane so I just hacked a hole in the thing. I got out and I walked back to the camp and I reported it and that was it. I never heard any word about it. They just smothered it all. They lost a plane but he was, although to be fair he was court martialled and sent back to Canada. So that was my first one anyway. So after that I had a selection of gunnery courses, wireless courses and then I got, I was crewed up. Now, in my day in the crewing up system everybody that was a mixture of all things we all gathered in a big parade ground and you were just left. And the pilot came along and he thought he liked that one. So this little man, and he was a real [laughs] a big moustache and everything, you know. He was a pilot so he took the look of me and he said, ‘Would you like to be my wireless?’ I said, ‘Oh sure. Right.’ So, after that we picked up the navigator, two gunners and that was it. So that was us crewed up. And I think we were, well the only interesting thing was that this pilot he was in Spitfires during the Battle of Britain and when the fighting stopped they didn’t have so many planes coming across he got bored so he re-mustered in to the Bomber Command. And I was very lucky to have got him. He was a wonderful pilot. So he was good. I flew with that crew for, oh two years and there wasn’t anything wrong. So I think the next thing was, oh yes, then we went along to an OTU and that’s where, as a crew and we stayed there for a while and cross countrys and all that sort of stuff. And then I was sent down individually to a Gunnery School in Wales. And it’s when we were in Wales that they had the system of the German model on a railway and it went around. This was all to teach you about this radar business about and they went over and somebody went on. I don’t know who it was now. And they had a turret, a dummy turret. You just fired the guns. So we did that and he, I think he allowed a little bit too much so he killed the bull that was just over the fence. We didn’t know what to do so we, there was nobody else there so we dug a big hole and buried it. Covered it up again. Then when we got back to the camp the CO was waiting. We got away with that one alright. And it was after that we went to OTU and that was straightforward and it was then we were, well it wasn’t the Secrets Act. We were told, ‘Keep your mouths shut where ever you go.’ And it was then we found out it was a secret squadron. And the very first one we went to [pause] yes, the first one we went to we were sent up to, to Wick. But before we went to Wick we got to Lossiemouth again to refuel. And when I was, went in there the first time I think it was a Mark 2 or a Mark 3. This was a new Mark 8 one with the engines. And when we took off there it was like a rocket. So we arrived up at Wick and this was a, and we always had very good, well we got information with the Resistance movements. They would keep you in mind. So I think there were about seventy odd, a mixture of planes of all kinds. And then we were told that the Scharnhorst was in a, was in a fjord being repaired. So that good enough for us and we joined them. You see we were a single plane but we just mixed up. And we got about halfway and everybody had to be below fifty feet. That was for radar in these days. So our equipment broke down which meant we were useless so we turned and went back. And we were pretty slow coming back and some of the other ones had been and were coming back. And I didn’t understand at first what it was. Some of them had one engine stopped and other ones were smoking. So that’s really what it was. It was a usual bad trip and they didn’t get the Scharnhorst but they got half the German Air Force waiting for them. So I think they lost about fourteen or fifteen on that one. And we did a lot. We did a lot of [pause] a lot of, actually I don’t think many people did that either. We had to do thirty four ops and we, in between Coastal Command and Bomber Command. Coastal Command headquarters were down in Portsmouth I think and we used to go down there and we were right down to depth and had that great big board in the cell and the girls put the ladders up. And I thought this was funny. But in, indirectly it was because of that that the WAAFs changed their uniform because seemingly the girls were so sick climbing up these ladders and getting on to their backs they made so much fuss that it just came out that there would be no more uniform skirts and they came on to trousers again. And then we used to go out from there for about oh, eight, nine hours trips. We didn’t carry any bombs. We carried an overload tank, and the thingummy. And what we were after there were submarines and battle ships. Anything at all. People don’t talk much about the Bay of Biscay but I found out myself a long time afterwards that it was always busy. There were some terrific battles in the Bay of Biscay because the planes were coming from Egypt and the German bombing. A really big do. So anyway we were out one day and we got told to keep your eyes open for a pilot. He’d bailed out and he was in his dinghy. So we kept that in mind. And then that was the day that the lieutenant in the boat, the submarine had surrendered and what they were doing was they were keeping their eye on the thing while they got a British plane to come and take them in. So seemingly the captain of the ship was so nosy he decided to have a look at it. So he went aboard it and went down and that’s when he examined it and he just saw this box standing next to the [unclear]. So he just thought maybe there’s something into this thing so he brought it up. And I think that was the first of the Enigma machine. That’s right. That was that. So anyway, that was that and we got back to base. To the coast again. We had the rule in the Bay of Biscay that it was one hundred miles from the coast to the Scilly. The Isles. The Scilly Isles. We knew that was a hundred miles so we came in over the harbour there and there were a lot of people there in the harbour and we wanted to find out if the dinghy had been found you see. So we went down there about seventy or eighty feet off the ground and we went around on one wing [laughs] I think they were all panicking. So we saw the man and he waved to us. So that was good. So anyway, we got back to our own base. It was quite disappointing. Had it been a German pilot [laughs]. That sort of spoiled the day [laughs] But we had lots of fun though. I mean and as far as the RAF goes I’ve talked to lots of people and I’ve never heard one wouldn’t have gone back. I mean they were the happiest days of my life. Not training or anything like that but when you were in a proper station. We had six and a half years’ service and in squadrons of course you got an awful lot of freedom. Oh yes. There was a constant battle between the stores department and aircrew. There was one night, one day we got a, we got a call from the CO to go to the crew room. So we all piled in there and he came in. He was a heck of a nice man. He was actually an international rugby player for Wales. I remember that. So he came in and talked and he always called us boys. He said, ‘Well, boys,’ he said, ‘You must know I’m pretty, you know, I’m very fair and I’ll do anything I can for you,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘How can I go to the stores and ask for that?’ So, we’d all been putting wee things down. Flying jackets, watches, helmets. He said, ‘Not even I can do that,’ he said, ‘There were six of you in that plane and there was eight people applying for their stuff.’ [laughs] He said, ‘Try a wee, you know, next time try a bit bigger.’ So that was funny. And I’ve got a, I’ve got a small, I’ll maybe show you it. It was a small cigarette lighter. It’s got quite a wee story because that was about seventy two years ago. One of our planes crash landing. And our ground crews were great too. They were. So we had, one of the guys was a very handy boy. So he took a broken bit of Perspex and then I had a, I had a bullet. A bullet for a machine gun. It had come off a Liberator that landed at our place. And I had a wee look inside when they were away for their meal. And it must have been pretty tough because the ground was covered with bullets and everything. So what he did he emptied the inside and just left the outer cover. He fastened that on to the bit of Perspex. Then he put a wick on and made a space for the stuff to go to hold it and well I haven’t used it for so long. But up to about fifteen, twenty years ago it was working perfectly, you know. All you did was take away the screw and pour the petrol in and that was it. And I think that’s something special because not many, you know had an American bullet and a bit of broken Perspex. And he made a perfect wee thing. I must show it to you before you go. And I always, the funny thing was that, I’ll let you see my logbook when I go too because you see my friend Alistair, he was on Lancasters and he was involved with the dropping the food to the Dutch people. He actually got a medal on that and he got a letter from the President thanking him. And he was busy with prisoners of war. Bringing them home and all that sort of stuff. But it’s always sort of niggly. I didn’t know what the rule was about but if you had, if you hadn’t had an operation before a certain date you wouldn’t get the Aircrew Europe one. You’d get another medal but not the Aircrew. And the Aircrew was the one that was proper. So, anyway we’ve known each other a long time and he’s ninety two now. The last, last week in the Daily Record they interviewed him and they had a double page spread. They’re telling about his career and stuff which I thought was very nice. But what I didn’t like about it was the fact that in my, in Alistair’s, that’s his name, Alistair, in his squadron they were allowed coloured cameras. Any kind of cameras. But if any of us were caught with a camera in our station it was a court martial. You were never. So all I’ve got is about four wee pictures I took in black and white. And that will always niggle me that will. But anyway, after that, this wasn’t me but I think it was one of our squadron. You had to go back to the time when the Blitz was on in London. And one of, one of our planes anyway they discovered how they were getting hammered so much and they found that the Luftwaffe had a beam. A sound beam. It was in Berlin and it went straight across to London. To where it was getting blitzed. And all they had to do was just fly and drop their bombs and that’s why I think the blitzing was so heavy. They couldn’t miss it. So our next problem was how to stop it without letting them know. And as far as I know what they did was they started to bend the beam slightly and they kept doing that ‘til I think it was practically on the outskirts. I mean they had fires burning all over the place. Excuse me [coughs] Am I talking too much?
JS: No. You’re doing fine.
AR: You must remember this was just individual for my life. There was other guys did a damned sight more. And I think what happened — what was the next big event? Oh yes. There was the time we were, we weren’t flying so much and the CO didn’t like that at all so he got all of us up. Put us in the bus sort of thing and he sent the whole lot of us down to an army course. So aircrew were never what you would call, you know healthy. And we had these damned uniforms and rifles and oh to hang this, and crawling along the ground. So I remember there was a piece of it where you had to jump over a wee stream. I came charging up, jumped over, missed it, landed in the middle of the water and I cut my lip with the rifle butt [laughs] Oh, I was in a mess. So we had more fun than anything else. And we did the daftest things, you know. We, we were in a small town down near the middle of Norfolk and one night the crew were in and we’d had a few drinks. There was nothing but, there was nobody about. It was night time. All that was there was the traffic lights. So, we [laughs] we started playing take offs when the green light went. Took it back and stopped. And while we were doing that up came this policeman and his bike. I think he didn’t know what to charge us with [laughs] Of course he didn’t bother, you know. And that was that. Anyway, the CO had left instructions that the first one due, crew back would get a weekend off you see. Well, what they had done was dropped us off everywhere. All over the place as they would do. And we were very fortunate because our rear gunner had a pal who had a pub about a mile from there. So we just fetched up there for the weekend. After all, we had time. And then we got back and I don’t know if we were first in. We were back very early and the CO was standing at the gate watching this like and he never said anything but if we didn’t smell [laughs] he must have known. We were not walking straight. But that’s, that he never interrogate there. Another thing we used to do, that was a big event we had group captain in charge of the place and he’d a wee plane of his own. And this just came out of the blue. Not let anyone know and see what was going on. But then again the night before he came we didn’t expect him. All the crews were up on the runway playing take-off and landing on their bikes. We all had bikes, you see. You have no idea of the things we got up to. And of course then we all got, staggered home and went to bed. But of course they left [laughs] all the planes were, the bicycles were all over the runway and up came Charlie and he couldn’t get in. What a fuss there was about that. That was never talked about. Another time, Wing Commander Willis, that was his name he got a brand new bike all of his own. And he warned everybody, he said, ‘One finger on my new bike,’ he said, ‘And I’ll send you somewhere you’ll not want to come back from.’ And anyway that was fine. So they were having an officer’s dance that night. And I wasn’t involved in this one. So they got hold of his beautiful new bike, broke it up, put it on the flag pole where the flags were and pushed it up to the top. And it was up there all night. And of course there again the group captain came in and [laughs] So we got off with murder. We really did. Absolute murder. And this, they were, we had so much freedom. And then we had the other one was the, if you were on an op you could have breakfast. Have one before or after. Most of them took it before. And this used to rile the peacetime guys that had it before. And they kicked up a stink about it because we got a lot of potted jam and butter or something extra and of course I was very pally with one of the waitresses. The cooks. So we always got a little extra of this stuff, you know. But the job we were on we were pretty safe, I think. We could have taken it after lunch. But what these guys used to do they used to come sneaking in and join us and they would just say, they just used to just say, ‘Ops.’ And the trouble was that the WAAFs knew who it was and they wouldn’t give it them. Oh, they were flaming. And there was always antagonism. For a while anyway. There seemed to be some system. A lot of guys could join up on set courses and as soon as they got their pilot’s wings, well they were actually operational. But they made damned sure that they were going to be there when the war finished and then when the war finished they were veterans and they got all the credit. And there were a lot of bad feeling about that. And the worst time I remember bad feeling was, I remember when America came into the war or something. And it was the morning after that. There was a whole noise going on seemingly and it was what do you call him, the head man in the American 8th Air Force? They had come into the fight and they came out in the paper and he said that, ‘With the help of the RAF we’ll beat the enemy.’ Well, that did it. I mean two years late. We’d been on our own. And he said that. We just about mutinied [laughs] I think they had to withdraw it. With the help of the RAF. Oh, that was a bad thing to say. And there’s, there’s so many things after that. There was a joke in Bomber Command crews that when, you know if you joined up and they find the joke was that, ‘Well, you’ll like it here. I mean you can make friends awful easy in Bomber Command,’ they said, ‘The difficult bit is keeping them [laughs] That was the sort of sarcastic joke but it went down. And have you heard about the, the just in case letters? Never heard of that? Well, you see then again we were so secret. We’d go up at night with the rest of the crews and dressed with them. And we just watched them. There was a big, big pile of men and you could see these wee envelopes were getting passed around. And I used to wonder what it was myself. So, anyway what it was it was the people on planes had a friend or another friend and they handed them a thing and this was just in case they don’t come back. That. Have you ever seen the Bomber Command book? The manual. The one I was selling.
JS: No.
AR: I’ll let you see it. I can’t, I’ve only got my copy but if you want to buy one I think it’s about, they’re both twenty five. I think it’s about fifteen pound now. It’s a big manual and it’s the story that came out with the Memorial. And the idea was that they would do it both. I think they both came together. You see we get a bit muddled. There’s two of them. A wee rest I think. [pause] I can’t, can’t get my mind to focus. I’ve been talking so much. I mean I’m ninety seven so I mean —
JS: No. You’re doing —
AR: I’ve got, making —
JS: You’re doing well.
AR: Making allowance for me you know.
JS: You’re doing well.
AR: Yeah. What was I talking? I was talking the bomber, the bomber, oh no it was the Memorial one. That’s right. And we went down. Have you ever seen the Memorials?
JS: Not yet. No.
AR: Well, they’re well worth it. I’ve got a photograph over there. I’ll let you see it. I went down there and we were greeted by a group captain. They always have an officer at the Memorial and he [pause] they came in and there was a big, a big bunch of men there. And I found out afterwards, when I was introduced to them that they were all the men that had built the thing. And I met the, we met the man, a Lord somebody, he was the one and all he did the expression in their eyes and things like that. I liked that. Anyway, it was a Group Captain Mike [Searle] I think it was and he, I was talking about these just in case letters. I said, because he’d been three tours with Pakistan and all these places. He’d had a rough time. I said, ‘Did you ever send a letter?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’m in trouble.’ He said, ‘I sent out three and I only got two back.’ That’s funny that. So he explained it all to us. It was a very nice story. And then, well a great privilege he introduced us and took us across to the RAF, the hotel. The big place. Huge place just right opposite. He took us in there and the one thing that struck me was there was no noise. Just the normal thing. And it didn’t matter what rank you were. You could be an air marshall or something. Anybody. You gave your order but when it was ready you go back to the table and pick it up and bring it back to the table and pick it up and bring it in. So we were was just the family. And they keep telling you that the RAF’s a family. They say because when you joined it you joined the family. When you’re there you’re in the family. And when you leave us you’ll get help from the family. And that’s true. So I said to him at, after we had our lunch, it was a huge hotel and I said, ‘I believe you’ve got a special section where every RAF motto, motto thing is on the walls.’ ‘I’ll take you up there,’ he said. It was Arthur and I because we always go together. So we went up and there was about seven hundred and something mottoes. I said, ‘Well, where’s my one?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ll find it.’ Anyway, he was up and down for ages and then he found it away at the bottom of the pile [laughs] So, but they said not many people get up there. I think they only let air crew up in there. And I think the, yes, he was, he was quite a, he would be something special anyway to do with the in the air, the mottoes. Going back to the RAF in general, everywhere I go, you know these air shows I go to and sign books. No matter where I’ve gone it’s the same story every time there’s so much love for the RAF. There’s something about Bomber Command that just, people all come up and, and I had a, oh I always find you get such a selection. I’ve had New Zealanders, Australians, Canadians. Ordinary people all came up. And this little man came up. He was a wee sort of stubby man and he was very tanned and it turned out he was a Yankee, I think. Anyway, he thanked me. He thanked us all for what we did in the war and everything like that. And I said, ‘Oh well,’ I said, ‘We gave them a good doing.’ And he said [unclear] ‘The bastards it,’ he said [laughs] Oh he didn’t like the Germans. And I think it was then Arthur and I were, my wife and I were in a hotel in London and we went down for breakfast and all individual tables of course and you just took what you got. And I got, I got us a four man and a girl and we were just chatting away a wee bit. It turned out that I had been in the Air Force and the girl, the girl said something about, ‘You weren’t dropping the horrible bombs were you?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah. With great gusto.’ So she left the table [laughs] And then the other guy was sitting listening and he heard that and he said, ‘You were these bombers?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh,’ and he got up and left the table. And I thought that’s nice. You come to London and this is what you get. But that was a time, and there again I don’t know if you know the story about what happened when the war finished and how they turned their back on us altogether. And I was talking to this group captain about it. And I said, ‘Do you think it was fair that they turned their back after we had done?’ He said, ‘I don’t definitely,’ he said, ‘But It was ninety percent political because Churchill knew there was general election coming and that people had told the army soldiers that they would get out earlier. So he didn’t know what to do. And you must remember that during the war Churchill came to every squadron regularly and he always, they had a habit of going to the nearest bomber and piddling against the wheel. I don’t know why he did that. But everyone loved him in the air force. We were when are you coming you know? And yet he turned his back. And if you had looked at the record later on after we’d finished and the Victory Parade through London he was broadcasting. And he was praising the Fighter Command for everything they had done to save Britain. Never mentioned bombers once. Never a bomber. He didn’t want to know bombers. And I think why the people turned against us was because they were sick of war. They were sick of bombings and that in the towns. So it was a bad thing and I’m sure that even today there is a slight prejudice at the bomber. They don’t want to know Bomber Command. Forget about them. There was one, you know once a year they have a sort of veteran’s march and they all go over there. Well, I was watching once and it just happened quickly. They were all marching in, in their groups and this tannoy thing came on and said that bomber, ‘Bomber Command will not be showing in this parade.’ He just slipped it in. Why would he say that? That Bomber Command weren’t allowed to go in that parade? And you think there was no backbone. No. And somebody said so many thousand of these bomber boys, they went to their deaths never knowing the, you know. I proved that several times. But I thought, I thought it was terrible. And then he didn’t do any good in his, he wrote his big volume and he more or less said on second thoughts maybe, maybe we should have not been so cruel. Bombing. And that was nothing to do with me, you see. And that’s why I’m just coming to the Memorial because [pause] who was it? Do you know the Bee Gees? The singing group. Well, one of them was walking in Hyde Park about it and they were telling the story about this what happened to Bomber Command. Anyhow, one of the Gibbs. And he said something about, ‘Say that again,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t,’ he said, ‘They wouldn’t give us a medal, a statue. They refused for years.’ And he said, ‘You mean they won’t give you a statue?’ They said, ‘No. We’ve not,’ he said. ‘Well, we’ve got to do something about that,’ he said, ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I’ve just passed a statue of a wee dog.’ And they said, ‘If they can put a bloody dog up they can put Bomber Command up.’ And he was the first one that came forward and suggested it. And he put three million pound in and from there it just went up and up and up. But you see there again with the bias and they were refused one or two places. So I’m sure it’s Hyde Park. Anyway, it’s the park right opposite the Palace. And it was, I’ve only been twice in London. I went on a spot of leave down to London during the Blitz. I didn’t fancy that. I didn’t know what the noise was, it was shrapnel coming down [unclear] took with me. And then I was on our squadron we had Halifaxes. I was always in Wimpies and Mosquitoes. And the Mosquitoes were all New Zealanders. I don’t know why. And they sort of kept to themselves. But I think they, they always had their eye on Peenemunde because that was where the Germans did the job. And they were one. And there was a story I had only been aware recently that seemingly near the end of the war, it was when these V-2s were coming down and nothing could stop them and the Resistance sent them a message again. And it was only a matter of time before the celebrations were starting and the squadron that the Germans had their last little present. They’d been storing these rockets up and they were all aimed for London. And the idea was, and I think it would have worked if they’d have landed enough of these things on London, London would have surrendered and we’d have lost the war. And that was about two or three weeks before it ended. So then again we weren’t very pleased at that happening. And we went on another on another case, if I’m boring you tell me. There was another case. One of our, I was duty officer this night and it was the first time I’d done it. Anyway, there was a secret war going on. I’ll give you an idea we were up one night and it was a moonlit night and we were over the Dutch and French coast I think and we were doing our usual up parading down and the man we were carrying said, ‘There’s something coming up behind you at starboard.’ So, my skipper said to the rear gunner, ‘Can you see anything?’ And he said, ‘No. I can’t see anything.’ And it was a brilliant night. I don’t think people were very impressed. So I was sitting up behind the pilot that night. Look out. And we’d been flying along, I mean it was, and I just happened to look that way starboard and there was a JU88 sitting about two hundred yards from us. We flew, we flew along side by side for a wee while and then this guy waggled his wings, you see. And we waggled our wings back at him. You see, that JU88, it was like a Wellington at night time. So he realised. And my skipper said to me, ‘Is he a foreign. Is he foreign?’ I said, ‘I don’t know but I can see the big crosses.’ That was good enough for him. He said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘We’re offski.’ So we went back out. They went the other way. I don’t know yet so whether the wagging wings was a signal to go down and surrender or else, you know. Och it’s not going to happen. I’ve done it, you know. That sort of thing. But very seldom, but it was so bright and this damned thing sitting out there looking at us and the rear gunner never even saw it. Oh boy. That went down well. And then when, the funny thing was that when we carried these special people when they came in to the plane they had their complete RAF record of where they had been, what they were doing there and if anything had happened they would have been put down as second pilots. So we’d be missing one of our crew and they would go up instead. That was common. And then at night time when we were all getting dressed and the first thing you always put on was a big harness. And then you put on all the gear and picked up your tab and off you went to the plane. And I think every crew they just went to the position and had to sit for about an hour before it took off. So as soon as we got in our plane and closed the door we took off our harness. Put it in the bomb bay. We didn’t fly above two hundred feet. Sorry, two hundred and fifty feet I think it was and we were down that all the time and this is why I say we were such a secret squadron. They’d let the crew see us with harnesses on but we never used them. And a lot of that went on. And as I said a while ago I mean you know don’t look back on that as anything really because we were such good friends. And it was, it was only, it was only two days ago we were down at a place there. We were talking about statistics and casualties and the correct figure now is that there was fifty one percent died. And they said there was no other unit who could have beaten that. Fifty one percent. I mean, that, that was half of what was it, yes. That was a lot of [unclear] and that’s why I find out that it’s like doctors and nurses. If you go in to an ordinary hospital you’ll get good treatment. But if you get up with the higher ranks they’re different people altogether. Well, I find that too. Certain people. And one of the men, this is another wee story, you see what we were doing in the castle was there were people that were sponsoring, you know big firms and then they come and then they present the cheques to us. And this man, he, he had been in the army. And he was not satisfied or something so he re-mustered out the army and he took up an SAS job. He was over three times at Pakistan and these sort of places. And then when he came home he found that his house had been burned down and he had no home. And he had been severely injured by one of these explosions. The bombs had been pretty bad. And he had one ambition when he got back home was to be in the police so he applied but they said very sorry but with his wounds. And then he, a terrific man he then decided he would make a career for himself. And he decided that his father had been a, owned a, it wasn’t whisky. It was vodka firm. He’d got the same idea. But the snag was he didn’t have the money. So he appealed to one or two people and the only people that answered were the RAF Benevolent Fund. They stepped in and helped him to make it up and he never forgot that. He comes in regularly. And what was it he said? Oh yes. When his factory’s operating, for every pound he takes in twenty percent goes back to the RAF Benevolent Fund. And then I bumped in to another awful nice man. He has a firm. And you see when you do that you meet people. And this nice man, he lives in Falkland up in Fife. He’d been thirty years in the police force and he, he applied somewhere and they wouldn’t accept him and he had a terrific record. So he decided then that he would make the Benevolent Fund his main target. Made up with about five or six other people. And oh, he’s such a nice man. He’s got a beautiful house too. Oh, a lovely house. He told me the story of the house. It was built by his great grandfather 1850. And after his own died he went on a mission and he bought land around about it and he turned it into a wonderful place. When we got on to the, he’d got two doors. One front and back. If you go the back way you come down through the garden. It’s the most beautiful garden. It’s got, it’s got a waterfall. It had a heron pond. Had the heron’s ponds which got promptly eaten by the [unclear] so he just left that one. He’s got about five different gardens. A marvellous house. And the house is in perfect condition. And then he showed me a book. I might have it here. It’s so big I can hardly hold it. Its, it’s actually called, “100 Group.” It’s the story of all the squadrons and this what I was. It tells you all about the things and that’s why I learned about what I was doing. I never knew. Seemingly the air force was one of the first squadrons to start what they called flying the electric war or something like that with the Germans. And these, these were, it tickles me these big, big, you know very well off men but they’re so humble, you know. There’s that guy that he lost his house and he lost his money. He managed to get a loan and look at him today. He’s got his own factory of vodka. And when we went up when that was the night that we went to that stupid castle. Still feeling it. And after, after that night we went down to the [pause] one of the Scottish regiments hotels and had a nice meal there. Then the, and this is what tickled me, he was the guy that had been bombed and all these wounded and been in the SAS he came along and he made a presentation to me with a bottle of vodka. And he just, he took my breath away. Anyway, he was thanking me for all that I had done for him. And I thought, ‘No. No. I’m not having that.’
