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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/209/46470/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v370002.mp3
4ae5d4fa0c612b005db71b0077bfe8d1
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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Bell, John Richard
John Richard Bell
John R Bell
John Bell
J R Bell
J Bell
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander John Richard Bell DFC (-2024). He was a bomb aimer with 619 and 617 Squadrons in Flying Officer Bob Knights’ crew.
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
2015-07-27
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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Bell, JR-UK
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: Well, good morning, John.
JB: Good morning.
Interviewer: Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview for the Aviation Heritage Project from Lincolnshire here.
JB: My pleasure.
Interviewer: As you know we’re going to be collecting this information and it will go into an Archive and will be of future use for whoever is going to follow us.
JB: Excellent.
Interviewer: I wonder if you could just start by just telling us a little bit about how you came to serve with 617 Squadron.
JB: Yes, I, well I first of all the crew and I started our operational career with 619 Squadron at Woodhall Spa in June of 1943 and we proceeded to operate throughout the rest of 1943 until we moved to Coningsby around about December I think to allow 617 Squadron to come from Coningsby into Woodhall and have the airfield to themselves. And we were approaching the end of our tour, rather our pilot was approaching because he’d done two second dickie trips at the beginning which we hadn’t done and I missed a couple through illness so at some point we, we would have been split up as was the normal situation and sent off to other parts instructing at OTUs. But as a well-knit crew a family organisation as you might say we felt we didn’t want to be split up and we’d like to continue flying which seems a bit silly now when you look back. But we thought we’d volunteer to fly with 617 Squadron and we did and we were welcomed by Wing Commander Cheshire, had an interview and all went well. He said yes, ok. We were an experienced crew by then. So he was looking for experienced crews and we were very fortunate with our survival through to almost the end of our tour and that’s how we came to join 617 Squadron.
Interviewer: You must have been aware of the reputation of 617 Squadron. Did you feel that you really were joining an elite or was it a sense of concern?
JB: We knew we were joining an elite Squadron. We weren’t quite sure exactly what they were doing. In fact, at our interview we were asked why we wanted to join 617 Squadron. We said, well we were fed up with flying at twenty thousand feet and we rather liked this idea of flying low level and he promptly said, ‘Well, we’re not doing low level flying anymore.’ Which as you probably realise that was they attempted to do this after the dams raid and they lost a lot of aircraft.
Interviewer: Yes.
JB: So it wasn’t a good idea and when Cheshire took over I think in about November of ’43 he started a different programme of operating which proved very successful. Operating at night over France and with little opposition most of the time at that time during the first few months of 1944. So we knew that the chances of survival were greater or at least we thought they were rather than with the main force. Perhaps with hindsight you’d wonder why you would want to volunteer to continue to fly on operations.
Interviewer: Well, they do say never volunteer but please tell us about your impressions of Wing Commander Cheshire. He’s such an important person in this.
JB: Yes. He was very approachable. Quiet. But he had that quality you knew you were going to follow that man and he would, there was no bombast with him and no sort of dictatorial attitude. He was very quietly unassuming but nevertheless he laid down what he wanted us to do and he was prepared to lead us in this. History shows that he did lead from the front. And he was just a nice man and well respected as a commanding officer with a great deal of experience as a bomber pilot.
Interviewer: Did he give you full regard? You said you had a lot of experience as a crew. Were you encouraged to put your views and experiences into the, into the Squadron melting pot so to speak?
JB: Well, I’m sure the pilot, the pilots really were the people who put the information in actually and they carried the forward the views of the crew but I suppose that when the pilots got together and he was with the pilots discussing tactics and so on took into account what the crews felt. We didn’t directly speak to him about it.
Interviewer: No.
JB: But through the, through the pilot we would. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: Would you be able to tell us a little bit about what it was like to be on operations with 617? Could you perhaps describe the run up to and the activities that were involved in preparing for an operation and what actually happened?
JB: Yes. It is pretty much the same as, as all preparations for, for an operational flight and we would be told in the morning that the, there was the likelihood of an operation that evening and we would assemble. Well, we’d go through the process of getting kit ready and so forth and assemble for a briefing in the afternoon and after the briefing we would then get our kit from, you know the parachute and dinghy, Mae West and stuff like that. In the morning of course we would have checked the aircraft out thoroughly so there would be an air test and that was absolutely mandatory to make sure everything worked in the air. And then the bomb load would be checked out. I as the bomb aimer would be responsible for making sure that we had the right bomb load and seeing it put on perhaps, loaded on to the aeroplane. A navigator would also have his own maps and so forth to gather and the gunners would also collect their guns from the armoury. The armoury normally was received, the guns from the turrets and they would check them over and then the gunners would go and collect them and make sure they got the right ones back into the aircraft. So all this went on and checking everything thoroughly and then the, having drawn all the maps and made sure we knew where we were going and the briefing of course would spell out the exact timing of the operation and how many, who were to bomb first. And the particular operations that we were doing with 617 Squadron were, Leonard Cheshire managed to persuade the AOC that he should do the marking because we had, I think they had some experience with poor marking by Pathfinder at the time and so he marked. And that was the first one I think on Albert. I remember that raid where he marked the target with flares from extremely low level with the Lancaster and that was the type of operation that we did throughout the four months. I think up to May. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
JB: When we stood down. Yes.
Interviewer: Right. Did you have any experience of dropping any of the heavy weapons that 617 Squadron was equipped with? The Tallboy or –
JB: Well, yes. The, well, during that four months we were not only dropping one thousand pounders but also the twelve thousand pounds light cased [pause] what were they called? It was a blast weapon. So we were used to carrying a twelve thousand pounder but of course the problem with that was yes it was a blast weapon against buildings, normal type buildings and but also had some inaccuracy in it because of its shape and small fins that were necessary to get to enable it to be carried in the bomb bay. Then from, after June the 6th three days later we were equipped with a Tallboy and that’s when we got into the Tallboy era and it was a much finer weapon.
Interviewer: Yes. If I may I’d like to ask you a technical question about that which comes from a question that was put to me recently at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. What was it like? How did you actually ensure that the Tallboy was released very quickly? Was it an electronic or a mechanical release mechanism?
JB: It was an electronic –
Interviewer: Right.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: So there was no time delay in that because you needed extreme accuracy didn’t you?
JB: Yes. You did and I cannot remember any detail of, of problems with the release. Since then many years later I discovered that there were. Why? Why for example there were wide misses with the Tallboy landing somewhere else and there was a problem with the release mechanism. This was a strap.
Interviewer: Yes.
JB: And the straps were taken off the aeroplane on return and they were checked over to make sure they were serviceable and then put back. But there was a problem I understand with them for maybe releasing two or three seconds late which of course affected —
Interviewer: I can see you were —
JB: Yes, it was. Trial and error.
Interviewer: Thank you.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: That’s very helpful.
JB: Yes. I didn’t, I didn’t experience any problems. No. No. Whilst I didn’t hit exactly where I’d aimed the, it was close enough so they were all in the target area.
Interviewer: You were a bomb aimer.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: And from the point of view of the Archive for people visiting this in years to come a question must be asked and that is really to ask your, your feelings about the nature of the job you were doing because you were looking down at the target.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: And you were releasing heavy weapons against that target.
JB: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: With respect may I ask how you felt about that please.
JB: When I was operating with, with main force with 619 Squadron there were occasions when I realised, well obviously one realised that we were aiming at a part of the city where the industry was or the docks area or whatever it was. And hopefully the spot, the spot flares that were dropped by the Pathfinder Force hopefully were in the right area and so you were aiming at that. Nevertheless, you saw a city in flames throughout not just in that one area that you’re aiming at so the thought occasionally was you know that there is some sort of sympathy perhaps for the people who were on the receiving end. Having been through some of the London Blitz I could well understand that. But it didn’t put me off doing the job that I was trained to do. Then following on when we got to 617 Squadron of course not only were we dropping on a specific target, whatever it was, an engine manufacturing plant or but it was a single target which we were aiming at. Therefore, we hoped there were no civilians in the area. In fact, we made quite a lot of, went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the French workers in there got out before we dropped our bombs. So there was a great deal more of more satisfaction because you could see where your bombs were aiming at and where they exploded and you knew that you were taking out a specific target. So the operations were quite different and more satisfactory from, from the expert view of the –
Interviewer: Some military view.
JB: Military view. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. Thank you.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: That’s a very full answer. Could I ask you also about how you disciplined yourself? You were lying in the nose, you were, you were responsible for, really for directing the aircraft in those last few seconds of flight towards the target.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: Most important that you hit the target and yet around you there would have been anti-aircraft fire, possibly the risk of fighter attack. Can you tell us what it was like to to do that part of the operation.
JB: Yes, the, pretty well all the flight to the target and perhaps we’re talking about operating with 619 Squadron in Main Force where you’ve got several hundred aeroplanes. You’re keeping a look out for other aeroplanes to make sure that you don’t collide with them and that was one of the problems of collision and other, and night fighters. But then approaching the target then the adrenaline in started to rise because you could see ahead a flaming city way up, way ahead and the sky would be filled with thousands of shell bursts. Now, this is impinged on my memory I can see this now and thinking how are we going to get through all those shell bursts? But when you, when you get to the point where now you take over and the bomb doors are open and you are guiding with the pilot to keep him on track towards it you are concentrating on the job. You don’t think about anything else and everything else is taken out of your mind. You’re not worrying about the flack bursts. If one hits you well that’s tough. You can’t avoid them so you got on and do the job. Once you’ve dropped the bombs and taken the photograph then you can get out of the area as quickly as possibly and usually there’s a shout from the crew when I said, ‘Bombs gone.’ ‘Right. Let’s get out of here.’ And so it was [pause] if I, I was not, I was never afraid except in coming up to it wondering how we were going to get through. So there was no fear involved. A lot of apprehension. I’m sure we shall be alright and that was really our attitude throughout.
Interviewer: That is a remarkable story. I mean we who have obviously not done it but read a little bit about it —
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: Can understand something of what you’re saying there. It’s a remarkable story, John.
JB: Yes, it’s a bit, it’s akin to the Army coming out of the trenches in the First World War and going en masse across open ground and bullets were flying around. Some of them got hit. Some of them were missed and I think in that respect we were going through all this hail of flak. Somebody got hit, somebody didn’t and we were very fortunate and there was no way you could miss it.
Interviewer: No. And of course, you all lived this strange existence whereby between operations you’d be living a normal life in so far as it could be normal. How did you cope with those ups and downs of feelings and tensions and things?
JB: Well, yes. We’d use our relaxation in the usual way by going to the pub in the evening or into Boston. There was a weekly trip into Boston on the buses and so there would be big relaxation there. But it was just a matter of going to a different pub you know and the crew normally went. Crews went together. They lived together and they drank together and they flew together and so you went with your, with your, the crew were your mates, your friends and it was that sort of thing. Yes. You just, you were thankful when you got to the, to the reported to the flights in the morning to see what was going on for the rest of the day. If there was no operation planned well that was a great relief. You could get on with something else. Go and clean the aeroplane or check it over or take somebody for a flight somewhere. There was always somebody going on leave and it was a fairly easy business flying people around to, you know on a jolly. Well, not a jolly but you know taking them to where they wanted to go for leave or something like that. Or visit another, another airfield. So yeah, we relaxed as much as possible and then got hyped up when it was due for operational flight.
Interviewer: Yeah. Could you, I mean I think I could talk to you all day here, sir. I really could but I appreciate the time is passing. Your time in particular. But I must ask you could you tell us something about some of the other characters that you remember from 617?
JB: 617. Yes. There’s a thing about remembering the crews on the Squadron. I always found it difficult to remember their names mainly because the only names that appeared on the operations board were the pilots. So we knew all the names of the pilots but I didn’t know the names of most of the crews. I might know the names of two or three bomb aimers because the bomb aimers used to go to a briefing together and each member of the crew had his own briefing section. So gunners would know other gunners and I would know two or three other bomb aimers but generally you didn’t know too much about the other crews. You didn’t mix with them obviously for, you know, recreational purposes. But I remember several of the pilots. I can’t remember any particular episodes but they obviously occurred when I was commissioned. I then moved in to the Petwood Hotel and what was the Petwood Hotel then and there were several incidents of people letting off revolvers late at night and behaving in an unseemly manner but being allowed to get away with it with an admonition from the CO. ‘Don’t do it again.’ There wasn’t much he could do about it if you, if you, you know went over the line. But I kept myself to myself because I was, I was escorting a WAAF who later became my wife and so I was otherwise engaged.
Interviewer: As it were. Yeah. Again, I feel I must ask this question. I don’t wish to intrude too much in to your privacy but you know if if you have a strong personal relationship like that and you’re going off on operations was it something that you just accepted?
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: Or did you talk it through with your fiancé as she would have been?
JB: Yes, we did talk it through. She was, she was actually employed in the map section so I had to visit the map section every day and of course I visited more often than most [laughs] naturally and so I went to the Intelligence Section for details of the targets and so forth and she knew as all the ladies did that were engaged to be married to aircrew that they were in a great deal of danger. When I got to the point of approaching my fiftieth operation because you could, you could retire after thirty and we didn’t. We continued flying. When you got to fifty you had another, another stage point where you could say ok. She said, ‘I think we ought to think about the future because –’ and I knew the odds were becoming shorter. They certainly were. And this was proved to me after I left the Squadron because I went back to visit the Squadron in November and I had a chat with my pilot and he said, ‘Oh you retired just in time.’ Apparently, they were shot up on the next operation coming back from Brest and flak actually went through the bomb aimers compartment. Missed the bomb aimer because he was standing up in the turret. Now, I didn’t normally stand up in the turret. I was usually lying down. So was it fate? I don’t know. But I retired at the right time.
Interviewer: I think at that point with regret I must ask that we terminate this. It’s been a total pleasure and total privilege to conduct this interview. For the record I should say that I have been conducting this interview with John Bell, bomb aimer of 617 Squadron and the interview was conducted at Thorpe Camp on the 12th of May 2012.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Bell
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v37
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:19:37 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Julian Maslin
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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.
Description
An account of the resource
John Bell completed a tour as a bomb aimer with 619 Squadron. The crew decided they would like to continue flying and so volunteered to join 617 Squadron. They were interviewed by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire and accepted on to the squadron. When John was approaching his fiftieth operation his fiancé asked him to consider retiring from operation flying. He knew his luck was running low and so he did indeed retire. When he visited the squadron later his pilot told him he had retired just at the right time. The next flight after John stopped flying with his crew a piece of flak entered the bomb aimer’s compartment who survived because he was standing in the turret.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
619 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
coping mechanism
ground personnel
Lancaster
military ethos
perception of bombing war
RAF Coningsby
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tallboy
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/46456/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v240002.mp3
efdbfb1e6fa09c97c42e6282e336d83e
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
Cole, Colin
C Cole
Colin Cole
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains two oral history interviews his, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs.
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. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. 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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-27
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: Well, good morning. This is Julian Maslin interviewing Colin Cole at his home at Bardney. Colin, I know you were a wireless operator on 617 Squadron. I wonder if I could just ask you just to say a little about your background and then go ahead and tell us the story that you have about the disposal of munitions at the end of the war. Colin —
CC: Right. Yes. I can do that. As far as my background is concerned I came in to the RAF in December of 1942 and to train as a wireless operator air gunner and I first went to Blackpool and then on to various training stations and my first entry in to Lincolnshire was when I joined number 617 Squadron at Woodhall Spa in August 1944. Right. Now, what would you like —
JM: I’d like you to say a little if you could about how you were involved in the operation to dispose of munitions. Particular types of munition at the end of the war.
CC: Oh right. Yes. The, yes after the dams raid there were a number of the mines, they called them Upkeeps, the Upkeep mines left over and they sort of gathered together what few there were left. I think there were around about ten or fifteen that needed disposing of. They were ended up at Scampton and in a rather unstable condition and there were arrangements made to dispose of them. Now, how I came to be involved in this was that they brought three aircraft down from Scotland which were, had already been converted for the original dams raid and so that they could carry the mines out to sea and drop them in a safe, in a safe place. The reason I was involved was that all that was needed really was a pilot. You didn’t need a whole crew but in that day and age every aircraft that flew, every Lancaster that flew had to carry a wireless operator. So I was seconded from 617 Squadron at Binbrook to go to Scampton and fly on, well as it turned out only two or three of these missions to dispose of the Upkeep mines. Now, the idea was that they should be loaded on to the aircraft, you know, in the normal way and dropped out to sea. The place they looked at dropping them was on the Atlantic Shelf. Just over the Atlantic shelf so that they dropped in to deep water and either exploded or just dropped to the bottom of the sea and there’s probably many of them still left down, left down there to this day you know. So that, that was basically all we did. I did two or three runs on these things and we’d drop them, you know sort of quite without any trouble at all and, and got rid of them. The, what was I going to say? [pause] There’s not really anything more to say about that apart from the aircraft, oh this was by the way in September 1945. ’46 sorry. September 1946 and onwards over the Christmas period and there were, there were others taking part in this of course and finished by about February of 1947 and then the aircraft were just scrapped and that was it. Yeah.
JM: You raise a number of points here that I’d like to explore.
CC: Yeah. Ask me questions.
JM: You don’t remember do you which aircraft by their squadron letters or whatever? I mean —
CC: I can remember by the squadron letters. The one I flew in was AJG.
JM: That was Gibson’s aircraft.
CC: The answer to that is going to be no.
JM: Oh.
CC: Gibson’s aircraft, as far as we can reckon was converted back into in a normal Lancaster and ended up with 467 Squadron at Waddington. Now the AJG that we had there had been originally a dams aircraft which was I think AJC. It had been converted back into a normal Lancaster. It had gone to Metheringham and it was used there for a bit and then it was converted back again into a dams aircraft when it was thought that the war may needs to drop more of these.
JM: Right.
CC: Mines, you know.
JM: Right.
CC: They were a sort of, and it was converted back and for some reason somebody painted AJG on it. But according to the code letters which stayed with the aircraft you know from the date of manufacture which I can’t remember off hand what it was it wasn’t the original AJG after all that [laughs] Everybody says that you know.
JM: Yes, you would.
CC: Yeah. And at the time nobody knew what Gibson’s aircraft was. It was only after the film came out in 1954 that all that came up to the —
JM: Yeah.
CC: Fore again, you know. I mean it was just another, just another old aircraft.
JM: Do you remember the letters of any of the other aircraft that were used because I think you said there were two or three?
CC: There were. Good question. I shall have to tell you that afterwards.
JM: Ok.
CC: I can look. I can look them up you know. Sort of —
JM: Moving on you said you’d been seconded from Binbrook to Scampton.
CC: Yes.
JM: Does that mean that 617 was actually transferred to Binbrook at one point?
CC: It was. It, 617 was destined for Tiger Force.
JM: Yes.
CC: In 1945, and we trained for Tiger Force and then the Japanese war ended and we still carried on training because we went out to India under South East Asia Command and then we only stayed out there for about what January, February, March, four months when India was, Mr Ghandi was jumping up and down about independence and he sent us back [laughs] We came back and we were posted. Posted to Binbrook. Yes.
JM: And the, the crew, the pilot that you flew with on, on these disposal operations was that pilot somebody who had extensive service with 617 or a recent arrival?
CC: No, it wasn’t actually. The, the pilots that, and that in the plural at that time my main secondment to Scampton was not for the mines at all but for pilots training for conversion on to Lincolns. And that was my main job there was flying with all sorts of pilots to train on to Lincolns and this was a sort of little job that came along while I was there.
JM: Perhaps we could return to the subject of Lincolns a bit later but I had —
CC: Yes.
JM: I had a feeling that perhaps there would have been quite a rush of people to get the opportunity to fly in a Dambusters Lancaster on a trip like this even, just as passengers Or am I being a bit nostalgic about that?
CC: No. Not particularly.
JM: Just a job was it?
CC: It was just a, yes I mean as I say and I can repeat this that it wasn’t until 1954 ’55 when the film came out that all this arose.
JM: Right.
CC: You know. I mean I can’t remember the squadron ever talking a lot about the dams raid that [pause] you know, we all knew about it of course.
JM: Yes.
CC: But no. It wasn’t [laughs] It was totally different. A different story you know.
JM: So when you went up to drop the mines did you drop them from low level as in the raid or from —
CC: Oh no. No. No. I think we dropped them from about eight thousand feet. Something like that. Just dropped them, you know. There was no spinning. They didn’t. They weren’t spun or anything like that. Just dropped them.
JM: They weren’t fused.
CC: Oh no. No. No. Ours didn’t go bang but I don’t know whether one or two did you know sort of on hitting the sea but no. Just [laughs] yeah.
JM: Well, that’s lovely. I wonder if I you could just turn your memory to the idea of training pilots to convert to Lincolns at Scampton because I’m sure that would be an extremely valuable piece of history. As far as I’m aware there’s not an awful lot written about that. Could you tell us a little bit about what the training programme was and how it went and any stories that you may have from that occasion?
CC: Well, there wasn’t really. The Lincoln was just a big Lancaster really, you know. It wasn’t like training on, I suppose on to a completely new aircraft. They only did circuits and landings. They didn’t do any cross-country work or anything like that and apart from one or two crews most of the pilots came on their own if you know what I mean. So, you know, posted on their own just to, I think it was just to get the feel of the aircraft. The fact that it was different in size and all that sort of thing you know. It was really. But I didn’t have any part in the, you know. I mean they naturally flew with an instructor, you know, sort of and as far as I can remember they weren’t there for all that long, you know. Only a few weeks of sort of getting used to the aircraft and then back on to the squadron.
JM: We know from history that when aircraft were introduced they often had initial teething problems and there often quite a few accidents before these wrinkles were ironed out. Was that the case for the Lincoln or was it seamless?
CC: Not particularly. It was, it was only an overgrown Lancaster in, in its sense if you know what I mean. It wasn’t a completely new aircraft. I didn’t hear of any, a lot of accidents. Not particular accidents. I think there was. I think there was an odd, you know later on there was an odd collision you know and that sort of thing but no great, no great teething troubles at all. So don’t know.
JM: I I know from previous conversations with you that one of the most important operations that you took part in when you were with 617 was the attack on the Tirpitz.
CC: Yes.
JM: I was wondering whether you’d be kind enough to tell us a little bit about that experience.
CC: Yes. Yes, I can. Right. Well, I didn’t take part in the first two attempts. They went in the September and I think it was the October. August and October one of which they went to Russia and flew from there. And then when the final attack came they brought the, the Tirpitz down to Tromso, Tromso Fjord and that made it within striking distance of Lossiemouth providing we carried extra fuel tanks and so the aircraft were modified. All had new engines. The front turrets, sorry the mid-upper turrets were taken off and we didn’t, we only carried a crew of six and two additional fuel tanks were placed in the fuselage. And that, and that was it. It was going to be a long trip, you know. The one in which we sank was it was that we went on the 11th of November up to Lossiemouth from, from Woodhall Spa and the following day we flew from Lossiemouth up to Tromso and, and back which was a trip that took just over thirteen hours. So, you know it had to be carefully planned and that. The only problem I can remember we had was it was a very very clear night. There was a big area of high pressure and the temperature dropped to minus goodness knows what on the night that we were going to take off. So what they had to do was we had to run the aircraft up to the point of take-off and then they sprayed it for de-icing and then we’d take off and that. And several of the aircraft of 9 squadron didn’t go because they’d run out of de-icing fluid [laughs] But anyway, that’s another story. The trick was that we flew at low level up the Norwegian coast and the reason for that was to avoid the radar that the Germans had all along the coast except in one particular spot about halfway up which was known. And we went through that area, over Sweden and then climbed to twelve, thirteen thousand feet over the target. Apart from that, you know it was a clear run in and we dropped our bomb which was said according to records to have dropped near the forward bow and was considered to have helped in the fact that it overturned. Well, in that context it, I can say because has also been recorded that our rear gunner when we were leaving the target the smoke and that cleared a bit from the aircraft itself and he came on to the intercom and said, ‘Skip, she’s turning over.’ So it was the first indication we had you know of, of the ship turning over from that point of view and then we just flew back. We weren’t hit at all, our aircraft and we just flew back to England. We had a, you now we had a diversion. The weather wasn’t too good at Lossiemouth and we had a diversion to an airfield called Fraserburgh at which we landed and that was that.
JM: I have a recollection of on a previous conversation with you, you told me that the bomb was held in place by some large straps and I believe it may have been part of your duties to to recover those straps.
CC: Oh yes. Yes.
JM: Could you tell us a little bit about that please?