JS: That’s terrific. That’s been really really good.
AR: Yeah, well just a lot of things out of there.
JS: No. Not that’s been that’s been absolutely.
AR: I mean, you’ve sort of got, got a variety, haven’t you?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Arthur Baxter Reid
Creator
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James Sheach
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-25
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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
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AReidAB170725, PReidAB1701
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Pending review
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00:55:07 audio recording
Language
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eng
Description
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Arthur Baxter Reid from Edinburgh was in the Home Guard before he joined the RAF. He trained as a wireless operator. While training he flew on a test flight with a pilot. The plane crashed and caught fire. The pilot leapt out of his window leaving Arthur inside. He used an axe to get free. Arthur was posted to 100 Group, 192 Squadron. On an operation to attack the Scharnhorst their aircraft had engine failure and they had to return. As they were flying slowly they soon had the experience of being joined by other stricken aircraft returning from the actual operation in various stages of damage. On one operation their special operator said an aircraft was coming up behind them but the rest of the crew could not see anything. After a few moments Arthur looked to the side and saw a JU-88 flying alongside. They continued to fly together until they both waggled their wings and promptly left the area.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--London
England--Norfolk
100 Group
192 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
crewing up
Ju 88
Scharnhorst
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1024/11396/PMcNallyC1701.1.jpg
6310003475cf7e95c88b2684552d9a48
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1024/11396/AMcNallyC171005.2.mp3
84d65a83800162abf7e90dc460624074
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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McNally, Charles
C McNally
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Charles McNally (1922 - 2021, 1566660 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 101 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-10-05
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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McNally, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Charles McNally. The interview is taking place at Mr McNally’s home in Broughty Ferry on the 5th of October 2017. Charles, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
CM: I was a boy who was born in Dundee but at two year old went to Airdrie because my father was an Airdrionian. My mother was a Dundonian. At eleven we came, I came back to Dundee and went to school in Dundee. And at fourteen, having left the school with six day school Highers which was quite unusual at that time I then joined the Post Office as a telegram boy. That was in August 1933. In June 1936 I applied to become a telephone engineer and was accepted for, in, as a youth in training apprentice with the Post Office Engineering Department in June 1936 as I’ve said. I spent the next three years up to the, up to the start of the war working on Post Office engineering work which at that time was Reserved Occupation and more likely required as a civilian than as a member of the armed forces. I was the only son of Thomas and Margaret McNally and we lived at that time Perrie Street in Dundee. My father who wore glasses and was a grade four [pause] grade four soldier was in the RAMC in the First War but no more than a private. So we had, we’d no real history of of wartime activity. And it was only when the war started and things got a bit difficult in Britain that the thoughts turned to well, why don’t I join the forces and see if I can do my bit for Britain. And that’s exactly where we are up ‘til 1941. And in 1941, at the age of nineteen I applied to be enlisted in, in one of His Majesty’s Forces. Preferably the Navy because I enjoyed, I enjoyed living beside the sea and I enjoyed the sea. But as at that time, as at that time being in a Reserved Occupation I have documentary proof that they refused to allow me to go into the Armed Forces and that’s the way it stood for some time until in 1941 they came out with the [pause] what would be the word? Came out, came out with an instruction that people in Reserved Occupations could apply to be in the Air Force but only as pilot or navigator and in the event of not being able to succeed in any of these two posts would be returned to their, to their job. And I have all the documentation to prove that. So eventually I was, in 1941 allowed to join the Air Force and in September 1941 I had my original exams and medication in Dundee and then following that with a further examination in Edinburgh. The, again I passed a grade one and I also passed to be fairly high marks I think because I was passed as an observer radio/pilot. Observer radio being the number one choice because of the, partly apparently because of the interview that I had it was more acceptable for me to go in to that particular post which was very difficult. A very difficult one. A very, a very what would be the word? A very prestigious post because I think navigator observer radios were navigators. They were also wireless operators and in some cases they were bomb aimers as well. And eventually I think that the observer radio eventually became navigator bomber wireless. However, I was put on, put on deferred service then and I was enlisted as 15660 Charles McNally in the [pause] Friday the 30th of January 1942, and given an RAF VR badge 69510 which, to put in your jacket to let people know that you were then a member of the Royal Air Force but on deferred service. And that’s how it stood until I was eventually recruited in nineteen, later in 1942 and joined up the 19th of October 1942 as, for training as, as a pilot. Clearly, they didn’t require any more observer radios. Now, do you want me to go on from there?
JS: Yeah. So, so what happened then?
CM: Well, I was recruited in to the Air Force and joined the RAF as RAF VR as it was. You wore a VR badge even though you were in the RAF. And I was enlisted at Number 1 Royal Air Crew Centre at Lords Cricket Ground in London, 19th of October 1942. From there, after three weeks initial training, all the various jabs and inoculations, boots and all the rest of it I went to Number 1 ITW in Babbacombe. Number 1 ITW was the special place as I understood it and I was posted to A flight. And I think we were the only flight in the whole of the Training Services in the Royal Air Force that wore a white belt rather than a traditional Air Force blue belt and kind of stood out. But at the same time our drill instructor was such a hard man that he made sure we as well as having the white belt we had to be the best soldiers as well as it were and it was pretty hard going. But halfway through the course at Babbacombe there was a flight, a test coming up. It was into, immediate halfway through the course and I thought well I’m not going as I usually did for a couple of pints of scrumpy but I went to another hotel for supper. We were living in small hotels in Babbacombe. I saw a light at the, what I thought was the door and I walked towards and it wasn’t. It was a light from a window in a gunny and I fell down it. That would be in December. And I finished up with, in RAF Wroughton with two cracked transverse processes of my spine. So I spent my first Christmas lying on boards in RAF Wroughton, Swindon until I, until I recovered. And going back to, it was a bit frustrating because it hindered me a bit. It was frustrating trying to get in the Air Force and it was frustrating again to have this. So I went back and I think it was C flight I went back in to and eventually finished up ok with the exams and so on and the, was then posted to Heaton. To Manchester. And we were in digs in Manchester and went to Heaton Park for, to see how everything was going and I can remember everybody sitting in this big hotel, this big hall at Heaton Park and your names came out as Joe Smith, bomb aimer, Charlie Young, navigator and then when your name came out Charles McNally, pilot it was [laughs] hurray. You didn’t shout out but internally it was. It was hurray. And that’s how from there we were taken to Gourock, just outside Glasgow and went on the original Queen Elizabeth to Canada for training. We arrived at the transit station at Moncton in New Brunswick and from there moved on to number 535 EFTS at a place called Neepawa. N E E P A W A. About fifty miles or so outside Winnipeg in Manitoba. Successfully passed. Oh, before that I should have said, I should have said while, before going to Canada after coming out of ITW being on pilot training then I went to number 3 EFTS for a Grading School to see how I could perform as a pilot and I soloed in under nine hours there so all was well. And that was why when I got to Heaton Park I was told I was going for pilot training I was really, thought I would get it anyway. So having got that far from EFTS where we flew Tiger Moths I went to 35 SFTS at North Battleford where we flew Oxfords. Oxford 5s. Very nice aircraft. Easy to fly. No problem. You did the usual training. Daytime. Night time. And it went quite successfully. So, back to Moncton again waiting for a ship. I came back to Britain on the Nieuw Amsterdam. That was the Nieuw Amsterdam which is no longer. More or less the old Amsterdam I think has been dead for years. But it was, it was very [pause] going out on the Queen Elizabeth it was only four days to the other, it was doing over thirty knots and zigzagging so no, no escort. But coming back with the Nieuw Amsterdam it took six days in horrible weather with a Corvette escort. And the Corvette escort you could hardly see it. It was under the waves most of the time. It was shocking. It was March weather and we came back to Britain and again ran into frustrations. I was posted to Harrogate which was a transit. A transit camp. One of the hotels, the Imperial Hotel I think it was in Harrogate. And, we from there we stood around again. We were sent out on courses to, I remember one course we did was more like a commando course at a place just outside Whitley Bay. And I’ve got a picture of it with myself with a tin helmet on and a rifle with another friend of mine Jimmy Jackson, another Dundonian who was on the course with me. Again, the only help, the only positive that came out of that was apart from the work during the day was having a few beers at night. So, and then I was posted to Brough in, near Hull and I was flying Tiger Moths there with, it’s in the book, was flying Tiger Moths there taking people, sergeants, navigators on training flights. I was getting nowhere. And eventually in Autumn of 1944 I was offered my Class B release because as a volunteer it was quite easy for them to just to let me go. Well, that didn’t suit me one little bit so I thought how am I going to get into Bomber Command? Having trained in two, two engines I was quite capable of flying even four engines because it’s the same procedure. Just a couple of more engines. But you know I was getting nowhere with that so I said to them, ‘Well, I’ll retrain as a flight engineer if you wish. So they said, ‘Yes. If you want.’ So I went and did a flight engineer’s course and then was posted to the squadron as flight engineer second pilot. So although I wasn’t at the controls I, from time to time I had the feel of them and in an emergency it would have been easy for me to, to take over. But on the second flight [pause] from, the first flight was to Chemnitz as I recall it. That was the same night, February the 14th, I think that was the same night of the second raid on Dresden. Chemnitz was about forty or fifty miles south of Dresden as I recall it and the bomber force split in two. The, we went down through France and rather than straight over through Germany [pause] And the flight, the flight was a circuitous route.
[pause – pages turning]
It took eight hours fifty five minutes. All on a bar of chocolate and a flask of coffee. So it was, it was quite a long haul and, but it went without, without incident. And then on our second operation to Dortmund that was a shorter flight but regrettably coming back one of the engines packed in and we couldn’t make out what was wrong with it so decided to feather the engine and fly back on three. Which any pilot would be capable of doing in a normal circumstances. In fact, they were trained to do. To fly on three. However, coming back and almost, on on the circuit to the airfield for some unaccountable reason I recall saying to the pilot, at that time I was sitting beside him, the pilot was, sorry, Pilot Officer Kerr and he came from Arbroath. He, I said to him, I can recall at the last minute saying, ‘Jim,’ we were more or less on equal terms although he was the skipper, I said, ‘There’s nothing on the clock.’ And suddenly we hit ground. Fortunately, it was a ploughed field. I’ve got pictures of it. So on the whole we were all relatively free from accident other than the bomb aimer who was at the front got the most of the impact and he broke, he broke an ankle or leg or something. But we lost him anyway. So we got seven days leave. That was the February the 20th. We got, we got some seven days leave and I believe at that time that was about the time of the crossing of the Rhine. It was about March. March. Somewhere in March. But when we come back on March the 3rd we did three engine landings. Obviously we should have done that before. And then went on back to Chemnitz again. And then Kasel from there. That was in March. Early March. So after that it was really plain sailing. Nordhausen. Kiel. By the way the Admiral Scheer was sunk on that raid. The German battleship. And then there was [pause] near the end April the 14th I, they were short of a [pause] a the flight engineer and I volunteered to go with a Flying Officer [unclear] to Potsdam. This was eventful. Fortunately, it was near the end of the war but we were caught in searchlights. And again fortunately there was a bit of ack ack but there was no, there was no fighters in the air. So it was just a question of releasing the bombs and diving down via Leipzig to get, to get away. And as we dived down the searchlights began to just dim and forget, switched off. Following that we did Heligoland. That was the, the operation to the German I think where their submarines were under concrete hiding, you know. And that was, that was a fairly easy trip. Four hours twenty minutes. And then we went to Bremen. Now, I remember Bremen. The mission was abandoned. There was as I said cloud over the, the point of dropping but as we were told later we were too early. We were going to be bombing Bremen to make it easy for the troops to, to get in. And by the time we got there the troops had arrived. So, as we couldn’t see them —
JS: Yeah.
CM: Just decided let’s not. That was some of the, some of the raids. And then after that we started dropping food to the Dutch. I’ve got, I’ve got a nice letter and a little badge. A little medal from them. And the first one of that was April the 30th. A week or two before the war finished. That was the Hague. And then we did Rotterdam twice on May the 3rd and May the 7th. And then on May the 11th we went to Brussels and brought, repatriated some ex-POWs. And that concluded that part of the operation. Well, at that time the thought was that we would have to go to Japan so there was a lot of training done. There was a lot of training done in anticipation of that. And I think, although it’s not shown here, I’m not sure I think they were going to put the Lancaster in to larger wings with bigger tanks and it was going to be called the Lincoln. But I don’t recall much about that. However, on July the 9th we went to Hamburg, Heligoland, Kasel, Dusseldorf the Möhne Dam etcetera with, with ground crew. And this was to let them see the damage that had been done. I can recall the Hamburg especially. There was nothing standing. So, I don’t know whether, there’s one here — Operation Ramrod. I can’t think what that was. So, then we went in September. In September we went to Pomigliano In Naples bringing troops back from, from Italy. We did that on one, two, three, four occasions. So that was fine. 7th 10th 21st 27th and after that, just after that I was offered my, my release because 101 Squadron disbanded on the 1st of October. And I was offered my release again. But having had, this is the important part, having had my spinal injury I thought something I should do just to make sure I’m ok before I leave the RAF. So I volunteered to become a PTI, Physical Training Instructor. So I did three weeks at Cosford and eight weeks at St Athan, and in January ’46 I was posted to RAF Hospital Northallerton as the PTI for the staff. Not so much the patients. Mainly the staff. And I was in charge of the cricket team, the football team and also cross country and so on. So it proved to me that although I’d been through all this and had the problem with my back which again, it did, it was with me for some time after the war. And my right leg. I felt the right leg wasn’t as good as the left but it did prove to me that I was capable of going back to work. And I went back to work in September to the Post Office Engineering Department and within two weeks was at the local Tech doing my night classes for promotion which came along in time. That was virtually the story of the war.
JS: Good. You mentioned when we spoke before we started the interview that, that 101 Squadron was involved in the electronic counter measures.
CM: That’s correct.
JS: Is that something that your plane did?
CM: Yes. I can recall it vividly. The thing, I think we had him twice. One of the times, the one time that stands out in my mind is we were all crewed up and suddenly this car arrives with a gentleman in it. We didn’t see who he was. It was dark. He got into the plane. Sat behind his curtain with his equipment. We never saw him. Never spoke to him. Never said a word. Did the, did the, he wasn’t with us when we crashed. It was, must have been later. He left the plane first before us before we de-crewed and went away in a car. We never ever saw him. But he had a, he sat behind a curtain underneath the mid-upper gunner with his equipment. And it was pretty cold in there. I think he must have had a flying suit on like the gunners. But we never ever saw him and, but we were pleased that when he was with us we had no incidents. No.
JS: You — how was your crew? I’ve heard stories about crews being formed by everybody just being put in a big bunch and sort of saying go sort your crew out yourself.
CM: No. We went to, after I’d finished my course at St Athan as a flight engineer we went to a place at Huntingdon [pause] Hang on [pause – pages turning ] Get it in the back here. Babbacome, Heaton Park, Ludlow, Manchester, Moncton, Harrogate. Of course was Harrogate. Harrogate. Harrogate. Tempsford. Huntingdon. AMU. A 10. No. That must have been later. Sturgate, Lindholme. Heavy Conversion Unit. Yeah. We went to a place. RAF Sturgate in Lincolnshire. Never heard of it. Now, looking back but that’s where we were all put together and we chose. We chose who we would fly with. And the pilot then was Jim Kerr from Arbroath. I think he stayed on the Air Force. Did very well. But I thought, well he’s a Scotsman. He’s just down the road from where I live. Perfect combination and that’s how I got to fly with him. And he was very good because I had the odd chance of flying the Lancaster. In any emergency I could have. I could have performed. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. That was it. And then we went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Lindholme in January 1945. And I joined 101 Squadron, Ludford Magna on the 29th of January 1945 when I left Lindholme. And I was there on, I was there until 30th of September 1945. That’s when I went to St Athan. And then Northallerton. And I was demobbed on the 3rd of September 1946, the [pause] I remember I’ve got the, I’ve got the information here. I got a train ticket to Uxbridge. And I remember getting a lovely suit and hat and jacket and coat and so on. All very well. But that was, that was my career. It was a bit stuttered because I was frustrated from the beginning trying to get in. And then I was frustrated because I wasn’t taken up as an observer radio. And then I was frustrated having passed as a pilot that I couldn’t fly as a pilot and, although fortunately I did get the opportunity but not officially.
JS: Yeah.
CM: But in the event of an emergency I would have quite easily flown the aircraft. There’s no difference between two and four. Just two engines. The procedure and everything else was the same. So there we are. That was it. And the Lancasters I flew were a Lancaster 1, the Lancaster 3 and the Lancaster 10. I think of the Lancaster 10 as I remember it had the number five, .5 bullets in and had they had, they had the bigger turret. Aye. So there we are. I do have, funny enough I do have [pause] Where is it? That was a, that’s an interesting picture.
[pause]
JS: And who drew that?
CM: Sorry?
JS: Who? Who drew the picture of you?
CM: Now, the person that drew that was a, I was sitting in class and his name was Dougal Garden and he was an illustrator with the Courier in Dundee and he handed it to me later and said, ‘There you are.’ That was me. Yeah. I could show you a lot of other pictures if you’re keen to see them.
JS: Once we’ve finished chatting that would be really useful.
CM: Ok. Now, I also during the time, I can’t find it —
JS: Well, let’s, let’s have a look when we’ve finished chatting. You mentioned your pilot from Arbroath. You’ve mentioned your pilot from Arbroath.
CM: Ah huh.
JS: So, how, how was the rest of your crew made up?
CM: Norman Gill was the navigator. Charlie Williams was the wireless op. The two gunners were, Albert Edwardson was one of the them. The rear gunner, he was an old boy. An older boy with two children of which at the time I thought, what are you thinking about, you know, becoming an air gunner when you’ve a family, about thirty years of age. We were all in our early twenties. The bomb aimer was the fellow that got injured. His name was Francis. I can’t remember his first name now. And he was a Canadian. That was the first of it.
JS: And, and how did you get on as a crew?
CM: Oh, had no problem. Very well. Yeah. Ah huh. Och aye. Even after the incident with the flap pancaking in a ploughed field. We just went back to business again. Yeah.
JS: That’s great. You mentioned when we were chatting earlier that the base you were at was, was equipped with FIDO.
CM: Ah huh.
JS: So, how often was that used and was it in use any time that you were there?
CM: It was. It was used quite a lot actually. What it was was that two strips, two strips along the main runway with holes in them and there was petrol and they set it alight and immediately the heat from the petrol cleared, cleared the air quite considerably. It was no problem. In fact it was a dream for some aircraft that couldn’t land on their own, on their own ‘drome. Even I recall Americans come again. I can remember one of the American, an American gunner and he, he was quite adamant. He said, ‘I don’t care what was behind me,’ he said, ‘Whether it was a Lancaster, a Stirling, or whatever. If anybody got close to me they got the guns.’ They were, they were still gun happy [laughs] But it was, it was a boon. Although we were four hundred feet above sea level in the Lincolnshire Wolds the fact that these petrol jets cleared the air was, and it was quite easy to land in between them. No problem.
JS: That’s great. So after you demobbed you went back to —
CM: Yes.
JS: The Post Office. Telecoms. And there was some retraining after that. Is that right?
CM: Yes. Well, not a lot but there was a bit but I went on courses of course with the Post Office Engineering Department to a place called Stoke. No. Stone near Stoke. That’s where we spent in some cases seven or eight weeks and you never got home at weekends in those days, you know.
JS: That’s great. So coming out from Bomber Command after the war how do you think as a Bomber Command veteran you were treated after the war?
CM: I think I was treated fairly well. I was never ever, never ever approached to say I’d done anything wrong. Oh, no. No. Oh, no. The, the feeling that I, the feeling was, and it was although some folk thought it was a bit immoral to go and bomb towns the feeling was for people who were in this country and had suffered with the German bombs, the V-1s, the V-2s it was a delight every time they put the news on and found there had been a thousand bomber raid the night before. It gave them heart that we were taking the war to Germany and we were getting somewhere. And that was the feeling. And it was a feeling. It was the correct feeling because Bomber Command at that time was the only force that could make any real impact in the war. Although maybe it didn’t impact tremendously on the production and all that sort of thing. Mentally. Mentally it had a tremendous achievement. Tremendous. Yeah. In fact, even now coming back at this late stage in my life if anybody you meet who knows you’ve been in the war as a pilot and as a flight engineer they’re always delighted to know you’ve done this for us. Well, in a way there’s a funny incident about that. Anyway, you’re putting your life on the life for Britain at night while other people are lying in their beds sleeping. But there was one occasion. You see in the 21st of March 1945 the lady I was due to marry was going to be posted abroad so we decided to get married. And we got married on the 21st. She was in the ATS and she was a corporal going to be promoted to sergeant and sent to Italy. So at short notice we decided we would get married when she was billeted in Carlisle. We got married and had, I got seven days notice from the Air Force for a, for a [pause] what’s the word? [pause] Seven days notice for the, for the wedding and thereafter the honeymoon and so on.
JS: Leave.
CM: Leave. That’s the word I’m looking for. But my wife, she got fourteen days. Now, for seven days she came to Ludford and I got permission to live off base and we lived in a, with a woman in a bungalow. I don’t recall it very because it was one these old fashioned ones you had to pump the water up at night to get water and so on but being off base I wasn’t too involved in anything. And I was walking in the village with my wife at that time of seven days, eight days. And suddenly the station wagon pulled up, ‘Charlie, you’re flying tonight.’ Now, I had to leave my wife in the street. At that time, in the middle of a little village and say, ‘Cheerio darling. All being well I’ll be back tomorrow.’ At the same time being a widow, being a wife one week she could quite easily have been a widow the next. But that was life as it was and that was, that’s a personal thing. Yeah. Yeah. You know. You’re leaving this lady you’ve just married. I cannot remember what the raid was but, no. Looking back it must have been hard on her.
JS: Absolutely.
CM: Sorry?
JS: Absolutely. Yeah. That’s great. Thank you very much.
CM: And when you come back really, just at the end when you come back you’re like a coal miner because you’ve had a mask on for eight hours and you’re like nothing on earth and you think as if you look terrible. To go back to my wife looking like that was [laughs] after debriefing and so on, you know. But that was, that was the story of my life really. Quite, quite eventful really. A bit stuttery and a bit frustrating because I wanted, I’ve got the documentation here from the office telling me I couldn’t join in the forces. And then the offer of getting in as a pilot or navigator. Passing as an observer radio which was a very high class pass. Finished and they didn’t need observer radios so they trained me as a pilot. Got my pilot’s and got back to Britain as a pilot and then found I wasn’t needed as a, for further training as a pilot and offered my release. Now, that was the last thing I wanted because inside in me at twenty one the only thing I wanted to do was hit the Germans. So the one way I could do it was to rebrand as a flight engineer. So I was trained in both capacities. And I suppose in a way there’s not many like that in the Air Force today. Or was at that time. I don’t recall in the class at St Athan when we did the engine, the course on engines any other pilot. I think they were all just recruits.
JS: Great.
CM: But that was it. Thank you.
JS: Thank you very much. That was magic. I really enjoyed that. That was really really good. So, I will stop this.
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 Charles McNally
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
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
2017-10-05
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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AMcNallyC171005, PMcNallyC1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:41:43 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
Charles McNally spent his childhood in Dundee and Airdrie, Scotland. He began work at the Post Office as a Telegram Boy before joining the engineering department. This meant he now worked in a Reserved Occupation and he struggled to get permission to volunteer for the RAF. He eventually secured his release but had an unusual route to securing his posting. He began training as an observer radio. He then went on to train as a pilot. He eventually became a flight engineer and was posted to 101 Squadron at RAF Ludford Magna dealing with electronic counter measures. Charles married while he was still on operational flying. On honeymoon he was walking through the village with his new wife when he was collected for an operation that night and effectively left his wife at the roadside not knowing if she would soon be a widow.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942-10-19
1945-01
1945-03-21
101 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
FIDO
flight engineer
forced landing
Heavy Conversion Unit
love and romance
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Oxford
physical training
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Lindholme
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF St Athan
RAF Sturgate
RAF Wroughton
sport
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/302/11158/PLambAM1509.2.jpg
31ffd0ebb2c172a89ffe42acd1b2e422
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/302/11158/ALambA170912.1.mp3
4eceb1fe534b4e8d1104247955ad9646
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
Lamb, Alexander
Alexander McPherson Lamb
Alexander M Lamb
Alexander Lamb
A M Lamb
A Lamb
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Alexander McPherson Lamb (b. 1925, 1827673 Royal Air Force), his decorations, album and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 15 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alexander Lamb and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
2015-07-25
2017-08-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Lamb
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AL: Start when you want of course.
JS: Yeah.
[pause]
AL: That’s quite incredible. The modern. I’m not, I was never dragged into the twenty first century unfortunately.
JS: Ok. Right. So, if I can just start. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Alistair Lamb. The interview is taking place at Alistair’s home [buzz] on the 12th of September 2017. Alistair, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Can you tell me a little about your life before the war?
AL: Well, I was born in the house I live in just now. I went to the local school. I left the school at fourteen as we all did in those days. I became a boy messenger in the War Department. The war of course was on and it was a case of just delivering correspondence around the various army units or army offices in the area. I was always interested in aircraft. My father died in ’41. My mother and I were still here at that time. As I say I was born in this house. Then I got a clerical position in the Civil Service. In the War Department. And then I decided I would have to do something. I didn’t want the army although my father was a regular army man. I went and volunteered for air crew. At least I went for an aircrew interview anyway and I was accepted which with all the usual rigmarole in Edinburgh up at, where was it now? I forget now. In Edinburgh where you had your RAF medical and all the rest of it and, ‘We’ll send for you.’ And shortly after that I was sent for and that’s where I joined the RAF. That would be when, I’m not, I’m not sure of the date, sort of thing. I think it would be sometime 1944 I think it would be I joined up. I can ascertain the details. And from then on it was a case of progression. I just went down there. I volunteered for aircrew. As you know you had to be a volunteer to be aircrew anyway. I didn’t think I was clever enough to be a pilot so I volunteered to be an air gunner. And that’s what I started off and finished up as an air gunner.
JS: Why did you, what, what took you to, to volunteering to be aircrew rather than something else?
AL: Well, I was mad keen on aeroplanes. Always had been. I used to build model aircraft as a young lad. And I didn’t want the army for some strange reason. I wanted to fly. So that’s why I volunteered for aircrew.
JS: So which, which squadron were you in?
AL: 15. It was a peacetime squadron. It had been a pre-war peacetime squadron. When I first started off I went to London to Aircrew Reception Centre at St John’s Cricket Ground. St John’s Wood. We stayed in St John’s Cricket Ground. Never been fussed in my life but some of the lads were so elated to be able to get into Lord’s. We were there about a fortnight to three weeks. We went from there to RAF Bridgnorth to do initial RAF training. Bridgnorth. Did our basic ground training at RAF station at Bridgnorth. If you passed the various tests then what you had you were then selected. You were then said, ‘Right. You’ll be aircrew and as an air gunner.’ Came home on leave and went back to RAF Stormy Down in Wales where I did my initial gunnery training. Stormy Down in Wales. I think I was four weeks, five. Three weeks. I can’t remember. You’ll see in my logbook. We left there and went to, we got our wings there. Our half wing there and our tapes. I came home on leave and I was posted then to 14 OTU Market Harborough for flying Wellingtons and to crew up. I don’t know if, do you know about the crewing position do you? There was no compunction of who you flew with. A very strange thing. The first time, when you went to what was called an Operational Training Unit you were all mixtures maxtures and you were given a fortnight to get together and at the end of the fortnight you did some ground training. Basic ground training. You were air crew by this time. You did some basic ground training and at the end of a fortnight you were sent in to a huge hangar. You were asked to crew up. You’d met most of the people that you crewed up with. Of course, all the usual rigmarole try and get a warrant officer pilot because he’s got a lot of flying hours and this sort of thing, you know. All these stories they were going about. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. The first chap I met at OTU was a chap from Edinburgh. Jock Bathgate, who was a gunner. So we crewed up straight away Jock and I. He was more, he went about with the wireless op. And that was the three of us went together. I didn’t do much in those days with them. They crewed up then and we went into a huge hangar at the end and the chief flying instructor stood up and said, ‘Are you all crewed up?’ We were all crewed up. ‘Right. That’s how you’ll start your training.’ We, and we were unfortunate in as much as that we had two navigators, one after the other who failed and didn’t pass out. They didn’t, they’d actually became navigators but that was as far as they went. They failed their OTU. They just couldn’t cope. I don’t remember all the story. And we kept piling hours up in Wellingtons and thought we’ll end up in the Far East if this goes on [laughs] And we then eventually had a skipper who was a warrant officer as I said and he was posted away so we were left without a pilot. So we were left without. And at that time this chap arrived. A sergeant from the French Air Force, Jack Darlow who had been, that’s another story but it doesn’t matter. He had been in the French Air Force and the usual way the wheels work what’s this chap with an English name doing in the French Air Force? He was re-mustered and we got him as a pilot and that’s how we more or less settled down after that. We lost two navigators while Jack was there. Just couldn’t cope. And then we crewed up and flew as a crew and flew in Wellingtons at OTU, 14 OTU Market Harborough. We passed out from there and then various leaves and what not we then went to [pause] where was it? 16, I can’t. 15? Heavy Conversion Unit anyway. And we were one of the few crews that were on Stirlings at the Conversion Unit. We went on to Stirlings in the Conversion Unit. We’d had, I think twenty one hours or something. I can’t remember. You need to ascertain from my logbook, on Stirlings which I liked very much actually. We went from there on to Lancs. I can’t remember the, you’ll get it in my logbook there. Then we crewed up and went on Lancs and that’s where we did our training on Lancs. We finished off there. We were at Wigsley. We had one or two scares at Wigsley. We were, intruders were coming across by that time. We were never affected much. They strafed the ‘drome once or twice at night. We then went from there. We were posted to 15 Squadron at Mildenhall in Suffolk. I think we went there, in March ’45 I think we’d be by that time. March ’45. And that’s where I finished up from Mildenhall in Suffolk and I stayed at Mildenhall and stayed with 15 Squadron. After a while we moved to Wyton and I still stayed with them. And I finished up, in ’47 it would be. Still had been at 15 Squadron all the time. The crews all broke up of course as you understand. The war finished and crews were getting broken up and sent over and things changed in the Air Force quite a bit then.
JS: So did you have a choice to stay on longer if crews were getting broken up and demobbed or —
AL: Some people were. I could if I’d wanted. I was an air gunnery instructor by this time. I could have stayed on. But I had a job in the Civil Service to come back to. My mother was herself at home and I thought well in four years time there’ll not be any air gunners and unless I could stay on flying I wasn’t going to stay in the air force. And I decided then when my demob group came to come out. A big drawback. A big drawback, you know. A big difference.
JS: Yeah. How did you get on with your crew?
AL: Very much indeed. They were a great crew. Very. I kept up with most of them for years after the war. The navi, I was the best man at the navigator’s wedding. I used to go to Edinburgh to visit the mid-upper. My skipper’s been across here with his family. We’re Just away this year to see most of his family. I’ve been out to Australia to meet him. The bomb aimer I never kept up with very much. Although we were in the same crew and that. The wireless operator, we kept very much with him. The rest of the crew more or less we went about together. Just, you either, you lose, you do lose contact. You did you know. I didn’t care much for them the wireless operator so I didn’t. He, he was brought into the crew by the other gunner actually, you know, ‘We’ll fly with you,’ sort of style. If there’s a lot of that doesn’t interest you just edit it out or take it out.
JS: No. Fine. Is there, is there a memorable operation you could talk about?
AL: Oh. I’m no hero. I think 15 Squadron did the last, Bomber Command did the last thousand bomber raid. We didn’t know at the time but there was, I’ve got it in my book, nine hundred aircraft I think was involved. That was the last thousand bomber raid, I think of the war. Most memorable would be supply dropping to the Dutch. We did three trips supply dropping to the Dutch. That’s one of the pictures up there. I think that’s about all really. The usual sort of run of the mill operational sorties. Nothing I could remember that was anything different from anything else, you know.
JS: So, so what happened on the, the Dutch supply one?
AL: Well, I don’t know if the history is known very well but evidently the Germans became very nasty and said, right, we’re going to do this and they cut off all the food supplies. The Dutch were actually starving. This would be in April. April. The end of April ’45. And the RAF said, ‘Well, we’ll supply you.’ The Americans did I think. They called it Chowhound or something. We called it Operation Manna. Food from heaven. And we did three trips dropping food supplies to the Dutch and the Germans were told that we were coming anyway and be it on their head if anything happened. We were never fired upon. I don’t know. Some crews said they were fired upon but we were certainly never fired upon. We were down to fifty feet most of the time dropping the supplies. I can tell you from my logbook. I think we did three. We did Valkyrie. I can’t remember the names. There were three pre stations we went to drop food supplies to the Dutch. After that we brought liberated prisoners of war back. Flew them home too. And then the war ended and 15, being a peacetime squadron we weren’t broken up. We stayed as a squadron. The crews all changed of course. If I’m boring you to tears stop me please. Then we said, oh we did the drop trials after the war. We got 617 aircraft with the twenty two thousand pounders. We did drop the trials with them. And then we had 617 aircraft up until I was demobbed. That’s no front turret, no top turret and the bomb bays all cut away. You’ll see pictures in my book over there. Then the crews broke up. Demob came along. You all had a demob group as you know. They asked people to stay on. I think I stayed on a little longer because I was gunnery leader by that time although I wasn’t commissioned. I was a warrant officer on the squadron. And then we flew with anybody more or less after that. A lot of pay, officers wanted to stay back on and they came back in again and the crews all mixed up and it was a different, a different attitude toward life at all altogether you know. You never knew. You didn’t really fly. I flew with Squadron Leader Baker double DSO double DFC. He had been a CO of, I forget the [unclear] of a squadron down south and he stayed on. Tubby Baker. I got on well with Tubby. He was a great guy. With different navigators. With different people in the crew. We’d only one gunner of course. We only had one tail one. We only had the tail turret at that time. And that was more or less just we did a lot of local flying. A lot of flying after the war. Did a lot of local flying. We did drop trials. We did all the drop trials on the U-boat pens. Shipping strikes after the war to find out what damage the bombs and things were doing. So it was all just a matter of just we were flying mostly every day.
JS: So, that was, that was live dropping you were doing on —
AL: Yeah.
JS: On old U-boat pens.
AL: That’s correct. We were dropping dummy four thousand pounders and I can’t remember, I can’t remember, I don’t know I think we dropped — I can’t remember, not twenty two thousand, but they were filled with sand to see what damage they would do. I can try to remember. They did, we did all the drop trials off ships. There was a ship moored in Portsmouth area and we bombed the ship with five hundred pounders and thousand pounders filled with sand. The idea being that they didn’t know at that particular time if an aircraft flying at fifteen thousand feet dropping a hundred pound, or a thousand pound bomb going into a ship what damage it would do. So we dropped these bombs until we actually hit the ship and then we went then, the Navy went aboard and put the equivalent amount of charge where that bomb had landed. Someone should have put where it landed and exploded it from there so they could tell an aircraft flying at fifteen thousand feet dropping a thousand pound bomb on a ship would do X amount of damage. I mean they knew this but this was all actual practice for them, you know, thing for them. So we did quite a bit of that. Dropping, [pause] U-boat pens we were dropping the ten thousand pounders and twelve thousand pounders on the U-boat pens but they weren’t filled. They were filled with sand. They, to see what penetration they would do. And that’s about, really all I can remember of that.
JS: So instead of dropping real bombs you actually dropped something the equivalent weight.
AL: That’s right.
JS: And then you put the charge where they ended up.
AL: Yeah. In the ship.
JS: So it was in effect the same thing.
AL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JS: But rather than —
AL: Basically, I can’t remember the full details. As you can imagine it was a long time ago. I think that was basically the idea. We never actually got, we never got the result of what happened. You know what I mean? You’re taxing my memory now.
JS: No. No. You’re doing, no you’re doing really good. You’re doing really good. Don’t worry about that.
AL: I don’t want to line shoot or anything. It’s very difficult because you can’t line shoot people that are in the forces. They know right away what you’re on about. No. No. No. No.
JS: So —
AL: I was fortunate I did a lot of that. As I said to you I was very fortunate to be able to do all that.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. So having flown Wellingtons, Stirlings.
AL: Stirlings.
JS: And Lancasters.
AL: And Lincolns.
JS: And Lincolns.
AL: For our crimes [laughs] they were a heap of junk.
JS: What were the, what were the plusses and minuses between them all?
AL: Oh, I think without a doubt the Lanc was the best aeroplane. There’s no doubt about that. But I liked a Stirling. I used to claim extra flying time because [laughs] [unclear] kids because we were airborne before everybody else. The only thing that brought it home to ourself is, it’s an aside, I don’t know if it’s worthwhile recording this but anyway. You’re up, by the time I started flying on ops there were so many aircraft that you more or less had your own aeroplane. So I mean you flew in the one aeroplane, your own aeroplane most of the time. Other people used it but you always, nearly always flew your own aircraft. And ours was Z-Zebra. You were always told there would be ops on. Not where you were going. You were told you were flying tomorrow. That was it. You was told that. And when we went out to detail I said to skipper, ‘Why are we not in our own aeroplane?’ I said, ‘I’ve been out here with the nav, with the wireless op, with the other gunner cleaning the Perspex.’ We used to, we used to clean our own Perspex. You did it where you went. You know. Anyway, we got to know the ground crew very well. I said, ‘Why are we not in our own aircraft? We should be in Zebra.’ Which was our aircraft. ‘Oh, that’s alright. Don’t worry. I’ll, I’ll tell the ground. I’ll tell them. I will.’ When we went out it was a new crew was flying in Willie. And we said, ‘No. No. We’ll go,’ so when the WAAF dropped us, we were, we were in buses to the aircraft. He said, ‘We’ll just walk across the road,’ he said, ‘And you go to Willie.’ So we went in our own aeroplane. And in those days you flew in tight formations when you got airborne. So the take-offs were fairly tight together so you could keep the flying times the same and you all formated up. You couldn’t taxi Mildenhall on the grass with a bomb load because it was boggy ground. You had to stay on the peri track. So we were in our own aircraft — Z -Zebra, and we took off more or less three together down the runway. And as we took down the runway you used to put the turret on the beam. The story was so it was in case the guns would fire. That was the story. Anyway, put the turret on the beam and as we got airborne it was all very quick and there was not much talking down and we were so busy up front you didn’t talk very much unless [unclear]. I saw Willie feather an engine. And as we climbed away of course we lost track of what was happening we found away, but there was Mosquitoes, I think, I may be wrong. I can’t remember. I think they was, they were dropping four thousand pounder markers. I can’t remember. I maybe thought, maybe I’ve got confused. Anyway, as we pulled away there was this ginormous explosion and as we got airborne, as we were forming up there was an aircraft, and Willie was missing from our three. Thought no more about it. Just that was something had happened. That must be due to the fact, it doesn’t matter anyway. And what we discovered when we came back of course we were logged to fly in Willie. The ground crew were, ‘Christ, Willie’s been shot down. Willie had blown up on take-off. I don’t know the whole story. There was rumours and rumours and rumours. But as far as I can remember they lost an engine on take-off on Willie. Now, with three engines and a full bomb load and fuel you could get airborne. You could get airborne. There’s no doubt about that if you had enough power to get airborne. But I think somebody said they feathered another engine. I don’t know. I can’t honestly remember the details at the time but they went in, in near Barton Wood I think they went in. But there was a village quite near. They blew up. The aircraft blew up and they were all killed. That’s the only sort of thing that brings it home to you. You remember it could have happened to you. It might not have happened to us, I don’t know. But at that, that, that’s what, that’s the only sort of real thing I really you know. Didn’t talk much about it at the time.
JS: Yeah.
AL: I must admit. It’s not really great but you were just asking me so I’m telling you. It’s not worth recording things like that, you know.
JS: I’ve heard stories about difficulties with the Perspex and the turrets and being able to see through it and whatever and stories about the people took the Perspex out of the turrets as well.
AL: We had moved the turret. We had the Perspex taken out of the tail turret. We had the Perspex taken out of the tail turret. At the back. At the front. The whole panel. That all came out. It wasn’t much difference to the coldness anyway. We still had the side Perspex in. Somewhere else you see that a dot on the Perspex could be an aeroplane. You didn’t know so you had to try and keep the thing down you know. That’s why you’d get the, the Perspex cleaning kit. You were usually were out cleaning. It definitely, it varied. That wasn’t part of your duties but if you weren’t flying you went out and did that, you know. If you weren’t flying you see you went back to the crew’s centre and just wait to see what was happening next. It’s difficult to really try and remember clearly. You know.
JS: No, that’s, no. That’s fine.
AL: It’s a long long time ago you’ve got to say.
JS: That’s fine. You mentioned that you, that you got on well with the ground crew.
AL: Aye. Aye.
JS: So was that the same ground, you said if it was your crew and it was your aeroplane.
AL: Aye.
JS: Was that in effect the same ground crew that you saw.
AL: Yeah. Well, of course there might be two people or three people share an aircraft. I don’t remember that. But I know we knew the ground crew quite well. Aye. Aye. Aye. With some, most of, most of the ground crew were flight sergeants and sergeants were peacetime regulars. Not them all but a lot of them were. We, our flight sergeant was a, had been a peacetime regular anyway, you know. And I don’t know what he was but that’s what he was. And we knew the ground crew quite well. Chatted away to them. We knew them. They were very good.