CC: Yeah. There is. There are, for the Tallboys there are some straps which were fixed around the bomb itself in the bomb bay which when the bomb was released the straps came apart and dropped to such an extent that they failed the bomb doors when [pause] when they were being shut. So it was the wireless operators job to go back sort of over the main spar and get hold of the toggle which, which was straight and pull the straps up while the pilot shut the bomb doors and that. But yes, that was, apparently that was a problem. An initial problem that they had and talking to an historian of 9 Squadron he said that yes Barnes Wallis actually came down to 9 Squadron to sort the problem out. And he devised this system of a toggle on these straps to pull them up so —
JM: That’s very interesting but have I got this correct? This would have meant that you were actually looking down through the open —
CC: Oh yes. You could. Well, you could see through a hole.
JM: Right. At this most powerful battleship which was shooting up at you.
CC: Well yes [laughs] that’s true.
JM: How did you feel at that moment when, when you were doing that? Was it just a job to be done or were you —?
CC: Well, I think it was just a job to be done really you know. Sort of [pause] yes. It’s like everything else. Afterwards it all sort of blows up into an historical event if you know what I mean but at the time you just sort of, that’s what you’re doing, you know.
JM: And, and was it the same feelings that you had when you knew you’d been ordered to attack the Tirpitz again because as you say it was the third operation. Was it the same, another job or were you in any way concerned that it was going to be a particularly difficult job?
CC: We, no we, we weren’t but I gather that the pilots were told that there was a danger with it being at Tromso. There was a, there was a fighter airfield at Bardufoss which is just down the road from there and there was a possibility that we might get fighter intervention wouldn’t we. But the rest of the crews weren’t told. Weren’t told about it you know. So we just [pause] because that ties up with I remember our skipper saying we dropped the bomb and photos taken and, you know all the stuff that goes with it and that, he says, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Let’s, let’s the hell get out of here.’ You know [laughs] so that was obviously why. You learn these things afterwards as I say. Yeah.
JM: Because really, I mean if the fighters had intervened then the squadrons involved could have taken heavy losses and obviously the authorities were prepared to take the risk.
CC: Oh absolutely. Yes. Yes. It would have done but yeah what, I mean one of the dangers of course with that, was well I wouldn’t say not so much them actually shooting a normal Lancaster down. In fact, we had two fuel tanks, well the tanks were empty but they were still full of fuel gas you know and would have, would have naturally made it much more difficult if they’d been hit by bullets or anything like that I suppose.
JM: Well, this has been fascinating. I I would like to ask you just a little bit more about —
CC: Sure.
JM: Life on the squadron. You were on 617 Squadron and down the road at Woodhall Spa. Could you tell us a little bit about what the daily atmosphere was like as you were going about your training? Your preparations and so forth.
CC: In actual fact quite relaxed. Of course, all the officers were at the Petwood and you know which is the main story these days about 617 being at Woodhall Spa. But in actual fact of course we were on the other side of the aerodrome at Tattershall Thorpe and I don’t think you know where Thorpe camp is now.
JM: Well, we are actually volunteers at Thorpe camp.
CC: Oh well there you are.
JM: I should have said.
CC: Well, we were there of course. Yeah. You know. Sort of, yes we were in the woods [laughs] in, well in Nissen huts actually you know sort of converted into quarters. Day to day we just went down to the fly. We did a lot of sort of training and bombing runs at Wainfleet that’s now no longer there. No longer with us, you know. But spent a lot of time over Wainfleet and it was a lot of analysis of how close and that the practice bombs were dropped and and that sort of thing and one or two odds and ends that we got on. One thing we didn’t know very much about that we, I think it was in the November. Probably the November time. They were looking at dropping commandos in dinghies over Norway and the idea was to drop them on these dinghies with parachutes. Now, that’s all we knew and we did one or two trips, you know. Sort of nothing happened about it but and that was all we knew about it. It never took, it never took place you know. So —
JM: That would have been extremely difficult and hazardous an operation.
CC: Oh God. They could have [unclear] How they were going to do it I don’t know. There is, I think there is a bit of detail about you know. And the only other thing we had a few days down, our crew had a few days down at Boscombe Down where they were testing smoke. You know how the Red Arrows issue smoke out? They were looking for that sort of thing for the sort of bombing master to —
JM: Right.
CC: And it was a lot of boffins down there trying smoke flares and smoke. Mixing smoke with the exhausts and and all that sort of thing and we went down there to fly a Lanc. An old Lanc you know to —
JM: Who was your captain on those? On your time on 617?
CC: Sorry?
JM: Who was the captain? The pilot.
CC: Oh Leavitt. John Leavitt.
JM: Right.
CC: Yes. Yes.
JM: And did you take part in any of the operations that used the Grand Slam?
CC: No, because they didn’t, well not with a Grand Slam on but flying probably a ordinary Lanc because they didn’t carry a wireless operator or wireless equipment because of the, but there was you know a sort of shadow aircraft.
JM: Right. I’ve heard about that.
CC: Yeah. So that was the only way that I sort of went. Yes. But not actually drop, not actually to drop one. No.
JM: I believe the officer commanding 617 at that time would have been Wing Commander Tait would it not? Could you say a little bit about what he was like? He seems to have been quite a highly respected but somewhat distant figure. Would that be fair comment?
CC: He tended, well yes of course as NCOs you don’t come up against them. Against him you know. You normally only come and get your own signals leader for normal, you know. I mean you do see him but [pause] Yes. I met him quite, quite a bit at events after the war you know. Sort of. And I think he tended to be a bit reserved. Not shy. Yes, reserved probably, you know. He didn’t converse a great deal although you know I mean as far as commanding the flights on raids he seemed fine, you know, sort of thing. But he left us in the December ’44. But yeah. So —
JM: Now you started the conversation by, well once or twice referring to the famous film of the Dambusters.
CC: Oh yes. Yeah.
JM: I would like to just to ask you two final questions if I may relating to that. One of them was whether you have any memories of how you felt and how others felt who had served on the squadron at the time that the film was made? And secondly, there has recently been a follow up programme.
CC: Yes.
JM: Have you seen that?
CC: Oh, I’ve seen that. Yes.
JM: Whether you have any comments on that.
CC: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Of course, they, yes and in the follow up programme they said of course there was a lot of mistakes and that. Well, there would be you know. Much of the stuff was top secret still early in 1950s you know. And that’s why they when you look at the original film the, the sort of mines they dropped were round and not cylindrical you know. Sort of things like that and bits and pieces that film makers sort of do. Nothing, I don’t think there was anything to get all het up about if you know what I mean. Probably some would say, ‘Oh, Tait didn’t do that.’ Or Nigger didn’t do something or other [laughs] which was the name of course now that they’re having to try to avoid.
JM: Yes.
CC: But I did actually because they put the film on late didn’t they?
JM: Yes.
CC: Well, I wasn’t going to watch it you know and I thought yes I will and watch and see if they took any bits out but they didn’t you know. They left all the, but I think at one time it was tended to cut little bits out you know. Where reference to the COs dog was made but it, they didn’t, they left everything in. I mean it was just a dog you know. There was no disrespect for anything else. Never even been thought about it you know. It was just how it was in those days, you know. But there we are. That’s [pause] but yes I watched the remake of it. Yes. It wasn’t bad actually. I thought it was, you know sort of [pause] There we are. I don’t know what the new film is going be be like if it ever comes out.
JM: Colin, thank you very much. Your memory is pin sharp going back all those years and it’s been a privilege to listen to you so thank you so much for your interview.
CC: That’s alright. What did you ask me about the other aircraft?
JM: Yes. The other, the Lancaster.
CC: I can nip in to the other room.
JM: Yes that.
CC: And just get it if you like.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Colin Cole
1016-Cole, Colin
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v24
Creator
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Julian Maslin
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1944-08
1944-11-12
1945
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Norway
Atlantic Ocean
England--Lincolnshire
Norway--Tromsø
Scotland--Moray
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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eng
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Sound
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00:32:24 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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.
Description
An account of the resource
Colin Cole took part in the attack that sunk the Tirpitz. He describes how the aircraft was adapted for the operation and flew via Lossiemouth. Colin disposed of the Upkeep 'bouncing bombs' as part of his service with the RAF. They were dropped on the Atlantic Shelf and then the adapted Lancasters were scrapped. He trained for Tiger Force.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
617 Squadron
aircrew
bouncing bomb
Grand Slam
Lancaster
Lincoln
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
Operation Guzzle
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Scampton
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tallboy
Tiger force
Tirpitz
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
wireless operator
-
Dublin Core
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Title
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Eaves, Theo
T Eaves
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Eaves, T
Description
An account of the resource
3 Items. An oral history interview with Theo Eaves (b. 1922, 1580135 Royal Air Force) and two photographs of Wellington and crew. After training as a wireless operator he served on 142 Squadron flying Wellingtons in Italy in 1944.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Julian Maslin and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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 Theo Eaves
Description
An account of the resource
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-09
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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01:51:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AEavesT161209
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1263/17136/AWilmetS190504.2.mp3
78852fd08bde8706c1253068111d0a6b
Dublin Core
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Title
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Wilmet, Sheila
S Wilmet
Description
An account of the resource
One item. An oral history interview with Corporal Sheila Wilmet (b. 1924, 2090150 Royal Air Force). She served as a meteorologist at RAF Bottesford, RAF Coningsby, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Langar and RAF Spilsby.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-05-04
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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Wilmet, S
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mrs Sheila Wilmet. The interview is taking place at the home of Mrs Wilmet’s daughter Mrs Alison Belcher [buzz] on Saturday May the 4th 2019. Sheila, if I may, can I ask you to start us off by telling us a little bit about your family background?
SW: Well, I was born and brought up in Liverpool. On the outskirts. It was a really a little village which was later incorporated in to the city boundary. My mother and father had both been born in Ireland but at that time of course it was part of the British Isles and was governed from England. They had come over after the end of the First World War when my father as a returning soldier was not particularly welcome. He had served in the RAMC and found no difficulty in getting a job in a military hospital which was later taken over by the Ministry of Pensions. So I had a very conventional 1930s upbringing. Went to the primary school. Went to church on Sunday. Played out in the fields and woods which were around the house. Went to secondary school. Failed the eleven plus but they had a system in Liverpool where those who had just missed were accommodated in Central Schools. And when I was fifteen war was declared. It wasn’t a surprise I don’t think, to anybody but my father had been predicting it for years. And I took an exam for a private college and I went for the year there and passed my school certificate. That was 1940 and I remember somebody saying as we went in to the exam, ‘What does it matter what we get because the Germans will be here?’ But the Germans weren’t, fortunately and I got a job as a probationer teacher in a nursery school. This was the first nursery school as opposed to a nursery. It was an experiment and very interesting. And then in May of that year, 1941. It gets a bit hazy. We had a week of bombing and the devastation and the fires and I mean Liverpool was very, very badly bombed because of course they were after the docks and the river gave the game away. And then the bombing went on intermittently. We spent the night in an Andersons shelter at the bottom of the garden. And eventually we had the Christmas week where the bombing started as soon as it got dark and finished just as daylight was coming, and it was very hard to make one’s way home because there were unexploded bombs here and unexploded bombs there. But we just took it as part of life and carried on as best we could. When it came to the spring of 1942 it was my time to decide would I go to college, be coming up to eighteen and the war was going very badly and I think I thought they needed help [laughs] My father was very much against me just going down and joining up. He insisted that I would only join when there was something definite, and there was an ad in the Liverpool Post and Echo which said, “Red sky at night sailor’s delight. But this isn’t good enough for the Air Force.” So they were looking for women with some science in their background to train as meteorologists, and I thought that’s just the job for me. And down I went and signed up and about six weeks later I found myself on a train going to Gloucester for initial training etcetera.
JM: Thank you. Thank you. When you went and you asked to sign up did you actually specify that you wanted to be in the Meteorology department?
SW: Oh, I did. I did. I told them that’s why I had come. And of course we were all volunteers then so there was this feeling that if things went awry you could just say, ‘Well thank you but I’m going home.’
JM: Yes. Yes. Right. So, tell us a little more will you please about your service in Gloucester where you were training?
SW: In Gloucester we were billeted in an enormous hut. There were about thirty women and the beds were arranged. Some had their heads in the middle of the hut and some had their beds so it was alternate. Of course we’d never seen any of the others in our lives before and the only thing was we were all anxious. Anxious to do the right thing. Anxious about what might happen to us. Anxious about everything. And we got kitted out, and the worst thing I found was the great coat. Now this was March and it was very cold and because it rubbed the back of the neck. Otherwise, I managed quite well with everything else. And then we went out and we did square bashing on the square and after we’d done that for a week or so we were supposed to be in command, and we had to take it in turns to give the orders for right turn etcetera as we went. It was very difficult to choose the right moment and I remember the warrant officer shouting out, ‘Say something, if it’s only goodbye.’ So we had two weeks there. And then we went up to Morecambe and were billeted in boarding houses. And there we went to lectures about gas, and health and safety etcetera and who, whom to salute and when and how. And we also had all sorts of injections. I hadn’t been inoculated, no vaccinated against smallpox as a baby so I had to have that as well, which was fairly unpleasant. But I suppose we were there for perhaps three weeks and then we were divided up depending on what we were aiming to do, and I found myself in London billeted on Buckingham Palace Road in beautiful apartments and travelling to Lincoln’s Inn Fields each morning for lectures on the science of meteorology and, which was fairly difficult because my science was not really up to standard. Now. I wasn’t the only one. They were really looking for people with degrees, but of course they were very thin on the ground. We had a test every Friday, and if you couldn’t pass this you would be re-mustered. But however, we did pass and then with another girl we were sent up to a big house. Not a mansion but a big house in New York which is on the outskirts, a crossroads really on the outskirts of Coningsby Airfield.
JM: Yes.
SW: And we would travel up to the, in to the [pause] oh what do I want? Into the airfield on sort of lorry transport. Anyway, this wasn’t feasible if we were doing shifts, so we were put in then in barrack blocks on the airfield and introduced. There were just the two of us, introduced to the Met office and a very, very kind, very clever, very kind man who took us under his wing and helped us through the first few weeks until we got confidence enough. And because he was a civilian it was a little more informal than it would have been had he been in uniform. And one of our fairly regular visitors was Group Captain Gibson, and he would come in and ask the officer to explain the charts and what they meant, and what it would mean and how weather would travel etcetera etcetera. He was the only one that did that. The, the others would take whatever they were told at the briefing but he liked to know the ins and outs of it. The down side of this visit was that he would quite often say as he looked down at his big black Labrador, ‘Oh,’ he’d say, ‘N***** would like some cocoa.’ I thought, oh dear. So away I’d have to go to the, I wouldn’t call it a kitchen. There was a kettle [laughs] and I would do my best to make the cocoa. Make sure it wasn’t too hot, come out and present it to N***** while others were talking weather wise. And then he would say, ‘Thank you. Come on N*****. You’ve had your treat.’
JM: Could I just interrupt you for a moment?
SW: Yes.
JM: We are talking about Guy Gibson here, aren’t we?
SW: Oh, we are.
JM: Yes.
SW: Talking about Guy Gibson. Yes.
JM: I think I’m right in saying at that point he was the commanding officer of number 106 Squadron. Does that ring a bell with you?
SW: Yes. Yes.
JM: Were you aware that at that stage he was leading 106 to become one of the most successful squadrons in Bomber Command at that stage?
SW: No. We [pause] we felt he was special and Mr Finch, the mess officer would say, ‘He’s a little man but very big ideas.’ And that’s how I remember him.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: Yes, because of course history shows us that he had some, some people were rather negative about him, weren’t they? They said he wasn’t always a pleasant officer to work for.
SW: No.
JM: Did you find anything of that?
SW: No. No. No. And I think partly because Mr Finch was so, so pleasant and kind, and yes and he would, when he was explaining things to the wingco, he would do it in a very [pause] well, sort of sympathetic way, ‘I know why you’re asking the questions and this is the answer and this is why.’
JM: Yes. Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: And these questions would be needed so that Gibson and the others could plan the night’s bombing raid for instance.
SW: Yes. They prob, yes the details of it [pause] a lot of the other officers would and later on would, would take what they were told but he was very keen to know why.
JM: Right.
SW: Why was the cloud going to be such and such or why was visibility or —
JM: Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: I think that is a very interesting observation you make because in some sources Gibson is not always described as being very interested in science and bits and pieces. Others say that he was and you confirm that.
SW: Yes. Yes, yes. He was very keen to know everything that would have any impact.
JM: Yes.
SW: On his operation.
JM: Thank you. That’s what I hoped you would say.
SW: Yes.
JM: That fits in perfectly with the image of Guy Gibson as he was leading 106 Squadron.
SW: Yes.
JM: Before he was posted to the Dambusters, which is another story.
SW: Yes. Yes.
JM: That’s fascinating. Did, could you just tell us a little bit more about your actual duties? Were you a corporal at this stage?
SW: Yes. Well, there was what was called Stevenson Screens.
JM: I know it.
SW: Well away from buildings and it was our duty to go out every hour on the hour and read what instruments were in it, pressure mostly, and there was a sun recorder but, and then we would do observations by observing cloud type and amount, wind strength and direction err paper [laughs] [sound of newspaper sheets turning] Oh, precipitation. Yes. Temperature. We had a anemometer for wind, we had a nephoscope for clouds.
JM: Right.
SW: Speed I suppose. Yes. If we couldn’t estimate the height of the clouds just by eye we would have to send up a balloon. We had a little cubby hole beside the office and we would go and that’s where the cylinders of hydrogen were kept and we would fill a balloon red, white or blue according to the cloud not according to our fancy [laughs] And we would follow it with the theodolite for, again speed and, but mostly for cloud height. We would also estimate visibility. And then would come in and on a big like an architect’s big desk we would have a map of the British Isles on which were little circles for every Met station and they were numbered interestingly starting in Ireland and, and then on the teleprinter, a sheet would come through with the reports from all the other Met stations in quite a simple code and we would transfer the figures to symbols surrounding these little circles. We used a red and a blue pen fixed together. You just twiddled it to get which one you needed. Mostly blue but red was too much in the pressure. If it was falling you’d put it in in red and together with the other, if they were worse than the last report. And we would fill those in for all the hundred and forty eight or so stations on the map. Now, we did that every hour and every third hour, three, six, nine we did it on a bigger scale. And the Met officer then would interpret all those figures and draw his lines, and from that do his estimation of what conditions would be like 10 o’clock at night or whatever and then of course for the morning and would dew fall? Would fog form? And so on. And while he was doing that of course we’d be working away and keeping up our observations and sending through our little line of figures. It was quite intense while we were there. We were working away and another WAAF came and we just did eight hour shifts then really and kept going.
JM: I, I can imagine that you must have been curious having taken all these observations to find out more about meteorology yourself. Did you find yourself getting involved with the recognition of fronts and associated weather?
SW: Yes. Yes. Yes. Once you spend four hours, four years doing that you can’t get away from it. You can look out of the window now and I’ve brought my children up knowing this is a clearing shower and [laughs] ‘Don’t worry. Yes, it is heavy but it’s a clearing shower.’
JM: And I would also, for the record could you, I know what a Stevenson Screen is, could you describe a Stevenson Screen for people?
SW: A Stevenson Screen was a louvered rectangular box fitted on legs, about four feet high. It was louvered so that the wind could get in but not, but modified and yes the same with, as another said it was well away from buildings.
JM: Yes.
SW: Which you would notice if you were going out at two and three and four in the morning on a winter’s night. We just did it. It was part of, yes part of the job.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SW: So yes.
JM: Thank you. We’re still with you at Coningsby. Were you aware of the losses that the squadrons were taking? Were you involved in any way with that aspect of their work?
SW: No. We were for a while. The navigators used to come in after they’d been to the briefing and we would give them a card with the predictions for cloud, wind etcetera, visibility and ask them if they’d be kind enough on the way home to write in what was actually there. Now, we said it very apologetically because we knew that it was asking a bit much. If they were coming home they wouldn’t be safe until they crossed the coast and the last thing on their minds would be filling in a card. So we, we almost never got one back. And I think it was just something extra for them to think about. And that idea was dropped fairly quickly.
JM: Yes.
SW: So we didn’t actually see the aircrew at that stage, and of course being in the watchtower we were isolated from what was going on in the rest of the airfield.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SW: I mean we just had the hierarchy.
JM: Yes.
SW: Above us and [pause] yes.
JM: Yes. Yes. Thank you. So there came a point when you were posted to Langar.
SW: Yes.
JM: Could you tell us a little about that experience? Was it very similar to Coningsby or did it have its own distinguishing experiences for you?
SW: It was different. I suppose it was a newer airfield. We travelled in, in RAF wagons, and I remember seeing the sign for Langar at the side of the road. It was a lovely rural spot and the first glimpse I suppose I got of it was of a field of [pause] not buttercups [pause] not primulas. Oh.
AB: Cowslips.
SW: Hmmn?
AB: Cowslips.
SW: Cowslips. A field of cowslips. Absolutely golden in the sunshine. I thought oh this is going to be a lovely place. And then we were allocated a bed in the Nissen hut, which was very hot in the hot weather. Difficult if you’ve been on night duty and very cold in the cold weather. There were louvers on the rounded ends but the snow would come in and you’d wake up with it on the bed. That would give a warning what we were in for. We were quite a way from the airfield though. We all had bikes. Yes. I saw the Met office. It was in the watchtower but it was a different, a different set up. The airfield was much more linear [pause] And I suppose my main memory there was that there were three of us. We were covering the twenty four hours. Twenty four hours, and one of the girls got ill and for a while myself and my partner we did twenty four hours on and twenty four hours off. Somebody said, ‘What do you do in your spare time?’ [laughs] Very little. And we went there, I suppose it was May and, and then in the August I think it was there was this rumour that somebody from the BBC was coming. And well, coming but talk to us or what? Anyway, then it was he’s going on a flight and where’s he got? I think it might be a long one. Oh, poor man. Does he know what he’s letting himself in for because the losses? Anyway, if he was determined to do it, so he did come in to the office, spoke to the [pause] and didn’t speak to us. Well, there would only be one on at a time anyway. But we certainly worried about him.
JM: And this was Wynford Vaughan-Thomas?
SW: Yes, it was. Yes.
JM: Were you aware that he was a famous broadcaster even then?
SW: Yes. Yes. We’d heard him. But we did have radios. We had a radio in the office and we had a radio in the Nissen hut, and, and yes we kept well abroad of what was happening and we would also be very thankful for the music that came on. American Forces Network started at 5 o’clock. They were an hour in front of the Home Service or the Forces Network. So yes, we did know his name and his reputation and we were all very proud that it was too us he would come but we were very worried about him and of course his recording man.
JM: So he had somebody with him. A sound recordist, did he?
SW: Yes. He had a recording man. Yes.
JM: Yeah. Did you see the equipment they were going to record on to?
SW: No. No.
JM: Right.
SW: No. That would be like the aircraft.
JM: Yes. I see, yes.
SW: It would be away from us. In that sense we were kind of isolated.
JM: Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: Yes. I wonder if you remember anything about him as a man in terms of his build or his voice? He had a very characteristic voice as I recall.
SW: A very distinctive voice.
JM: Very.
SW: Yes. Well, I would say he wasn’t past remarkable. I mean, he wasn’t exceptionally tall or anything like that. He was very pleasant and I think, yes, I can’t remember how he was outfitted but obviously for the trip he was well outfitted. Yes. And then we worried about him. We took it in turns to worry because of course if you’d been on all day or you were going on you would go and we would go to bed and you would definitely go to sleep. But the first question you know, any news? And if you were actually in the office you’d be listening. Listening. If they were due back at 4 o’clock and then it gets to ten past and where are they? And so it would go on and then, how many? It wasn’t an exact science because sometimes one of the planes, the flight would be aborted off the, off the runway. They wouldn’t have, they didn’t actually go so it was no good counting. Occasionally somebody would be fairly shot up and they would land, you know perhaps in Norfolk or something like that. So it was no good writing people off straightaway. You had to wait and find out. But yes we did know Wynford Vaughan-Thomas had got back. Yes.
JM: Do you remember whether he was showing signs of nerves before his, his trip? Do you think he knew what he was letting himself in for?
SW: Well, if he was he didn’t show it. I would say he was a professional man and people like that do what they have to do no matter what they feel inside.
JM: Yes. I think that’s a very good answer but as you pointed out there was, there were in fact two of them and we forget the nerves and the human characteristics of his, his technician don’t we?
SW: Yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: He must have been just as tense.
SW: I think it’s very true when something starts that’s what you’re concentrating on and he wanted to get there, and he wanted to get back and he wanted it to be right and I think that’s what took his attention.
JM: Yes. Yes. Did you ever get to hear the broadcast that they made?
SW: Yes. Yes. Oh, we did. Yes. Which I believe there is a production with visual and so forth?
JM: I imagine so. Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: Yes. And whilst we’re talking about news that came through to you you’ve mentioned that you met Wing Commander Gibson. Were you aware of the Dambusters raid? You would have been at Langar then. Not at Coningsby.
SW: Yes. But they —
JM: Were you aware of it?
SW: They were only, yes but of course we knew the area.
JM: Yes.
SW: And, oh yes, I mean it was when I say common knowledge it was knowledge between people who were affected and of course we felt with our observations we were showing what, what the weather was. Our Met officer was having his input into the Lincolnshire, you know. We weren’t directly involved but we were involved on the periphery I suppose.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SW: It was all, and you know how it comes through the air sometimes.
JM: Yes. Yes. There must have been a sense of pride of being a part of that team though.
SW: Oh yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: Brilliant.
SW: Oh yes. And we would have known some of the other parties that went.
JM: Yes. Some of the boys that didn’t come back.
SW: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SW: Yes. We did.
JM: So you were, you were at Langar and then you were posted to Spilsby. Is that correct?
SW: Yes. Yes.
JM: Tell us a little bit about that will you, please.
SW: Yes. We’d rumbled off to Spilsby and it was a very deserted sort of establishment. The Americans had been there and they had left us without light bulbs. They seem to have, wherever they were going they seemed to think it would be short of everything. It was very, very basic when we got there. The only thing was they had left a couple of tubs of peanut butter and peanut butter sandwiches were the order of the day for a while. But I mean we got it up and running obviously and planes came in, and that was a very busy time. We had Windows by then.
JM: Windows.
SW: Windows were aluminium strips.
JM: Yes. Window. Yes.
SW: That were thrown out. Yes. To deflect the [pause] Yes. And of course things like radar were all getting much more sophisticated. It was, you can describe it like a step up instrument wise. And we tried out FIDO.
JM: Yes.
SW: The fog dispersal unit. Not always successfully because in, although it would be foggy it would be windy as well and it was distracting. I think it was the worst place for fog and poor visibility and the decision had to be made in conjunction with other obviously as to whether the planes could return. It wasn’t difficult to get them off but it was very difficult sometimes to get them to return. Nobody wanted them diverted. They didn’t want to be diverted. The minimum height for the cloud if I remember rightly was three hundred feet and it was very difficult in the dark to estimate it. And I don’t know about the others, but I know I’d send up a prayer, please don’t let me make a mistake. And they didn’t often have to be diverted but sometimes it was very dicey and cloud was the worst. If the cloud was nearly on the deck it was very difficult. I mean they didn’t have the instruments that they have today of course or anything like that and if a decision was made that they had to be diverted you felt as though you should run away somewhere and hide until they, in case you’d be blamed [laughs] But, yes there were. There were some, yes difficult decisions shall we say.
JM: Where the weather was marginal.
SW: Pardon?
JM: Where the visibility or the weather was in some way marginal.
SW: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. Now, I understand that you are aware of the fact that there was quite a nasty accident at Spilsby.
SW: There was. Yes.
JM: Can you tell us a little about that please?
SW: I don’t really know much about it. All this talk of bombs in the bomb dump. Now, as we looked out from the watchtower, the perimeter tracks would go around and the dispersals were right, left and as far as you could see was where the bomb dump was. And I remember the talk about bombs in the bomb dump but to be perfectly honest I can’t remember in detail like as to how much damage was done or anything like that. Which seems strange but —
JM: But they were —
SW: But we just got on our bikes and cycled to work, and —
JM: But there was an explosion.
SW: Oh, there was an explosion.
JM: Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: And people were killed or injured as a result of that.
SW: Well, yes. People out on the, yes the dispersal units. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SW: Where they would be loading. I mean, I remember them with these bombs on the trolleys going to and fro.
JM: Yes.
SW: Especially when they had an enormous one. And the thing to do for the ground crew was to write on it. You know, like people write on a cast on a broken leg or something like that. They would send messages on the side of this bomb. I never did. No. I didn’t think that was [laughs] but I do remember all the traffic with the, with the bombs. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SW: And there was always this talk about, ‘He’s reckless,’ You know, ‘The driver’s reckless. Hold on to your hat.’ The one thing there were any explosions in that. I remember a plane crashing with, on the, on take-off.
JM: With bombs on board.
SW: With bombs on board. Fortunately, no big ones on that. Yes, and I remember going to the funeral. Now, why? I can’t imagine. But we were supposed to so some representative had to go. Yes. I don’t know.
JM: And that was in Spilsby locally was it?
SW: That was at Coningsby.
JM: Oh. Coningsby.
[pause]
SW: I don’t know whether they had, you know the fire bombs.
JM: The incendiaries.
SW: Incendiaries. Yes. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to do, it didn’t do any damage in the village. Yes.
JM: So, was, was Spilsby your last posting during the war?
SW: No. From Spilsby we were sent to Bottesford.
JM: Yes.
SW: In Nottingham.
JM: Yes.
SW: Shire. And another busy station. The most remarkable thing there was the fact that we were there for the 8th of May, for the wonderful, wonderful news that the war was over. And, and we had, I think like we knew that the day before, on May the 8th was to be the day. VE Day. And anybody who wasn’t actually needed at work went on the church parade. We had it out in a hangar and we were celebrating yes, but we also knew there were so many that weren’t there to celebrate. It was a very sobering service. And then the NCOs, because I was a corporal there was no establishment for a sergeant and of course I never rose up the ranks we were invited to the sergeant’s mess for a celebratory drink. So away we went and tried to give the impression we were quite sophisticated which of course we weren’t and the gin that we were offered nearly knocked us off our feet. But, however, we thanked them and yes, all very nice and then we cycled off to the WAAF site, and made our way to Nottingham and I remember dancing in the street in the main area in front of the official buildings there and thinking how wonderful it was. And wonderful it was. Yes.
JM: Wonderful. I know that some personnel were given the opportunity to fly over Germany.
SW: They were. Yes.
JM: In things called Cooks Tours. Was that something that ever came your way?
SW: I didn’t fly over Germany but I did fly and I can remember going out to the, to the aircraft and saying something about a parachute. He said, ‘Oh, you won’t have a parachute. We’re not going that high. We’re not going high enough.’ I think we had to sign and say if things went amiss nobody would claim. But the inside of the Lancasters [pause] how they survived, those aircrew I’ll never know. It was cold. It was draughty. It was cramped. It was horrible. I never went as far as the poor old tail gunner, but even to get in to the cockpit you had to climb over obstructions and noise was incredible. The whole thing rattled and shook. And that was still while you were still on the ground. And taking off, I mean you wondered was this it? Was this the end of the world? Then it was interesting when we were in the air but it was still so, so uncomfortable and so, such hardship. I don’t know how long we were up. Less than an hour probably but to think of flying all the way to Berlin, to Italy. They went to North Africa. They needed, they needed awards for going never mind anything else. For surviving in that aircraft. Yes. It was, oh quite an experience. It really was. Yes.
JM: And when peace returned were you anxious to get demobbed and return to civilian life or were you tempted to stay with the RAF?
SW: No. There was no, there was no establishment. There was no we would have to re-muster into something else.
JM: Right.
SW: Yes. I think they had far too many personnel, women personnel. They were really looking to get rid of you in turn. Now, from, from Bottesford we went to Cottesmore.
JM: Yes.
SW: And there things were gradually sort of running down. But that was when we were flying to Holland and they were bringing people back from faraway places and things like that. And we went on a course about flying over the hump between Burma and India because of course the war in the east was still going on and, but then of course we weren’t needed but it was interesting. Yes. So, it was July 1946 when my turn came around to be demobbed and we went to a centre in Birmingham and handed in, you kept your best uniform. You could keep your underwear, which was not what most ladies were wearing and we had, well to start with we had these equestrian type knickers. The dark ones were called blackouts and the grey blue ones were called twilights. I have to say they were very good at keeping you warm if you were out on the airfield in the middle of the night but glamorous they weren’t. They did modernise them later. And the men got a suit, but the ladies got some money. And before we left we had these interviews as to what we were going to do, and, and they were quite clever because of course they were looking for certain groups of people. I knew which occupations were in need and so they were quite good at like saying, ‘Oh, you’ve done very well at these tests so you could, have you thought of being —’ this that or whatever was needed. And one of the things was teachers. Now, of course, I’d been a probationer teacher, a grade which never existed after the war so obviously teachers were needed so that’s where they encouraged you. They felt that your qualifications were such that you would be admirable for this. And jobs for, for women were very scarce on the ground in those days. You were a teacher, a nurse, a secretary, or in a shop or [pause] yes. Anyway, I went for the teaching and they had this scheme, emergency teacher training and instead of the two years because that’s what it was at that time it was thirteen months. But we got very short holidays. A week here and two weeks there and eventually passed out. And then we had to do two years’ probation at, well whatever they called the first. Yes. Instead of the year. So yes. So that’s what I became.
JM: Very good. Did, did, may I ask you did you make any friendships amongst your WAAF colleagues which endured after the, after your service?
SW: Yes. But not many because of course we were constantly split up. We didn’t, we started off, like two came up from London but it wasn’t very long before Barbara was posted somewhere else and you couldn’t keep track. There were no phones and things like that. But I did keep in touch with one girl. I went to her wedding, and but she lived in London which was a long way from Liverpool so we only saw each other occasionally. We wrote, and I went to stay with her for the Coronation and that sort of thing but of course over time.
JM: Yes.
SW: She had four children and, yes.
JM: Yes.
SW: Yes.
JM: I think the last thing I would like to ask you is when you reflect back on your, on your RAF service would you say that it changed you as a woman? Did it give you anything that would otherwise not have been open to you?
SW: Well, it gave me a lot more self-confidence, because I would not [pause] I would say I was very good. I was good at school. Not clever but good. I did what was expected of me. I was probably horribly boring, and yes it gave me self-confidence. I had to make decisions. It gave me an interest in other parts of the country, and with a broader outlook I would say. Not that I was confined at home because mum and dad were very good, but it was just different. And I suppose it did affect my teaching. Definitely. Yes.
JM: And you’ve been a lifelong supporter of Bomber Command.
SW: Oh, I have. Yes. Yes. Contributed money. Not much but some. But I’ve always stood up for them and been disgusted at it all being swept under the carpet and made to look nice. It wasn’t. It was the war. I mean I’d been in Liverpool. I knew what bombing was. Yes. But what else were we going to do? The war was, I mean I’m sure outside people I mean outside the country thought that we were finished. There was no way we were going to come back from this. Fortunately, we felt otherwise.
JM: Thank you so much. That’s an excellent note on which to finish. Thank you for a remarkable interview. Thank you very much indeed.
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 Sheila Wilmet
Creator
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Julian Maslin
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
2019-05-04
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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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AWilmetS190504
Format
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00:59:53 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Sheila Wilmet grew up in Liverpool and was fifteen when war was declared. She describes the devastation of bombing in 1941, spending nights in an Anderson shelter, and navigating unexploded bombs during her commute. She volunteered after viewing a meteorologist advertisement, and upon receiving initial training in Gloucester and Morecombe, she completed an education in meteorology at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. Firstly, Wilmet was stationed at RAF Coningsby where she met Guy Gibson. She also describes her duties which consisted of regularly observing, interpreting, and collating weather data using specialist equipment including a Stevenson screen, nephoscope, hydrogen balloons, theodolite and, anemometer. Secondly, Wilmet was posted to RAF Langar. She describes the Nissen hut living conditions, and the visit of BBC broadcaster, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas. Wilmet was then posted to RAF Spilsby. She talks about American peanut butter, making difficult decisions during bad weather, and the bomb dump explosion. She also recollects the developments in equipment including radar, Windows, and FIDO. Next, Wilmet was posted to RAF Bottesford. She describes both her somber emotions and the celebratory events of VE Day. Finally, she was posted to RAF Cottesmore and demobilised in July 1946 when she retrained as a teacher. Wilmet talks about her lifelong support of Bomber Command and distaste at the way they were remembered.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1945-05-08
1946
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Merseyside
England--Liverpool
England--London
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Lancashire
Language
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eng
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
bomb dump
bombing
FIDO
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground personnel
home front
meteorological officer
military living conditions
Nissen hut
perception of bombing war
radar
RAF Bottesford
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Langar
RAF Spilsby
shelter
Window
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2468/11768/AWhymarkR171103.mp3
d15b6bbb5d4a4b59a1d617d0068cd018
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
Whymark, Jack
John Percy Whymark
Description
An account of the resource
X items. <br /><br />The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Whymark DSO DFC (1920 -1945, 616289, 53481 Royal Air Force) and contains a<span>n oral history with his son, Robert Whymark. </span><br /><br />He flew operations as an air gunner with 103 Squadron and was killed 04 October 1945 during Operation Dodge. <br /><br />The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Graham Thurlow and Robert Whymark and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan. <br /><br /><span>Additional information on Jack Whymark is available via the </span><a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/230288/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-03
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Whymark, JP
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
[his log book, correspondence, documents, objects and photographs].
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RM: Tactical.
JM: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin and the interviewee is Mr Robert Whymark. And the interview is taking place at Mr Whymark’s home in Little Haywood in Staffordshire on the 3rd of November 2017. Robert, could you please tell us a little bit about your background and your awareness of your late father’s service.
RW: Right. Thank you, Julian. Very firstly my thanks to the IBCC for this opportunity and all the volunteers that are doing the work. I’m Bob Whymark. Only son of Jack, or John as he was christened. He was also known as Johnny. Flight Lieutenant John Percy, but we don’t talk about that, Whymark DSO DFC RAF. He was an air gunner. Robert is a name slightly out of the family tradition. I’m not sure where that come from. I don’t know of any others but the surname is originally Breton I’m told. We could claim 1066 and all that if we did the connection. There was a Robert de Whymark who was the Sheriff of Southend in 1086. They say everybody’s descended from a royal so we might be Harold the III’s lot. He was a big friend of William the Conqueror. However, more realistically we are immediately down from a load of farm labourers in Norfolk and Essex. I’ve gone back about mid-1700s. My dad’s father went to school with my other gran, my mother’s mother in the1890s in the village. My dad was born 10th of January 1920 in Grays, Essex. He had a sister nine years younger. He seems to have been quite bright because he got a scholarship to Palmer’s Boys College for secondary education. His first job was at the Bata Shoe Factory in Tilbury which was seven miles each way on a push bike. Rain or shine. Character building as we called it. He joined the Royal Artillery Territorials when he was fifteen, 1935 to ’38. And then he went into the Air Force in October of ’38 as a ground crew mechanic armourer. He went to St Athan for a mech’s course. I followed twenty-six years later in 1964. His first posting was 17 Squadron Hurricanes at Debden and Martlesham Heath. He was also on the Allied Air Strike Force in North West France, Le Mans, Channel Islands. The same time as Dunkirk was going on. He had to burn the Hurricanes as they French wouldn’t give us any fuel. He was evacuated in July 1940 and went air gunner for safety reasons as he told my mother. He’d gone to school with my mother. They had boys and girls separate schools with a fence between them of course. His best friend was somebody called Mervyn who married Eve who was my wife- my mother’s best friend. There’s more on that at the end of this tale. So, he went aircrew. Evanton in the Cromarty Firth was an air gunner’s training place and Salisbury Plain. There were two areas there. Twenty-four hours of flying time later he was put on first tour with 149 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall. December ’40 to April ’41. He was a Wellington rear gunner. He did fifteen ops from December to March over Europe. The first five all ended in some sort of tears. One with two crash landings, one shot up by anti-aircraft fire and two diversions for fuel. Then there was an outbreak of peace until operation number fifteen over Cologne where they were coned in searchlights for six minutes. I spoke to a guy who’d been coned at twenty thousand feet for about four and he said he’d never felt so helpless in all his life. After that 148 Squadron was formed in Kibrit which is on the Suez Canal. They also went to Malta. This again was on Wellingtons. April to September ’41, he did two hundred hours for a tour so that ended up as thirty-nine ops. He did twenty-four ops in North Africa. A lot of Benghazi’s and Malta in the thick of their bombing. They were actually bombed by a Junkers 88 on landing and ran off into the quarry which snapped the Wellington in half. People who know how they are built, which is rather like the Forth Bridge know that was quite an achievement. They also discovered when they got back one time that a shell had gone through the fuselage side to side. Didn’t explode of course. Nobody noticed. He then came home by troop ship from Suez, stopping off at Aden, Durban and Trinidad. He then had about two hundred hours of instructing duties at RAF Manby and West Freugh near Stranraer February ‘42 until October ’43. This was while the Battle of Berlin was on so he may have been rested from that or else I wouldn’t have been here. He did have one off operation mid-way November ’42. They used to take training troops and boost up the number of crews for some raids. He was detached to RAF Syerston, 106 Squadron. There was an American pilot who’d come up through Canada and over, Joe [Curtin?] He had a DFC from his first op which was while he was on pilot training. They’d been hit by a phosphorous shell in the cockpit and it blinded him for a while. The flight engineer kept it going and then he landed it. He got another DFC later on before he was killed. This was Guy Gibson’s squadron before the Dam Busters. Their op was to Danzig. Or Gdansk Harbour. It was ten hours fifty-five minutes in November of ’42 as a rear gunner. He went into Leconfield for fuel. So, it was fairly tight because it was only twenty minutes hop over to Syerston, between Newark and Nottingham. Back to West Freugh. Promoted to warrant officer and then at the end of that was commissioned. His second tour was from February ’44 to May ’44. Quite quick. 10 squadron- 101 squadron, sorry. RAF Ludford or Mudford as it was called, Magna. He did twenty ops in less than three months. The last one was his number sixty, the night I was born, 20th of May ‘44. He got a DFC for this tour. The first one was to Leipzig and there were seventy-nine aircraft missing which is about three hundred and fifty-three men, I think. No. Four hundred and fifty-three, I beg your pardon. He then flew in DV290 Lancaster five times. Once to Berlin, seventy-three aircraft were lost then which is four hundred and seventy-five people. The same, same as Afghanistan over fifteen years. Now, while those deaths were obviously terrible it does give a perceptive. Four hundred and seventy-five in less than eight hours. The Nuremberg raid — he should have been killed twice on that — ninety-seven aircraft were lost including the photo Mosquito the next day, plus eleven that crashed in UK on recovery. So, about six hundred and fifty people there. He’d flown in DV290 so many times he wrote it down again for that raid. It crashed at Welford near Newbury. They were all killed. Over the target they were nearly hit by a Halifax on its bombing run. He had to side slip. He also had a do at Aulnoy which was a railway yards in North East France. They were coned for nine minutes at six thousand feet with, “accurate flak” as he put it. A night fighter pilot got seven aircraft in two sessions there. He was cruising the searchlights. When the ack-ack stopped our crews knew that night fighters would come in. He must have been down refuelling when they were in the lights. Nobody knows how they got away with that. Another tactic the night fighters did was to attack the mid-upper gunner first as he couldn’t help the rear gunner. They did say that the rear gunner was the loneliest job in the aircraft, and I’m sure it was, but the mid-upper wasn’t that mid, it was quite well back and he could fire backwards. So, they took him out first if they could. The only time he’s recorded attacking anything was at over Schweinfurt where they were attacked by a Junkers 88. He said he fired three hundred and eighty rounds and hits on the fuselage. He didn’t claim anything and they were damaged by flak. He then did a gunnery leader’s course. And then third tour, which nobody could make you do, was from September ’44 to October ’45. That was on 103 Squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds. The main runway is now the slip road up to the Humber Bridge. It’s almost all Severn Trent Water. A heavy gravel type company operates on the main field and there’s a big industrial estate. One hangar is left. The big one. They can’t get that down. He was a mid-upper gunner on all of these trips. He was gunnery leader so he didn’t have a dedicated crew but was still busy. He started daylight ops then as well. He did a few Manna, Exodus and Dodge operations. That was dropping food to the Dutch, Exodus was re-pat of prisoners of war and Dodge was bringing people back from Italy. He did eighty-one ops but as he was grounded in January by the big boss he didn’t record all of them. Two or three veterans I’ve spoken to have said he was probably up to ninety-five or ninety-seven. His DSO citation says that he flew with weak or disturbed crews. Not a good idea I don’t think. There was a Canadian crew. [ Sachs?] was his name. It doesn’t say whether they were weak or not but he flew with him six times on the trot. Then he changed crews and they both went off to Dessau near Berlin and Sachs was shot down. His DSO for this tour was one of eight hundred and seventy to the RAF. As he was not a captain it was very rare, if not unique for a flight lieutenant to get that medal. Probably the leadership element came from his appointment as gunnery leader. He was then killed October, yeah October the 4th of 1945. This was a Dodge operation. He and the pilot were going mental doing admin, the pilot said. I’ve got a letter from him to his nephew. They picked up nineteen women passengers at Glatton or Honington, Peterborough Airport now. It was a filthy night. Many aircraft turned back to Istres, Marseilles, as did they after an electric storm and engine trouble, they radioed. I’ve spoken to crew members on this operation and they confirmed the weather. I’ve spoken to the navigator of the other aircraft that was with them and they were the last to talk to the aircraft. They were posted missing. Nothing was ever found. Six crew, seventeen ATS and two nurses were lost. A week before, twenty-five passengers, male, had been, went missing. Same area — plus a crew of six of course — same weather conditions. And a month later the same numbers. So, three Lancasters, ninety odd people all vanished within six weeks. No trace of any of them ever found. One of the girls was a Lance Corporal May Mann. She was engaged to a Warrant Officer Basil Henderson who was on General Alexander’s staff. And this is where Mervyn comes back in. He was waiting in Naples, Pomigliano for my dad. Basil was waiting for his fiancé. Basil had been the filter warrant officer for General Alexander’s staff and Mervyn had spent the whole of the North African Campaign trying to get past him. Basil eventually met my mother through correspondence over this accident and they got married in 1948. I was four. I remember Mervyn turning up, took one look at Basil, he spoke just like Lionel Jeffries, and he said, ‘Oh gawd,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me in here either.’ That’s my first memory. That’s the family link if you like. Basil died in 2008, my mother in 2014. My dad of course, when he was twenty-five. He would have been ninety-eight in January. I’ve been through his logbook, I think he should have been killed about thirty-seven times properly. All raids were difficult, in fact even flying was because of crude navigation equipment — not the navigators — technical problems, maintenance was difficult, weather, and they used to say, lastly, the enemy. But he had some scrapes and lucky escapes by changing crews or aircraft or what have you. They say that for every one hundred aircrew, fifty-one were killed on ops, nine were killed in UK training type crashes, three were seriously injured, twelve were POWs, twenty-four survived. Now, if you’re very sad you’ll have totted that up to ninety-nine. I can only assume that the one spare bloke went AWOL or something like that. However, that’s the basics of his story. I — all I know is that I have no memories of him. Luckily, he met me. I know many people who were killed, their fathers were killed before they were born etcetera. So, we had a little bit more than they did.
JM: Thank you. Thank you very much.
RW: Alright. That was —
JM: Was, was your decision to join the air force in any way influenced by your father’s career?
RW: Yes. About fifty percent. I was at grammar school. I did two years in the fifth form to achieve four GCSEs. Mainly because of these guitars we’ve been talking about and I was trying to be Eddie Cochrane really, and I missed any sort of technical training. I was too old for an apprenticeship. I had a couple of years at the telephone manager’s office, telephone engineering, and then went in the Air Force as much for the education as my dad. But certainly, that was that. My stepfather had no problems about talking to me about it. He said — I remember him when I was four saying to me, ‘I want to marry your mother but I’m not going to make you change your name because of your dad.’ Well, I didn’t know anything about him then of course. But I found out later on. Mervyn, my dad’s best friend from school was a big help. He tidied up some puzzlement I had about this last accident because my mother had the idea that my dad had been pulled out of bed because somebody had broken their leg playing football or something. Well, he’d obviously had time to arrange it. In fact, they were all up at Brigg on the Monday. On the weekend before they had a big dance, probably for VJ-Day. She was up in Brigg, stayed probably at the White Hart. They all piled off back on Monday morning. He telephoned her to say that he’d be down on the Saturday. Of course, they took off on Wednesday, crashed on Thursday morning. The pilot was a big friend of his. He’d just been picked to be Bomber Harris’ personal pilot and he’d done some — he’d got a lot of hours but there’s not much about him, so I don’t know what he was up to. He may have been slightly clandestine. He’d written a letter to his family, I think they were in Leeds, and he said, ‘We’re going mad, Jack and I, so, we’re off to Naples’, he said, ‘I’ll see you on Saturday for my great coat.’ Right, he had a very young brother who didn’t have any kids ‘til he was about thirty-seven. So, he had a nephew of the pilot who’s the same age as some of my kids. He’s about fifty now. And all he knew was, his uncle — he thought he flew Lancasters, and he found the 103 site so he wrote to David Fell, the historian then. He passed it all to me and we emailed and I said, ‘Your uncle’s service number was —’ this that and the other. And it was weird talking to this lad. That I knew more about his uncle than he did. Now, we’d been brought up in just south of Middlesbrough because Basil was a Durham lad originally. He was living down in Harold Wood at this — during the war. ,He moved back up north. I said, ‘Where are you?’ to this nephew of Jeff Taylor’s, the pilot. And he said, ‘Oh. We’re in Thirsk.’ Which was about eight miles from where we were living. And he came over one Christmas Day and he had a crew photo and this letter. It’s a bit poignant. And I helped him a lot I’m glad to say. I’ve got a pile of research from all the veterans on 103 and other historical branches. They had my dad down as second pilot in one letter. So, I queried that, and they said, ‘Oh, he may have been in the bomb aimer position,’ because this last — these Dodge ops were part of bringing back the 8th Army who were about to mutiny. It was called Dodge because some cretin at Air Ministry decided they’d dodged D-Day by daring to be overseas for six years all through North Africa. I hope he was —had it explained to, you know. So, that’s what they were doing there.