[pause]
JS: So when it came up to, you said you stayed on after hostilities ended.
AL: Aye.
JS: So do you want to tell me a wee bit about what brought you to leaving the RAF then and just what you, what you did after the war?
AL: Well, I left the RAF because I had a job to come home to in the Civil Service. Although I wasn’t established by that time. And also the fact that my mother was herself at home. There seemed to be, there was talk about decanting at that time. I think they were trying to, people had a big house, asked you to go in to a smaller. I can’t remember. This was a sort of thing in the back of my mind. Is that still being recorded? No. No. This was still in the back of my mind. Anyway, I decided to come out. A big drop in wages. A big drop completely. I was a warrant officer by that time. I was on, what was I on? Twelve and six a day, I think. All the different wages you see. Pilots, navigators and bomb aimers as warrant officers they would be on twenty one bob a day. Gunners were poorly paid. We were on, I would be on twelve. I was on twelve and six a day at that time. Anyway, came out and went back to Civil Service. The War Department. And you were told more or less you’ll have to sit the Civil Service exam if you want to stay in the Civil Service. And I wasn’t very bright at school. I mean I was an average person. I wasn’t an academic and I had to sit the Civil Service exam at Stirling Castle [laughs] A whole crowd of us went there. And a lot of [unclear] out. It was the time of all the trouble out in India too. You know about that was ’46 ’47 when India were all breaking up. One of the questions was, “Write all you know about India.” The Indian conflict. And I said to this guy, coming to the car I said, ‘How did you get on?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘All I know about India was Bengal matches and Bengal tigers.’ Well, you see, I mean [laughs] that was all. Anyway, believe it or not I passed the Civil Service exam. And at that time it was a general exam. You weren’t sitting for any particular thing. And I was posted to Social Security. What was it called in those days? Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance I think it was called and being, and being in that as a, when I came out of the Air Force as a non-established civil servant. I was, it was the War Department. When I went in I joined in the War Department. When I went in, ‘You’d better transfer over because the War Department is shutting down.’ I went into what they called the Department of Pensions and National Insurance. And I was there as a junior, as a clerk by at that time and when I passed the Civil Service exam I went back in to that but they were posting people all over and in those days they weren’t very kind to you. You’re posted to so and so. If you don’t want to go you’ll just have to pack it in. So I was posted to Elgin. My mother was at home herself and I thought well this is not much good at all. How can I manage to keep a house going? One thing. Anyway, to cut a long story short I went to Elgin and that was my first established post in the Civil Service was Elgin. And, and then I was able to get a compassionate posting or a transfer posting nearer to home. And the nearest I could get was Alloa and I went to Alloa. And I was in Alloa for ten years. And then a promotion. I was fortunate enough to get Stirling. I came back to Stirling and sat, went on interview boards of course by that time and I was lucky enough to get to stay in Stirling and promotion came along in Stirling. One chap I knew he went to [pause ] I forget where he went to. Grangemouth. I can’t remember. And I was lucky enough to have his post as an EO in Stirling. And I stayed in Stirling until, until I came out which was quite fortunate.
JS: That’s good. That’s good. You, when you, after the war how, how had you felt as a Bomber Command veteran you were treated? What was the feeling towards Bomber Command when you came out at the end of the war?
AL: I think it was alright. I think they were quite pleased to know you’d been an air gunner and all the rest of it. And of course there was the usual sorry about air gunners lasted two days at the time. That was a great rumour, you know. I think everyone was quite ok, I think. Aye. I don’t, I don’t think there was no, no. Everybody was sort of talking at that time about being in the forces and I’d been in the forces. You met everybody — Army, Navy, Air Force you know and you mingled with your work colleagues, two or three work colleagues what had been in the forces with me as well you see. So no. I think you settled in not too bad. It took a while to settle in, you see. You got a little money. I couldn’t afford a car, or a bike or anything. A push bike was about as much as you could afford. You know. It was good to be home of course. That was the point. My mother, being a widow of course you know. And a very — this shouldn’t be recording us. No. I hope not [laughs]
JS: Yeah. We’re still going.
AL: Oh, well.
JS: Shall I stop?
AL: Stop it. I’ll tell you some other things.
JS: That’s fine. Just, just hang on a second.
AL: To fill you in for your own background information.
JS: Let me just stop this.
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 Alexander Lamb. Two
Creator
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James Sheach
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-09-12
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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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ALambA170912, PLambAM1509
Conforms To
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Pending review
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00:28:58 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Alexander Lamb left school in Edinburgh and became a messenger for the War Department. He then took a clerical post with the Department before reaching the age to volunteer for the RAF. He trained as an air gunner and was posted to RAF Mildenhall before moving with the squadron to RAF Wyton. Their aircraft was Z-Zebra and one day he heard that they were to fly in W-Willie. He protested and wanted to fly in their usual aircraft. They did fly in Z-Zebra and on that operation W-Willie crashed on take-off.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Suffolk
14 OTU
15 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
crash
crewing up
ground crew
Lancaster
Lincoln
military ethos
military service conditions
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wyton
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/894/11134/AHyndC171115.2.mp3
7703d85d1a928e6d8f6c63dd70ebb3c6
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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Hynd, Colin
C Hynd
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Colin Hynd (1925 - 2022, 1825158 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-15
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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Hynd, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach the interviewee is Colin Hynd. The interview is taking place at Mr Hynd’s home in Dunfermline on the 15th November 2017. Colin, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
CH: Well, I went to the local schools, obviously commercial school and Queen Anne’s school, and when I left school at the age of fourteen just at the beginning of the war in September 1939, I got a job in the local cinema because jobs in those days were extremely hard to find. My wage was six shillings and eight pence per week, anyway, I only lasted there a month and I went on and got two subsequent jobs in the local gents outfitters, but that wasn’t satisfying me so I went to Todds Engineers in Dunfermline and became an apprentice turner, where I did turning until 1943 when I joined the Royal Air Force, but as I was underage at the time I had to wait until I was eighteen and a quarter which was in the November of 1943, when I was called up, and went to Lord‘s Cricket Ground for various tests and what have you, and we- We did three weeks in London being kitted out, medical-ed, the usual, uniforms and what have you, and then from there went on up to Bridlington to the initial training wing up there, and did six weeks up there, doing various signalling, gunnery, of course drill and all that, and then from there, after the six weeks went to St Athans, where we did the, the flight engineers training. Unfortunately, during my early days there I developed scarlet fever, so of course I was in hospital for a month, and when I came out my actual course had moved on that far, anyway [emphasis] I carried on, various entries and anybody that was available to do the thing where you studied engines, air frames, electrics, meteorology, gunnery again of course they just - Dismantling the guns and that, education of course was a big thing in those days as well but, eventually after, something like nine months, I was awarded my stripes and my brevet, my flight engineer’s brevet. After being awarded my stripes and my brevet I was posted to a heavy conversion unit at Marston Moor which is in Yorkshire, where you then actually were working on the real aircraft which were Halifaxes. You then saw what you’d only previously seen on a blackboard, and you did that for approximately two weeks, and as well as that of course you could go get a bit of experience on a crew who were doing a night exercise or, air tests, anything like that that was available, but I didn’t get crewed up, for about three weeks at that time. Anyway, the crew that I joined, unfortunately, they all drank and I didn’t, and I wasn’t very popular because of course I didn’t go out drinking, so the pilot at that time, told the engineer’s leader that I was no use as a flight engineer. Anyway I was duly called into the office, where I was interviewed for approximately four hours over engineer- Flight engineer matters, the subsequent outcome was that I was given the job of teaching the new recruits from St Athans, the pre-flight checks, how to start the engines, how to operate the, the petrol levers and all, all that, from when they came from training school, so of course, the outcome of that was that after some weeks, I was told that- What had happened, and why I’d been removed from the crew and that, I would be offered a commission when I got to the squadron, unfortunately the war finished before we got to that stage in my career [slightly laughs], however, they – The, the aircrew without the engineer, because, people trained at different places, but all came together at the HCU, without the flight engineer because up till then they had been flying in two-engined aircraft to teach them the art of gunnery or navigation or whatever, but then when they went onto the four-engined aircraft, like the Halifax, the Lancaster, Sunderlands, they needed a flight engineer. Anyway there was a bit of a shortage at the time so I was posted to Riccall which was near Selby, where I carried on doing the same thing, teaching the newer lads the pre-flight checks and all that sort of thing and then eventually they had an intake of crews, and in those days, the crews plus the flight engineers were put into this room and the wing commander flying, then gave a lecture but this was just a ploy so that the crews could see who the flight engineers were. Anyway I was approached by one of the crew members, Johnny Prosser, who was the wireless op in this crew which were Canadian, anyway I decided to, to join them, as their flight engineer, so from there on in, I, I did the flying experience which I’d learnt prior to this on my own, I didn’t need anybody with me obviously, so that er- We did air tests, short daylight runs, a lot of night flying, because the pilot of course being new to the four engine bomber always had a pilot with him who had had experience, so of course no aircraft could take off without a flight engineer anyway [emphasis] because it was too complicated where - What you had to do as a flight engineer, so that - We then eventually moved onto the squadron, 158 which was an operational squadron, they had had a terrific loss, of personnel, they had- We had New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, RAF and it was a mixed squadron really, but the flight engineers of course no matter which crew you joined were always RAF, because that was the only place that trained engineers was St Athans, from then on it was just basically doing exercises and that until somebody decided you should go on a bombing trip. When that happened, you were all gathered together, into this building which was secured with armed police surrounding it so that you couldn’t get out [laughs] or the phones were cut off, you couldn’t make a phone call and you sat in this building waiting for someone to come in and remove the curtain from what the target was going to be, you were then shown the target and you were explained the, the route you would take to the target, the route out, the weather that you would meet, where the opposition was heaviest with gunfire, or fighters, things like that was all in- And then it could well happen that halfway through all this, they would decide to change the target so you then had to wait until your new target was announced which could take ages, then they would start again having looked at this new target route and the way in. Again you couldn’t go anywhere, you were, you were all right for a cup of tea [chuckles] but that was about it, and on one occasion they changed the target on three occasions, so - But again it was the old thing, just sit and wait, and wait for the people to tell you what the weather was going to be, or what the target was, the route out, the route in, because you never came back the same way, and of course it was extremely dangerous if you were on night flying because you could have anything from a thousand to fifteen-hundred aircraft in the air at any given time, and of course nobody, or very few ever stuck to the speed they were supposed to be flying at, or the height they were supposed to be flying at, because you were given a height, your squadron would fly at, say twenty-thousand feet but then behind you five-minutes later should be another squadron at nineteen-thousand-five-hundred, and they were supposed to step down like that with the gap in between, so you stopped this overflying which of course it never did because, you could be on your run up to your target, and of course you’d suddenly look up and five-hundred feet above you you’d see a bomber with its bomb doors open, so of course they couldn’t see you, so you had to abort and, well either just carry on or go round which was an extremely dangerous thing to do when you’re turning a full circle in that number of aircraft, but our pilot being a Canadian did exactly that one night, not very popular pilot [chuckles]. Anyway we had to do the run up again, and of course all the time, people are shooting at you, and once that stops you know - You then knew the fighters were up, so you had to watch for them, also of course you had the problem with searchlights, now, when you got a group of searchlights, one of them was blue, and that was the master searchlight and once that got you all the other searchlights hooked on, and of course then the gunners, or the fighters whichever was at the time, then attacked that one aircraft and, that was an extremely dangerous situation. But during the war also of course we had the problem that we had the Americans flying with us, not on the same squadron, but on their squadrons, and they used to join in, they would never fly at night the Americans, at all, but during the day the Flying Fortresses were out in force, which made life even more difficult, because they were rather prone to shoot at you if you- If they, didn’t realise and especially we had one sort of, a new Halifax which was unmarked, we didn’t have the RAF roundels on it and we were a bit frightened that the Americans would shoot us because it was a known fact that if any of our aircraft was shot down in Germany or France, then they were redone and they- The Germans flew them.
JS: Mm-hm.
CS: The other thing of course was that - I forgot to mention, that was before we got to the squadron, when we were at the heavy conversion unit, they- If there was an op on, we at the HCU would be sent in the opposite direction to the bomber force with the object being to draw the fighters, of cou- [laughs] of course the unfortunate part about that was that we never had any ammunition to shoot at the fighters because it was in short supply, but you, you did it and- Best as you could, but, I mean it was just a small force but the i- As I say, the idea was to draw the fighters away from the main force so that they could get a free run at whatever the target was. But anyway once you got to- As I say to the point of where you [emphasis] were actually operating on a, a raid, then of course it was every man for himself, and we unfortunately lost our rear gunner, not through injury or anything like that but, there was two types of fire, there was a projected gunfire and a box gunfire, the projected gunfire was that you could see the rounds coming up behind you and obviously if you stayed at the same height the gunners got your height and then it was just a question of getting closer to you, and of course the rear gunner could see this and I could see it because I was watching through the panel above my station in the Halifax, so of course we had to forget what we were doing and try and stop the, the rear gunner from bailing out which - There was two doors, one in the aircraft and one on the turret, so we had to keep pulling the dead man's handle, to stop the air gunner ‘cause he could operate his turret manually or electrically, and simply roll it round and then fall out backwards, but you have to appreciate that the tail end of a bomber is extremely narrow, and in there you have a huge oleo leg which was the, the rear wheel ‘cause that didn’t retract like the front carriage, so we spent ages, and of course he was trying to bale out panicked, and we were trying to stop him which we eventually did, and that was how we lost him because he was then classed as LMF which is lack of moral fibre, so we then of course got another rear gunner who had lost his crew, but this really was a no-no, that it was taught that it was very bad luck to take on another crew member who wasn’t there at the beginning, and in fact, on one of our last raids we had a whole- A bomb that went through the tail plane of our aircraft from one above, which fortunately it was only a small two-hundred-and-fifty pound bomb, and it just made a hole in the tail plane near the rudder but didn’t effect because we didn’t know that we’d been hit, until we got back to dispersal and saw the hole in the -In the tail plane. But after that, the- Very few raids, because we were getting close to the end of the war in ‘45, and we just carried on the same routine of if there was- You were going on a raid, you had a meal, then you were locked up in this building till the- You knew where you were going et cetera, and then of course, the war finished and all these foreigners, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, the Canadians, disappeared overnight back to their own countries so, the only personnel that were left were RAF. So what we did was a pilot and flight engineer got loaded up with bombs and pyrotechnics and, things like that, or unused ammunition and, and we used to fly out to the North Sea, drop this- And I acted as the bomb aimer, because there was only the pilot and me on board, but after that then, the war finished, we got rid of most of the, the bomb ordinance, and the flame float- Smoke floats, all that type of thing, and we were sent on indefinite leave.
JS: That’s - That was great, can I just take you back a wee bit, on your - That was really fascinating. You spoke about your crew, and interestingly how you, the RAF made crews was to sort of put you all in one room and say ‘sort yourselves out’, and you said you were picked by one of the other guys on the other crew, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
CH: I got on well with them, I never had a problem, apart from one night, we were on a raid and as always if I moved from my engineer position to where the- You had to operate the petrol cocks, which were in the rest position, so I had to move, I would tell the pilot I was going back to change tanks. Now the Halifax had twelve petrol tanks, and you had a sequence, and we were on tanks five and six which were joined, which were big tanks and, I told him I was going back so what I was waiting for, I was waiting for four red lights to come up to tell me that the tank was empty, or the tanks on both sides were empty, and I would then close those levers and bring on the next levers with full tanks. Unfortunately, I fell asleep because it was so cold back there that I stuck the heating pipe up my flying harness which was nice and warm then, and also, we had been on a daylight raid earlier, and by the time we were debriefed and had a meal, and got taken back to our accommodation which was always outside the camp, we’d only had about four hours sleep when the police came and wakened up us again because we were on the night detail. Anyway, I’m enjoying my sleep and I hear this shouting down the earphones, ‘I’ve no petrol, I’ve no petrol’, but I don’t see what the pilot's problem was, we were at twenty-thousand feet anyway, so we had plenty time to remedy the situation. So, I closed tanks five and six both sides and opened tank number four either side, and within seconds he had his petrol, but he never forgave me for that, though he didn’t hold it against me, he gave me a bollocking but apart from that, it went off- That was about the only time we had a, a disagreement actually. In fact it went remarkably well because he landed once - We were on an air test, this aircraft had been serviced and we- It was our aircraft, so we took it for a short flight, and on the way back, in Yorkshire, the pilot decides to land [emphasis], and I said to him at the time, I said, ‘This is not our airfield’, ‘Yes it is, I know where we are.’ I said, ‘No it isn’t’ because each aircraft has its own- Each airfield had its own identification, and the one that was flashing wasn’t flashing Lisset. Anyway, we landed, and suddenly a jeep pulls up in front of us, a flight lieutenant gets out, comes to the aircraft, I go to the door, open it, he says, ‘What you doing here?’ I said, ‘We landed at the wrong air field.’ He said, ‘You’re dead right,’ He said, ‘Where are you from?’, So we said ‘Lisset,’ he said ‘Well you’re just over the road there’ [chuckles]. So, I mean that was how close we were, so he’d turned left instead of turning right, so anyway I told the pilot, so that sort of evened out my, misfortune for the, the petrol incident, but it was one of those things, I was tired [emphasis] and it was cold, and of course with sticking the hot air pipe up my flying harness got me nice and comfy.
JS: You- You mentioned as part of that, that your accommodation was off-base?
CH: Yes
JS: So- So what was your accommodation like?
CH: Well, to say the least, the accommodation was very rough. It was all dry toilets, because you were in a field, and what they’d done, they’d simply put the wooden huts in a clearance place, and then built like, toilets outside. There was no water on site, nothing like that, so you then had to go to the sergeants mess to have your wash and shave, and in fact at Riccall which was a heavy conversion unit, we had to walk across two fields to get to the sergeants mess, and if you were lucky you managed to get a locker to keep your stuff in there, there were- You know, you could locks, otherwise you had to carry it backwards and forwards to have a wash, and of course you used the toilets and that, but they had obviously water, but other than that, it was dry, lavatories and I won’t describe what they were [laughs], primitive to say the least. You were lucky, again, if you had a stove in these because your predecessors had probably knocked out the front of the, the stove, and had nicked some bread from the cookhouse to do toast back in the billet if you could find enough fuel to get the fire going because, in those days people didn’t come round and drop off coke for you, or anything, you had to do the scrounging bit as well. So you had to look after yourself, but there was an awful lot of self-discipline, a lot of self-discipline involved amongst the air crew but, they knew the rules and that was it, you stuck by them, not like the present-day air force you know, so that was the situation.
JS: Thank you. The- I read that were- You spoke about things being seen as not being lucky, about, you said if, if you took somebody on from another crew that the rest of their crew were lost that was seen as not being lucky, I read that there were two, there were two aircraft in the squadron, that by the end, by VE day had done well over a hundred operations, was the number of operations that your aircraft had done, was that seen as being lucky, or?
CH: No, the, the aircraft- One of the aircrafts that you’ve mentioned, did thirty-two ops, which was a lot, and I have a book on that particular aircraft, of course, the crews that manned it over the period of time, and in fact they- Elvington, which I’ve previously mentioned, outside York, they built a Halifax bomber, starting with the fuselage which came from Lerwick I think it was, or a bit of fuselage, which a farmer had bought because a Halifax had crashed in that area and his sheep, or whatever he had in the field at that time, took shelter in it. Anyway it was brought down to Elvington and by a lot of good will et cetera, was built to look like a Halifax bomber, and I had the privilege of being the first person that was allowed in to the actual aircraft, to, to see what work had been done, because it was like all the others, aircraft on view they were all roped off and you weren’t allowed to enter they were all locked, but because I’d been a flight engineer, and in fact I've got photographs of the actual aircraft, that was why I was allowed because as I say, I was a flight engineer on that squadron, with that particular aircraft, though I never flew in it. You were allocated an aircraft, different aircraft, it could be every time, you know, but, no, some people carried things with them which was for some reason special to them. Some of them carried crosses, you know, not on- Not based on a religious thing, other people had other things which they considered to be important and they carried them for good luck charms and put them on- I never carried anything like that, but that, that again, but that was one of the things that was fiercely resisted, that if you took on someone else then you were dicing with death.
JS: Interesting. You spoke earlier and took us up, up to the end of the war, and you said then, everybody- All the folk who’d come from elsewhere in the world, the Canadians and New Zealanders and whatever, they, they shipped home, and you mentioned dumping surplus munitions in the, in the North Sea, so, what did you do after that?