JM: So, the nurses that were on board. The women that were on board. Do you know what they, what they were doing? What was their role?
RW: Seventeen were in the ATS. Army auxiliary.
JM: Territorials.
RW: Territorial girls. They were sort of secretarial I believe. And drivers maybe. They were all — they’d been right through the North Africa Campaign from Tunisia right through. My stepfather was at Dunkirk. He got off the last ship from a jetty. Didn’t have to do any wading out. Because he was a Durham lad it upset him because the Durham Light Infantry were left as a rear guard. He wouldn’t talk about that. I persuaded him to give me his medals to get mounted and we found he’d been mentioned in despatches three times. Which was — he was in the Supply Corps.
JM: Very unusual.
RW: So, that was one down from a decoration frankly and so on, but he was well thought of. He didn’t get back from Italy until 1946. They lived in Warwick Road opposite Earl’s Court and we moved. That was my first sort of basic memory is up from Chadwell.
JM: Can I —
RW: Yeah.
JM: For the tape. Can I just clarify, my understanding is that on occasions the Lancasters might well be full of Italian POWs going home, and when they got to Bari or to Pomigliano then there would be British servicemen coming back to the UK.
RW: Yes.
JM: And it was this route that these ladies were on when the aeroplane went down. It was the return journey.
RW: No. Going.
JM: They were going.
RW: Going.
JM: Right. So, they were going out to Italy.
RW: Yeah. It has been put in some research that was, not stolen from me, but passed on without my knowledge. I corresponded with a Canadian guy who’d been at Elsham in ’42 and he wanted to know if anybody knew anything of that era. I said, ‘Well, I don’t but you might be able to help me.’ Told him that story briefly and he crossed it over that we were coming back. They were coming back.
JM: That’s fine.
RW: But they were actually going out.
JM: Yes.
RW: Now, the army I’m convinced had lost these girls. They’d been up to Liverpool twice on, for a troopship which would have had to come right out around the outside of Ireland because of the mine fields that were still about. They weren’t reported missing ‘til this troopship docked a fortnight later. The army would not release any information. Basil, on the staff of General Alexander couldn’t find anything out. And his — this girl’s mother, Mrs Mann, she put an advert in the paper and my mother was told about that so they corresponded. I’ve got a lovely letter from Mrs Mann about this and she’s saying ‘We couldn’t find anything out. We’ve written to everybody.’ And my mother was able to put her in the picture immediately. In fact, this Mrs Mann was more — as — concerned about my mother losing her husband of course. And so on. They were living near Harold Wood.
JM: Another aspect of it which is interesting and I don’t understand clearly is we are now in peacetime —
RW: Yes.
JM: It’s the October of 1945. The war has been over some months and yet the Lancasters were still carrying gunners. Why was this? Because you would have thought that had they not had those there would have had room for more passengers.
RW: Yeah. I’m not — I don’t think they’d removed the guns but that wouldn’t have affected the number of passengers. My dad was basically doing admin. I think he was virtually on a jolly as we call it.
JM: Right.
RW: Hence this bomb aimer’s position. Crowd control or what. I’ve seen how they load up the Lanc for that when I was instructing at Cosford. They’ve got a museum and there’s a big clump of them in the middle and then they go front to back for weight and balance. So, fifteen was in the bomb aimers position. It would be a cosy little fit. Sixteen was right at the back by the toilet you know. Which was no fun. There were nineteen passengers. So, there was a number fifteen. So, it’s nineteen to one whether my dad was sitting next to the, this ATS corporal, my stepfather’s fiancé. Which would have been a bit spooky.
JM: Yeah.
RW: Her middle name, funnily enough, was Eleanor. Which my stepfather said he never knew. He had her shoe brushes as a souvenir which was what you used to do. My mother was Eileen and my dad called her Eileena. And he always said that if he knew he was going in he’d shout her name out. Now, she says that on the day, Thursday morning, she sat upright in bed thinking she’d heard his voice. And then they got a phone call that night from a friend of his at Elsham. He said, ‘Look, they’ve gone missing. I’ve asked them not to send this awful telegram,’ which they did. He said, ‘I’ll come and see you. I’m on my way to Ramsgate. I’ll drop in on you at Grays,’ near Tilbury, in Essex. Now, that’s a bit of a trek by train and stuff for him so that was very good. He turned up on Saturday morning with my dad’s father and it all came out. He’d got the full chapter and verse by then.
JM: Yes.
RW: But the army would not tell anybody anything for some time.
JM: My understanding is that the passengers in the Lancaster would sit on simple seats and they had no oxygen which would have —
RW: Yes.
JM: Limited the height at which they could fly at.
RW: Yes.
JM: Is that correct?
RW: Yes. And the heating wasn’t brilliant either. But they were both — there were two of them with passengers from Honington. I beg your pardon. That should be Conington. It was because of Honington and Coningsby they called it Conington. I hope I’ve got that right. Yes. It was an American B17 base so they knew. The, Glatton, was on the other side, there was a grass strip for Spitfires and such. Different accents. Yeah, they were sitting on rudimentary canvas seats or their kit bags. You’d think something like that would have floated up to the top but it didn’t. Three times.
JM: Do you have a theory as to what caused your father’s aircraft to crash?
RW: They did report to the other guys that they were down at two thousand feet. I went off the point there because I spotted that mistake. They were down at two thousand feet. They were in a filthy electric storm. The other two, ten minutes behind. The other aircraft was in pitch black but clear, if you understand that. They could see Corsica so they knew they were that far. They crashed off Cap Corse which is the north point of it. There are sort of pot holes in the sea so there’s — the three other crews saw an explosion or fire on the sea, they knew what they looked like of course, and they plotted a latitude longitude which I’ve plotted myself. There was a misprint in one of the reports which made it east-north-east of Cap Corse which was too far, too close to Italy. It was the other way, west-north-west. And that was that. But as I say, they were both low down. The rest of them — there was about twenty aircraft up that night going — they went over high level because they were on oxygen and whatever. Yeah.
JM: So, it might well have been weather related.
RW: Well it was —
JM: The electrical storm may well have been a factor.
RW: Yeah. They were struck by lightning. Or, they did report engine trouble so they were turning back to Marseilles they said.
JM: Robert. Thank you very much.
RW: Ok.
JM: Is there anything you wish to add? You’ve given us a very, very, thorough account.
RW: Right. Good. Thank you very much. No. If anybody wants to get in touch by all means. I’ll pass my — I’m on record with the IBCC people. And, Julian, I’m sure will be able to —
JM: Yes. Absolutely.
RW: Tidy up the link.
JM: Yes.
RW: But I’ll be delighted to help anybody with any further information or questions.
JM: Thank you very much on behalf of IBCC. Thank you very much Robert.
RW: Thank you.
JM: Thank you.
RW: Cheers, Julian.
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 Robert Whymark
Creator
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Julian Maslin
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
2017-11-03
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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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AWhymarkR171103
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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00:30:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
North Africa
Poland
France--Cape Corse
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
Poland--Gdańsk
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945-10-04
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Whymark’s father John ‘Jack’ Whymark took part in three tours of operations. Initially Jack was trained as a mechanic and was posted to 17 Squadron at RAF Debden and RAF Martlesham Heath. He then volunteered for aircrew and trained as a gunner. He was posted to 149 Squadron, 106 Squadron, 103 Squadron and 101 Squadron. He was killed when his plane flew into a storm en route to Italy as part of Operation Dodge.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Emily Bird
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
106 Squadron
149 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Hurricane
killed in action
Lancaster
missing in action
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Debden
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Manby
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Syerston
RAF West Freugh
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1116/11606/AScottSO150904.1.mp3
889a5cbb3b2747eacf089d7212052a69
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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Scott, Seymour Owen
S O Scott
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Owen Scott (1922 - 2018).
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
2015-09-04
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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Scott, SO
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the benefit of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Owen Scott. The interview is taking place at Mr Scott’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon on Friday the 4th of September 2014, sorry 2015. Owen, I wonder if I could just ask you just to tell me a little bit about your early life, where you were born and your family background.
OS: Yes, well, I can do that, it’ll take a long time though [laughs] [clears throat] first of all I was born [pauses], I don’t know whether you want to know this but I was born in London in 1922, my family then moved to Broadstairs in Kent and at the age of ten I attended school in Broadstairs, Kent. I’m having to stop and just think about it because I’m not sure whether I’m, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression and I’ve got to remember what I did in those early days, I went to Chatham House grammar school in Ramsgate, Kent for about two years, when I eventually left the school, my uncle’s suggestion who was very keen for me to get into commercial life and start making a living, he did in fact find a job for me in Harris Lebus, the furniture manufacturer in Tottenham London where I was for about a year and then I returned home and I worked for a local builder as a clerk and typist and after that whoopsie-daisy the war came up and I was always very keen on aircraft and my school pal and I used to go the local RAF aerodrome and watch the aircraft and so I got the bug from that and was always very interested in flying and thought that I’d love to be a pilot. Now, it so happened that I worked, rather a lot happened around that time but anyway I, yeah, I volunteered to the RAF to become a fighter pilot, that’s what, what really urged me on and I just, I thought I’d love to be a fighter pilot flying Spitfires. Now, things got rather hastened at that stage and anyway I was accepted as an aircrew potential and joined the RAF and I was enlisted in London and started serving my time in the RAF. I was eventually posted to, oh dear, what’s the name of the place? Oh dear, on the east coast, damn it, forgotten that, anyway, I then flew for the first time in a Tiger Moth with an instructor of course and it was rather frightening because we took off in snow and I could not believe that the first time I left the earth and it was snowing like hell and subsequently we lost two aircraft over the river, near the Wash, just near the Wash it was and eventually we did our land drills and things like that in Scarborough and was eventually told to stand by but because five o’clock the following morning we were going to Liverpool and no, I didn’t solo at all, I only did about an hour’s flying and that was all, it’s all in my logbook and we were posted to Liverpool and to our astonishment we were put on board the SS Orbita ship and we took seven days to travel to Canada, we were under the impression that we were going to serve with the Canadian Airforce but the actual fact we were on standby for two months in Moncton, New Brunswick, that’s Canada and eventually we were put on a train and to our astonishment we went down to [unclear] just outside I can’t remember but anyway to [unclear] and it was at [unclear], that was an island, I flew solo for the first time. And it was a very exciting time and I remember the instructor saying to me, for goodness sake, don’t hit the tyre as you go off ‘cause the wind’s in the wrong direction and anyway they put the sandbag in the aircraft, this is an American twin-winged aeroplane but anyway I took off and made jolly sure anyway I did the circuit came in and landed safely and hurrah, hurrah, I’ve gone solo. Now then very shortly after that we were told to stand by five o’clock in the morning which always seemed to be the operational time and we got on a train and believe it or not, it took us six days on this train to go down to Pensacola in Florida where we transferred to the American navy. And the idea was to become acquainted with get our wings and to fly American Catalinas flying boats. Now I have recorded on various occasions some of the things that happened when we were in America, I was in America for just under a year learning to fly flying boats and had some rather exciting times which I have since recorded for posterity I hope. But some of the American instructors were very nice chaps but there was an element amongst them where they didn’t like, these goddamn limeys as they used to call us, and then eventually I got my wings and I passed out to be a full captain of a Catalina flying boat with the idea of returning to this country and serving in Coastal Command in America, in Scotland, so here I am with a, oh and also I dropped off at, in Canada, I’ve forgotten the name of the islands now but I did an advanced navigation course there before finishing off, thinking I’m jolly good, I’m gonna fly flying boats out of Scotland. Now when I got back to the UK, to my astonishment, we were told that we were going to go on a conversion course to landplanes and that we should fly with Bomber Command as Bomber Command pilots. Now this was startling news because here we are, I got my wings, I got my special ticket I got from the Americans to fly flying boats and we had to come back to UK to be told that you are going on Bomber Command was very disheartening and in actual fact I made a special request to meet a high ranking officer in Liverpool to, with a view to persuading him that I should go back onto flying boats. He told me to ‘Effing well get back to my squadron’ and was very rude for me indeed and he said, ‘If you don’t do as I effing tell you I’ll put you on a court martial,’ which was very, very frightening for me at that time, now, this seems to be a very long story.
JM: Please continue, it’s wonderful.
OS: But I’m trying to remember, I can remember very well all of this period today, what’s the date of today?
JM: Fourth of September.
OS: The fourth of September 2015 I’m making this recording in front of my charming chap.
JM: Julian.
OS: Julian. To continue with it.
JM: May I ask what year this was that you were joining Bomber Command?
OS: This would be 1944.
JM: ’44.
OS: Am I giving you enough information?
JM: You are. I was going to ask, did you go straight on to a squadron or did you have to do a conversion, did you go to a heavy conversion unit?
OS: Yes, I did.
JM: Tell us about that, please.
OS: Well, yes I flew, oh dear, anyway I lost my train of thought [unclear]
JM: Sorry.
OS: Yeah so much happened around that time is that I want to be as accurate as I can for this purpose and it was a very exciting time but at the same time it was a very frightening time because the thought of going on to Bomber Command wasn’t really what we were looking forward to at all so we were forced into it [clears throat]. I flew Halifaxes, first of all a four-engine bomber which were lousy aircraft and I had a very frightening experience with a New Zealand instructor who I would like to say was checking my crew out and he wanted to fly the aircraft and test my crew and I decided to fly in the rear turret for the experience so he was at the controls with my flight engineer, now we took off and suddenly he shouted, ‘Undo that, undo that, stop that, pull this up, pull that up, pull that out’, just as we took off and it turned out that he had forgotten to unlock the aileron controls and here we were off the ground, climbing and he had no control whatsoever over the aircraft. It frightened me to death ‘cause I was in the rear turret, didn’t know what to do and he kept shouting ‘Undo this, undo that, pull that lever, pull that lever’, and eventually the securing lugs that held the ailerons and rudders and flaps and everything else came into power and eventually they landed safely. I took the man to task and he threatened me and said, ‘If you report me then I will make sure that you are court-martialled’, so I had no option but to forget about the whole thing but it was a very, very frightening experience and it could have killed all of us. Now, around this time, I’m doing this off the top of my head of course, do you think I could just stop a minute and--
JM: Of course.
OS: And just think about
JM: Of course.
OS: Now here I am continuing my yarns about my lifestyle [laughs] and my experiences in the RAF. Now we flew the Halifax bomber as a, not as an operational aircraft but as an introduction to four-engine bombers. I did not like it at all and it was common feeling that it was a lousy aircraft to fly, put it that way, fortunately I did very few hours but as I said before like an introduction to going onto frontline Lancasters four-engine. Now I just stop there for a second if I may. I’m just going to think about that period because it was rather a lot happening particularly when I’m going to talk about, which I have recorded by the way, about picking up my flight engineer. Now both, Halifax, no, I’m not sure but anyway the Lancaster, you had to have a, you couldn’t fly a Lanc without a flight engineer, this is what we call a Lancaster finishing school which was also prior to going onto a squadron but of course now I’m in a situation where I’m going to pick up a crew and I think that’s where I better start.
JM: Please.
OS: Switch on.
JM: Go, it’s on, go. Yeah.
OS: Right. The method of gaining a crew and there were six other members to fly in the aircraft, two gunners, navigator, bomb aimer and flight engineer, oh and wireless operator. Seven of us altogether in every Lancaster. Now so what happened was that chaps got together, we weren’t commissioned at that time, we were flight sergeants and someone said, this chap over here is a nice fellow and I understand he is a good shot, this is a good navigator, they got together, came to me and said, ‘We think these guys will serve you well because we’ve lived with them for a few weeks and I think we’d like to introduce you to them.’ Right, now the next thing is that I met these crew apart from the flight engineer and this story I’ve already recorded because it is a full story and I’m gonna tell it now because I think it will be viewed with a lot of interest. The way they did it was that the crews and the skipper went on parade in lines and the fully qualified flight engineers used to march round the circle and as they passed each crew would fall out and attach themselves to that squadron. I don’t want to go into it any deeper than that but that was a simple as that. Now when the guy comes past me and stopped and then said, ‘Hello skip, my name is—' whatever it was and I looked at this chap and I could not believe to, now we were all around the age of twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four years of age, this guy looked to me as though he was thirty one, anyway I and also he was a very heavy chap, and he looked to me he was about fifteen stone and I could not believe that I got landed with this sort of chap although he seemed a very nice fellow. Eventually my crew came to me and said skip, of course he would, by that time I was commissioned by the way, so I wasn’t living with my crew who were all flight sergeants, he came to me and said ’We found out that so-and-so the flight engineer is thirty one, he’s not thirty one, he’s thirty one’ and he’s, but he said, ‘We’ve now found out that he’s forty one.’ I could not believe it, anyway there was no appeal, you had to take what they gave you and then when I started having him on the crew I found out that he was an ex Manchester policeman and he was in fact forty one. He was not, he found it difficult to get inside the aircraft and get up beside me on the cockpit, he was very slow on the uptake, on various things, and when it came to being qualified in how do we switch tanks, what pressures and temperatures, the engines would fly at, he was very slow and worried me to death and when I asked him to identify for example lights at night, he would say ‘Did you say, which one did you say, skipper? Which one is that, is it the one on the left or the one on the right?’ And I said, ‘It’s the green one, well, can you see it?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I can’t see green’ and it frightened me to death. Anyway I’m gonna stop there for a second to get my breath back. Now I’ve already indicated some of the difficulties I had with this flight engineer. I’m now going to recall something I will never forget, one of the things I will never forget and it was that we were on this particular, I forget which one it was, it was a German, German raid at night and lousy night, bad weather, flying in cloud and anyway I’ll skip the bit about the bombing run and the attack but on the, soon as we left the target, my rear gunner called me up and said, ‘Skip, I’m sorry to tell you but the starboard inner is on fire.’ I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting but I got out of my seat and to my amazement the damn engine was on fire and flames was shooting from out of the engine and I knew I got, so I did all sorts of manoeuvres like trying to blow the fire out, by diving in corkscrews and all that sort of thing, the fire wouldn’t go out and I knew it meant trouble because the flames were getting bigger coming from the engine. So what I had to do was to tell my flight engineer to fire the fire extinguisher on that engine, the crew I must say were very quiet and a little concerned, so I said to the flight engineer ‘Now stand by to press the fire extinguisher on the engine that’s on fire, that’s the starboard inner.’ He said, ‘Okay skip, don’t worry, you tell me when you want to hit the button.’ So I said, ‘Well stand by.’ So having dived and climbed for several times at very high speed, at very low speed to get rid of the flames that wouldn’t go out, so I said, ‘Well, on the count of three, I want you to press the fire extinguisher button on the starboard inner.’ ‘Okay skip,’ he said, ‘I’m waiting.’ So, I levelled the aircraft, and I said ‘One, two, three, now!’ The engine, the aircraft immediately yawed or to use a [unclear], anyway the aircraft swung round to the left, I could not believe it, he had pressed the wrong button and killed my point inner so now with two, only two engines left and there was a long way to go home over the North Sea, we got another four or five hours flying home. I, the aircraft, as I said, yawed again and I, once you fired the fire extinguisher you couldn’t fire it again. And anyway to this day I cannot remember how I got that port inner engine to fire and to be serviceable, I have never remembered how I did it but it was an absolute miracle and fortunately I got that engine started and we returned home on three engines. Now when we got back to base, as far as I remember it was about five o’clock in the morning, still dark and I landed and my flight engineer disappeared, we gotta go now for a debriefing, so he didn’t come to the debriefing and my crew and I reported what had happened on the debrief and we went and had our bacon and eggs and went to bed. Now it was still dark and my batman woke me up and said, ‘Skip, your flight engineer wants to see you desperately.’ So I get out of bed and he came in and he said, ‘Skip, I,’ he said ‘I’ve come to tell you what happened and why.’ He was in tears, he said, ‘Skip, my father is stone deaf, my mother is stone deaf, my sister is stone deaf,’ he said, ‘And I’m going deaf,’ he says, ‘And I couldn’t hear you.’ And I said, ‘You realise, do you, that what’ he said, ‘I could have killed us all’. I said, ‘You could, you stupid boy, why on earth did you go through with it like that, knowing that you were going deaf? How important it was to fly alongside of me in the cockpit?’ The following day he was posted from the squadron and I, when Nan and I, my wife and I were on honeymoon, I had a letter from him to say that he had taken on a pub in Manchester, we looked in and said hello, he was very happy to see me of course, so I said, ‘You’re still alive then?’ That’s all I could say. With a sarcastic tone and my wife and I carried on to the Lake District for our honeymoon. That’s the end of the story. There are two things that our eldest daughter Toni has suggested that I should record.[pause] I’m gonna tell you, don’t record, I’ll tell you afterwards but I just want you to see what I was gonna say, now just before I, no, don’t record it, ‘cause I will do.
JM: Yeah.
OS: I’m just trying to [unclear], I want to get into the rhythm of it and I want to get it right, having left the Lancaster Finishing School, we were eventually posted to a squadron. I can’t remember the name, the number of the squadron actually, but it was some fair way from Hemswell where we had the Lanc finishing school. It was about ten o’clock in the morning and we arrived at this squadron and I was greeted by the wing commander who said ‘Come in the office, nice to meet you, you can see what I’m doing here can’t you?’ And I said, ‘Well’, I said, ‘well, I’m not sure.’ He said, ‘I lost ten crews last night’ and I was horrified, he lost ten crews out of ten, wiped out the squadron, and he was going on the blackboard down with a duster wiping them all off. He said, ‘Well don’t worry about it’, he said, ‘You and I will be on a new squadron together and you’re gonna be my second in command.’ You see, so, I thought, oh, oh, alright, here we are, welcoming handshake so to speak, but crews started to come in and we started to build up the squadron with other crews, and after about a couple of weeks he called me in the office one morning and he said, ‘I’ve got something to show you’, and I said, ‘Oh yes’, took me in his back room and there was a container, about ten inches in diameter and about three feet high, it was a food carrier and alongside it there was a packed parachute, I was a little unsure what was going on and he said, ‘I’m just about to fly to Paris and I want you to cover me.’ And I was mystified, I said, ‘I’m not sure what you mean’. ‘Well’, he said, ‘my wife is still living in Paris’ and he said, ‘I’m going to take her a food container and I’m gonna drop the parachute over Paris and I want you to cover for me.’ I was so bewildered I suppose is the word, about this I didn’t tell my crew, but eventually crews started to come in and eventually we started operations against Germany. But he didn’t put me on to fly on ops so I went into his office this morning and I said, ‘Sir, I’m begging your pardon but why aren’t you putting me on ops?’ ‘Well’, he said, ‘you don’t want to go one of these piddling, stupid things on the north coast of France’, he said. ‘Rubbish’, he said, ‘we will wait till we get a big one then you and I are will fly together’. I said, ‘Fly what?’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll go on a big raid.’ Again, I was mystified. And he didn’t put me on. And now, I could not, for the life of me, bear the thought of me flying over France, over Paris, while he dropped some food to his wife, and I thought, I’m not gonna jeopardize my crew and myself here, I’m not gonna do it but I don’t know how I’m gonna get out of it ‘cause he’s a very powerful man. And anyway eventually, believe it or not, a posting came through for me and my crew to form another squadron. I was so relieved, my crew didn’t really, ‘cause I never let on I didn’t want to upset them but I did tell them a later time. But eventually, yes, we were posted to Hemswell to form 170 Squadron. And that leads me to another story. Now, the story goes like this, in the officers, by this time I was commissioned and my crew of course were all flight sergeants, eventually one or two of them did become commissioned but my crew and I were set now to go on an operational bombing squadron at 170 Hemswell. Now we had a little bit of a knees-up so to speak in the mess, in the officer’s mess, one. very shortly after this, one night, and to meet our new wing commander and during the course of the evening his wife came across to me and asked me if I’d go outside with her ‘cause she wanted to speak to me privately. I was rather surprised at this but we went into another room and she says, ‘Owen’, she said I, ‘You don’t mind me calling you by your Christian name, do you?’ I wondered what on earth was coming and she said, ‘But I’d like you to help me if you can.’ And I said, ‘Well, I will if I can but what is the problem?’ She said, ‘The problem is that my husband’ wing commander, forgot his name, ‘He’s not gonna be capable of carrying the post that he’s got’ and she said, ‘And I wanted you to if you would, try and help him all you can so that he doesn’t make any mistakes.’ But of course I, it was an unbelievable thing to happen on a night of frollity, put it that way, that’s the wrong word but, a pleasant evening and I did say to her, ‘Well, I’ll do whatever I can.’ Now then, we started operating hot trot trips over Germany and the wing commander was very weak at the briefings that we had to go on these raids didn’t put himself on at all but it was expected that the wing commander would fly operationally with the crews, he didn’t do that, and it was very difficult to approach him and I thought of what his wife had asked me but I didn’t have the opportunity and I could see that it was going to be inevitable that the man would not last in the post, it so happened that he was posted, we never saw him again and we eventually had a new wing commander. I never heard from his wife but I think that was a story that was a little unusual and for me at the time to find myself involved with the wing commander’s wife, well I can laugh about it now but it was very serious at the time. End of story.[pause] On one occasion on 170 Squadron Hemswell Bomber Command, I think it was on the raid to Duisburg, not, I can refer to it, it’s in my logbook anyway but it was a big target and there were over a thousand Lancasters on it at night and situation over the target was absolutely petrifying, there were fighters above, searchlights and you had to be careful of searchlights ‘cause once they got you in the searchlight they predicted anti-aircraft fire and you’re a goner. And I remember too many times being caught while I got caught twice on searchlights and but how I got out of it I’ll never know, I’m the luckiest guy, the luckiest crew. But coming back to this particular, I think it was Duisburg, but anyway what happened was this, we went on the raid and at night of course, and the job of the bomb aimer was to check through a peeping hole in the bomb bay just to make sure that all the bombs had left, had been jettisoned. The word was that ‘Skip, I’m sorry to tell you’ but that we got the cookie, that’s a two thousand pound bomb, it was fused and could not be defused. Once it was fused and it had to go. And there were five other five hundred pound bombs in as well. Nearly all night I flew up and down the North Sea trying to get rid of these bombs, they would not go and I think there was a malfunction in the bombing mechanism but no matter what I did I could not shake these bombs off. So I returned close to the squadron and called up control and said ‘I got a problem, can you advise me?’ And the guy said, ‘Oh yes, I’ll call you in five minutes.’ Very casual and some of these controllers in the control tower really used to irritate me because they were so damn cocky about things and I said to one of them on one occasion, ‘It’s alright for you sitting there smoking your cigarette but here I am in trouble and all you got to do is say goodnight.’ But anyway they said after five minutes, ‘You can either put the aircraft on automatic, head it out to sea and parachute over the sea or you can put it on automatic and bail out over the land but make sure that the aircraft sets itself and blows itself up in the sea. Or you can land with it and just be gentle how you land it,’ so I called him back and said, ‘I’m thinking about it’, so I said to the crew, ‘I don’t want to persuade you but I’d rather than bail out either over the sea or over the land, I’d rather put it down.’ And the crew were marvellous, they said, ‘Skip you can do it, you can do it, boy, we all vote for you, we are going with you.’ I was very honoured, sorry, upsets me even today. I don’t know what to think about it, but this is what happened, now it’s dark, pitch black and it was raining a bit anyway I called funnels that was the to let the control know where I was and I came up on the, they didn’t, they wouldn’t light the airstrip, the landing field for me because you weren’t allowed to light up at night oh dear in case there were fighters about but anyway I’ve got very few lights, it was pitch black, raining slightly and I didn’t say anything to the crew but I thought to myself, come on scotty boy you gotta put this one down right. And anyway I came in and I landed it on three wheels and my rear gunner called me up and he said, ‘Skip, that’s the finest landing you have ever made, that’s the finest landing you’ve ever made’ and I was still rolling up the runway. And I’ve got to put the brakes on and then he said, ‘Skip, and furthermore you’ll never in your life make another landing like that. It was fantastic’, now I’m now rolling up the runway and I’m doing about a hundred and thirty knots and I gotta put the brakes down and I’ve got these damn bombs stuck up in the bomb bay. So I, and I warned the crew, I said, ‘When we get to the end of the runway, I want you to open up all the doors and the hatches, jump out and run with me like bloody hell.’ Because I knew that if that bomb fell off, it would blow the squadron to smithereens, because you could not defuse it. I turned off very, very gently into the lay-by and [sighs] It upsets me to think about it, but we were the luckiest crew that ever lived because when, I didn’t open the bomb doors, normally after you’d been on a raid you opened the bomb doors when you finished doing the survey and so we ran away and went and had our bacon and eggs and then had a debriefing. Now, later on, that morning I decided to go to my aircraft to see what the situation was. They’d already got inflatable bags under the bomb bay and under the wings and the idea was that because this bomb was still there, they had to lower it very, very gently otherwise it would blow up. Now an actual fact, I recorded this matter, on ITV about a year ago and a full description I gave of it and it went like I’ve said and now here we were now. The frightening thing was that when I landed the actual bomb, the big one, the cookie, the two thousand pounder, which you couldn’t defuse, was resting on the bomb doors. And if I had done the usual practice of opening the bomb doors it would have fallen out and blown up the squadron. But how lucky can you get? We got away with it. End of story. The, it was never disclosed why that bomb had hung up and the five hundred pounders you see there was a mechanism that the bomb aimer used to drop the bombs and looking back on it, it was never really looked, into, we were all so pleased that the war is over, hallelujah and let’s have a good time, get back and let’s live again but I think there was a malfunction in the mechanism of the bomb aimer because he was a lovely guy and he actually became our good, our best man at our wedding, good old George, am I recording?
JM: Yes.
OS: Yeah, so, I’ll stop there a minute. Our executive officer on the squadron, lovely guy, he used to look after, bringing the bad news to parents and wives and so on, all our losses, lovely guy, called me into the office and he said, ‘Scotty I’ve got some good news for you, you’ve been appointed, you’ve been awarded the DFC’, and I couldn’t believe it, he said, ‘Yes you have’, he said, ‘And furthermore I want you to take the Croix de Guerre.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Well, there is a Croix de Guerre for you as well.’ He said, ‘I want you to take it.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not’, I couldn’t do that. You see, it was the end of the war, celebrations and never again gonna fly a Lancaster, never gonna bomb anything and I said, no, I couldn’t do that. Now, there’s a sequel to this but I anyway, I met him in the mess that night and he says, ‘Scotty, I really wish you would take it’, and I said, no, I couldn’t do it, now I tell you a bit more to that and it went like this, we were briefed and told that this was the last raid the RAF Bomber Command would do, it was the end of the war, then this is going to be the briefing for the last one which was to bomb the submarine pens in Holland. I think it was Holland, I can’t quite remember, but it’s in my logbook. And I was put on with the rest of the crews and now I am hesitating for a second because this was a very, very hairy situation so it was at the briefing it was for a daylight raid on the submarine pens as I say in northern Italy, Holland. And so it’s gonna be daylight, there were a thousand Lancasters on it and it was the last raid of the war. Okay, now then, we get the briefing, take off, I get to within fifty yards of the end of the runway and I lose an engine. It just went dead on me and I don’t forget a Lancaster when it’s fully loaded is thirty eight, repeat, thirty eight tonnes and you got to be very careful, I don’t care what anyone says, I’ve done it, when you fly in a Lancaster you have to be absolutely red hot about everything. Now I’m getting just a little bit emotional about this but it’s something that I can never forget in my lifetime, and I’m telling this true story, now I got off the end of the runway, how I got off the runway with eight tonnes on board of bombs, I’ll never know and I gradually went up into the circuit ready to go to the submarine pens. In view of the fact that it was gonna be the last and it was declared, this is the last raid of the war, in daylight, I said to the crew well I was entitled to go out to sea and discharge my bombload and return to base but like the stupid fool I was in those days, aged twenty two and I thought, for various reasons we’ll go I put it to the crew, they said, ‘Yes, come on skip, you can do it, we’ll do it, it’s the last one of the raids, last one of the war, it’s a daylight, it’s a cinch, it’s a walkover, come on, we’ll do it’, so I went on three engines, it was a stupid thing to do but I’m trying to build the story as to why I should do it but anyway we got near to the target, beautiful sunny day and a Lancaster flew very close to me, just under my port side, and don’t forget I’m flying now with three engines and he waved to me and put his thumbs up and he drifted across and went below me and we are now on the bombing run and my bomb aimer is saying, ‘Left, left, steady, steady, steady, ready, you know, stand by, I’m gonna fire it’ and we are all, ‘Good old skip, here we go, on the last one, we’re gonna drop this one on and stop these bloody submarines from coming out and damaging our ships.’ But to my utter amazement I saw this guy that waved to me go down and a parachute fell out, followed by another one and six parachutes came out and my, one of my gunners said it was a Messerschmitt 109 shot him down, and I was mortified so he hit, they were going down in parachutes, six parachutes opened but the seventh parachute didn’t but I presumed it was the skipper who couldn’t get out and I got my radio opposite, radio operator to phone base straight away and say they’d gone down in the sea and we never heard again what happened but this damn Messerschmitt 109 got him. We dropped our load and we got back safely. Now when it came to the debrief, my crew were very anxious to tell the female intelligence officer who debriefed us what happened, that we lost an engine and I went on three engines, she just marked it down as ‘he returned on three engines’. I was so disappointed because although it was a stupid thing for me to do, it was a celebration but to think that that guy lost his crew because of a 109. End of story. Well, one of the things that happened during the raid was when my - raid over Germany of course - was that my navigator rang me and says, ‘Skip, I’m sorry for Jerry, but we are six minutes early, we’ve gotta lose six minutes because the master bombers have got it wrong somewhere.’ Well, the frightening thing was how on earth am I gonna lose six minutes? so what I had to do was form a three hundred and sixty degree turn in amongst all the other Lancs going in and the perspiration was running off me because I thought, any minute I’m gonna get smashed up with another Lanc, but fortunately and I’m a lucky guy and weren’t we a lucky crew, we got away with it and we continued onto the target but the raids were petrifying, well the raids were terrifying because you know, a Lancaster’s a big aircraft, it was the biggest aircraft in the world at that stage and as I’ve said before, with a full load, you got thirty eight tonnes hurtling through the sky at two hundred and forty five knots and with the searchlights that used to be [unclear], I only went to Berlin once and when you got within striking distance, you’d have thirty searchlights all come on together and light the sky up, and then you see all these aircraft and I can remember on one occasion my bomb aimer saying, ‘Watch out for the sky, on your right, skip, he’s very close’ and he was and the bomber, and the rear gunner couldn’t have told his skipper I was within literally twenty five feet of him and I ducked underneath him and came up on the other side and it was like that and you knew there was fighters flying around but when the searchlights went up, you saw all these things happening and when the master bomber used to call you up and say, ‘This is master bomber one calling the main stream, good evening gentlemen, we are ready to mark the target and we will drop the first flares on the target in four minutes’ and then you see the green lights lighting up on the ground or red and you knew that the target markers were flying at literally at two thousand feet over the target and being shot at and we had the greatest admiration for those guys that used to fly Lancs and four engine oh dear, I’ve forgotten what they’re called, fast aircraft.
JM: Mosquitos?
OS: Say?
JM: Mosquitos?
OS: Mosquitos, yeah. Used to fly and then you get a message that says, ‘This is the master bomber calling you, this is master bomber two’, and you knew that number one had been shot down, it was always very scary but we had the greatest admirations for these guys, you know those who’ve all got VCs because there is so many of the guys that marked the target and never came back. But to, well, we’ll never forgotten any of them.
JM: I believe you were on the Dresden raid, Owen.
OS: Which one?
JM: The Dresden raid of February 1945, the one that attracted all the publicity post-war.
OS: Oh yeah, I was on that one, yes.
JM: How did you feel about that?
OS: What, when we bombed the?
JM: Dresden.
OS: Dresden, yes. Well, I was on the second raid, and they told us this is not, this is a very, very important target and every effort must be made to help make a success of this raid because it’s where we’ve got the Russians coming in from the East, there’s a lot of transportation of German equipment there and it’s gotta be blotted out, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be a hot raid. Now I was on the second raid there were five hundred and fifty nine on my things and when we got, it was a hell of a way to go as well, it took us I think six hours to fly down there at night and we had a few fighters knocking about on the way down. When I get to telling this story, my American accent starts to come out so forgive me if I talk like an American occasionally. But my wonderful navigator Derrick, who was the best on the squadron said to me, ‘No [unclear] skip, I never want to look out of the window’. On this particular night I said, ‘Derrick you come out here and look at this, you will never ever see anything like this at all in your life’. I made him come out and he said, ‘My God, what on earth is going on?’ There was tremendous fires all over the area and there were so many Lancasters knocking about, you had to be careful as well and the crew, particularly the gunners, I said, ‘Keep your eyes peeled fellows you, we’re not gonna know what’s happening here, we’ve gotta get on with this job and we’ve gotta get back’. Now here we go and Derrick, my navigator, he said, ‘I’m so glad you called me out from under the canopy, weve never seen anything like this.’ We did our job but there was a long way to get home and that night we flew for ten hours eighteen minutes on that target. End of story.
JM: Could I ask you Owen, what did you, what do you feel about the way in which Bomber Command was treated by the politicians after the war?
OS: Disgraceful. Disgraceful.
JM: It must have been very difficult as, you probably looked up to Winston Churchill
OS: Oh yeah.
JM: And there he is forgetting to say anything about Bomber Command. That must have hurt.
OS: Oh, it did. We were waiting for it. Didn’t come. And Bomber Harris, well, tell you a story about him, he came up behind us one day, are we on air? We are on the air?
JM: Yes, yes.
OS: Well, I was taking another squadron, taking another crew in a transport this particular day and damn me if Bomber Harris didn’t come up with his flag on his car behind us, was waiting to get past us. When the two crews all gave him the V fingers and called him, you know, Butch Harris, we called him, and was shouting at him, ‘Butch Harris, you’re a butcher, you’re a butcher!’ and I thought, I said, Shut up chaps, you’re gonna get ourselves in a load of a trouble here’, here comes my American accent, I can feel it, and the guy came up alongside us, they were all giving him the V fingers and I knew he was gonna pull us over, but he didn’t, he drove on. And that was an experience.
JM: So you’re saying that Harris was not popular with the aircrews?
OS: Oh yeah, that’s what we used to call him, Butch Harris, Butch Harris. And end of story.
JM: Okay.
OS: I was just going to say that a pal of mine on the squadron, lovely guy but I couldn’t believe that he was married with two children. I never mentioned it to him because I thought it would undermine his confidence but to think of him with, married with two children, he lived in Hull apparently, but he was a good pal of mine on the squadron, we used to play snooker together, we used to go out together, he had some frightening experiences like I did, had a lot in common, and on one particular occasion [laughs], just springs to my mind but, he and I were on leave at the same time and we arrived at three o’clock in the morning in Gainsborough and met by chance and we normally stayed in the local pub overnight waiting for a taxi to take us back to the squadron which was about nine miles away and on this particular night [laughs], it was a freezing cold night, we couldn’t get put up at the pub so believe it or not, but we sat in a telephone box, all night, sitting on our luggage, freezing cold and waiting for the dawn as it were so we’d get a taxi so we get back on squadron and he tapped me on the knee and he says, ‘Scotty’, he said, ‘you are awake, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘I’m freezing’, he says, ‘So am I’, said, ‘But’ he said ‘ I want you to know’, he said, ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ [laughs] and he made me laugh so much but he was that sort of guy and I missed him dearly because I came back on from another leave in the transport that brought me back, they told me the bad news that he never came back and he was a lovely guy. And I’ve never forgotten him. End of story.
JM: How did you feel as the end of your tour approached, were you and the crew nervous about whether you would complete or did you just take it a day at a time?
OS: Well, when we finished you mean?
JM: As you were approaching the end of your tour.
OS: Approaching the end of the tour?
JM: Mh.
OS: I got my logbook there with it all in. We are not on air, are we?
JM: Yes.
OS: We are on air?
JM: Yes.
OS: Ask me the question again.
JM: How did you feel as you approached thirty completed operations? Were you confident that you would finish your tour?
OS: No. I was scared to death ‘cause we got away with it for so long and we only got, shall we say I remember when we got to twenty eight, the crew never mentioned it though we were very tight-lipped about it, scared to death really, oh my God, we got this far, we’re gonna get knocked off tonight and on one occasion we were briefed for a bash, as we used to call it, and this officer came past me and he was in tears, he was absolutely throwing, he was absolutely drenched in tears, looking dead ahead he never saw me. I knew the guy, he was a fellow officer, he never came back that night. It was like that. And so the last two were very scary, very scary indeed and it was still intense activity full volume, you know, when you get a thousand Lancasters all going to the same target, it was absolutely terrifying but you had to keep your gut, you had to keep yourself in tight and you had to not think about it too much and the you used to dread going in the briefing room to see what was the, see what the target was and you know when it came up, you knew the bad ones and, oh my God, we’ve gotta go there tonight and I remember on one occasion, my batman woke me up, he says, ‘Skip, I’m sorry to tell you but you’ve missed the briefing you’re on. They forgot to tell you.’ They forgot to tell me that there was a raid on. And I climbed out of bed and put my flying boots on and eventually my batman took me out to the aircraft, the engines were running and my flight engineer had started the engines, and in the briefing when they called my name, they called my name, ‘Yes, I was available, I was there’ but I wasn’t and I got in the aircraft, the engines were running and I taxied out and took off and I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, someone tell me where we are bloody well going!’ And they said, ‘We are going to—' oh dear, hot target, I’ve forgotten the name of it for the minute, because I was going down the runway and I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, someone tell me where I am going!’ And when they told me, my God, it was some, something, I’m getting a bit worked up talking about it but never forgot it that night and that was somewhat typical of how life was on the squadron.
JM: You were all brave men but did you have any experience of any men for whom it was too much?
OS: Yes.
JM: And they refused to fly? Could you tell us what happened?
OS: Well, I had one good chap that I knew very well, he came to my room one night and said, ‘Scotty, can I talk to you?’ I said, ‘Of course you can.’ Lovely guy. He says, ‘Scotty, I have decided that I can’t go on, I can’t do it.’ And I said, ‘If you have decided that you know what you gotta do.’ He said, yes. I hate the thought of it, Lack of Moral Fibre, as soon as you said you couldn’t go, you were marked straight away, LMF, Lack of Moral Fibre, and it was a disgrace and he eventually, well, you see, if you did that, they posted you from the squadron straight away and they sent you peeling potatoes or something and it was marked on your logbook, Lack of Moral Fibre, couldn’t go through with it. This guy went through with it, I didn’t see him after that, a lovely guy but you see, there weren’t many that had the courage because they hated the idea of the expression Lack of Moral Fibre and that’s why it was put that way to prevent them from doing it and in other words so many thought about and nearly did it and didn’t and carried on and got killed. But that’s how life was on squadron.
JM: When the war was over, did you think about staying with the Royal Air Force or were you very anxious to go back to your civilian life?
OS: I was anxious to go to civilian life and what I did was you could apply to have an extension of six months on your term of office so what I wanted to do really was become a commercial pilot and bearing in mind that I was very fond of the sea because you know I was in the merchant navy as a young boy, fifteen, and with my experience in flying boats, my hopes were that I could get myself a commercial position flying flying boats. So I asked for an extension of six months, I was then transferred to another squadron and there are stories I could tell you about that. So for six months I had time to think about civilian life, I got married et cetera et cetera and I applied to British BOAC British Overseas Airways and then I sent an application form but I wasn’t successful, that’s how it was, but during that time, when I was with, I went to another squadron because my own squadron was disbanded and there’s lots of stories I can tell you about that, but for the moment I think I’ll shut down.
JM: Owen Scott, thank you very much for sharing your wartime experiences with me for this recording, it’s been a privilege to listen to you. Thank you very much indeed.
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 Seymour Owen Scott
Creator
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Julian Maslin
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
2015-09-04
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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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AScottSO150904
Format
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01:15:21 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Seymour Owen Scott (usually refered to as Owen) served as a Lancaster pilot during the war. Mentions always having a passion for flying since he was little boy. Remembers training in Canada and the United States to become a flying boat pilot in Coastal Command and then surprisingly being assigned to Bomber Command. Mentions various service life episodes: converting onto heavy bombers in England; a flight engineer being posted from the squadron for concealing his hearing loss; losing an engine on the last operation on the submarine pens in Holland. Gives a detailed account of a harrowing emergency landing with a hung up bomb. Remembers a frightening experience with a New Zealand instructor while training on Halifaxes. Gives a vivid description of the dangers the Lancaster crews faced during an operation. Mentions a brief encounter with Arthur Harris and a case of Lack of Moral Fibre.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
170 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Catalina
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Master Bomber
military service conditions
pilot
RAF Hemswell
searchlight
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1068/11524/APeelE161018.2.mp3
eacf4f2401a4e09fb664da5db414fdf1
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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Peel, Eric
E Peel
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Eric Peel (b. 1916, 1495430 Royal Air Force). He served as ground personnel during the war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-18
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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Peel, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Eric Peel and the interview is taking place in Mr Peel’s home near Chester on the 18th of October 2016. Eric, could I ask you please to tell us a little bit about your life when you were at school, your family background and so forth.
EP: I went to a school in Liverpool called Granby Street School which was a council school. I left school at fourteen. My family, my father was self-employed. He was a tailor. During his time he ran three shops. I’d, as I say left school at fourteen. My father had paid a sum of money for me to be trained on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. And it was on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange that I worked until — in the meantime the war had been declared. 1939. Which I would have been then seventeen. And I was always interested in aircraft because my grandparents lived not very far from Mildenhall where the England to Australia Air Race started from. And I had been taken there where we could speak to the Meteorological people about the weather which was quite an experience for a boy. And then at Liverpool Speke Airport was founded. And as a twelve year old I can remember walking there to see the opening of Speke Airport when the RAF came in with their flights of Hawker Hinds and all those aircraft. Then of course the war was going on and things were happening in the Cotton Exchange which wouldn’t have happened in peacetime. And one of the partners there was an officer of the Territorial Army and certainly wanted me to join the Liverpool Regiment which was a tank regiment. My father said, ‘Oh no you’re not. You’re not going in tanks.’ And of course I had this interest in aircraft and I was walking through and I saw an advertisement, a recruitment office actually, saying how about joining the RAF. Well that was, oh great. And so I went inside and came out having joined up in the RAF VR — the Voluntary Reserve. And they told me I’d just have to wait until the right time came. And I was actually nineteen when the, I actually got called up in to the RAF. And from there, the day I was called up I was, I went to Padgate and there at Padgate they gave me a number and a uniform. And after a few days off I went to Blackpool. And in Blackpool I had all the injections and those sort of things. But when I first enlisted I thought I was going to be an air gunner. And that’s what I wanted to be. I didn’t. Actually I was glad I was never an air gunner [laughs] but there we are. But I was told that because I wore glasses that I couldn’t be aircrew. And so they said, ‘But you’d do plenty of flying if you became an armourer.’ And so that was what I became. An armourer in the RAF.
JM: Could we just go back a bit because from what you’ve said you must have been growing up in Liverpool during the Liverpool Blitz.
EP: The beginning of the Liverpool Blitz.
JM: Do you have any memories of those Blitz days?
EP: Yes. I can remember as, I can remember I had to do a couple of nights a week on fire watch duty in the office on the Liverpool Exchange. And also I can remember going home and in the back of the shop where we lived there was an air raid shelter. One of the brick built air raid shelters which covered not only our family but members of the other shops around about. And we all went in there and I can hear the bomb, we could hear the bombs going off. I saw the big Customs House in Liverpool burned out and we’d hear shrapnel coming down from the anti-aircraft fire. And most of the damage that I saw in those early days was around the dock area. Although we had a stray bomb in a street not very far from us. It must have been a small one because it completely took out one house out of a row. You see, and that’s —
JM: Were there casualties?
EP: There weren’t in that house. No. But there were many casualties on Merseyside in those first —
JM: Yes.
EP: But I was in the RAF when they had their major raids.
JM: Right. Right. And would you say that those memories of the Liverpool Blitz did they affect your view as to the assistance that you gave to damaging German cities? Was it in your mind?
EP: They probably did at the time but my thoughts have changed a great, great deal since then.
JM: Well, we’ll come to that later on but I’m just interested to know how you felt at the time.
EP: Well, I can’t really recollect how I did. I mean I, I was eager to do my part that everybody else was doing. Which meant that I must have had a feeling against the enemy you see but I don’t really feel that I had any what I’d say bitterness. I thought I was doing what everybody else was doing.