CH: Well after that, as I said to you we, we were sent on indefinite leave, and then we were called back, given a short list of jobs that we could do. I picked one which you- You had to pick something, so I picked an airframe mechanics job, went back to St Athans, did the course, wasn’t very happy with it, it wasn’t my type of work, anyway, I was posted to Desborough after that, and in those days I was a flight sergeant by then, during the day you covered up your badge of rank, so you worked as an airman, but you still used the sergeants mess, which you took you armbands- Your covers off to show your rank, but then in the morning you put them back on again. But there was a shortage of, senior NCOs at Desborough, so I was drafted in to the tech disip[?] office, without the badge covered up, so I carried on in there, and then the, because this was the time when there was many demobs going on at the end of the war, so I suddenly found myself taking over as well, as NCOIC police. So I was doing that job and suddenly I got told I was NCOIC fire section, so I’d now three jobs, and I thought well that’s it, that can’t get anymore, unfortunately I was wrong. We decided, or somebody decided that we’d have some German prisoners of war, though the war was over but, anyway, I had to go and collect these prisoners of war, we didn’t put them any locked compound or anything, I only had an LAC to help me, so I became ICGM and prisoners, and then I thought that must be it, but wrong again. At this time they decided to start the ATC having the summer camps at RAF stations, and Desborough was picked so I suddenly became IC air training corps cadets, in the- On the camp as well. So it was quite a busy time, the way, you had various things like courts martial as well, and of course I got that job, again because of your rank. The down side of all this was that they suddenly brought out two dates, all those who were warrant officers or flight sergeants had to reduce themselves to the rank of sergeant by this certain date, so fair enough, it was nothing uncommon to see a bloke walking round with a warrant officers’ uniform on showing where his gallopers had been on his arm wearing an LAC’s prop. Then the second date, that was when you reduced yourself to your rank in your ground trade, now had I not been lucky enough, I would’ve finished up as an AC1, but I remustered whilst all this business had being- IC Police and all the rest of it. To what were called in those days an aircraft and general duties, that was trade groups one to five in those days, but the trade I was in was trade group one, the air frames, but, five was the aircraft hand, and by doing that of course I managed to, on paper, work my way up to corporal, and then I saw an advert in the air ministry orders for drill instructors, now prior to all this upheaval I had gone to Cardington, and I did a six weeks warrant officers and flight sergeants course, which I passed, so of course that helped me no end. So I applied to become a drill instructor, and because of that of course I got made acting segreant, but the funny part about that was the, course was at- By this time had moved to RAF Credenhill which, subsequently became RAF Hereford, and I was standing outside with the rest of the course, waiting to be interviewed by the squadron commander, a warrant officer walked past, came up to me and said, ‘I know you,’ and I said ‘Yes, you know me’, he said ‘Where was it,’ I said ‘Cardington’, I gave him my name and that, away he went, anyway later on, I was told to leave the queue, so I was made a staff instructor there and then without doing that particular course. So I did that, and I did three years as staff instructor on the school airdrome, we taught weapons and bayonet fighting, admin, drill obviously, and this was training recruits into instructors, so that they could go out ‘cause in those days there was quite a lot of them. Anyway in 1949, I got posted to Padgate which was a school of training, and there I suddenly found myself nominated to set up a course for officer cadets, because the officer cadet school was full, so of course being- My background, I got the job of setting up this course for officer cadets, it was only a one-off thing, but then I did eighteen months there, and then during that time RAF Halton had gone through all the drill instructors in the RAF, we were told, and five of us had been selected from, because there was an awful lot of drill instructors in those days, five of us were selected for Halton, and the funny part about that, I always remember to this day [emphasis] was when I reported to the guard room, the corporal policeman said ‘Don’t unpack, you may not be stopping’ [laughs]. The obvious bit being that if you failed the five days, which was the period that they assessed you, from the air commodore, two group captains and various wing commanders, during the week, you had to do certain exercises, anyway, I was selected and I did three years there and that was where I became a substantive sergeant then, while I was there was seven years but, pay for seniority, so my sergeant went away back to when I became a sergeant flight engineer which made a big difference. So, anyway these blokes I’m still in touch with to this day, these apprentices, they’re in their mid-eighties, and I periodically get letters or phone calls from them, even now as we speak. But that was a hectic three years because I had two-hundred-and-twenty of them, and they were aged seventeen to twenty because they did three years, so if, they were unfortunate to fail their entry and got back flighted, they went back a year. So they then became that much older and more difficult to handle because, even though they were twenty or twenty-one the rules said they weren’t allowed to smoke, they weren’t allowed to go with girls, they had to be in bed by twenty-two-hundred-hours, things like that, but you still had to maintain discipline at that age. In fact, not so long ago I had a phone call from a group captain, who had been one of my, what we called snags, the leading apprentices but they were nicknamed snags, and of course he said, you know, the reason he rang, was that he, when he was a wing commander had been posted to Swinderby as OC training, and somewhere along the line he had either seen my name or heard my name mentioned, and was commenting on the work that DI’s did at square bashing camps, you see, so that, that was how I met him, but he’s still alive to this day, like me but [chuckles] that, that was that. Then, I got posted to Yatesbury by mistake, I was posted to the boy entrants wing, who unfortunately had moved before I got there and had moved up to Cosford, so I then got posted up to Kirkham near Preston, where they had trainees there but unfortunately, the station warrant officer there at that time had been the station warrant officer at Credenhill of course I was immediately in his office rather than sent out, anyway, that wasn't- Didn’t work very well really.
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 Colin Hynd
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
2017-11-15
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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHyndC171115
Format
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00:44:33 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
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James Sheach
Description
An account of the resource
Summary: Colin Hynd joined the RAF in November 1943. Upon completing initial training, he was posted to RAF St Athan, where he trained as a flight engineer. He struggled to bond with his first crew, so instead worked as an instructor before joining a Canadian crew based at 158 Squadron. Hynd recounts the briefing process and dangers during bombing operations. He also describes why their rear gunner was accused of Lack of Moral Fibre, accidentally falling asleep during an operation, dumping surplus munitions in the North Sea, and the conditions of their accommodation. Finally, Hynd describes serving as drill instructor after the war.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11
1945
158 Squadron
aircrew
bomb struck
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
military living conditions
RAF Desborough
RAF Halton
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
RAF St Athan
superstition
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/868/11109/AHendersonIG171017.1.mp3
e974e79a8803f3c38d25b705429b1cb2
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
Henderson, Ian
Ian Grant Henderson
I G Henderson
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Ian Henderson DFM (b. 1922), his log book, a diary of operation, a memoir and a photograph. He flew operations as a navigator with 153 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ian Henderson and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Collection is NtA.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Henderson, IG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: Ok.
IH: Right.
JS: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Ian Henderson. The interview is taking place at Mr Henderson’s home in Lockerbie on the 17th of October 2017. Ian, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed today. Could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
IH: Yes. Well, the war started in 1939 when I was seventeen. And I had left school by that time and I went to Edinburgh University to study law and I had two years there before I joined up. I wanted to be a pilot but, and I went to London, at Lord’s I think we started off with. We had several stations. Training stations. And when I was twenty I went to Canada. At Edmonton, Alberta, still as a pilot trainee. Then after about a few months I was told they had too many pilots, trainees and I was asked to be a navigator. Train as a navigator. Of course, you just did as you were told in these days and I did that. I finished my navigator’s training, came back to this country and further training. And then I joined up with a crew and we went to Scampton, 153 Squadron. My pilot was a South African. Donald Legg. And an excellent pilot. And I’m quite sure we owe our lives to him because at that time one of the main dangers, risks was collisions with adjoining Lancasters or bombs being dropped from above on to you and a good pilot could avoid that. So we survived the war. We had one rather difficult experience. At December 1944 it was we were trying to bomb a dam called the Urft Dam and we were hit. Before that the cloud came down. We couldn’t see the target so we were told to come back home again. Dump the bombs in the North Sea. But then we were hit and an engine caught fire. We couldn’t get the fire out. It burned for about two hours. However, we got as far as the North Sea, dumped our bombs, got back to Brussels which was free at that time and landed there. Made a forced landing there and got home safely the next day. Actually, the following day the Luftwaffe came across in force and shot up all the aircraft in that particular airfield. So we lost our plane. It was pretty badly damaged anyway. And then, that was December 1944. The war ended about six months later and I was sent to India as a navigator instructor. Spent a year in India. And then I was demobilised in 1946 or ’47. Came back home, completed my law training in Edinburgh University. Came back to Lockerbie and went in to my father’s business where I spent the next forty five years. So I, I had a very enjoyable life. I’m glad I lived when I did [laughs]
JS: What, why, why do you think you wanted to join the RAF as opposed to anything else in the services?
IH: I think it was the [pause] it seemed the most, I don’t know, exciting service to be in. I still think that. Flying was such an adventurous thing and you were less regimented I think than in the Army. Or at least I got that idea. And I’m sure I made the right decision. I enjoyed my stay in the RAF immensely.
JS: You mentioned you did your training in Canada. So, how did you get to Canada?
IH: Oh, well we got to Canada by Mauretania ship. It was supposed to take ten thousand passengers. There were thirty thousand of us aboard in the hold. The various parts that they were very cramped. And we had to go very quickly to avoid the submarines. Thirty miles, I think it was thirty knots we travelled at. And we realised then we were so packed that if we were torpedoed there wasn’t much chance of getting up and into a lifeboat. However, there was no, we got across to Canada quite uneventfully and landed in Halifax. Took the train across to Edmonton, Alberta where I spent the next year, or eleven months I think it was. Before that as I said I was training as a pilot to begin with and then told I had to remuster as a navigator which I did. So after completing the course in Canada we came back home and, what year would that be? 1942 it was, I think. And spent most of the rest, I spent a good year, a year and a half at at Scampton near Lincoln. I think we did thirty, thirty operations without much. I think, I think we had quite a successful tour altogether. We were hit several times but nothing, nothing too serious except the time we caught fire. The most dramatic operation of course was Dresden. And we were one of fifteen aircraft from 153 Squadron at Scampton and our pilot was a South African. Donald Legg, who was a pilot. A Canadian called Russell Rawlings. A wireless operator, a Welshman. And upper-gunner was Andrew Andrews and the rear gunner was a Scot called Jock Beet from Dundee. Donald Legg, our pilot was thirty two years of age. Much older than the other members of the crew who were all in their early twenties. The Lancaster P-Peter, the second one of that name which this crew had. The first one had been destroyed a few a few weeks earlier when after a bomber operation on the Urft Dam the first P for Peter had been hit by flak which had started a fire in the port engine. The fire could not be extinguished but the pilot had been able to fly as far as Brussels and to land there. Brussels was at that time was in the hands of the allies. Before going to Dresden we’d been advised that the Russians had particularly asked for the RAF to carry out the attack to help them. They had believed, the Russians had believed that there was a build-up of German troops and armour in Dresden preparing to make a counter attack on them. To the crews involved it was simply another operation. The principal difference being that it was a very much a longer distance than the average operation and they would be under possible attack from enemy fighters and flak for a longer period. There was a strong wind blowing that night. We took off at 21.22. About ninety miles from Dresden the pilot told me to stop navigating because he could see the fires that were burning on Dresden. The Americans had been up there earlier. So, due to the, due to our diversionary tactics which confused the Germans no enemy fighters were encountered in the operation. But this was very exceptional and there was no sign of the Luftwaffe being any less strong or active previous to or after the Dresden operation.
[pause]
IH: My personal view at the time was that Dresden was just another operation which was intended to give assistance to the Russian allies and would be a further step in defeating the enemy which was still a powerful war machine in operation and was quite capable of carrying out long enough to develop and use more powerful weapons. Which they were working on. Namely guided rockets and the atom bomb. I firmly believe that the devastating destruction caused to Dresden which was contributed to by an exceptionally strong wind that night was a psychological blow to the Germans that resulted in the war ending many months earlier than it would have been otherwise and so probably hundreds of thousands, saved probably hundreds of thousands of lives of death camp prisoners, British and American servicemen and British civilians. At this stage of the war Germany was still occupied, had still occupied much of Europe including Yugoslavia, Greece and the Channel Islands. Jews were being murdered and the gas chambers were still operating in the concentration camps. The Germans had developed a new weapon, the V-2 and were attacking London with these rockets. There was no clear indication of when the war, which was in its fifth year would end. The orders to bomber crews were to hit only military targets and this they endeavoured to do despite heavy enemy defences.
[pause – pages turning]
IH: That’s Dresden.
JS: You spoke, you spoke, you spoke earlier before we started recording about your role as a navigator and some of the navigation aids that you had. Do you want to just —
IH: Yes. Yes.
JS: Say a little bit about that?
IH: We were lucky. We had several very useful navigation aids. Gee was a machine which recorded the position of your aircraft in relation to the ground. Beams sent out from Britain which the machine was able to interpret and tell you more or less where you were. It was frequently jammed by the Germans so you didn’t have the use of it more than maybe halfway through your trip. And the other was H2O. That was the name. H2O. Which sent down rays, reflected them back and you could interpret, find out your position that way. The only, they were useful over the coastlines and lakes, lochs but they had their limited use. Just. They didn’t tell you exactly where you were. So most, and of course you had the astro navigation which was a bit tricky at times because the aircraft was moving up and down so quickly that you couldn’t take an accurate fix. So it was dead reckoning most of the time. You knew approximately. You had your compass and your winds and you worked it out that way. It worked.
JS: You mentioned your crew.
IH: Oh yes. Ah huh.
JS: How did you crew form up? And how did you get on with your crew?
IH: Yes. Yes. Yes. Well. when you were fully qualified you were all taken to a large hangar and told to sort yourself out. And it was quite a hit or miss business joining up. I think the pilot would come around and spot you and ask you what was your position, what was your qualifications and when he got to the right number of his crew that was it. It was very, it was very hit or miss but very successful. We got on very well with our crew. We spent a lot of time together. The officers of course were billeted in one part of the, the airfield. And the other ranks, the rest were mostly at that time sergeants. Non-commissioned officers. Apart from the pilot who was a South African. So we got on very well together and we spent all our recreation time together. We were very often in Lincoln at a dance or, you know pub.
JS: How was Scampton as a base?
IH: Oh, Scampton was a war, a peacetime, I beg your pardon a wartime. No. A peacetime base it was. It was a very good station to be on. We were, I can’t, I think, I think we were in, I can’t remember what we were in. Probably in Nissen huts. No. I can’t quite remember that at all. The Nissen huts were quite primitive in these days but cold in winter. You were very lucky if you got a bed near a stove to keep you warm in winter, but yeah. When you’re in your twenties you don’t notice discomfort at all. At all. So I was glad I lived when I did and had a very happy experience in the Air Force. In the RAF.
JS: How was, how was Lincoln in those days?
IH: Lincoln was packed with RAF personnel of course every night. And my pilot had brought his wife across. They stayed at Vicar’s Court just beside the Cathedral. 4 Vicar’s Court. And very nice. A very nice city was Lincoln. A lot of happy memories of it.
JS: You, you mentioned your, your training in Canada. Just to take you back to that. So you were there for, around nearly a year.
IH: Yes. About, about a year. Slightly less than that. To begin with I was training as a pilot, and we flew Oxfords. Oxfords and Ansons. I think I was there probably about two months before I switched over to navigation. Edmonton was a very nice place to be. Well, we were out, slightly out of Edmonton but went in quite a lot. And it was a very happy experience. Canadians were a particularly hospitable people and when I landed in Canada, we landed in a small town. The lights were blazing. The shops were full. It seemed like, seemed a wonderful place to be. I was surprised afterwards a Canadian told me that that particular town was one of the most rariest in Canada. To me it seemed a wonderful place.
JS: So the weather there would be quite different from that you were accustomed to.
IH: Oh yes. Very cold in winter. Very, quite hot in summer. You went on parade in the hot summer weather. Hot summer day. Hot days. Someone always tended to faint, you know. Standing there in the heat. But a complete change in the winter. The winter was very, very cold. Yeah. But it was a wonderful place. Canada.
JS: How did the aircraft of that time cope with the diversity in weather from the incredibly hot to icily cold?
IH: I think they coped very well indeed. I never noticed any problems at all. No. No. I don’t think there was any, was any problems. I’d say they were mostly Oxfords and Ansons they were called. Two engined planes we flew in. But —
JS: You, you mentioned, again just back to your, your crew and the fact that the officers were separated from the NCOs which was, which was most of the crew. So how did operations and time off work like? What was the sort of balance between those? Like how often would you do operations compared with being stood down and recreational time and things like that?
IH: We did thirty operations over [pause] let me think now. Six or seven months. So quite a few training flights in between. But let me think now. The recreation. I think there was no difference then between the officers and the other ranks. We were all mostly sergeants, flight sergeants except for the pilot was a lieutenant. A flight lieutenant. The bomb aimer was a Welshman. Dave Jones. He was also commissioned. That left five of us flight, flight sergeants. And we were definitely inside at that time. Not in a, not in a Nissen hut. I remember we were in a permanent room in an inside building. I think we all spelt in the same room which was fine. And [pause] but, and recreation we’d all go out together in to Lincoln. To a dance or the cinema. Or a meal. No. Not a meal. We didn’t eat out much. But no, that was a very happy time.
JS: Good.
IH: A happy time.
JS: Good. You [pause] you talked about the operation where you had to land in Belgium. So you obviously lost your aircraft there then.
IH: Yes. The aircraft was quite badly damaged of course and we stayed that night in Brussels in an ex-German barracks. And we got some, given some money to go into the town for the evening, and next day we got, we flew back again in another aircraft. A Dakota. Back to Scampton. And either that day or the next day the Luftwaffe came across in force and shot up all the aircraft in this area where we’d landed in Brussels. So we lost our aircraft, our Lancaster completely that time. And we got a new one when we got back. Back to Scampton. That was the December. December 1944. So we’d have that until the war ended. That was in May 1945. After that we were split up and I went to Crosby near Carlisle to navigate for the longer distances over the Pacific against the Japanese. But before the course was finished the Japanese surrendered and instead of going out to fly, to operate there I was sent out to be a navigation briefing officer. By that time I was commissioned and at Karachi near Mauripur. Karachi. And all the planes were bringing back Army personnel by aircraft so all the planes went through Karachi and they were briefed about the various risks involved on the way back. Where not to have a forced landing because the natives were hostile. And I was there about a year. A year I think it was in Karachi. Again, a very enjoyable experience. After that I got back home. I was demobbed. Went back to Edinburgh University. Completed my law degree and joined my father in his business, legal business in Lockerbie. I met my wife to be at a dance in Lockerbie. She was in the WAAF but we didn’t, we didn’t meet in the Air Force so I met her at this dance and we got married a year later. And after that my life was uneventful but very happy.
JS: You, you spoke about being in Brussels and being given some money to go.
IH: Yeah.
JS: And do Brussels if you like.
IH: Yes.
JS: For the evening. How was it then? Because I mean it couldn’t have been liberated for particularly long before that time.
IH: Oh no. No. It was very bleak at that time. There must have been some shops but there was no, no light. No nightlife. I suppose we spent our money I suppose going to some local pub or would be. I don’t remember having anything having a meal of any sort. And certainly the, we’d spent the night in an old German barracks which were very primitive. Just a night but again at that age you don’t, not at all conscious of any, any, any discomfort. Took it all in [pause] took it all in our stride.
JS: That, that must have been quite a rare experience though for someone in your squadron to end up if you like having to put down on the continent.
IH: Oh yes.
JS: And then come back because to a certain extent you were on the right side of the line so to speak.
IH: Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s right.
JS: Ok. As a, as a Bomber Command veteran how do you think you were treated after the war when you came back?
IH: Well, very well indeed. No complaints at all. We were demobbed and given a suit of clothes. A new suit of clothes. I think a hundred pounds. And things were very different. Very strict, strict rationing then and there was strict rationing for about seven or eight years afterwards. But again, these hardships don’t mean much to you when you are in your early twenties. You just accept them. No. We were very well treated when we got back. And so I was very glad I joined the RAF in preference to the Army or the Navy. It was a very exhilarating time.
JS: You, you mentioned when we spoke earlier about Churchill’s attitude to Bomber Command and, and the end of the war.
IH: Yes. Yes, indeed. Well, Churchill had authorised or instructed I should say the bombing of Dresden. Up to that time the, the Germans had been bombing British cities, killing a lot of people and there was a great animosity towards the Germans and a great support for the RAF. For the bombing operations they carried out. But once the war ended I think it’s a slight change. The criticism of the bombing of the German towns especially Dresden. And I was a very keen supporter of Churchill during the war. I think he did a marvellous job. I was slightly disappointed at his lack of support for the Bomber Command at the end. And I think however it was understandable. He wanted, Churchill was keen to get back in to power in parliament and he thought that too much support of the bombing of Germany might damage his chances of being successful. But, and that, that was I think quite understandable. So, but no I was a keen supporter of Churchill really and that was, and I understood his reason for what he did.
JS: When you went to Karachi did you have a choice to be demobbed before that or was that just where you were sent?
IH: No. Just where I was sent. Yes. At that time. Yes. I ‘d been switched to Transport Command at that time and we were being demobbed in groups according to when, how long you’d been in service and I had a year after the war ended before I was demobbed. My turn. When my turn came up.
JS: But, but the thing you were doing in Karachi was predominantly to do with if you like that flow of, of prisoners and service personnel coming home then.
IH: Exactly. They all, they all I think came through Karachi and Transport Command at that time was taking them back home.
JS: And, and what sort of aircraft were doing the majority of that work?
IH: I think they were mostly Liberators. Big American planes in Karachi. In Transport Command. At that time I remember I was sent to Cairo for a few days to check up on the, the route and that was a Liberator I was on. And I found Cairo an interesting place. It [pause] the, then I came back to, went back again to Karachi and eventually we were demobbed. We came back. Yes. By, by sea it was. We flew out to Karachi but we came out by sea through the Suez Canal and that took quite a long time in these days. I can’t remember. Quite a long time. Going out to Karachi took, took about three days. Various stops in North Africa. But coming home of course by sea was a very pleasant experience. It was all over then.
JS: So, so what, what sort of ship did you come back on? Can you remember?
IH: I can’t remember the name of it. Like I can remember the name of the boat going out to Canada. The Mauretania. But I can’t remember the name of the boat, the ship we came back in. It was a passenger, a passenger liner. That’s all.
JS: Great. That’s been super.
IH: That’s great.
JS: Thank you very much for sharing.
IH: That’s a great pleasure.
JS: That’s been very —
IH: It’s been a great pleasure.
JS: Very, very interesting.
IH: A great pleasure indeed.
JS: Thank you very much. I’ll stop this.
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 Ian Henderson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
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
2017-10-17
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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHendersonIG171017
Format
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00:35:43 audio recording
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Alberta--Edmonton
Belgium
Belgium--Brussels
Great Britain
Germany
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Urft Dam
Pakistan
Pakistan--Karachi
England--Lincolnshire
Alberta
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
Description
An account of the resource
Ian Henderson was born in Lockerbie and studied law at the University of Edinburgh for two years before joining the Royal Air Force. He travelled to Canada onboard the RMS Mauretania to train as a pilot, after two months near Edmonton on Oxford and Anson aircraft, Ian transferred to navigator training. He joined 153 Squadron at RAF Scampton flying Lancasters. Ian’s crew included Pilot Donald Legg from South Africa, Wireless Operator Russel Rawlings from Canada, Bomb Aimer Dave Jones from Wales, Upper Gunner Andy Anders from England, Rear Gunner Jack Beat and Flight Engineer Jack Ross from Scotland. He recalled an operation on the Urft Dam in December 1944 where his aircraft P–Peter suffered an engine fire due to anti-aircraft fire and they carried out a forced landing in Brussels, then under Allied control. After a night spent in an ex German army barracks his crew flew home to RAF Scampton aboard a transport aircraft. His damaged Lancaster was destroyed on the ground at Brussels in a Luftwaffe attack shortly after. Ian described using both Gee and H2S navigation aids, with Gee being jammed by the Germans for perhaps 50% of the duration of an operation. On the 13/14 February 1945 Ian took part in an operation on Dresden, he described how to the crews it was just another operation. Crews were briefed that it was at the request of the Russians who feared German troops were amassing in the area. When they were around 90 miles from the target Ian recalled being told there was no need to navigate further as the fires from the burning city were clearly visible. Ian was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. On completion of 30 operations Ian was commissioned and transferred to Transport Command as a navigation briefing officer. Posted to Karachi he briefed crews making the journey from the Far East to Great Britain on known hazards they could face. Returning back in 1946 he resumed his studies at the University of Edinburgh before joining his father’s law firm in Lockerbie.
Contributor
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Jim Sheach
Julie Williams
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
153 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Distinguished Flying Medal
forced landing
Gee
H2S
Lancaster
navigator
Oxford
pilot
RAF Scampton
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/862/11105/PHayI1801.2.jpg
3e0a0951de9b336bdf3118e20f445e96
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/862/11105/AHayR180426.1.mp3
8fd7d34fa9cb0b6e6ba3c4730b730217
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
Hay, Ian
I Hay
Description
An account of the resource
67 items. An oral history interview with Rhona Hay (b.1942) photographs and postcards from her father. Her brother and father served in the RAF. Her brother, <span>Ian de Sailly Errol Hay was killed 24 September 1940.</span> <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rhona Hay and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="none" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW232469343 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW232469343 BCX0">Additional information on Ian Hay</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW232469343 BCX0"> is available via the</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW232469343 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/110277/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-10
Rights
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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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Hay, I
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: Ok. And I’ll just add, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is Mrs Rhona Hay. The interview is taking place at Mrs Hay’s home in Muir of Ord. Muir of Ord, Scotland on the 26th of April 2018. Rhona, can you tell me a little about your family before the war or as the war started? Where did you live? Who else was in your family?
RH: Well, the family originally came from Inverness. By the time I’ve got any memories at all this was, well, 1943/44 in Cookham which is not so far from Maidenhead, Eton, Marlow, High Wycombe, further —
JS: That’s fine.
RH: London.
JS: Who was in your family?
RH: By the time I have any memory, well, my father was posted somewhere in Britain so it was just my mother and I, and for a short time I had a nanny but I think that was somebody possibly who needed a home. Or if it was a larger house with only two people let’s push in a few evacuees. Though there were evacuees in Cookham I can just remember them but by that time they were wanting back to London anyway. So, I can just remember her. I don’t think she lasted very long, and I can remember my father getting rid of her. I think she was an old lady who was getting very difficult. I don’t really think she was much help as I said. There was more than one adult in the house.
JS: What did your father do?
RH: He was in the RAF. Air Force. Royal Air Force. And —
JS: What —
RH: I’ve got his record if you want to have a look to put it in a specific area. I think by that time I know he was posted at Harwell at one point. Also, Benson. He was definitely at Benson in 1939. He was then posted out to France. When they had to move they had several hours to get the squadron out. He got them out because he remembered the old cavalry tracks in the Amiens Abbeville area. He, there is a long letter to my sister, now deceased. He then was in Bordeaux and got out through Marseilles in, I think a coaling ship. Out via Gib. Right out in to the sea and came up between the, between Ireland and then the beginning of July I think it was. So for all that time. And my brother was in the Air Force. He was killed. He was in 19 OTU. They’d just been made operational because an invasion was expected from Norway and it was the first fatal air crash out of Kinloss. It was a Whitley. It had engine trouble which wasn’t much good and it flew into Ben Aigan. They were all killed instantly I believe.
JS: What year was that?
RH: 1940. 24th of September 1940. About 15.45 hours.
JS: You, you mentioned that you were, you remember that you were staying in in Cookham just outside London.
RH: Yes.
JS: So what, how did [pause] do you remember anything about how the war affected you when you were staying there?
RH: Well, I can just remember a dogfight. It was fascinating watching these aeroplanes going around and around and around. It was the, I’m pretty certain it was a Spitfire. What they were fighting I haven’t a clue. It was fascinating watching the way they twisted and turned. You knew it was a fight but you didn’t understand the significance, and I think that’s probably very much the case for many people of my generation. Especially if mother was alone with her children. You knew what was happening. They kept you informed. You didn’t understand the full significance obviously, and I can just remember my mother being, ‘Oh, those poor men.’ And then said they’d landed in Normandy. I knew some men had landed in Normandy. They were fighting. I didn’t know where Normandy was. Not then. And you certainly didn’t for one moment comprehend the full horror of anything like that. But things weren’t hidden from children. You knew people were bombed. You knew somebody else’s father had been killed in the war or he was a prisoner of war. It was just part of life. And in Cookham there was a bakers, definitely. There was a fruit shop which was very near. There was an International where you walked down and got your small piece of cheese. Your sugar was put in a blue bag. All the floors were wooden. Everything was brown, I think inside. And I said there was, the cheese ration was two ounces a week. My father came home on leave and the cheese went down in his mouth in about one mouth full, and my mother came in and was just looking at me. She had the sort of look that said, ‘Don’t you dare say anything.’ [laughs] I didn’t. So for any other shopping, oh there was, and you could get ice cream once a week. No cones. Only vanilla. Very small bit between two wafers and it came in at a certain time and if you didn’t get there in time to be in the queue no ice cream and not a hope of another ice cream. That must have been in summer. And that’s where you got your sweetie ration too but I don’t have much ration. I know you got a sweetie ration but then I was probably only given one sweet or something. That sweetie shop was opposite the police station. And also down there you used to take the batteries of the radio, of the wireless and the batteries had to be recharged or the wireless wouldn’t work, and reception got quieter and quieter and you knew that’s when the batteries had to go and be recharged and I think they were quite heavy.
JS: They would probably, they would probably be acid batteries rather than —
RH: Something. Yes.
JS: Yeah.
RH: And the wireless was on the table and I could sit neatly under the table and listen to the wireless, and of course we always had the news. And strangely, yes I remember people like John Snagge or was it Dimbleby, but the other voice I remember clearly was Alvar Liddell. Again, didn’t really mean too much at the time but when I heard his voice later. Yes. That’s who it was.
JS: It’s just very of the era.
RH: Yes. One warm room and the blackout curtains were always down. Before you put the lights on blackout curtains went down. Or very thick curtains. You didn’t show any light, and the torches used to have a sort of blurred light so you could just about see if you had to use a torch. It was a very good torch actually.
JS: Being where you were did you see any bombing at all? Or any effects of bombing?
RH: Definitely. There was a Doodlebug. We were waiting to get the bus to go shopping in Maidenhead. As I said that’s where the butcher was and the fish shop and all the other shops you needed. And we weren’t first in the queue that day. The house was fairly near the bus stop which was just after or just before the level crossing in Cookham and there was a beautiful silver aeroplane just gliding down. Silver aeroplane. No propeller. I turned to my mother, more or less to say, ‘Look at the pretty aeroplane,’ and it wasn’t there. I don’t clearly remember an explosion but everybody disappeared. I couldn’t think why they were running away to get shelter when they’d already, the bomb had already gone off. And it wasn’t until years later I realised they’d actually gone back to see if their house had been hit. Anyway, the bus came. We got on. There was no one else there, and we went off to Maidenhead. And the fact that there was no one else there in some ways was very good because the buses could be so crowded. They were quite small. Very small by comparison with today’s buses. Children were always on their mother’s knees as soon as the bus started to fill up and if there were two pre-school children, the woman sitting next to you would have a child on her knee. Then there would be the queue. The passengers standing. And it could be so crowded on the bus that the bus conductor would be standing on the bottom step of the bus hanging on for dear life and only just on the bus. And when we got to Maidenhead I think sort of just slowly disentangled and disgorged ourselves. It was about three miles. It was much more fun to go in to Maidenhead by train but more expensive I think. And they had a porteress. No porters. She was a porteress and I thought that was a wonderful job. And then of course there were, that you could definitely remember hearing the alarms go off. And the all clear. But I’d always been told, ‘Well, God won’t let us die.’ What else do you tell a child? But on one occasion it had been a bit noisy outside and there had been some crashing as well. Hearing aeroplanes overhead was nothing unusual and my mother came in, picked me up, opened the blackout curtains which were always down and very effective and the whole sky was alight. Right across over towards Maidenhead. Found out afterwards that an incendiary had hit a jam factory. Well, hitting a jam factory it wouldn’t need an incendiary but the whole sky was alight and all she did was to pick me up. ‘Well, if we’re going to die we’ll die together,’ and we both went into the same bed, and I think that’s the only time I ever shared a bed until I got married. But you just didn’t. You had your own bed and you went to bed.
JS: So you, you mentioned that you heard the sirens and the all clear.
RH: Yes.
JS: So did you have a shelter to go into?
RH: No.
JS: Or was it just —
RH: We had the —
JS: Was it not deemed to be [pause] so where did you go?
RH: Well, it was 1944, I suppose. I think there was a mini Blitz or something from February to about June. So they weren’t too likely. But in fact we didn’t on that occasion. We just went to bed. The house had a basement so I suppose we could have always have gone into the basement and in fact quite a lot of time was spent in the basement because there was a boiler there and you could cook. Boil something on the boiler as well. The boiler was a fire which gave the heating, but also on top you could boil your kettle or saucepan or anything and it was a fairly large room with a wooden table in the middle and a wardrobe. A cupboard at one end and a sideboard at the other. All in basic pine, unstained. Really interior stuff. Downstairs there was also a coal hold and a larder. At a push although I think you only got one bag of coal a week but when you could get more much later you still had to count the coal bags that were ordered and make sure that the right number of coal bags was delivered, because if he didn’t and he kept one back he could still sell that on the black market. And quite what health and safety would say having the coal hold next to the larder we don’t know but it was a really cold larder. You didn’t need a fridge. But [pause] also waking up once and there was a roar. It must have been after the bad raid. It might have been the raid on Reading because Maidenhead isn’t that far and with the turning circle etcetera of the bombers at that time. Hearing the roar of aeroplanes overhead I’d heard it so many times so why on that occasion I said, ‘They’re coming to bomb us.’ ‘No. That’s our aeroplanes going to bomb Germany.’ ‘Oh, well. That’s alright then.’ Back to sleep.
JS: So the sound of aircraft was just a regular occurrence.
RH: It was a regular occurrence. It doesn’t bother me. Come to think of it even the Typhoons or the Tornadoes when they used to go over. Oh, yes. Where’s the other one? I suppose you’ll be over soon. Never bothers me.
JS: So at that point you weren’t at school. So you were at home all the time?
RH: Yes, but my mother must have taught me a certain amount. I think she did her housework when I was asleep because, and again as the evidence in Lincoln. I was beginning to write and read by the time I was three because my father as a fluent French speaker was posted to the south of France responsible as a liaison within the region Bordeaux/Marseilles and I’ve got postcards which had been sent to Lincoln which my father wrote to me. To me. Printed. And also, “I see you’re starting to write now. Good show. Daddy couldn’t go along, wanted to go along this road but he couldn’t because the Germans had bombed the bridge.” Just the sort of thing you wrote to a child. As I say I don’t think things were hidden particularly. And I also remember that whether it was, it must I think have been after possibly the invasion of Italy and the fall of Mussolini there was an Italian POW. And that was definitely summer time because he’d been working on the fields, and he used to stop to have his piece at lunchtime, probably when we were going for a walk and we always chatted and he had a little girl my age. She was probably my age when he left and that’s how he remembered her. And for years, he gave me a little basket that he’d made with willow I think it was that he used to take his piece in to take to put by while he was working. Come back and have his piece. And I had that basket until the woodworm demolished it in the 1990s. It was a good long time. Oh yes, and we had a Christmas tree of course. But the decorations were lots of cotton wool. That was snow. And what must have been the things that were dropped to confuse the radar. The long thin —
JS: Oh, Window.
RH: The long thin silver strips, and they hung on the tree and that was the icicles. And of course the winter of ’45 was a very cold one anyway. You broke the top off the milk bottles before you could [pause] The ice I mean.
JS: Yeah.
RH: The top. The blue tits had probably broken the top of the bottles to get to it first. Because the milk came in bottles and they were left on the doorstep.
[pause]
JS: So when did, when did your father come home?
RH: That would have been ’46. Pity about that. It was very much better when it was my mother and I [laughs] Then she had to share her time. And anyway, little girls, I think he’d have rather had, since my brother had been killed he would far rather had a boy. So I was brought up something as a tomboy until I reached fourteen, fifteen when he suddenly decided that as a female I’d better run around after him. Females ran around after the pater familias. Which didn’t work. Not amenable to discipline. I think I always wanted to see the reason for doing things rather than just accepting it.
JS: That’s a good thing.
RH: Well, much later it meant I wasn’t very good at science because I didn’t like being told that’s the, that’s the scientific rule, it can’t be broken because nobody told me why. Why put things into equations if you’re going to have to get them out again. It didn’t make sense. But that was much later. But I was what, four when I started school anyway. Small private school. Only about ten or twenty children. Untrained teacher and absolutely brilliant at it.
JS: So was, what year would that be?
RH: About –
JS: When you started school.
RH: ’46 I think. It was definitely before I was five. We used to go mornings only. Same as really nursery school now. The state school anyway was opposite and it was desperately overcrowded and I think, again certainly for part of the war there were all the evacuee children as well. So I believe. But it was very crowded. And we had some grass we could play on and they only had a hard concrete.
JS: A hard concrete square.
RH: Yes. Exactly. But again when we were very, it must have been about the time I started of course the war was just over. We played killing Germans and we were stopped immediately. She was straight out when she realised we were going around like that that. ‘The war is over. There is to be no more killing of any one.’ And I never knew ‘til much, much later that her only son had been killed in the war but she wasn’t certainly not going to have any more hatred or prejudice or anything. That was over.
JS: So in the village there were evacuees but just didn’t stay with you. Is that right?
RH: Yes. They were just down the road. I think there had been evacuees but not when I was there definitely. I believe their language could be very colourful.
JS: Well, it’s part of that thing that we spoke about earlier, I suppose. That the war just mixed everyone up.
RH: It mixed everyone up. Yes. I did play with them occasionally but as I understand, I think she wasn’t, she was a bit hesitant because of the sort of colourful language. I certainly preferred those children to another girl that was down that road. I rather liked them. They were great fun.
JS: Was that as opposed to someone else who lived in the village before?
RH: She was of that village, yes. But of course the evacuee children anyway were older than I was but, yes I did play as I said occasionally and they just took me on, you know. Just another child. I don’t think we thought about anything like that. But —
[pause]
JS: That’s been really good. Thank you very much. No. That’s been great. Let’s pause this.
[recording paused]
RH: There was a couple of other things that might be relevant.
JS: Yeah.
RH: That on one occasion, it might have been to either just at the end of the war. We went north to meet my father who must have been, we went out and met him at York. Very crowded journey again. Very limited memories. I think that’s when I saw some of the bomb damage in Reading. Definitely I remember seeing bomb damage. And we got to York, my father met me, us. It could be that when we stayed at a nearby RAF station and I was left in the Nissen hut over, well I think they went for a meal presumably in the mess and I was spoiled rotten by the WAAFs. It was great fun. So I must have been fairly confident at the age of about three. We went north with the car. That’s when my father built a cairn to my brother and I couldn’t understand why we were building a cairn, you know. A heap of stones. And then I don’t remember my father ever mentioning my brother again except if somebody else brought it up and I was definitely discouraged from not talking about Ian. Coming back, again we got to York. Very crowded. Overcrowded train definitely. We only just squeezed into a compartment. Very crowded on the platform and at that time the porter broke my favourite bottle of orange juice. We did have another one as well but that didn’t taste nearly as nice. I’m still annoyed with that postman [laughs] Sorry, porter. They always had uniforms etcetera. And thinking of that you got your orange juice which was great and cod liver oil. You were supposed to have a teaspoon of cod liver oil a day. Yuck. I bit the spoon so much I cracked it. Must have been able to do an awful lot of damage even with baby teeth. But —
JS: You mentioned staying on a base in a, in a, in a Nissen hut with WAAFs.
RH: Yes.
JS: That’s obviously been a big impression that stuck with you.
RH: Yes. But only bits of it, you know. The Nissen hut and the shape and a row of beds and I was in one somewhere in the middle and of course everybody was talking to me and chatting. I suppose they were waiting to be demobbed by that time. There was a heater but I don’t think it was on so it must have been summertime. And my mother leaving me. But she came back and that was a bit of nuisance. As I said I must have been spoiled rotten. And although it was just after the war there used to be parties for the children on the station and we all got a present. And I think the WAAFs and whoever else was on the station, especially with skills would make a toy. I had Donald Duck. I’ve still got Donald Duck [laughs] He’s in the roof space. And of course the boys all got a wooden toy or something similar. I’d have far rather had a wooden toy.
JS: So what was that?
RH: Pardon?
JS: So what is Donald Duck made from?
RH: Don’t ask. Health and safety would have a fit [laughs] The eyes could be taken out at a risk. I haven’t a clue what the, that stuffing was. Probably a kapok and felt, and he was yellow and he had a green hat, a little jacket so they must have been busy with sewing machines. In fact, dolls were wasted on me. I had quite a few of them, and my gollywog which I loved and you never thought of it in a racist way. He was your much loved gollywog with a smiley black face. And somebody in the village made doll’s clothes for me. Absolutely beautifully made. Obviously on a machine. All the little smocking. All the little bands around the sleeve. Beautifully made. I did not have much time for dolls at all. Occasionally you would. But no. Not dolls. And people, if your child had outgrown things you passed them on. And the front was cut out of your sandals in the summer so you didn’t have to use your shoe coupons. And your paddling pool was never a paddling pool it would be a large tin, oval tin washing tin container. You could just about sit in it. And all the water had to be carried over out of the garden etcetera. Oh and in the summer you got either an extra ration of sugar or an extra ration of jam so that if you could get fruit you could make some more jam. Which meant that people who had fruit and the sugar, and a neighbour had blackcurrants and I can remember picking the blackcurrant. I think they probably did far more picking than I did but you didn’t eat them and you made jam. But fruit was a great treat. No bananas ‘til the end of the war and then you only got one banana. And the shop had a picture of bananas in the window, ‘Mummy, they’ve got some more bananas.’ ‘No. Those aren’t real.’ I wouldn’t believe her until we went in to the shop and they told me. ‘No, those are not real bananas. You won’t get any more for a long time.’ Yes. And of course queues were absolutely normal. And the butcher was Dewhurst at the time. He was quite cheery. Always talked to me. And children didn’t wander off. They stayed with their mother and if they were very young they had reins. I had some pretty pink reins. But on one occasion I didn’t want to talk and he said, so he said ‘Lost your tongue?’ I wasn’t going to talk so I went and put my tongue out. Oh dear. I was in trouble for putting my tongue out to someone. ‘Go and stand outside the shop.’ And afterwards I had to come back and apologise and I still didn’t know why. I mean I’d been told it was bad manners but I didn’t want to talk and I showed him that I had not lost my tongue. That was not how the adult world works.
JS: It was very logical though.
RH: It was very logical [laughs]
JS: Yes. Queuing for everything must have just been part of life.
RH: It was. Queuing for everything and standing beside your parents, well your mother, and fathers were very much not there. As I said I was very happy. I think that was the best bit of my childhood because although you knew what was happening and you were told what was happening you didn’t understand the implications. And the barrage balloons always seemed to be very high up. Again, that’s something you can just remember. Oh, yes. That’s the barrage balloons that are up there. You didn’t think twice about it. And you walked a lot more than you [pause] And somehow you made your rations go and stretch. And tripe was very nice until my mother tried cooking it in milk. Yuck. I refused to eat tripe in milk. Otherwise it was alright, you know, I don’t know how she cooked it at any other time but cooked in milk. No.
JS: No. I suppose it’s what was happening at that time to you at your age would just have been the norm.
RH: Yes. Exactly.
JS: It wasn’t as if something had phenomenally changed.
RH: Well, things and also of course things didn’t seem to change afterwards anyway, because the rationing continued and the very cold weather continued. My father built a snowman in the winter of ’47 so it was obvious that was quite something and the garden was covered with snow for ages. And you could scrape the ice off the inside of the window ‘til you got down into the one warm room. Except they started doing the shipping forecast after the war and when my father came back there was to be absolute silence while he listened to the shipping forecast. That was impossible. Totally impossible. ‘Go outside.’ And it was dark out there and I was more or less almost clinging to the door handle but I wasn’t go to show him I was afraid. I was damned if I’d show him I was afraid [laughs] I don’t think he’d have cared anyway but he wouldn’t have realised that he was, you know being heartless or uncaring. But that’s what, that’s what daddy told you, don’t argue. But I do argue. That’s what daughters do. They argue. Not for long.
JS: Great. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Rhona Hay
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
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
2018-04-26
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
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHayR180426, PHayI1801
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:37:34 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Berkshire
Description
An account of the resource
Rhona Hay was a very young child during the war and lived with her mother while her father was away serving in the RAF. Her brother was also in the RAF and was killed during a training accident. She recalls the acceptance of the bombing and so on as part of everyday life. She describes rationing and the make do and mend habit. One day an incendiary hit the jam factory and she saw the sky alight with the glow of the burning while she and her mother watched.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-09-24
1944
19 OTU
bombing
crash
home front
incendiary device
killed in action
Operational Training Unit
RAF Kinloss
training
V-1
V-weapon
Whitley
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/841/10834/AGrahamFJ170611.2.mp3
0b104ec5e6e74d163fe77bdcb73c5b98
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
Graham, Johnny
Fergus J Graham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Johnny Graham (1922 - 2017, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 100 and 101 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Graham, FJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Scheach. The interviewee is Johnny Graham. The interview is taking place at [ buzz ] Edinburgh on the 11th of June 2017. Also present are David and Maureen. Mr Graham's son and daughter. Johnny, could you tell us a little bit about your life before the war?