JM: I think that’s quite a common reaction from the gentlemen that I’ve, I’ve met. I do, Yes. Tell us, can you tell us any more about Padgate? This was a major centre wasn’t it?
EP: Yes. No. No. I can’t — Padgate, yes was a major centre. I know I got off the, the train at Warrington. Not Warrington. Padgate Station, the first station out of Warrington and there, there was a lorry waiting because there was a whole group of people like me with a case and all in our civvies you know. I don’t think I’d been out of shorts very long [laughs] But and then we got corralled into the back of this truck you see and we were all taken there. And when we got there we got the first of the sergeant major. Somebody bawling at us to do this, that and the other, you know, and that.
JM: I was going to ask how you adapted to the rigours of service life.
EP: Well, I grew up in just a very, very short time. I’d been very much protected. I had a loving mother and father and very caring. And I think that, well I really I think I was like any schoolboy really that had just starting up in life. I wasn’t used to people swearing. In fact in the RAF was the first, I can remember this quite clearly the first place I ever heard a woman use a swear word. A swear word. You see. And yes within two or three days I was a different person. But we didn’t stay in Padgate many, only two or three days as I can remember it and we were off to Blackpool, you see.
JM: Which was a major centre for RAF training throughout the war.
EP: That’s right. And I went in there and was there not a long time and I was off to Morecambe.
JM: Right.
EP: And in Morecambe I did my square bashing.
JM: Where did you stay when you were in Morecambe?
EP: In digs. A landlady had about four or five of us in her house. And I can remember she, she was a sergeant major [laughs] Kept us in our place and wasn’t going to have us do this that and the other. And we had to be in by a certain time. And —
JM: And what was the food like?
EP: I suppose it must have been acceptable [laughs] I can’t remember much about that you see. But I can remember in the, I was tall, six foot one. That’s what they listed me as and I was always called out in the square bashing as the marker because of my height.
JM: Yes.
EP: My height you see.
JM: Yes.
EP: And then from the right size you know. And they’d go right —
JM: And the marker was the person who stood at one end of a line or one corner —
EP: That’s right.
JM: Of a square.
EP: Yes. That’s right. And so I always got that you know. I wished I hadn’t, you know. It was always nice, particularly a bit later on when I did my armourer’s training.
JM: Did you find the drill easy to learn?
EP: I think so. I mean I always did what I was told and I don’t think I had much difficulty. I wasn’t very athletic and some of the, the tougher stuff I wasn’t very keen on.
JM: I was going to ask you about that. Did you have to do assault courses and —
EP: Not at there.
JM: No.
EP: I did an assault course later on in the RAF which was on the station defence.
JM: Right.
EP: Yeah.
JM: Right.
EP: But that wasn’t in Bomber Command.
JM: Well, let’s, let’s move on then because at the moment you’re at Morecambe and you’re doing what is really basic training I guess.
EP: That’s right. And that was six weeks. I can remember it being six weeks. And in that, you know we did all the drill movements and elementary rifle drill rather than what I think a soldier might have done. And from there then I went to Weeton which was near Blackpool.
JM: Right.
EP: And there I did armourer guns course.
JM: Right. So by that time you’d already been selected for an armourer.
EP: Yes.
JM: Yes.
EP: What I’d signed up for in those early days in Liverpool.
JM: Right.
EP: yeah. And I did the armourer’s gun course.
JM: This is most interesting. Could you tell us please how that course, how that training took place?
EP: Well, it started by a little bit of engineering work in that we were given a piece of metal and tools and we had to make an adjustable spanner. And I mean I’d never done a thing like that in my life. I was only just learning how to use a pen you see and, and we had to make this tool. And I think that took us about a week. And we were instructed in that. And then we came then to actual guns themselves, in taking them to pieces. But we were started with the old Lewis gun.
JM: Right. Yes.
EP: You see, and, and the Lee Enfield rifles. And I can’t remember the name of the, the revolvers and things like that.
JM: Perhaps a Smith and Wesson.
EP: They could, yes, the good names.
JM: Yes.
EP: Smith and Wesson. That’s it.
JM: Yes. Yeah. Yeah .
EP: Yes. Things like that. And taking them to pieces and cleaning them and putting them together again. Looking for faults in them and all that sort of business. We also learned then things like grenade discharges which went on the end of your rifle, you know and all that sort of business. And there you had to get forty percent to pass out. Sixty percent to become a fitter armourer which was one grade up from an ordinary armourer. But that meant that you had to be in training for another ten weeks after that and I didn’t want that so I turned down the opportunity. Which in later life I regretted because that was the only way you get good promotion. You see. But no and I then having done that course I was then posted to 56 OTU. Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge which is in Lincolnshire.
JM: It is.
EP: Yeah. And that was an Operational OTU in Hurricanes. And there I actually worked on the Hurricane aircraft. Loading and reloading both ammunition and the guns you see. And, and having been at Sutton Bridge and then moving about with them a little bit I was sent on a completion course as they called it which was the bombing side of the armourers course where we dealt with bombs and all that goes, that makes up a bomb. And the loading of them in to aircraft and all that sort. And also the, what we called fireworks. The —
JM: Pyrotechnics.
EP: That’s it. That and with things like gun carting and all those things. And I went to Kirkham for that.
JM: Right.
EP: And at Kirkham I was then, I had my first bomber station and that was at 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds.
JM: I wonder, before we go on to that could we just go back to your, your time at Sutton Bridge because I’m interested to know were the Hurricanes and their guns were they easy to maintain? Did you have any regular problems with them?
EP: No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I mean the guns came out regularly because it was an OTU.
JM: Yes.
EP: On operational charge.
JM: Yes.
EP: But so guns were firing every day so they were coming out every day and being cleaned every day. We were getting, we were mounting, the gun mounts were wearing. Of course that brought riggers in and working on that sort of thing. So guns were jumping the mounts and firing through their own wings.
JM: Yeah.
EP: You see and —
JM: I wondered because I associate Sutton Bridge with armament school. I wondered whether the guns were using incendiary rounds for marking and whether they actually affected the barrels of the guns.
EP: They were. Yes. There were incendiary bullets used in them because of — but we, we did fire on drogues.
JM: Right.
EP: And we did have a flight of Lysanders there that towed the drogues.
JM: Right. And I believe they painted the bullets so that when they went in —
EP: The bullets were dipped.
JM: Dipped.
EP: Yeah. They had a tray of paint and they coiled them and just —
JM: Oh I see —
EP: Dipped them in like that but —
JM: I often wondered about that. I imagined armourers painting the tip of each bullet but they just dipped it in.
EP: No. No. No. No. No. They just had a tray with usually red paint as I can remember it.
JM: Yes.
EP: Like that.
JM: Yeah.
EP: And as I say they drove all these up and just home, and you know, like that.
JM: And did you ever discuss it with the pilots there? Did they —
EP: No. No. No.
JM: You never saw them.
EP: No. With the Hurricane, in the Hurricane it was better because they were men who were coming to the end of their training. They were going straight from there to operational squadrons. And also we had the pilots who had been in the Battle of Britain and I actually flew with one that wore a leather mask his face had been so badly damaged. But he was flying again. And I can remember his name was Flight Lieutenant Gray and he, I was working on a, or had just worked on a Hurricane along with, I mean there were lots of us doing it. Don’t think it’s me. It’s a gang of us doing all this. And he just happened, said, ‘Do you want a flight boy?’ And he took me up in a Miles Master Mark 1 which had a Kestrel engine in it. Not the American engine. And that was my first aerial flight.
JM: To fly with a pilot with that background that must have stayed with you.
EP: Yes. And I never saw him again.
JM: Really.
EP: Never saw him again. He just, just, why he just put his hand on my shoulder, you know and I went in the back seat with him. I flew with Tiger Moths again but always in the front seat of a Tiger Moth.
JM: Right. Right. But fascinating. Now, can we go on now to the bombing aspect? Tell us please about the training you received in bombs and munitions.
EP: Well, we were, we first of all we were told the, what the bomb was made up of. I can’t remember now all the chemical names that went into it. And then we were told what exploded the bomb. Where we had the [pause] oh my mind’s gone. The thing that ignites it which was a tube of — well it was rather like a little pillbox and it had a tube and in the tube was the —
JM: Be an acid?
EP: The word would come to me. No. I can’t remember now. But yeah, the fulminated mercury. This was the, the, would be, go inside the bomb. Could either go in the nose or the tail. And we were trained on all that sort of business you see. We didn’t, didn’t actually handle it there. But what we did have was an all brass tool which was exactly the same as this thing that you ignited the bomb with. And every bomb, every bomb you had to put that in first because where they’d been manufactured they’d be greased and they could build up what was like very coarse Vaseline. And this was to protect them. But you had to get that out because if I mean you would get it so as it needed cleaning but if it hadn’t this fulminated mercury would have exploded in there. But if you put pressure on it.
JM: Right.
EP: You see and, and so that had to be done, and they’d, they’d teach, taught us how to do that. Then how to actually load it and then how to fix the tail. And then how that was attached the bomb carrier. The bomb carrier went in to the aircraft. And the only aircraft I ever worked on there was a Hampden. They never had a Wellington or a Lancaster in that course. And there, having trained with all that and a little bit on the pyrotechnics you went out to the squadron. And my first squadron was 103 Elsham Wolds.
JM: And when was it you arrived there?
EP: It must have been the winter of ’42 ’43. Yeah. But I wasn’t at Elsham Wolds very long before 3 flights — there weren’t many squadrons had three flights but 103 Squadron had three flights and we were moved to Kirmington. And Kirmington, when they moved they formed 166 Squadron of — 166 Squadron had been Wellingtons and the Lancasters of 3 Flight of C flight of 103 went there to form 166 Squadron then. And I went with it. But didn’t go with the aircraft. When I got there I was put in the bomb dump. And it was in the bomb dump I spent all my days after that. We’d sneak a go at the aircraft if we could but I mean we were always then — and all this business you see of what I didn’t say about the training we also there did the incendiary bombs.
JM: I was going to ask.
EP: And there, how they were packed and how we would pack them into containers and how they’d go into the bomb carriers as the bombs had done. And so we, we did incendiaries there.
JM: Could you just describe the incendiary bombs?
EP: If I [pause] yes. I would say they were eighteen inches long or something like that. Twelve — eighteen inches long. If my memory’s right they were eight and a half pounds in weight. And I think we had forty in a container.
JM: So they were like gigantic candles.
EP: That’s right. Is that, is that is that about eighteen inches? They were about like that. And like this but they weren’t round. They were — eights. Eights.
JM: Hexagonal.
EP: Is that, is that eight? [laughs] I don’t know. They were like that so one would pack against the other close up, you see, like that. And I think, I might be wrong here but I think there were forty in a container and I know that during my time working with them they were increased to a bigger size and a half. If they were that deep they went up and the container, we got bigger containers. So we were dropping more of them. And I spent a lot, I would say I spent two thirds of my time in bomb dumps on incendiaries. Loading and getting them ready for the aircraft.
JM: How were the incendiaries detonated?
EP: On impact.
JM: Right.
EP: Yeah. Because I have seen them go off where we are but they were also and these were introduced more I think in my time explosive incendiaries which did have an explosion in them but the explosion was ignited by the primitive compact. You see. Like that. That’s as I remember them now. I mean you’re drawing on things I’ve forgotten years ago.
JM: You’re doing well.
EP: Wanted. Wanted to forget as well.
JM: I’m sure.
EP: And, but as I say about, I would think three quarters of my Bomber Command bomb dump work was with the incendiaries. Packing and getting those. And as you said how did they go off? The bomb carriers we had weren’t always in perfect condition and if you turned them over you get one of those open on the floor. But fortunately that coming from eighteen thousand feet is a bit different from coming from five feet you see. Or bits like that. They were, [pause] they — I never knew one to go off having a container like that. I did know one go off to blow a man’s arm off but that was his own fault.
JM: Why do you say that?
EP: Because they were, the explosive part would break and they were, we were sitting out there in the — operations had either finished or weren’t on and there was one of these broken ones and he put the end of his cigarette light and it just went up. And I can remember I hadn’t been there very long. That was at Elsham Wolds. I hadn’t been there very long and it made me feel I had to go outside and be sick, and. Yeah. And like that. So they were very destructive.
JM: You sometimes see photographs of weapons, bombs being taken out to an aircraft and somebody has written something in chalk. Did that actually happen?
EP: Oh yes. Probably done it myself because other people were doing it.
JM: And what sort of things were written on the bomb?
EP: Nasty things. You know. And people would write a sort of from their girlfriends or something like that, you see. This is what you’d get in a, you know, on a —
JM: So there was a sense of revenge.
EP: Oh yes. There was there. Oh yes. That was quite common. I mean as I say the, the big, the thousand pounders and the five hundred pounders I had a, I’d say a third of my bombing was with them. And on those you that’s where you’d get them. Some of them had been written on them where they had been manufactured. I mean they’d come with it on. You see most of it that was done in the squadron was done with chalk. But you would get it done with paint. And that would be some that had come in, you see. And you’d also get messages on the tails done with some sort of pen or something of that sort. You know. But there we are.
JM: So, you, you were at Kirmington with 166.
EP: At Kirmington. Yes.
JM: And tell us a little bit about life at Kirmington. What was your accommodation like and when you were off duty what did you do?
EP: Don’t know. I don’t know. I know we drove out on our bikes if we got a standoff. Go out on our bikes to Grimsby. I can remember going like that. Of course that was another thing, the bike. We had bikes to go from our digs because we weren’t on the airfield. We didn’t live on the airfield. We lived in Nissen huts. Well, I would say quite a mile or so away from the airfield. But you’d go out on your bike and when you went to get your bike again it had been pinched.
JM: So you pinched somebody else’s then.
EP: Well that’s what went on.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EP: That’s what went on.
JM: ‘Cause Lincolnshire had quite a reputation for being a bleak place to serve. Was that your experience?
EP: It was bleak. Oh yes. And it were a place where the east wind and the snow could come down. And I mean they could be very, very hard and very, very cold. Yeah. And I spent quite a long time there. Yes.
JM: And what contact did you have, again with the Lancasters and the crews?
EP: There we didn’t have very much contact at all with the crews. We’d go along to see them taking off and in [pause] I think it would be Kirmington the entrance to the bomb dump, we had a big wooden hut and in there we had a fire and things there. And that’s where if we had a sergeant that’s where he’d spend his time. He’d walk around and see we were doing our stuff or if we were in a muddle he’d come and sort things out. Some of them were very good. Excellent. But we’d have in the, the fusing sheds we’d have, well I can only remember one corporal but a senior LAC would be there you see. And particularly in the fusing the time I spent in fusing you know you always had somebody there to see that you weren’t, you couldn’t be careless.
JM: No. You had to be very strict I imagine.
EP: Yes. We were. Very strict. And the detonators. Not fuses. The detonators. It’s just come to me. That’s right. And, and there they came. That was another job we had in the bomb dump was to examine all these things. They were, when the stocks came in you — that was set at a little building set apart which was for things like the detonators and those sort of things. And those detonators had to be handled very, very carefully. And we had a pair of tweezers but instead of the points going the other way because on the rim of this pill box which was in the detonator you put them in. They were made of brass. You couldn’t have anything that could had a spark in it. And your screwdrivers and everything else were brass. But you would put them in and that’s the way you would hold your detonator. Put it like that and you’d hold the thing, that would be and that’s how you put it into the back of the bomb you see. And then you had your pistol. I don’t know whether — yeah. They had the pistol, and amongst the pistols we had the straightforward ones but we had the time delay and we had the anti-handling pistols. There’s a story of an anti-handling pistol. Shall I tell you that?
JM: We ought to make it clear that a pistol isn’t a gun.
EP: No.
JM: It’s a component of the fuse.
EP: No. The pistol. The pistol is what fires the bomb. And it screws, and can screw in the nose of the bomb although very very seldom. In 1 Group and 3 Group it was nearly always in the back of the bomb. And that screws in the back. You’ve, you’ve put your detonator in. Then you screw that in. Then the tail goes in the end and in the tail there’s a pair of fingers which join up with the fingers which are in the back of the — and the wind, going down spins the firing needle right out. So when it hits the ground it goes forward and that hits the cap on the back of the detonator which fires the, the fulminated mercury which fires the bomb.
JM: That’s very clear. Thank you.
EP: Yeah.
JM: So tell us the story that you were going to.
EP: Yes. Well, you would get what were known as hang-ups and I was called one time by the sergeant, ‘Peel, come with me.’ And there’d been a hang up come back with an anti-handling device on it. So an anti-handling device you’d never touch. It was the only one I ever had any real sort of, real knowledge of. Anyway, we went out to this aircraft where this anti-handling, where this bomb was. A five hundred pounder. And it had been hung up in the aircraft. When the bomb doors opened it fell and it was on the ground you see. The aircraft was moved away from it and he said, ‘Come on. We’ve got to get rid of this,’ and he’d already got a hole, rather like a saucer. Not very big you see. And he said I want you to pack this — ’ and he had a, these days it would be a plastic bag but we had a sack if you like of gun cotton in it. And he had a discharger and a coil of cable. And anyway he’d arranged for this tractor and a trailer and between us we got, the three of us, we got this on the back of the bomb carrier. A bomb carrier. Not a trailer. And took it up to this hole that they had dug which was in the extreme part of the airfield. And we then rolled it off the carrier, rolled it down in to the pit. He sent me to pack it around with this gun cotton. And packed it all around the tail area you see where this anti-handling pistol was. Oh and the bomb and which it was there. And when we packed that around he then came and when he — I’d never done it before. I mean he said he couldn’t do it. He didn’t know how to do it. Nor did I. But he made this, and said, ‘Well, you do it.’ So I did it in the way we’d been told in training. Or as I remembered it being told in training. And he came and gave me the ends of the cable to put on the detonator. And then both of us went back and got down on the ground quite a long, long way from where it was. And he had the discharger and blew the thing up.
JM: I bet it went with a very big bang.
EP: It went with a very big bang [laughs] even though it was a five hundred pounder we could feel a tremble. Yeah. But that was my experience of an anti-handling device.
JM: Fascinating story.
EP: Yeah.
JM: Let’s have a pause there.
[recording paused]
JM: Eric, I must ask you were you ever scared?
EP: Yes. I was scared many times. I don’t think I was scared with the job I was doing. But I can remember laying, lying at night in bed when we’d finished duty and a Lancaster coming over and crashing on some other hut quite near to us. And I can remember being terrified that night. And I remember praying, ‘Oh Lord, get me out of this.’ I really was frightened that night because I could hear the screaming of the people. Not only the aircraft crew but the people in the hut. And if I remember rightly there were women involved as well. But that was nasty. And yes [pause] scared. It’s hard to say. I don’t know whether frightened and scared are the same. I was sometimes frightened of the orders that came and the people that gave them. Frightened that I might be on jankers for something or other. But I think yes I was scared. Many times. We’d get, we’d get incidents happen and I can’t really put my finger on them and say they were. I can tell you something which is in the RAF. Just a little while after this I’m talking about three of us in the bomb dump. We didn’t know at the time but three of us were called in to the armament office which was in headquarters on the station. Told to pack up and go. And we had to. We had to go, and we didn’t know what it meant. And anyway we had to just go back to the billet, get our kit, go to the station headquarters, get our pass and I went to RAF Locking. A hospital in, well Weston Super Mare. As I got to the station I met another one. One of my buddies. He’d been done the same. Going to RAF Hospital Ely. And why I can remember, I wanted to go to Ely because that was near my grandmother’s house in Suffolk you see. But he was there. And he told me that the third one had got, he hadn’t seen the third one had got a similar thing. And he, I don’t think he knew where he’d been sent to. And I went to Locking. When we got there they weren’t very pleased to have us there. It was the hospital and the officer commanding that station wasn’t very happy with us, with people like me being sent which was a rehabilitation. And there I was put in the station armoury who had a virtually retired flight sergeant. Lovely old man. Could well have been my grandfather. And a lady armament assistant. And I went as the armourer there. And on the station they had three sandbagged gun emplacement. And that was all I did for three months. Walked around these three sandbagged emplacements. Looked after this flight sergeant. Half a dozen or maybe more than that sten guns which were on the station. And that was all. And why I did that I don’t know. But while I was there a Stirling carrying a glider had to cast off the glider and the glider smashed in to the ground and it had twenty odd troops on board. Royal Engineers. And they were all killed. And on this Sunday afternoon it was going to the bridge over —
JM: Arnhem.
EP: Arnhem. Going to Arnhem. And on this Sunday afternoon I was called out. They brought all the bodies into Locking. And it was an old store. An old Nissen store and they were all laid out in that. And a RAF regiment had just started and the RAF regiment was, a RAF regiment officer, flight lieutenant. Hotel owner of the Isle of Man was there. And he, he called me and I was in the, in the billet. And he called me and he said that, ‘They’ve got a job for you.’ And he went with me and he’d got somebody, he’d got another sergeant from, I think a medic sergeant. And we had to go through because they were carrying all ammunition of various sorts. Hand grenades, stuff for blowing up bridges and they were Royal Engineers and had to go through all these bodies and there were bits of bodies and bodies with no heads. And I don’t want to go on really but it’s, that’s something that stuck with me all these years. And, but we had to get that before the people who were going to put the bodies in coffins could do it you see because there were all these explosives and they had to come out. And I will say that this flight lieutenant, he was lovely. He was like a father figure. And the sergeant was. And I can’t remember much about him but, but that was one of the worst incidents in my RAF career.
JM: You’ve told it with great sensitivity and respect. If something like that happened today people doing your job would have been offered counselling. Were you offered anything of that sort?
EP: No [laughs] No. And not long afterwards I was sent back to Bomber Command. This, this time to Scampton. And about four days in Scampton and they didn’t know what to do with me and sent me to Hemswell.
JM: Just up the road.
EP: Yes. Well, yes it was the satellite to Scampton in those days. Yeah. And there I was back in the bomb dump again. Yeah.
JM: But it is interesting that you saw such terrible things. And I want to ask you how did you get over that? How did you come to terms with what you’d seen?
EP: I don’t know. I don’t know. Joan would tell you that my first two or three years in the RAF she’d hear me talking and shouting in the night. But I don’t know whether it was that or just the whole of the other but even now occasionally I’ll get a smell. A smell of burnt flesh and that. Because I’d already seen the damage that, seen a tail gunner shot up. And you know the guns going out there. But I did, the few months that I was with 103 Squadron when I first went there I was with the aircraft there you see. With the Lancasters. And you would see, you know a plane like that come in with the tail shot up and a man just slumped there and then have to get him out you know. Then us have to get the guns and clean it all up.
JM: I’ve heard about that. It’s a grim story and you were involved in that.
EP: For the, yeah. And as I say when we, that was in C Flight of 103 Squadron. When we went to Kirmington I was pushed in to the bomb dump. Yes.
JM: Yes.
EP: Yeah.
JM: The other question that I would like to ask you, also a difficult one, did you think much about the effect of the bombs you were preparing on the enemy?
EP: I don’t think I did then. I’ve done many times since. In fact I still do. If, if I’ve got a, probably after this for several nights now I will think. But I, I think in the way, almost the way we almost rejoiced if it was a good raid. If we heard that all our planes returned or I mean we knew the planes of our own squadron stations didn’t return because I mean some of the stations had two and three. I don’t know if they had three squadrons but they’d have two squadrons on them. Yeah. But I don’t, I don’t think we gave it much thought really.
JM: It was a job you had to do.
EP: A job we did. And I mean when Alex told me you were coming all that went through my mind, ‘Well all I can tell this gentleman is that I did as I was told.’ And that I think is what we did really. We did as we were told. Did as we were commanded. Yeah. We met all sorts of people. Very nice people. Very nasty people.
JM: Tell us a bit more about that.
EP: Well, I don’t really know what to say. I mean — anyway.
JM: Would you like to stop for a moment?
EP: Well, yes. If you don’t mind. And then —
[recording paused]
EP: Great chaps that I worked with. The chaps that would help you. There were other chaps that — I don’t, I don’t think it came anybody that would be nasty in that way. I mean we held our own to one another. You’d make very good friends and you did miss them when you were posted to another place. What I haven’t mentioned and I think I ought to mention this, I went on another course as an armourer and I don’t think many armourers ever went on this course. I went on a course preparing to store chemical weapons. And I have on my arm here though it’s very, very pale now the mark of a gas burn which I went to a, on a course where there were about no more than about ten or a dozen of us on this course. In a little place near from Boscombe Down. In between Salisbury and Boscombe Down. I can’t tell you the name of the place. I can’t think I ever wanted to remember it. I don’t think it was anything that stuck because I went on this course and when I got back to the station and that would have been the last station I was on, that would have been on Hemswell we never had any facility for storing chemical weapons. Particularly mustard gas which were just in a, like a biscuit tin. A sealed biscuit tin. And the, to drop them they went in these containers. The same as what the incendiary bomb would go into. Go into that. And just impact on the ground would have burst the biscuit tin open. It was only just light, very light metal. And this was because it was believed that as the war was drawing towards an end the enemy could have used chemical weapons. And it was chlorine and mustard. And on this course which as I say was near, somewhere near Boscombe Down because they took us down to Boscombe Down RAF station which was an experimental station. And we went there and I think we just about sat in the truck all the time we were there waiting for something to happen which never did. But we used to go each day to this place there and have lectures on these bombs and how to handle them in there.