JG: Well, I was born on the 15th of March 1922. In [unclear] Dalry in Edinburgh. I was born in the street called [pause] This is yours wasn’t it? Downfield. Downfield Place. Aye. In a top flat. And I was there for the first five years of my life. I attended the Dalry Primary School which was a stone’s throw along the main road. And, and then from then we moved out to Corstorphine. Out to Balgreen. Aye. And I went to Roseburn Primary School until I was twelve. And from there I went out and I went to Boroughmuir Secondary School. My father worked for the council. He was actually a conductor on the trams. On the tramways. And I have to say [unclear] look after us. There was me and my sister who was two years younger than I. At Boroughmuir I did three years secondary education. Which was good. It was a good school, Boroughmuir and I had quite a good education. During that period an organization was formed called the ADCC which was the air cadets of Great Britain which was a forerunner of the ATC. And when I was eighteen I wanted to join up but my grandmother wouldn't let me because, well she asked me not to because she had lost her only son in the First World War. So I joined on my nineteenth birthday [laughs]. And that was me in the RAF. I wasn’t away very often but occasionally we’d go away [pause] I went to a Receiving Centre at Cardington in Bedfordshire and we got sorted out there and sent to Bournemouth for square bashing. A bit of square bashing at Bournemouth. And, and this progressed from there. I wasn't aircrew all the time of course. I joined as an armourer. A bomb armourer. Defusing and fusing bombs. And then a gun armourer [pause] Now, I think [unclear]
JS: That's fine. How you, you said you were an armourer. Then you transferred to air crew.
JG: Yes. That was the Royal Arsenal. Eighteen months, two years, something like that. And I underwent training. Aircrew, aye. I was in the OTU and joined with what was to be my crew. My pilot was a guy called Bill Smith who also came from Edinburgh. And we did our initial training on Ansons and Wellingtons. And when we finished on the Wellingtons we went on to the four engine Halifaxes and Lancasters. What more can I tell you? [laughs]
JS: Could you, could you tell us a bit about the rest of your crew?
JG: Aye. There’s more in my logbook. If you look in my logbook I will tell you.
JS: How did you —
JG: I'm sorry I'm spoiling it.
JS: No. That's fine. No, you're not at all. How did you, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
Other: He’s not —
JG: You’ll have to forgive my memory.
JS: No. That’s fine. That’s fine.
JG: I’m quite old now —
JS: I know. I know. That’s why I was asking. How did you, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
JG: Very well. Except one instance. There was tale of, tale of sort of training experiences. The mid-upper gunner with a guy called Desmond. I think his second name was [Thor ] or something. I can't remember. I remember his first name was Desmond. And anyway, he embarked on a [pilferising] and he took a lot of stuff from [all of us] [unclear] and I remember, I always remember when an initial thing he took from me was a fountain pen. A [unclear] fountain pen which I got from where I was on Princess Street as a going away present. And I thought a lot of it and I was really hurt when he pinched that. Anyway, they got the, they got the RAF policemen and they arrested him and took him away and we got a new mid-upper gunner [laughs] I’m trying to think. The first place we went to. I need my logbook. Go and get my logbook.
JS: That’s fine.
JG: Because my memory is getting —
JS: No. You're doing fine.
[pause]
JG: Oh, there's my crew. That's my first crew. That’s Bill Smith. The navigator was Burnett. Burnett. Flying Officer Burnett. That's the guy I was talking about. Desmond. There’s me there. That’s the bomb aimer. Canadian. Jimmy Bowens. Wireless operator Jimmy Whiteside from Dundee. And Barney, Flying Officer Burnett was Canadian. And the pilot of course was Edinburgh.
[pause]
JG: I remember [unclear] Aye. Second from the left. Second. That wasn’t his name though. It wasn’t Jimmy Bowens. Oh aye. His name was Thor. The guy that did the stealing. [pause] That’s not right. The name's Burnett. B U R N E T T.
[pause]
JG: Then went to Sandtoft.
JS: That's great. Did you have the same crew all the time? Did you have the same crew all the time?
JG: At that point. At that point. We did thirty operations together. Occasionally we moved to somebody else's crew. You know, for experience. Aye. But I remember Sandtoft. We called it Prangtoft because there were so many crashes [laughs ] Aye [unclear] That was the different pilots I flew with to get experience. You know.
[pause]
JG: Finningley. RAF Finningley. Stormy Down was in Wales. There’s not much else I can tell you.
JS: Is there [pause ] is there —
JG: Anyway. [pause] Then we went to OTU at Worksop. [pause] [unclear] the officer’s coming. Sandtoft. There’s no flying at 1667 Con Unit at Sandtoft. And then we went on to Hemswell. And our first operation was Merville in France. And then Duisburg and Dortmund in Germany. Here’s France. They were all French. It was just before the invasion so [pause] I remember there, that was a hairy one.
JS: Do you want, do you want to tell. If you remember that operation do you want to tell us a little bit about it?
JG: What was it doing there? [laughs] [pause – pages turning] here is some. Aye. [unclear] something. And that was [pause] Gelsenkirchen and Kiel. Twice to Stuttgart. Aye. I think that’s it. I can’t say much about that except I went on thirty operations. Thirty one I actually went because when I went on my thirtieth one and then the group captain was waiting in the, in the hangar and he said would you, ‘Could you please do another trip for me?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know.’ [laughs] Anyway, I did this one and it was to France. And the guy that I was flying with was a wing commander. A Wing Commander Gundry-White. A double barrelled name. And he was doing this trip so that he could say he’d been on operations. Anyway, I won’t go into any details but he got a DFC. I didn’t get anything [laughs] I wouldn’t have minded if he had come around and shaked my hand and said, ‘Thank you for coming with me.’ But he didn’t. So, one of these things. That’s about it really. I just did, sort of, we did an operation to fly the troops back from Italy. And we were glad to get back so quick. Aye.
JS: How many? How many times did you —
JG: It was a base just outside Naples.
[pause]
JS: You’re doing fine.
JG: Every time.
JS: You’re alright.
[pause]
JG: That’s about it. I don’t know what else I can say except that when I was demobbed I went back to my old company John [Muir’s] [unclear] And later on from there I went to the House of Fraser. The House of Fraser. I don’t know.
JS: That’s been really really useful. Thanks very much for sharing that with me.
JG: Thank you.
JS: I’m just going to stop there.
[recording paused]
Other: Has he remembered?
JG: I know but I forget to remember what I remember. Go on.
JS: You’re fine.
JG: Please. Please.
Other 2: What?
JG: Please.
Other 2: You’re wanting the article.
JS: That’s fine. If that helps.
Other 2: Where would that be?
Other: It was just he mentioned this the other day and he always remembers it.
JS: It’s always much tougher when someone puts a microphone in front of you.
[pause]
JG: Oh, like that. That was —
JS: Hang on a second. Just let me make sure.
[pause]
JS: Okay. Do you want, do you want to tell us about this trip?
JG: I saw all the ships. We, we had bombed the German shore guns on the night of the 5th. 5th of June. And the 6th if June it was D-Day of course. And as we were coming back over our course the sun was just, the dawn was just breaking and suddenly there was all this light and I saw all these hundreds and hundreds of ships on the Channel. So they asked me about that.
JS: That’s quite a memory to have.
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 Johnny Graham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGrahamFJ170611, PGrahamFJ1701
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:25:35 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Johnny Graham wanted to join the RAF as soon as he was of age. His grandmother asked him not to because she had lost her only son in the First World War. However, he joined the RAF on his nineteenth birthday. He trained initially as an armourer. He then volunteered for aircrew and was posted as an air gunner to 100 Squadron. His greatest memory was flying back to the UK and as the dawn broke seeing the D-Day operation unfolding on the Channel.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Edinburgh
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
100 Squadron
101 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
ground personnel
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Finningley
RAF Sandtoft
-
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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
Clachers, Vera
V Clachers
Vera Clachers nee Hendrew
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Vera Clachers (b. 1923, 211493 Royal Air Force). She served as an aircraft electrician in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clachers, V
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The Interviewee is Mrs Vera Clachers. The interview is taking place at Mrs Clacher’s home in Edinburgh on the 21st of March 2018. Mrs Clacher’s daughter Lilian is also present. Vera, thanks very much for agreeing to be interviewed today. Would you like to tell me a little about your life before the war?
VC: Well, going back my father died when I was fourteen, and there was five of us. My elder brother was in, went in to the Army. My second brother went in to the Air Force. And after a while I thought why not? I’m going in the Air Force. So that left mother with two. My sister Noreen and my brother Derek which were quite young and to start off with I doubted but then I thought it’s an experience and I would have had to go into munitions so I went in the Air Force for the experience was good. And then I got notice to go to, I can’t remember whether it was Morecambe or Blackpool to do my training. Then I did a month, I think a month’s training. In that wee while there was a famous picture on, “Gone with the Wind.” So, I managed to see the picture. Then from there I was sent to Melksham because they asked you different trades and they gave me electrician. So, I was sent to Melksham and I was there for nearly a year. I did training, a lot of training, a lot of theory and I was very lucky. I passed out as LACW. Not ACW. And from there I can’t remember exactly what station but I think it was North Coates which, when I first arrived they took me to the section. Two or three young men were there so I sat down and introduced myself and they introduced themselves. Then one of them said, ‘Well, Vera, we’d better show you the golden nugget.’ So, Vera innocently said, ‘I didn’t know there was one.’ But it turned out as you know what it was. It was, it was a great joke.
Other: [unclear]
VC: And from then on first of all they treated me as a woman because I was the only woman there and I wouldn’t say a woman, I’d say a young girl. Played jokes on me, gave me the poorest jobs and eventually I got to do the proper job which was daily DIs, inspecting the electrical works. And I was there for quite a while and, I don’t know how long, I really can’t remember how long I was there and then I was moved on. But I don’t, I can’t remember the stations.
JS: That’s ok.
VC: There I met a young man which was forbidden. He was an officer. We had great fun sneaking out. Then I was introduced, taken to his home, introduced to his father which looked down his nose at me. We spent quite a while in the house but he never appeared again, the father. Then the courtship went on. Took me flying which was an experience. Then eventually he disappeared, no explanation and that was the end of the romance. But I took him home too. Had great expectations but it fizzled out. I continued with my life.
Other: [Got drafted, didn’t you?]
VC: Which was just general duties. Anything that was going. Then I was approached if I would like to play, did I know what the game Shinty was? So, I said yes. So I was put on to the team. Went to play. Was playing, and I was bullying this chap. After it finished one of the men came up to me. He said, ‘Do you know who you were bullying with?’ ‘No. Just a chap.’ It was the group captain. So that was me [laughs] quite a good, another good joke. But apart from that I just continued my service. I taught ballroom dancing. Then unexpectedly they made me a corporal. I think it was mainly for admin purpose and I just went on with my service and the war finished. I think I signed on for a few more months and I was sent to Germany and it was an experience because I was on my own. I lost the kit [laughs] My earings come out. Anyway, it was found and then I had to go to Sylt and that was a long journey over the river, over a river. I was very frightened because I was on my own. And that was about the end. I came out. No. While I was in Germany I met my husband. How I met him I was in the NAAFI. Had an armful of cigarettes and he came up to me and I didn’t smoke. He came up to me. He said, ‘What are you going to do with those?’ And that was the start of a romance. Then I was demobbed, came out, got married. Just stayed in Darlington for a couple of years and then came up here and that’s me ever since. Not very exciting.
JS: What, you said what [pause] what was a normal day of duties? What was the sort of tasks that you were doing?
VC: Right. When aircraft came in we had to go and do a DI which was inspecting the electrical parts with the conduits, and the acid in the battery had to be tested and then the tail lights and wing lights. I always remember the instructor at Melksham used to say, ‘They are not bulbs. Bulbs go in the ground. They are filaments.’ That always stuck in to my mind. And that was the general way because when the aircraft came in, came in, you used to, and in between time you were doing whatever was necessary in the section which was mending things, testing acid. That sort of thing. That was the general day.
JS: So, the the aircraft would be back before you started in the morning then.
VC: Yes. Sometimes, and then during the day at all different times you couldn’t, you really didn’t know what time they were coming in and it was very sad sometimes because aircraft would just land and then burst into flame. And that was the crew. Losing the crew which was always very sad. Of course, you didn’t, you weren’t allowed to mix with officers so you really didn’t know them personally but you knew them by sight. So, it really was, excuse me, sorry.
JS: So, you were working on a number of aircraft or —
VC: Yeah.
JS: Or just a specific aircraft?
VC: Yes.
JS: Right. So, how, how many others doing the same task as you would there be on your base?
VC: Well, there was the wireless operator. There was the mechanics. And then there was the, I forget what they call them. Looks after the structure of the aircraft to see if it was fine. So, it was a matter of about six of you. So, but you had to sort of base it so you weren’t in each other’s way.
JS: How did you get on with the others in, the other ground crew?
VC: Oh, just, you know, ordinary. You know, ‘hiya,’ and a talk or whatever was going on but whatever function was interesting.
JS: And, and how did you [pause] how many other WAAFs were there as well as you doing that role? Or you spoke earlier when you started you were the only woman. Was that common throughout your service or were there, were there —
VC: No. I was the only one because it was the start of training women to do mechanical work so quite wherever, well actually whenever I was posted I was the only woman.
JS: At, you spoke about Melksham which I think is near Bath. Is that right? I think. Melksham.
VC: Yeah. Melksham.
JS: Where you did your training.
VC: Yes. Ah huh.
JS: I think it’s near Bath. I think.
VC: Bath. Wiltshire.
JS: Wiltshire.
VC: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
VC: Ah huh.
JS: So, in your class there, and your training there was it mixed between men and women?
VC: Yes.
JS: Or was it —
VC: Mixed. It was the RAF and it was rather strange because when I was down there I met a chap who I’d known who had been at [Middleton Monro?] whom I had known at that so it was rather, rather strange. So, you meet. You don’t know where you are. You meet up again sometimes and you don’t.
JS: How did you, how did you find the training? Was it interesting or —
VC: Very interesting. Very interesting. But I’m a, I can’t spell. And I thought it would be about, you know —
Other: Dyslexic.
VC: Anyway, I managed through. I took a dictionary with me.
JS: Good. Good. What, what type of aircraft was it you were mostly working on?
VC: I worked on the bombers. Hurricanes. Hurricanes. Then a smaller one at first. You know, to get used to it. But mostly the four-engined ones.
Other: Lancasters and that.
VC: And when you saw the carriers fetching the bombs it’s a funny experience.
JS: How did you —
Other: [kettle hissing] Sorry, that’s making a noise.
[pause]
VC: Turn that off please.
Other: I didn’t realise it was that loud.
JS: No. That’s ok. Just have to go. You mentioned that you went to Germany. You went to Germany.
VC: Yes. That’s right.
JS: At the end of the war.
VC: Yeah.
JS: And you said that was a, in some ways a frightening experience.
VC: Yes.
JS: Because you were on your own.
VC: Yeah. Yes.
JS: How much, how much of the, the what you might say the damage to Germany did you see when you were there? Were you in cities? Or were you in —
VC: Yes. I was in Cologne. I managed to get to Cologne for the cathedral. There was quite a bit of damage and the people were a bit well naturally offish so, you didn’t go on your own. You had to go in pairs. So, and the boys did some dirty tricks to them. They used to do exchanging with cigarettes. As soon as they’d left they’d phone the gate and the cigarettes were taken off them. So, they did some dirty tricks but I suppose that’s a part of life. But that photo was taken in Germany when I was twenty five.
JS: So, how, how, how long were you in Germany before you were —
VC: I was trying to remember that.
Other: 1948?
VC: I should imagine it would be under a year. It wasn’t long because I didn’t sign on for long really. It was just to have the experience which was very good.
JS: But, but when you were in Germany you were doing the same role.
VC: Yes.
JS: That you had been doing in the UK.
VC: I was on some of their planes that were there which was also ours and a funny experience —
Other: We’ve got pictures there.
VC: How can I explain it? You weren’t welcomed. You weren’t welcomed. Naturally. Looked down their nose.
Other: So, by the time I was born—
JS: It must have been very difficult. Yes.
VC: Yes.
JS: To, to be there but —
VC: It was really, yes.
JS: An experience.
VC: I think that’s somehow I lost my equipment. I thought, you know shouldn’t think these things but you did. Anyway, turned up eventually after months. Nothing exciting really. Just an ordinary life.
JS: But it, it certainly sounds like for you it was a good experience.
VC: It was. A very good experience. Yes. Ah huh.
JS: Super.
VC: It taught me to be independent. Which is a good thing.
Other: Plus, you worked with the men so it was more superior wasn’t it? That’s how [unclear] do you know what I mean?
JS: No. It, it —
Other: You were doing a man’s job there.
JS: It sounds like you were a in many ways a forerunner to what many women do today.
VC: Yes.
Other: [unclear]
JS: You know and an opportunity to be, to be trade trained in a —
VC: Technical. Yeah. Yeah.
JS: Technical sphere. And then to go into a role that as you said you were doing the same job as the other male —
VC: Yes.
JS: Electricians from the squadron that were doing whatever. So, accommodation on RAF bases. So, what was it like? What was the accommodation that you stayed in like? Was it —
VC: Well, you were in sort of long tin huts with the fire in the middle and, I think ten each side. Yeah. There was about twenty of you and there was a special room for NCOs to share. And it was basically up in the morning, across the field, ablutions. General, you know, and it just depends on what you were doing whether you got for a meal at the time that was stated. If you didn’t you had to do without. Not that they were exciting but there was food so that was the main thing. You often got a treat but not very often but often but. Let’s say that it gave me an experience of life for the working class not the, not the officer’s that were waited hand and foot on by WAAFs. Which, and the food which they got was entirely different which natural, they were doing a different job.
JS: So, in your Nissen hut of twenty WAAFs what were the main roles that the others were doing?
VC: Well, there was the waitresses. There was the ones that cleaned. Officers. Then the plotters. So, you weren’t, you were mixed. You weren’t individual of what you were. Yes. And you met ladies. You met ordinary people. Working class people. You mixed and you really met some very interesting people.
JS: And if you went out socially what was the, the opportunity for going out socially and who would you normally have gone out with?
VC: There wasn’t much chance of going out socially. Occasionally shopping but not that you go out very much because you don’t have the money to to go out socially really. As I said we went to, I saw, “Gone with the Wind,” in Blackpool but I think that was the only time I ever went to a film. But it was a good film.
JS: So how did you spend your time when you weren’t working?
VC: Well, I did a lot of embroidery. We did a lot of chatting. And I never used to read a lot but I did. I have done lately. But it was mostly embroidery we used to do or knitting if you’d got the wool.
JS: That’s good. That’s been super. Thank you very much. I’ll just stop this.
[recording paused]
JS: Ok.
VC: This I must tell you. I was picked to be in Ralph, Squadron Leader Ralph Reader’s Gang Show and he did the show, “Air Force Through the Ages.” And it was produced and put in the Albert Hall in London and I was one of the crowd. [laugh] They dressed you up in the old style which, he was a man that had hundreds of men and women in a hangar. One word, silence. Not a word was spoken. He could hold a crowd and he was marvellous. It was a really good experience. It really was. That was one privilege I had. The next privilege I had, I had, I was picked to put in the parade end of the war parade in London and that was two really special occasions. But Ralph Reader was a marvellous man. He really was. The way he could control a crowd and the way he produced that show was marvellous. It really was. It was a great experience.
JS: What year was that? Do you remember?
VC: I can’t remember the year. It must have been towards the end of the war because it was, you know, through the ages. So, as I said, it was a marvellous experience.
Other: What age were you?
JS: That’s great. You said you took part in the Victory Parade.
VC: Yes.
JS: In London.
VC: Ah huh.
JS: How, how was that? How —
VC: That was a great experience. There was just so many WAAFs and so many of each Forces. There wasn’t a lot of us and marching was a great thing, it really was and the reception you got was great. It really was.
Other: Recognition.
JS: There would be very large crowds.
VC: Very large. Very noisy. But you were sort of in yourself. You can’t, you don’t see them. You just see the noise because you’re concentrating on your good marching and your arms are going proper. You had to aim, you know the arms like this. It was disciplined which was good. Very good. And I met some nice people too. Very interesting people. So that was my two main things that happened to me in the Forces.
JS: Very good. Magic. So, was there a party after the parade?
VC: Yes [laughs]
Other: And —
VC: There was. And there was a great after the show in the Albert Hall. A massive place. What an experience. And you had to dress. You didn’t know where you were there were so many dressing rooms, so many corridors but we got there. It really was good. So, I can’t say that I’ve gone through life without any experiences. Nice experiences.
JS: Indeed. That’s great.
VC: Ah huh.
JS: That’s super.
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 Vera Clachers
Creator
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James Sheach
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-03-28
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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AClachersV180328, PClachersV1802
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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00:27:47 audio recording
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Description
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Vera Clachers volunteered for the WAAF for the experience and the adventure. She was selected for training as an electrician and was trained at RAF Melksham. She was posted to RAF North Coates. At first she was given the poorest jobs but then began doing the daily inspections on aircraft. When she was off duty she enjoyed embroidery and knitting. After the war she was posted to Germany where she found the local population to be suspicious of the RAF and they went around in pairs. Vera met her future husband in Germany and after demob they returned to the UK.
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--London
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Julie Williams
ground crew
ground personnel
RAF Melksham
RAF North Coates
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/1932/PYoungJ1728.2.jpg
ca14344a1eccb212189a907b8ef15c9d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/1932/AYoungJ170630.1.mp3
313a939331ccee9e37b4e29ffc166265
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
Young, John
J Young
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Sergeant John Young (1569980, Royal Canadian Air Force), his logbook and 11 photographs of aircrew groups and Halifax aircraft. John Young was a flight engineer on 432 Squadron based at RAF East Moor, part of 6 Group. The collection shows a number of aircrew groups which include him as well as ground and air shots of his Halifax Mk 3 with Ferdinand II nose art.
The collection was donated by John Young and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
2015-10-02
Identifier
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Young, J
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JS: Ok. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Sheach. The interviewee is John Young. The interview is taking place at Mr Young’s home in North Berwick, East Lothian on the 30th of June 2017. John, could you tell me a little about your life before you joined the RAF?
JY: Yes. Well, before I joined the RAF I was, I was working on the railway as a, as a locomotive fireman. That’s in the days of the steam trains. And before that I was at school. And, well, all through the business of the war I was a schoolboy [pause] But do you want to go further back or is there no point?
JS: No. That’s fine. So where did you live then?
JY: Well I lived here in North Berwick. In — I lived up in the other end of town in North Berwick. In the council houses. And I left, I left school when I was sixteen and I went [pause] I went to work for the local electrician. A builder — electrician. Well that was until all his men were called up. So, that left the big boss, myself and the typist [laughs] So, that being not very good I decided to have a go at the railway. So, I went and I joined the railway and went as a cleaner. Just wiping with things which, in those days, it wasn’t very much. And from a cleaner you automatically were graduated to a fireman and from fireman to driver. Those were the steps you made and I stayed in the force, in the railway doing a bit of cleaning and a large amount of firing until my, until I volunteered for the air force at seventeen and a quarter. And then they shoved me off. Said, ‘Well go home. We’ll call you.’ And so, at eighteen and a quarter I got the first, first notification — ‘Please report to St John’s Wood.’ So, that’s when I went. I was there for about four weeks. Four weeks or six weeks. I can’t remember. And then I was posted down to Newquay, Cornwall. This was in April ’43. April ’43. And I was down in Newquay for three months. And then I was posted to the Isle of Sheppey in Eastchurch — no. Is it Sheppey? The Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary? Yes.