JM: Did you actually see the gas at all?
EP: I, we saw the mustard gas. That’s how I come to have.
JM: Right.
EP: This here. Because they showed us the effects of it and we were each supposed to put this on and then show the whatever the anti-gas was to be able to wipe it up. If in handling them you know you had one burst open and how to protect yourself from them, and we had to wear the actual suits that you had to wear which we’d say were like a plastic raincoat these day. You know, you’d have to wear one of those. But as I say when I went back to the station they didn’t know anything about it although they’d sent me on it.
JM: Yeah. Did you wear respirators when you were working with these?
EP: Not with the mustard gas we didn’t. But we did wear the chlorine but the chlorine were in like you’d see in a hospital with oxygen.
JM: Yes.
EP: Like that.
JM: Yes.
EP: And, but they never, they never released any of that. I mean when we, when we wore gas masks there only in gas mask training and we went through one of these places where you lifted the back up and took a whiff of it and that sort of business. Yes. But —
JM: Quite a frightening experience.
EP: That was all Bomber Command.
JM: Yes.
EP: And that was because, as I say it was thought that it might have to be used.
JM: So you went back to Hemswell where you saw out your war service.
EP: No. I was in, no sooner, I can’t remember VE day in the RAF. I think it was just an ordinary day. But not many days after that I went on two parades where squadrons were being disbanded. The two squadrons on. I think one of them was 150 Squadron. I can’t remember the other one. And they were disbanded. And then I was sent off to [pause] where did they send, was sent to dear? You do out here. Oh they were recruiting, recruiting RAF and WAAFs and I was made an acting sergeant to march these people around. And all I was doing was marching them to the square for the drill sergeants to take over and drill them. And do town patrols when people went out at night you had to — like Redcaps really but we weren’t Redcaps. We were acting. Acting unpaid. And there we did and also there I took WAAFs to Gaskell Street’s baths in Manchester. What’s the name of the place that’s just out here? Footballers buy their houses out there.
Other: Alderley Edge.
EP: No. No. No.
JM: Prestwich.
EP: No. Oh dear.
JM: So tell us please Eric about your demob from the Royal Air Force.
EP: My demob from the Royal Air Force. I went to Cardington. I went to RAF Cardington where the airships had been built and there they gave me a suit and a raincoat and sent me on my way. But I came home and I had my battle, I didn’t have my number one, I had my battle dress on as we were, just went as we were working. Came home. Went straight up to my girlfriend’s house. Came home you see and that was that. And when I look back on it well I made some good friends there but they weren’t friends that kept on. Perhaps that’s me. I, I’m not one for sort of joining old comrade’s associations and things like that. I was always a member of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund. And I think when I got back my job at the Cotton Exchange had closed. All that had gone like the wind. And I did go to the RAF VR place in Liverpool when I got back and they weren’t very helpful. They didn’t really want to know. I think that the top of the matter was that there were too many of us that were just coming out and got no work to go to and were looking for help. And anyway, I just went the once and I felt that I was given the cold shoulder. You know, I said to you know to myself I wasn’t the right rank or all these sort of things you know. But there are times I feel that if I hadn’t had to go through those five and a half years in the RAF, six years, that life would have been somewhat different. I mean I’d have probably have gone straight through the cotton market. But as cotton went out to India perhaps I wouldn’t. You see. But as I look back now it’s given me a lot to think about over the years and a lot to, I think my own conscience. I couldn’t have been a conscientious objector. I know between right and wrong. And I think I would have had to. I don’t regret what I did. No. I don’t regret what I did and I think it helped me grow up. And I think it also made me so as I couldn’t just depend on other people all the time. I had to make decisions myself. And at ninety four I think it’s worked out all right and — yeah.
JM: Do you have any views on the way that Bomber Command was treated politically after the war?
EP: I did do. Oh, I still do now. I mean I, I told you we had our hut at the entrance of the, to the bomb dump. Right beside it we had a stand with a Lancaster in it and I mean I saw that change crews many times. Change aircraft many times where it would be our turn. He was one that didn’t come back. And people who, I mean some would just ignore you. Others would put their hand up to you or, or even shout a word to you and you’d that was perhaps the last word they ever shouted to an airman, you know. To another airman. So, I mean when I think of those sort of people I still do sometimes. Especially as my daughter, and daughter’s father in law is a man who did a couple of tours. You see, so I think of those as the heroes. And this is why when Alex said you know about coming to this. I thought I’ve got nothing to say, you see. They, they to me were the heroes and I mean for those people I shall always have the greatest admiration. I know there were some rogues amongst them but generally speaking, particularly after they’d done their first couple. And I think that, I think when they first came they were a little bit happy you know. You know. Thought it was going to be marvellous until they’d done one. Two. Yeah. But there we are.
JM: I’ve tried to take you through your service career. Are there any incidents or stories that I haven’t touched on that you’d like to record?
EP: I don’t think so. No. I don’t think so. I enjoyed the bit of flying that I had with them. But —
JM: Did you ever get to fly in a Lancaster?
EP: Yes. I did a trip in a Lancaster once. That was, and I worked on that as well. Not with bombs. With food. Err, oh hanna.
JM: Manna.
EP: Manna. Operation Manna. Hemswell didn’t fly from there but we were taken out from there to another, and I can’t remember the name of that station. In that area right close nearby. And we used to go there and bomb up with food. And one or two of us got the opportunity to go with them and we went on that. And —
JM: So you were sitting in the fuselage of a Lancaster —
EP: Sitting there. Sitting on an ammunition box by the wireless operator but was able to go back and stand under the astro and hold on to the, there. I’m sure the pilots did it on purpose to get us so that we’d fall down [laughs] They’d scoot. Yeah.
JM: What did you think of a Lancaster to fly in?
EP: Oh marvellous. Yeah. Marvellous. Yeah. Yeah. I always stand in awe if I see one go across.
JM: Yeah.
EP: You know. Yeah.
JM: Lovely.
EP: Yeah. Wonderful things.
JM: Were you offered the opportunity to go on what were called Cook’s Tours after the war?
EP: No.
JM: To see the bombed cities. I know some ground crews did that.
EP: No.
JM: I wondered whether you’d had that chance.
EP: No. No. I don’t know. Well, I think Hemswell, I don’t think any squadrons ever went back there.
JM: Right.
EP: I know, I mean I told you I was on the two that were disbanded from there.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EP: We did a big parade. A big military parade for that. But I don’t think because the last I heard of it was many years ago and it was a, they had these rockets there. Yeah.
JM: Eric, I think we’re bringing this interview to a close now. I want to thank you for giving me such a very detailed, balanced and very, very important interview. You’ve shown us a lot of the life of armourers and ground crew. Thank you very much indeed.
EP: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Eric Peel
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-18
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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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APeelE161018
Conforms To
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Pending review
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01:08:06 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
Eric Peel worked in the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool before he volunteered for the RAF. He trained as an armourer and was initially posted to 56 Squadron at RAF Sutton Bridge where he worked on Hurricanes. He then was posted to 103 Squadron at Elsham Wolds and accompanied the squadron when it moved to RAF Kirmington. Eric witnessed a number of cases of loss of life including a glider accident and recalled the sight of a Lancaster coming back with the rear gunner slumped in his turret. Eric loaded Lancasters with food for Operation Manna.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
Temporal Coverage
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1945
103 Squadron
166 Squadron
bomb trolley
bombing
bombing up
fear
ground personnel
Hurricane
incendiary device
Lancaster
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Kirmington
RAF Padgate
RAF Sutton Bridge
service vehicle
tractor
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1040/11413/AMullinA161208.2.mp3
2eca126a2d2bb6576780d3a6f5725d4d
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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Mullin, Ann
A Mullin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ann Mullin. Her father, Sergeant George Fredrick Bedwell served as a wireless operator on Lancasters. Additional information on George Fredrick Bedwell is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/101500/">IBCC Losses Database.</a> <br /><br />The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-08
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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Mullin, A
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This is Julian Maslin recording an interview with Mrs Ann Mullin as a second generation interview on the 6th of December 2016 at Ann’s home in Rugeley in Staffordshire. Ann, I wonder if you could start this interview by telling us a little bit about where and when you were born and something about your growing up memories.
AM: I was born in Aldeburgh in Suffolk but I lived at 2 Chapel Road Saxmundham with my nan. I’m stuck now.
JM: You were born in Saxmundham in Suffolk.
AM: I was born in, yeah. I was born in Aldeburgh Hospital but I went back to Saxmundham. 2 Chapel Road with my mum, my granddad and nan and my mother because my dad was already away. Yeah the war was already started and he volunteered. So he went first I think. I’m not sure when he started. It would have been then.
JM: And when you were born please?
AM: 6th of December 1939.
JM: Right. And so your father was in the RAF.
AM: Yes. He volunteered. So I think he, I can’t remember that because I was just born, you know.
JM: Yes.
AM: But I know he was at home when I was about four or five. And I used to walk up the road with him. And they brought me a little chair for a doll and I kept sitting on it. And he took me up to a Common somewhere when we moved to Knodishall not long after that, which is near Saxmundham. And he took me up on the moors and there was a dead rabbit and I climbed up on him and he had to carry me home because I was terrified of it.
JM: So it was a very affectionate relationship.
AM: Oh yeah. I can remember. I can remember him so well. Really, like it was yesterday. It’s weird because I can’t remember other things but I can remember him.
JM: You saw him in his uniform.
AM: Yeah. Oh yes. The photo was with, well I will get that back but the photo was with him in uniform and me with a beret on the top of my head.
JM: Wearing his beret.
AM: Yeah. No. It was mine.
JM: Yours. Oh right.
AM: It was his. He had one of those hats you know that they wear.
JM: Yes. The forage cap.
AM: The pointed ones. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. I remember that. And I’m trying to think what else. We went to meet the bus once and he didn’t turn up so I don’t know if that was when he was missing or a time before because I can’t remember seeing him after that. I just remember a few things you know. And —
JM: So were you, when you were a young woman and perhaps when you married and had a family were you aware of your father’s role in Bomber Command? Or was that something that only came back later on?
AM: No. I knew. My mother talked a lot about it.
JM: She did.
AM: She got married again but that wasn’t very good.
JM: Right.
AM: And I don’t want to talk about that.
JM: No. No.
AM: And she used to tell me he was, he had, you know he volunteered to go because he wanted to go in the RAF. He didn’t want to do anything else. And if they go, call for you you get in any old thing they want you to go in, don’t they? So he went in to the RAF. And my brother was born about, he was born, my dad was killed at New Year. I don’t know if it was the 1st or the 31st. It was in between. That was what it said wasn’t it? And my brother was born on the 23rd of February so it was only a few weeks after. And I remember him being born as well. And I can remember going on the bus to tell Granny Bedwell. That would be my dad’s grandmother. That George was missing and we had to fetch the lady next door. She, Granny Bedwell was in hysterics nearly. So we left there. But yeah I remember all that. And I used to ask, ‘When’s daddy coming home?’ All the time. For years and years. I can remember. And then I said, ‘Oh he’s missing but he’s not gone. He’s alive. He’s in a prisoner of war camp or something,’ you know. Make out I thought he was going to come back but he never did, did he? Yeah.
JM: No. We’ll come to his story in a moment.
AM: Yeah.
JM: But in terms of your life have you actually done any research on what your late father did? How he served?
AM: Well, my brother does a lot doesn’t he? And you know he’s sent me things and that. So I’ve had quite a lot of information.
JM: Yeah.
AM: About all that.
JM: And what can you tell us please about what your father did?
AM: He was in the rear. Rear turret. He was a, I think he was a bomb aimer. No. I don’t think he was a bomb aimer. I think he was a —
JM: Rear gunner.
AM: Rear gunner. Yeah. A rear gunner. Yeah. But he was something else. Navigator I think. That’s what it said in the list that Johnny got. Yeah.
JM: And he was on a Lancaster squadron.
AM: He was on the Lancasters. Yeah.
JM: Do you know which squadron it was?
AM: 9th. 9th Squadron.
JM: 9 Squadron.
AM: Volunteers. Yes.
JM: 9. Yes.
AM: Yeah. I do remember that.
JM: Yes. That was a very important squadron.
AM: Yeah. Johnnie found all that for me. My brother. So —
JM: Yeah. Do you know how many operations your, your late father completed?
AM: No. I don’t know. I mean It was towards the end of the war so, because it ended about six months after that.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: So he must have gone through a lot mustn’t he?
JM: Yes. He must.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Yes. He must.
AM: He went down in Germany. The crash site.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Johnnie knew it. I don’t know where it is.
JM: Yeah.
AM: I’ve never been. I don’t think I could cope with that.
JM: No. No. So you don’t know what happened to the aircraft?
AM: I think it just crashed.
JM: Did it?
AM: They found the crash site. Yeah. Yeah.
JM: So perhaps mechanical failure rather than enemy action.
AM: I don’t know. I’m not sure. I don’t know. I don’t think John knows either.
JM: No. No.
AM: No. I just know it crashed.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Probably shot down.
JM: It’s possible. Of course it is.
AM: Yeah. It could have been, couldn’t it? Yeah.
JM: Of course it is. Yes. And is your late father buried in Germany?
AM: Yes he is. I’ve never been there either. Hanover.
JM: At Hanover. Over Hanover.
AM: Is that where it is? I always get mixed up with Hamburg and Hanover but I think its Hanover.
JM: Hanover. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. I did have a photo of that. I don’t know where that’s gone now.
JM: Well, perhaps we can find that and —
AM: Yeah. Johnnie might have got that one.
JM: And scan that in. Yes.
AM: Johnnie might have got one.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And he’s on the War Memorial in Saxmundham because we went to see that.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So were you involved in creating that war memorial? Or was it simply a—
AM: No. It was happening in Saxmundham. It took them a long while to get it up I think.
JM: Yeah.
AM: His name was on it. And I saw his name in, in — where is it? Oh God. Where we’ve just been? Lincoln.
JM: Yeah.
AM: I saw his name on there.
JM: Right.
AM: That was a bit sad there.
JM: So you went you went to the Spire for the opening and saw his name.
AM: Yes. Yes. We went on the Spire. It was a bit sad sometimes.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Because they had these students and they were pretending to be in a plane. You know. In the air. You’ve probably, did you go to it?
JM: I did see it.
AM: Yeah.
JM: I was there.
AM: And it was a bit scary. It really made me cry.
JM: Yes. It was very —
AM: To think he went through that, you know.
JM: It was very very well produced I thought.
AM: It was really well done but it was sad wasn’t it?
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Yeah. I was upset over that.
JM: Yeah.
AM: So were several people I think.
JM: Do you know whether the squadron got in touch with your mother after your father was lost? Was there any contact?
AM: I don’t know. I’ve never, never thought about that. I knew he was missing but it must have been confirmed at some time but she didn’t tell me. Or I’ve forgotten. I don’t know. Because I kept asking for him but in the end I think I stopped. I must have done.
JM: Yeah. And it was a telegram was it? That notified your mother that he was missing.
AM: I’m not sure because the telegram he sent, the one that I’ve told you I’ve got a picture of which my grandson’s got at the moment that was, that just said he was coming home. And it was, it was 1943 but I can’t remember the number. The month now or anything. But I know he was killed. I’ve always hated New Year and I don’t know why. And then I realised when Johnnie found out that it was at that time. And I didn’t know but I might have known really you know.
JM: Yeah. So this is very interesting that even though you were really a very small person at that time. Really a child and —
AM: Yeah.
JM: The loss of your father had an impact on your life.
AM: It lasted all through it. You know. To think, why. Why? Right at the end of the war more or less.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, it did. It really upset me. My nan worshipped him as well. She always talked about him.
JM: Yeah. I would have thought that possibly the squadron commander might have written to your mother. That often happened.
AM: It probably did. I haven’t seen anything.
JM: No.
AM: But I’ve got, I had a lot of stuff, you know off Johnnie but he might have something about it.
JM: Yes, well —
AM: I don’t know. I can imagine she would. They usually do, don’t they?
JM: They very often did.
AM: But they all knew he was missing because I went with my granddad to tell Granny Bedwell so, yeah.
JM: You wouldn’t know the name of the pilot who was your father’s pilot?
AM: No. I don’t know that. No. No.
JM: Right. Ok.
AM: His parents lived in Kings Lynn and we used to go there as well.
JM: So you grew up after the war coming to terms with the fact that your father had been lost.
AM: Yes.
JM: In action.
AM: Yes. Yes
JM: Is it possible to say what affect that had on your upbringing?
AM: I just, if my stepfather said anything to me I’d say, ‘My dad’s coming back.’ Things like that, you know. I didn’t want him replaced.
JM: Right.
AM: No.
JM: So I need to be clear about this. Your mother remarried. Was that soon after the war?
AM: Oh no. It was. No. I was about ten or eleven I think.
JM: Right.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
AM: It was quite a while after.
JM: Yeah. So your mother remarried.
AM: She knew already anyway.
JM: Right.
AM: You know, from family.
JM: But this, this new father figure coming into the family was something you had some difficulty in —
AM: A lot of difficulty.
JM: A lot of difficulty.
AM: Yes.
JM: And I know you don’t want to talk about that.
AM: No. I don’t want to talk.
JM: And I’m not going to press you.
AM: No. No.
JM: But it’s important for the record.
AM: Yeah. No.
JM: That we understand that.
AM: No. No. I didn’t, didn’t like him at all.
JM: No.
AM: I tried but —
JM: When, as you were going through your life and you were having your own family etcetera there would be, perhaps a film. The Dambusters or something of that sort.
AM: I watched it.
JM: Or something on the radio.
AM: Yes.
JM: How did you feel about that?
AM: I can tell you whenever I went to the pictures and there was, it was a war film I used to have a panic attack.
JM: Go on.
AM: You remember that don’t you? When I’ve said I’ve watched war films and had a panic attack watching them. Yeah. I forgot about that.
JM: So you’re saying that if you saw a film or perhaps a documentary.
AM: When they were all in — yeah. In an aeroplane.
JM: In an aeroplane.
AM: Then I used to get a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe.
JM: And how long would that go on for?
AM: Not long. It used to go off.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Someone told me to deep breathe.
JM: Right.
AM: And you’d get over it, you know. So —
JM: And you were looking to see if there was any evidence of your father.
AM: Well, if anything on the pictures and you know the documentaries that are on.
JM: Yes. Yes.
AM: On National Geographic.
JM: Yes.
AM: And everything. Aren’t they? Oh yeah. I always still look for him.
JM: Yeah. So you’re still looking for him.
AM: I’ve never seen him have I?
JM: No.
AM: I might do one day. He could be on one of them you know. Yeah.
JM: It’s possible.
AM: Yeah.
JM: What about reading? Did you, did you read of, about the bombing war at all?
AM: I read books all the time about the war. I’ve got a pile of them up that corner.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. It’s always about that.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JM: But —
AM: Because I remember, I remember the siren going off and my mother saying, saying to my mother, ‘Wake me up when the siren goes,’ but she never did. But we didn’t get much in Saxmundham anyway. But when we went to Kings Lynn we were always in an air raid shelter.
JM: Yeah.
AM: And there was a man there who showed me this watch. You know an old fashioned one.
JM: Yes.
AM: Yeah. And he used to sit and show me that. So, I remember the air raids a lot.
JM: Yes, because the East Anglian coast was quite a vulnerable place.
AM: Yes, it was.
JM: Wasn’t it?
AM: Well, we weren’t quite on the coast but they used to bomb the railway where we lived in, in Saxmundham. Always bomb holes all over that field. And then we had German prisoners after the war. Well, I think it must have been in the war. It wouldn’t have been after would it? All in a big pit digging. I don’t know what they were doing but we used to talk to them. One had a dog and it was the equivalent of snowy. And my mother went mad because we’d been talking to them. But they were young kids. They were young.
JM: So there was no resentment.
AM: No.
JM: Even though your father had been killed.
AM: We didn’t have resentment to the Germans. No. No. Not really. Didn’t like Hitler. I hate him. I still hate him. Yeah. But these they were young kids. They, some of them spoke English. But I never went to see them again.
JM: No.
AM: Because she told me off that much. You can understand can’t you? Yeah.
JM: And when you’d done the reading and and watching the programmes has that in any way — has that affected your view of what Bomber Command was doing because as you said earlier —
AM: Not really. No.
JM: They weren’t very popular.
AM: No. They weren’t.
JM: But how did you feel about it?
AM: Oh I thought they should be popular and it’s come around now. They’ve got, I wanted them to have some sort of memory and they did in the end didn’t they?
JM: Yes. Yes. The Bomber Command clasp.
AM: Because he didn’t even want to talk about it, Churchill. He just didn’t, didn’t notice them did he? Sort of thing.
JM: He forgot them.
AM: He forgot them. Yeah. That’s it. But somebody obviously didn’t because he’s, they’re all back on now.
JM: Yes.
AM: Which is good.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JM: And you’ve never been to Germany at all.
AM: I lived there for a year. Two years. No. About a year. No I was there for two years. I had my daughter out there because I was married to a soldier.
JM: Right.
AM: Yeah. We’re divorced now.
JM: Yeah.
AM: You know. That was a long while ago.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. I had my daughter out there. My other daughter.
JM: And what was it like? Living in this country which was associated with the loss of your father.
AM: We lodged for about four weeks before we got our own place but the woman was lovely who we were lodging with. But the husband, he never spoke to us at all. And all he did was watch war films. He was in his lounge. We were never allowed in there. We just stayed in our room and the kitchen and the bathroom and that. Never went in there. He used to sit on his own watching war films.
JM: Gosh. What — may I ask what —
AM: He never spoke to us once.
JM: What years were this please?
AM: In the 60’s.
JM: In the 1960’s.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I got married in ’62 and we went to Singapore and then after we’d been in Singapore for a year that was the time Kennedy died. And then we went to Germany and I was there about two years. Julie was two when we came back.
JM: Right.
AM: And Andrew was about three.
JM: Do you remember the base that you were on?
AM: Oh. Hang on. I’m trying to think. I can’t.
JM: No.
AM: I don’t remember very well. I do know where it is. It was oh dear. Hang on. [unclear ] the town [unclear]
JM: Right.
AM: And I think we were there.
JM: I just wondered.
AM: I can’t remember what it was called.
JM: Because some of those bases weren’t far from Hanover. And I wondered if —
AM: I think it was away from there.
JM: It was.
AM: I had Julie in Munster.
JM: Right.
AM: Which was the nearest hospital and that was about two hours away.
JM: Right.
AM: So, no. I’m trying to think. It was [unclear] the town we were in. But I can’t remember the name.
JM: No.
AM: I know, I remember the one in Singapore but I can’t remember that one.
JM: That’s quite ok I was just wondering whether when you had been living in that part of West Germany whether there had ever been any opportunity or feelings to go to see where your —
AM: No.
JM: Where your father was lost.
AM: I didn’t want to go and look at the grave at the time but I wish I had now. We were thinking about it but you know I was having a baby at the time and she was only a baby so, and then we came home anyway.
JM: So you had to —
AM: I would have liked to have gone. I would.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Would it be fair to say that had you found his grave you would have then had to accept that your father was lost?
AM: Yeah. There wouldn’t have been any hope then would there? There wouldn’t have been any hope.
JM: So hope would have gone.
AM: And then I’d just have said it’s probably not him in there you see. Yeah. I still don’t want to accept it. I mean he’d be dead anyway probably now. Although a lot of the veterans aren’t, are they? They’re still around.
JM: Yeah. Have you ever been involved in any of the veteran’s organisations or had any help from any? Such as the Royal Air Force Association or SSAFA.
AM: No. Not really.
JM: Never. Ever asked for any support?
AM: SSAFA. We had SSAFA. The SSAFA was, everyone had SSAFA. We had SSAFA in Singapore. I can’t remember whether we did in Germany. But SSAFA was there.
JM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. But I was too young then I think to do anything like that.
JM: Yeah.
AM: You know. It’s affected me more as I’ve got older and I don’t know why. I mean when I was tiny obviously I was upset but it’s just I still look for him. Like Emma said, you know.
JM: Perhaps it was because you were busy looking after a family and work.
AM: Well, yeah that’s it. You haven’t got time to think about things have you? No. Yeah, I think so.
JM: Do you think this interview will help you?