JS: Yeah.
JY: Off Kent coast. And I was there for about a month just doing jack all really. I was waiting for a posting which was then given to me and I went up to a bomb dump in [pause] oh, in Lincolnshire. And I was there for about, oh, a month or two. And — and from there I was posted back to Eastchurch and I was asked what — what I wanted to do. So I said I’d prefer to be a flight engineer or a wireless op. So they said, ‘Fine.’ So, they, they sent me to — I was next posted to an ITW in Durham county. I forget the name of the place. And I was there for six weeks and then I was posted down to St Athan’s in South Wales where I was six months there learning the ins and outs of various aircraft. But, in point of view, we would, we were told that we would be either flying in Lancasters or Halifaxes and make your now choice now. Make your choice anyway. So, I preferred Halifaxes. So, on, on our now graduation we were, we were assigned to our different groups which required engineers. Now, the thing is the Canadian Air Force were not training engineers as such. They had a few but there wasn’t many. Now, we all got separated off and I was posted up to Dishforth which was a Heavy Conversion Unit and it was there I was, I was put in a hall. I was put in a, well a big — big hall like place and there were, were as many pilots as there were, as there were engineers. And the officer said, ‘Well there you are. Get mixed up. Take who you fancy as your pilot.’ [laughs] And then they comes and they were given the same chance. So, he says, ‘No one’s going to help you.’ So, he said, ‘Goodbye.’ [unclear] So, we flooded around and we met and ultimately, I picked this little sergeant. Well, little — he was the same height as me but he was fair haired and his name was Leslie Steadman. And I said — he said, as I remember right, he came up to me. He said, ‘Are you being crewed up with anyone?’ I said, ‘No. As a matter of fact I haven’t started.’ He said, ‘Well. I’m Les Steadman.’ He said, ‘I kind of likes the looks of you,’ [laughs] — looks. Anyway, he said, ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘How are you on hydraulics?’ I said, ‘Not bad.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Thank God for that because I don’t know the first thing about them.’ And he said — there was something else. But anyway, he said, ‘The rest of my crew,’ he said, ‘Are – well they are skulking around somewhere but,’ he said, ‘I’ll get them and I’ll introduce you to them.’ And I said, ‘Well, before you do,’ I said, ‘Where have you come from? I mean air force wise.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘Up in the Moray Firth,’ he said. ‘Flying Whitleys.’ ‘Oh God’ [laughs] I says, ‘You’ll be glad to get off them.’ [laughs]. So, he said, ultimately, we came to — we, we talked about the technicalities of the air frames and that and he says, ‘Well it seems to me you’re going to be a blessing in disguise,’ he says. So, he says, ‘I’ll tell you what. After tea I’ll get the crew.’ And we [rattling of packet] we [pause] that’s them. Well, there’s a bigger one. Aye. There’s Flying Officer Fox. He’s the bomb aimer. He’s the first one. And there’s flying officer, oh no, he’s the, Gates is the navigator. Flying Officer Fox is the bomb aimer. And Warrant Officer Hartley is the wireless operator and Sergeant Campbell is the mid upper gunner and Sergeant Busby is the rear gunner. And there’s myself. So, so that was my introduction. So, we all had our photograph taken by the company, the squadron photographer. And what’s [pause] right, well Sergeant Steadman, Flying Officer Gates, Flying Officer Fox were all from Ontario. Warrant Officer Hartley, he was from British Columbia and he was from, he comes from the back woods literally. But he was English. He was taken out to Canada when he was two years old. Sergeant Campbell. He was, he was the oldest one and he was, he was Southern Irish and was — had gone out as a young man to Canada. And Busby — he was, oh, he was a farmer from Saskatchewan. And Young me was a locomotive fireman. So, so that was that. So we, we all got our [unclear]. Gradually, we, we sort of knit together. Well I was, I knitted in to the rest of them because the rest of them were a crew. And then — well there was a series of— by the, the squadron [pause] damn it. [pause] The pilot and myself — we were taken to our — an aircraft. A spare aircraft. And the OC, the flight and the screen engineer who was a fellow who had done a tour of ops and was experienced would come with us. So, the pair of us would go with experienced people and we would go down in an aircraft and the logbook tells me we went. We had a wing commander and a squadron leader, a flight lieutenant and one or two POs were taking turns. And gradually the screened engineer showed me what I was supposed to do. And one of the things was you were supposed to get the engines started. You and the pilot. And behind the pilot was a little cubbyhole with a mass of instruments. They were all engine, engine-type instruments. You know, oil pressure, fuel pressure. Air pressure. Oxygen. Cylinder head temperature. Things like that. And you were given a log sheet and you had to fill this out every twenty minutes of flying time and — it was either twenty minutes or half an hour. And gradually we, well, we, we satisfied him, the screened fellas that we knew enough that we were sure that we were, we were prepared to be loosed off on our own. And, well, it — after that it was a case of bombing exercises, fighter affiliation exercises with a Spitfire diving on the camera guns for the gunners. And, well, this we had. And my circuits and landings, circuits and landings and circuits until you were bloody well fed up with them [laughs] but that made the pilot, he got it. And the engineer — he kept it, he got it. Well, towards the end of our Conversion Unit they said we’ll go on a couple of ops and see what it is. So, he said, ‘But it will be safe for you. You leave the airfield and you’ll fly out over the North Sea and you’ll go towards Holland and at a point twenty miles off the coast you’ll turn and come back.’ He said, ‘Just get the learning.’
JS: Yeah.
JY: So, we had a couple of those. A couple of those are things we did and then we got posted. No. [pause] Then we got posted to the squadron. Yes. And we got posted to the squadron and we were — that was —the picture there was taken at the squadron. That was there. And we were — went through the same [presence?] again of having a screened pilot and engineer go up with two of us. And they said well you’re good. We were sent on various test runs. Tests. Mostly circling the whole island, you know. The whole. That was cross country’s. And then we got the first operation and the first operation was, I think [pause] a radar bullseye. That’s what they called this photographic. Oh yeah. Le Havre. Le Havre we went to twice. Dortmund [unclear] Osnabruck. These are all Ruhr targets. And Kiel was our first, first night fighter, night flight and I’m telling you they flung everything at us that they had. It just seemed we were going through flak and then there was, as we were going to come on it he said, ‘Watch it Les, ‘he said, ‘A night fighter. Prepare to corkscrew port.’ And he said, ‘Corkscrew port. Corkscrew port. Go.’ And a corkscrew [unclear] was when they were fling it around and fling it down, the aeroplane and it rolls at the bottom and comes up on the other side. Well that’s a corkscrew. And Christ [laughs] I thought, Oh Jesus. And we, we flew over the target area, dropped the bombs and out in to the other side and then you’d have more fighters come for you. Course the fighters wouldn’t come where the flak was. They cut you before and after. And, anyway, we, and that was, that was the point there, the point when we started the flight they said you travel at one thousand feet over the, over the sea until you get to the Danish coast and then climb to get to your bombing height over here. Well, he said. Well he said, the idea about this was so that the German radar can’t dip down below a thousand feet. So ,there’s only one thing about it. The pilots get a bit twitchy about that ‘cause if an engine cuts on you you’re down in the sea before you can say Jack Robinson and anyway that’s how it started off. The Danish coast — climbed up. We got attacked by this night fighter and luckily he didn’t — he waited too long to press the button but allowing the gunner — gave him the correction and we made the bombing height, came around and down and I thought phew and come along, come back over the North Sea and the [fighter?], what I saw of it, I thought the first time, the first time I go on a night sweep I’m going to get up outside and I’m going go out on the first bus that comes for North Berwick [laughs] So, but anyway we we had several targets at Calais for ops. For [turning pages] Yes. Yes, we had, we had [pause] what do you call them? Buzz bomb sites and they was [pause — pages turning] There was, the next thing there was Duisburg. And Duisburg — that’s another Ruhr target. And Essen. Homburg. Cologne. Hanover. Cologne again. That’s a series of targets. Oberhausen. Duseldorf. Bochum. Gelsenkirchen. Hurlach. Munster and Opladen. Tresdorf. Cologne, Duisburg. Hanover, Magdeburg. And that completes our thirty. Thirty trips. And that’s before we go up in the [pause]
JS: That’s great. How did you — you said you fitted in with the rest of your crew?
JY: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: Because they were already a crew together.
JY: Yeah.
JS: How were they as a crew?
JY: Oh. Well these two stuck together more or less, you know. Being officers. And the sergeant and the warrant officer and the rest of us were [pause]] I forget who [pause] — I was, I was billeted in a room with four guys. There was a Jewish gunner on the far end of the room and another fella. I don’t know who he was. He was in another crew. So was the Jewish chap. And there was myself and the wireless op with the other two. And the two gunners were in another room. And the sergeant — I don’t know where he was. I don’t know. I don’t know. And of course, they were in the officer’s mess, you know. So, I found it — they were very easy to get along with, you know. And I don’t know with the officers. I — incidentally, I said, after I came out of the air force I went back to the railway. I stuck it for about ten months and then I said, ‘I don’t like this. My hands are getting dirty,’ [laughs] so, I signed up for another five years. So I signed. This time I chose the signals and I I I was [pause] I passed that alright but anyway they had all goofed off to Canada, you see, by that time. And the wireless op and myself — we corresponded. Well, now and again. And the at the end of my five years I came out and I worked for the [paused] oh I worked for the radar. For the [pause] radar. Oh Jesus. Well, it was a little, it was a little and I was working on this. Anyway, the four of us worked on this mobile radar at various army units and we used to — and we had a civilian driver. We were civvies then and we’d go around and we’d pick the things up and hoist the balloon and track it. Until one day Jimmy Oliver, one of the blokes, he says, ‘Here,’ he says, ‘Look at this Jock.’ And I said, ‘What is it?’ He says, ‘They want blokes to build a dam out in BC.’ A dam. ‘Yes. Look at the money they’re getting.’ I said, ‘What do you say we try for it?’ ‘Right. You’re on.’ So, it took us about six months to get, to get permission to land and we went across in, on an old Greek tub. Or a boat. And it was, it was, it landed at — oh what’s the name of the place? In Quebec. Oh yeah — Quebec City. And from there we we were just shunted off and the immigration people took our particulars and what trades we were and, by the way, said, ‘How much money do you have?’ ‘Two hundred dollars.’ He said, ‘That’s not going to last you for very long.’ [laughs] So, we split up and Jim and I we went to Montreal. This would be 1954 and we were six weeks. Six weeks. No. Not exactly. What would that be? It was four weeks before we and we were living in a rooming house in Montreal and there was about ten blokes in it. And there was a couple of Swiss guys, and a French guy and two or three Brits. And anyway, we were [pause] Jesus — oh God. [pause] Anyway, we went around the rounds of the RCA, Canadian Marconi and GE. GE and places like that. And, ‘Don’t call us. We’ll call you.’ Fair enough. So we — and suddenly there was a phone call. [unclear] We went to this place not far from our digs. A great big factory. And it was Northern Electric. So, we thought, Northern Electric, it sounds all right. And we went around and we were real, we were real upbeat you know, you don’t have any [unclear] get us down. [unclear] the guy says, ‘It depends what you do,’ he says, ‘What do you do?’ I says, ‘Well we’re radar. Radar and radio.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘That sounds interesting,’ he says, ‘But just a minute,’ he says, ‘I’m only a personnel,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.’ He says, ‘I’ll get Mr Young [laughs] down from the sixth floor and he’ll —’ So Mr Young came down along with another chaps and he was a fistful of pencils and a bundle of paper. ‘Right.’ He says, ‘Jim. You go with that fella to that room and you, you — my namesake,’ he says, ‘Come into this room.’ He says, ‘Alright. He says, what’s [Holmes?] law?’ [laughs] I couldn’t tell him. I was floored. I was [laughs] ‘Alright,’ he says, ‘Forget it.’ He says, ‘Draw me a one valve amplifier.’ Oh [chchchch] Right. Now, he says, ‘Draw me a forward part of a super head receiver. ‘ So, I did that. I said, ‘Alright?’ He says, well various other things. ‘Well’ he says, ‘I find you alright,’ he says, ‘When can you start work?’ ‘Tomorrow?’ [laughs] He says, ‘No. Monday. Monday,’ he says. Monday. So, we were there about oh I don’t know about four or five months and we got taken into the bowling team. You know this pin. Bowling pin. Oh, they were good to us, you know. And anyway another phone call comes from Canadian Marconi. So, he said, ‘Are you guys still interested in us?’ ‘Well, that depends what you pay.’ You know. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘Well how much are you earning just now?’ We said, ‘Fifty five dollars a week.’ ‘Oh God,’ he says, ‘We can pay more than that,’ he says. So, he says, ‘Get yourselves up,’ to some district of Montreal, he says, ‘And bring your buddy.’ So, we said, ‘Right,’ so the pair of us scoot up there and well, to cut it short, he says, ‘Do you have briefcase by the way?’ ‘Briefcase?’ [laughs] ‘No. I’ve never had a briefcase in my life.’ And he says, ‘Well take my tip. Invest in one.’ He says, ‘Here’s two hundred dollars,’ he says, ‘That should get you a briefcase and the price of a flying ticket from Montreal to St John’s Newfoundland.’ Newfoundland. Oh Jeez. And he says, ‘That’s where one of our sites is.’ He says we will have, once you have a three months course at St Johns, at the company buildings, you know and he says then you’ll be posted off to various parts, you see. And in the meantime, we met up with this other bloke. He was a Londoner. So that was, that was a Londoner, a Geordie — that was Jim Oliver, the guy that came out with me and myself. And, well the Londoner went to — where was it he went? He went to Goose Bay up in Labrador and I went to the other end of the island at Stephenville and Jim went to North Bay. Went to North Bay. And that was still on the island. I forgot the name of the place. Ans anyway, we were all split up and we were, while we was there I was, when I was on this course at St Marie de Beauce in Quebec and I got into — we used to, when dinner time came the three of us would plump ourselves at a table and the waitress would come up. The waitress. We were billeted in the officer’s mess you see. So we were — ‘Letter for you,’ there, ‘letter for you’ there from the mail. So we were reading our letters and finally three women came up to the table and says to us, ‘You know, we’re getting a bit sick and tired of you guys.’ Yeah. ‘You’ve not come and introduced yourselves so we’re coming to introduce ourselves.’ Well one was a schoolteacher. One was an ASO [unclear] which was an adjutant of this radar, this small radar establishment and one was a nursing sister. And — well we all got talking together and gradually the school teacher and I became very very [pause] close. And eventually we married, you know after I was [unclear] I was married — I married her and we’ve got — then I was she was, she was posted. Well, she was at this station and that’s where she taught and I was sent down to Stephenville. And there come a time when I went over. I went over and [pause] Rhoda. Rhoda was her name. Rhoda Stewart. ‘How about coming down to see my parents?’ So, ‘Ok. Sure.’ So the upshot was we went to Halifax because they were down in lower Nova Scotia and we went up to Halifax and I bought her a ring there for her finger. So, this was after months, you know. And so, we was, we were married eventually and then we split again and when Easter time she came over to Newfoundland to be beside me. And we had a big trailer parked in a trailer park and there we started our married life. And we, we started our married life. And in the meantime I had written away to Atomic Energy in Ontario and because Newfoundland was a nice place but, you know, it’s kind of rough and ready. And so I wrote and after six months I got a letter saying, in effect — come on. You’re hired. You know. After that. That was after they sent [pause] oh no they sent a message to Liverpool CID and the CID sent a searcher up to North Berwick and the guys who, and Ben Miller, who was Jan’s first husband, he was a post office engineer and it was a time of the [golf at Govan?] and that’s where — he was up a pole, you know, screwing things around and this guy in civvies and a trilby hat says, ‘Are you Mr Miller. He said, ‘Aye. Who wants to know?’ You know. He says, ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I’ll introduce myself. I’m Detective Constable [unclear]. Do you know a Jim Young?’ and he said, ‘Christ’ — what have I done now? ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Just a minute. I’m coming down.’ And he says, ‘Aye I know him.’ ‘Well what’s he like?’ He said, so, he explained who he was. He was from the Liverpool CID who had a message from the RCMP who were, who were checking up on me. He says, ‘He’s applied for a job with Canadian Atomic Energy.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Jeez,’ he says, ‘That’s interesting,’ he says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I know him very well. He was best man at my wedding.’ And he said they jawed about a bit. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Fine, fine. Alright. So long as you’re satisfied with him that’s alright. Fair enough.’ Shake hands. And I got, it was after that I got ok’d. So, we packed all our gear in a train and chugged off. Away to Montreal from Nova Scotia and then swapped trains and got on the Trans Pacific one to get to a place called Deep River Ontario. That’s where they had the town site for the staff to live in and they said there’ll be a house ready for you. Well a house. It was actually, it was a shack. Well it was wooden, you know. It was two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. So, and anyway Rhoda came with a dog. A dog. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. He was a poodle. A poodle. A French poodle. Anyway, it was a medium sized one and he was, he was a good dog. But [pause] so, I spent about twenty eight years of my life with Atomic Energy and then I retired from there and stayed in Deep River. And by this time my wife had gone into hospital with a complaint which I didn’t know at the time but it was multiple sclerosis and she — it wasn’t long before I knew about it and gradually it forced her into a wheelchair. And as it was her brain remained absolutely spot on and she could speak but the rest of herself she was absolutely immobile. And she was like that in a hospital in Toronto for, let me see, eight years. And I got a transfer from the research establishment up in Deep River, up in the pines down to Toronto which was their, well it was a [unclear] it’s a stuff where they build. Build machines. Refuelling machines for reactors.
JS: Yeah.
JY: And they had three up on the shores of Lake Huron which we used to go up to. But anyway, but anyway, Rhoda eventually died in ‘83 and after that I wasn’t interested in Toronto as such so I applied to my former branch head, you know. So I said, ‘Any chance you can get me back to it?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ’No.’ he says, but,’ he says, ‘I know another branch head who is willing to take you.’ So, I said ok. So, I got all my stuff bundled into my car and drove up to the, to the [pause] Christ. I can’t. Drove up to the point see. And I got in no problem. Turns up and I got a house. I got a three bedroomed house [laughs] just myself. And shower, so and so, kitchen, bathroom, living room and in the town area and it was, it was just a residential hacked out of the bush and I stuck it there until ‘94. ‘95. No ‘93. And I came, my father was getting on so I came across here and I fell in with Jan and we were married and [pause] where was I? My mum and dad, they — dad died in 1988. I had to come across to go to his funeral. So I went back and I went. While I was across at [pause] I forget — for Jan. And she was moving house and by this time her husband was dead. In ‘91. ‘91. And he was, well he was ‘91 and he was, he was sixty five and shortly thereafter we were married and we were, we had a house down there. Down the Forth Street. And then we came up and we got this one and I’ve been here since ‘2004.
JY: Yeah.
JY: 2004.
JS: Yeah. That’s great. Can I, can I just take you back a wee bit to something interesting you said earlier? You said that when you were in the air force you got the choice what would like to fly in? Would you like to fly in Lancasters or Halifax.
JY: Yeah.
JS: Why did you choose the Halifax? Was it — it was the choice you had.
JY: Yes. It was a choice. We had to. They split us. The course was — basically it wasn’t, it was before that as I remember it because each aircraft was totally different so you either went the Lanc route or the Halifax route. So, I chose the Halifax. Because we went [laughs] we went, they dressed us up in full flying gear and stuffed in a Lanc. Outside. And it was a sunny day and it was beaming. Christ. And I had a look. I said, ‘By Jeez,’ I said, ‘If I have to get out of this thing in a full suit and in a hurry there’s no way I’m going to get to a forward escape hatch packed in the back. Oh no. And the Halifax was different. You go straight up above and you had to deek around the mid upper turret but the rest of the fact was a straight run and up to the escape hatch. There’ s a door and — or you could go in the pilot’s get out, [laughs] put your foot on the pilots knee [laughs] and get out if he hadn’t already gone. And the bomb aimers they had a hatch in the floor. That was for three guys. Well, that’s why we had to choose the different — ‘cause the fuel systems, the hydraulics and all these wiring systems — they were all different. Just totally different. And you had to. Is there anything else.
JS: No. As a Bomber Command veteran how do you think you were treated after the war?
JY: It’s hard to say. I was, as far as the war was, I was thankful to get through a tour of ops, you know. And I think we were just, we were just so damned glad to get out of the air force, you know and shove it behind us. Come to think of it they didn’t do to much for us except giving you some money at the end. Demob money. And the rest of it — you were, ‘Alright. Get outside and get yourself a job.’ You know. Aye. No, I didn’t think too much about it because I already had a job to go to and I floated from one job to another.
JS: Yeah.
JY: But some of the others I’ve since read about, you know, over the years they had a hard time. A real hard time. And I’m fortunate. I never went the alcy way, you know. I never was much of a drinker. So. Yeah [pause] No.
JS: That’s great. That’s been really brilliant.
JY: What?
JS: That’s been really, really good. Thank you very much.
JY: You’re welcome.
JS: I’ll just stop this.
JY: Yeah.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with John Young
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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-30
Format
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01:04:49 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AYoungJ170630, PYoungJ1728
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
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After John volunteered for the Royal Air Force, he reported to St John’s Wood before being posted to Newquay in April 1943. He was sent to RAF Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey with a short time in Lincolnshire. He chose to be a flight engineer or wireless operator. John was posted to an Initial Training Wing in Durham, followed by RAF St Athan, learning about different aircraft. He chose Halifaxes over Lancasters. John was posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit, RAF Dishforth, where he crewed up and learned his role as a flight engineer. He was posted to 432 Squadron where they did various test runs before completing 30 operations, many of which were to the Ruhr Valley.
John returned briefly to his former job before signing up for another five years in Signals. He then emigrated to Canada before eventually returning to Scotland.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Newquay
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Creator
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James Sheach
432 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Dishforth
RAF East Moor
RAF Eastchurch
RAF St Athan
training