AM: I think so.
JM: To make sense of it.
AM: Yes. Yes.
JM: Because you’ll know that you’re speaking to a family of people with similar experiences.
AM: That’s it. Yeah. That’s it.
JM: And speaking to the future.
AM: I expect there’s a lot like me are there?
JM: There will be.
AM: Yeah.
JM: There will be.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Yes.
AM: So, yeah.
JM: Yeah.
AM: I think so. I wanted you to come anyway. I kept on about it. Yeah.
JM: You did. You did. And I’m sorry I couldn’t get here any earlier.
AM: That’s alright. I know. I realise when you said.
JM: Circumstances. Yeah.
AM: Some of them are really old aren’t they? So —
JM: Well, we’re losing veterans every month.
AM: All the time. Yeah.
JM: Men in their nineties.
AM: Yeah.
JM: And as —
AM: They’ve done well though haven’t they?
JM: They have. They’ve done very well. And those who are mentally sharp are marvellous men. Unfortunately many of them aren’t mentally sharp.
AM: No.
JM: But their families know the stories.
AM: Their families know. Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Right. I’m going to stop there just for a moment.
[recording paused]
JM: Let me just. Now, there’s a topic that I’d like to raise with you if I may Ann and that concerns your views on the damage that was done to Germany in the bombing war. Have you got any feelings which you’d like to share with us?
AM: They were just people like us, weren’t they? They didn’t want Hitler towards the end did they? No. I think it’s horrible. I don’t, I don’t like that at all. There’s children there and old people and you know. No. I don’t like that. But we had it didn’t we? They did it to us so it was just tit for tat really but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t want to, I don’t know, think too much about it because loads I mean they were probably worse off than us.
JM: I’m sure they were in many ways.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yeah.
AM: Because they didn’t have any decent government had they?
JM: No. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Do you remember your mother ever saying anything about that because after all that had taken — ?
AM: No. I can’t remember her ever saying anything. She didn’t like Germans though. I know because the reaction I got when we were talking to those army men.
JM: Yeah.
AM: You know. The prisoners of war. No. She didn’t like them. But I don’t think she’d want them all to be bombed. Although we were as well. No.
JM: Have you ever been over to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby? Have you seen the Lancaster there?
AM: We went — where did we go?
[recording paused]
AM: We went —
JM: So you were saying that you haven’t been to Coningsby but you may have been somewhere else.
AM: We went to Duxford.
JM: Right.
AM: And we were looking at the, we went straight to the Lancaster obviously. And there was a nice man there and he said, ‘You can come up if you want and have a look,’ and he got me in. But then I thought oh he must have had awful claustrophobia when he was in there. There’s not room to move is there?
JM: No.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. I did go in it. I loved that.
JM: Did it make you feel closer to your father?
AM: Yes. It did. Yeah. But then I thought, well he must, it must have been horrible for him in there. He obviously didn’t mind. Yeah.
JM: And when the aeroplane went down were all the crew killed? Do you know?
AM: I think so. I think —
JM: Yeah.
AM: It was complete. Johnnie knows more about that than I do.
JM: Yes. Right. Ok. Well —
AM: Yeah.
JM: When I meet your brother that information will come out. Yeah.
AM: Definitely.
JM: Is there anything else that you’d like to tell us? You know. Feelings or reactions that we’ve not touched on this afternoon.
AM: Not really. No. No. I don’t think so.
JM: I hope you found it useful.
AM: Yes.
JM: It’s certainly been very interesting.
AM: Yes. Yes. Even though I keep losing my words now and again.
JM: That’s fine. You’ve done very well, Ann. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. That’s wonderful.
AM: Oh great.
JM: Thank you, Ann.
[pause]
JM: This is an additional piece of information that Ann wants to give us relating to her late father’s service in the war. Ann —
AM: So what you do you want me to —
JM: About the barrage balloons.
AM: Oh yeah. My mother wanted him, he wanted oh God he volunteered to go in the RAF as you know. And then my mother told me afterward that she’d stopped — she said she didn’t want him to go to Canada. And he didn’t go. And then he got killed so she always blamed herself for it. It wasn’t her fault was it?
JM: So he might have been going to train as a navigator.
AM: Yeah. As a navigator. I know he did rear gunning but I thought he was a navigator. But obviously if he couldn’t we got that wrong. But I must have heard it somewhere so I think probably my mother said he was going. You know, that’s what he was going to be trained to do.
JM: Right. Right.
AM: And if he had have done he would have been there a while wouldn’t he?
JM: And you were telling us that he’d worked on a barrage balloon.
AM: Yes. At the beginning. I think it was my Auntie Nancy that told me about the barrage balloons. I hadn’t heard about that. But they were in Kings Lynn. There were loads of them. I can remember them when I was tiny because we used to go to Kings Lynn a lot because his mum and dad lived there. Yeah.
JM: So it’s quite likely that your late father was —
AM: He started off. Yeah.
JM: Started off on barrage balloons.
AM: He did start off on barrage balloons. Yes.
JM: And then was trained for aircrew. Possibly for navigation.
AM: He got more money as well.
JM: Oh yeah. He would have done.
AM: That’s why.
JM: Yes.
AM: Yeah.
JM: And then if his training for navigation didn’t work for some reason then he becomes a —
AM: A rear gunner.
JM: A rear gunner.
AM: Yes.
JM: And I was telling you that 9 Squadron is one of the most respected and admired squadrons in Bomber Command.
AM: Yes. I like that.
JM: Yeah. Based at Bardney, near Lincoln.
AM: Yeah.
JM: And flew Lancasters. And was a part of some of the most important bombing raids in the last year of the war.
AM: That’s right.
JM: Including the raids against the German battleship Tirpitz.
AM: Yes.
JM: So it’s possible —
AM: Find out about that.
JM: It’s possible that your father was involved in that.
AM: Yes.
JM: So we’ll look that up.
AM: Yeah. That’s great.
JM: Thank you Ann. So I’ll just —
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 Ann Mullin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-08
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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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AMullinA161208
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:22:45 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Second generation
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Ann Mullin’s father, Sergeant George Fredrick Bedwell was killed in action. She found it difficult to come to terms with the loss. She found it impossible to visit his grave although she lived in Germany after the war.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-01
9 Squadron
aircrew
childhood in wartime
killed in action
memorial
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1039/11411/AMulhallJE160823.1.mp3
673bbe19930c11fe8fca198bcc140a3e
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
Mulhall, James
James Edward Mulhall
J E Mulhall
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with James Mulhall (b. 1924, 224223 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 75 Squadron before becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-23
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.
Identifier
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Mulhall, JE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM1: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is James Mulhall. The interview is taking place at Mr Mulhall’s home in Heaton Chapel, Stockport on the 25th of August 2016. Jim, could you tell us a little bit about your life before you joined the RAF and what it was that motivated you to enlist?
JM2: The main thing I should imagine, I was born in Gorton, at 151 Hyde Road, which was my grandmother’s house and subsequent schooling was at Catholic schools, the last one being St Roberts in Longsight. I, er, was tending towards mechanical things at a fairly early age but I was apprenticed as a plumber to a man called Frank Butler for some years before the Blitz became something of a nuisance in Manchester. So, it was while I was in — my sister and mother used to nip down to the Anderson shelter in the garden but I was too lazy to do this and used to stay in bed, until a bomb dropped nearby which decapitated a man in the next street and forced me under the bed, and I didn’t like this idea at all, so I decided when the time was ripe I’d join the Air Force and get a little bit of my own back. So, er, this is how it transpired I became an Air Force [slight cough] member. The — I was inaugurated at Dover Street in Manchester, went to Padgate for initial training, was sent to Skegness for the usual square bashing and then on from there to St Athan to train as a mechanic, and from there back to Henlow to assemble hurricanes as a mechanic. They came over from Canada in boxes and we put them together, put the wings on and flew them off to squadrons. From there on I decided — well, I was able to go into aircrew and I went back to St Athan to train as a flight engineer and that began the system that we’re talking about now.
JM1: Thank you and what year was that please?
JM2: 1942. In November I joined up and I left in February 1946.
JM1: Right. From St Athan did you go straight to an Operational Training Unit?
JM2: We went to, er, RAF Stradishall to con on Stirlings because I was trained on Stirlings. Spent thirteen weeks, believe it or not, in learning every nook and cranny of this aircraft which was a horrible, awful airplane from my point of view, all electrical and a real nuisance to get about because of this. It had four radial engines, twin row, fourteen cylinder, sleeve-valve, air-cooled engines which are a nightmare to maintain. However, while, whilst doing Con Unit we got the opportunity or were offered to change to Lancasters which we did to a place called Feltwell. And while everybody else’s job was the same, mine was totally different. I had four liquid cooled, twelve cylinder, in line engines to cope with as well as completely diff— different systems of doughty and pressure volumes for the various systems in the aircraft. I got a fortnight to do this and I didn’t enjoy it at all I must admit so presumably I learnt as I went along in Con Unit more or less and got away with it fortunately.
JM1: When you were operating Lancasters did you work closely with the ground engineers?
JM2: That was my job entirely [emphasis]. The rest of the crew weren’t interested in the aeroplane as a mechanical object. All they were interested in really was in flying in it. But my liaison with the ground crew was uppermost in this system because I had to go to every morning, well at least after every operation, after I had a sleep to go and run the engines and get the aircraft ready for flight either that afternoon or evening and sign the 700, which I might point out was always the pilot’s duty in the years before, but when it came to four-engine aircraft and the flight engineer being trained to look after these systems he [emphasis] had to sign the 700, which for a nineteen-year-old was quite a, a thing to do because it hands the aircraft over to me, away from the ground crew. They then relinquish all [slight cough] responsibility for it so, yes, I had a great deal to do with the ground crew.
JM1: And when you were posted to 75 Squadron — I’ll go back a bit. When you crewed up with your crew how was that done please?
JM2: [laugh] In the most ambiguous way you can imagine. The crew had been working together as a crew, six members, flying Wimpys, Vickers Wellingtons, and so were well acquainted with one another over a period of two or three months I would imagine. Then one evening, when we’d passed out as engineers, they assembled all these crews that they intended to crew up with the engineers into the theatre at St Athan, which was quite a massive affair, and when they were all seated nattering to themselves us crews were ushered in and said, ‘Go and find yourself a crew.’ [laugh] We were flabbergasted there’s no doubt about it. Literally we were faced with all these pancake faces who we didn’t know from Adam and had to sort ourselves out and I finished up by going up to one chap I fancied the look of and I said, ‘Do you fancy me as an engineer?’ And he turned out to be Hugh Rees and he said, ‘Certainly. What’s your name?’ I said, ‘James Mul—’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Oh.’ I said, ‘Jim’. He said, ‘Well, I’m Hugh, this is Westie and this is Rees [?].’ And that’s how we went from there on in and it worked.
JM1: That’s remarkable isn’t it?
JM2: It surprised me I must admit.
JM1: It must have been difficult for you in that, in that atmosphere. It must have been very stressful.
JM2: I was very much the new boy with the cloak of fear, as you might say, surrounding the whole thing, yeah.
JM1: And were you then posted to 75 Squadron?
JM2: No. We had to con from there on in. We went to Stradashall to start flying Stirlings. All of us being strangers to that aeroplane and it was whilst we were there that the offer came. Well, more or less it came nearly as an order to tra— because of the losses in Bomber Command on Lancasters, which had a, a height minimum of five foot six before and I was five foot five and a half and others were small, as small as me, particularly the gunners, and, er, from there on in we transferred to Lancasters at a place called Feltwell and, as I’ve already said, that was the initial inauguration with the aeroplane and we had to come to terms with it from there on in.
JM1: But the posting to the squadron was something that you didn’t have any choice about. You, you were posted to 75?
JM2: No. We didn’t have any choice from that, no. We were posted as a crew to 75 Squadron.
JM1: And of course 75 was unusual because it was a New Zealand Squadron.
JM2: It was but there was a pretty scarcity of New Zealanders on the base, whether from losses or otherwise, I wouldn’t know. We had one New Zealander, New Zealander in our crew, and that was Westie, the bomb aimer. Westie his name was. A pretty ferocious character in his way and he wouldn’t mind me saying this but, er, he was always looking for trouble [laugh]. I never got on with him really because as he was on Stirlings he was second pilot on the Stirling where I was posted way, halfway, down the fuselage with all my gear as the flight engineer, but when we conned on Lancasters I [emphasis] became the second pilot and, unfortunately, Westie was dismissed into the bomb pit and he never got over this, so if he could drop me in the fertiliser he would do [laugh] and on some occasions did.
JM1: In what way?
JM2: Well, we came home one night and it was nearly dark and I was always last out the aeroplane. I had a lot of breakers and stuff to do and gather things up and I was always last out the aeroplane. As everybody else got out as quickly as they could, you know, to breathe the fresh air from the confines of the aeroplane and, er, when I came to get out of the rear door there’s no ladder. There used to be a little short ladder there and it’s about five, six foot to the ground and I said, ‘Where’s the ladder? Well, I don’t know. It must have fell out.’ Colloquial language to that effect and I didn’t get any reply from the darkness and I thought, ‘Somebody’s playing up or what. Come on.’ Anyway, I thought, ‘Oh, never mind.’ And I threw my bag out to one side so I wouldn’t drop on it when I jumped out. Decided to make the jump in the darkness, completely black, and I did so and landed in the largest puddle you’d ever seen in your life, to roars of laughter from everybody roundabout. So that’s one of the instances where Westie set me up and there were others of course along the way.
JM1: Did you get your own back?
JM2: Eventually. Unhappily [laugh] but anyway that’s another story.
JM1: OK. So once you were posted to 75 Squadron. That was at Mepal?
JM2: Meth— Mepal.
JM1: Mepal. Mepal. Could you tell us what it was like serving at Mepal in Cambridgeshire? What sort of a, a base was it?
JM2: It was a bit rough and ready. It’s, er, it was a satellite drome. Witchford was next door and Waterbeach was about ten or fifteen miles away. It was the parent aerodrome at that time. It was a bit uncomfortable in its way. The food was alright but the Nissan huts we were put, billeted in had no heating. We had a little potbellied stove which we used to steal coke to try and get warm and we used to steal it from the cookhouse, which we weren’t very popular with, er, but warmth was always at a premium on the base particularly in the later months, October and November, but the villagers were very good and fortunately I struck up an acquaintance with one of a girls in the village, so that made life a lot more pleasant [laugh] at 75.
JM1: Was it one crew per Nissan hut or more than one crew per Nissan hut?
JM2: We had two and sometimes spare bodies but there was no more than two full crews in a Nissan hut.
JM1: And did you ever have occasions where you had returned but the other crew were lost?
JM2: Unfortunately, yes, on many occasions when they came round, the SPs, Special Police, came round bundling up the kit into bags and emptying the lockers, and we knew then that, er, not only were they missing but they weren’t expected to come back.
JM1: How did you cope with that as a crew and as an individual?
JM2: We were all very young, you see, and you, you tend to adapt. I was only nineteen and I don’t think anybody was older than about twenty-two or twenty-three. In fact, the skipper was a month younger than I was. Fancy being in command of a Lancaster at nineteen years of age. Hugh Rees was his name. In fact, my son-in-law is in contact with his son at this particular time, yeah. So, er, you cope with it. Its empty tables around the mess for, for meals. Empty seats was another thing you learnt to cope with, so — but as I say being young you just adapted. You were thankful to survive.
JM1: Can we turn now to your operations? Could you tell us a bit about your first operation? How you felt and what happened?
JM2: [slight laugh] It was, er, a daylight raid to the U-Boat pens at St Nazaire and as we were under radar, flying at under two thousand feet, and only climbing to the operational height of ten thousand as we approached the target. As we were the third wave in we were startled to see the sky literally black with ak-ak puff smokes and as a green crew this, er, didn’t look very pleasant to us at all but we were to learn of course that these weren’t the things which we were to worry about. It was the ones that we didn’t see that we had to worry about. However, we got through the, the business of dropping the load on the U-Boat pens, notwithstanding seeing a flamer on the left and a flamer on the right, going down both the port and starboard sides, which wasn’t encouraging. However, we got through it and the frightening period [unclear]. We were never ever that frightened again, I don’t think, in targets unless we were coned over search— over on the run in to Rüsselsheim we were coned by searchlights and that was a pretty scary time because we were blinded by the searchlights. We couldn’t see a thing, ducking and weaving and we managed to outfly them with little damage. That was another scary raid but most of them were just enduring the cold and getting through the operation as safely as possible.
JM1: So, when you came back from that first trip to St Nazaire, how long did you have before you had your second operation?
JM2: Oh, I can’t remember that. I think it was about three or four days. The battle order used to be posted up on the, on the mess door, and that was always the thing we looked at first when we got up in the morning before breakfast. Check the battle order, see if you were on it and, er, that’s four or five days I think. Let us settle down before they flung us in again.
JM1: If you, if you were flying that night, if you were on operations, your day would start quite early as the flight engineer presumably, helping getting everything ready?
JM2: Yeah, yeah. Even if I weren’t on battle order I’d still be going up to flights to check the aircraft and see if anything needed rectifying in, in the meantime even if we weren’t. I can only remember two occasions when we weren’t on the battle order, to be quite candid. So, er, we pulled our weight I think.
JM1: I’m sure you did. How many of your operations were daylight operations?
JM2: Oh, I can’t remember that now.
JM1: Roughly.
JM2: I’d say about ten. Nine or ten operations were in daylight, yeah.
JM1: And when you first started to operate at night did that give you as an engineer extra problems in terms of reading the gauges and controlling the engines and the fuel?
JM2: Well, I had to make a log out every twenty minutes and so I had to use a shaded torch to do this. I might have taken my gloves off incidentally which was a dangerous practice. We all had three sets off gloves, silk, cotton and leather and these we kept on all the time until I had to make log out when I had to take the gauntlet and the, er, cotton gloves off so that I could write my log out easily with a pencil and the shaded light. But there was a danger in this, in-as-much-as, the outside temperature of the aircraft round about twenty-two thousand, twenty-four thousand feet was often minus forty degrees, and this meant that the skin of the aircraft and metal things inside it was a similar thing, and if you happened to not use our gloves — and Tee Emm used to report this often enough — and reach for the tank cocks in a rush realising you should have changed cocks before. If you got hold of those with your bare hands that’s where you stayed because the sweat on your hands froze, your fingers, to any metal you touched near the skin of the aircraft. So, I was always careful to keep my gloves on obvious. But some engineers wouldn’t write with cotton gloves on and there were a number of occasions when this happened and was reported in the aircrew magazine of Tee Emm, pointing out the dangers of not doing this.
JM1: So, Tee Emm was an official document or an unofficial?
JM2: It was an official document, a magazine, circulated to aircrew. [laugh] The editor being Pilot Officer Prune who was always subject to these kind of things, yeah.
JM1: And for the record I think it was TEE EMM, wasn’t it? TEE EMM.
JM2: Yes, TEE EMM.
JM1: Thank you. And, in order to do your duties when the aircraft was flying, you wouldn’t be keeping still, you’d be walking up and down the side of the cockpit to the various controls?
JM2: I had a little collapsible seat, which I used I could, but most of the time because I had to reach behind for tank cocks and checking gauges the engineer’s panel was behind the seat on the star— on the starboard side of the aircraft. So it was a nuisance to keep getting up out of the seat. I used to stand most of the time and just lean down with my shaded torch, and flash it slightly, and the luminosity from the gauges would tell me what was going on.
JM1: Did you have any occasions where your aircraft had to return because of mechanical problems so you didn’t complete a sortie?
JM2: No. But we had one occasion I once lost an engine entirely in a Stirling but that’s a different story. The — I once had a CSU go geodetic, which meant that I couldn’t change the pitch, the revs, of the engine concerned, which was the starboard outer, and I reported this. We would take-off roughly at three thousand thousand RPM plus four boost, and we can maintain that for up to nine minutes, but then we have to reduce the revs to take the wear out of the engine, and this was my job to reduce it to climbing power once we’d reached the required height, but I couldn’t shut down the rev counter. I said, ‘This is going to make the engine overtired in its way and become a danger to the aeroplane and I suggest that we return.’ So the pilot said, ‘What can you do about this?’ And I said, ‘Nothing really. I can’t. It’s gone geodetic at the engine end and I can’t pull the lever back so I can’t reduce the revs.’ I said, ‘All I can do is try to keep it cool with a little bit of boost now and then and just hope it doesn’t exceed the limits of heat that it can stand. Because if it does it will cease and the prop will fly off and it will probably come in our direction if this occurs. It might even shake itself out of the bearings. I don’t know. I’ve never had a ceased up engine. I’ve never had a runaway before.’ So he said, ‘Well do the best you can. We’ll press on.’ I thought, ‘This was a rash decision in my opinion but there’s nothing I can do. He’s the captain of the aircraft.’ Fortunately, within half an hour we had an abort. The raid was called off, so we were able to run back to the aerodrome with an emergency and land with the aircraft running at full revs. That engine run for an hour and half at full revs and never missed a beat. Congratulations Rolls Royce. It was changed of course but, er, incredible really for an engine of that size.
JM1: Jim, Jim could I ask you to explain what you mean the word “boost” for those listening?
JM2: Oh, this is a question of pumping more fuel into the cylinders to improve the volume metric efficiency of the engine at that time. Plus four gives us the best we can do. Plus two is what we usually fly at. Our normal air speed is a hundred and eighty, hundred and ninety knots and it depends on height really how much you can boost but plus two is normal at two thousand two hundred revs.
JM1: Your memory, your memory for operating the Lancaster is remarkable.
JM2: Sometimes, in the dark hours [slight laugh], it seems like yesterday.
JM1: Jim, could you tell us a little bit about the atmosphere in the aeroplane when you were operating at night over Germany or enemy occupied Europe. What was it like there?
JM2: Its — you have to remember that there’s literally hundreds of aircraft converging on one target and the risk of collision at night is very, very high and this is one of the things that I think we feared most. In fact, on one occasion, we had on the bomb run, we had six incendiaries from another aeroplane hit our aeroplane because they were above us at a height they shouldn’t have been at, presumably to escape the — most of the flak, which was at operational height, and those incendiaries only failed to ignite because the pins were frozen in. They have a — it’s, about two foot long but hexagonal in shape and the igniter pin sticks out at the side but they’re held in by straps when they’re carried in the canisters that were in the aeroplane, but when they‘re released this little pin springs out so that when they hit the ground the detonator will go off and the magnesium will flare, but because they were frozen in they didn’t ignite when they hit our aircraft. So that was — we, I fished one out from underneath the navigator’s table. One of them knocked my engineer’s pile [?] down on the starboard side and one finished up on the platform of the mid upper gunner’s position. None of them ignited but three others were found by the ground crew piercing each wing and where the tail — the rudder stands up and the tail plane is horizontal — right in that nick there was another incendiary buried in that nick. Why, why the rudder didn’t come off I don’t know [laugh] but that, that was a case of being very close to another aeroplane at night. It was a fear most of us carried I think, collision at night. In fact, er, there’s one instance of we actually saw another plane below us because of the fires on the target. What he was doing down there I don’t know but he was below us. Fortunately he was to one side. But we could see him he was silhouetted against the flare of the fires and we were on the bomb run. What he was doing there I don’t know. I hope he got away with it. Most of it was radio silence because you had to keep intercom clear for emergencies.
JM1: I was just going to ask about that and how did you address one another? Was it pilot to flight engineer or was it first names?
JM2: No, it was always by the designation: pilot, engineer, bomb aimer, mid upper, wireless op, whatever, to make it clear who you were talking to and who was talking to you.
JM1: Yes. Did you have any, um, attacks from night fighters during your operational tour?
JM2: Curiously enough we were flying — when we went to Stettin, we overflew Denmark and Norway and our mid upper who was forty-two years old and well above the age for flying — he should — flying’s limited to people of thirty-five years. How he got away with that I don’t know. He must have been [unclear] somewhere. He had the finest eyesight I ever came across and while we were going over Norway he happened to see a flare path and we what? We were round about ten thousand feet I think. We weren’t too high. And these neutral countries used to fire flak up towards us but always well away from us, never with any no intention of shooting us down, but a token resistance as it were. And he happened to see a flare path at that distance and an aircraft with its nav lights on, going along that flare path, and he warned the skipper of this and he actually, he kept its nav lights on for quite some while, in fact until it was about a thousand feet below us when it switched off. It was obviously being vectored onto us and we watched it rise up along the side of us until our mid upper said to the rear gunner, Charlie, not rear gunner, but Charlie, ‘Let me have the first squirt at it.’ [slight laugh] And it actually rose alongside us about a hundred yards away with the pilot obviously looking upwards to look for our exhaust flames. We’d got eight blue exhaust flames going underneath the aircraft wing which were easily seen at night, particularly from underneath, and he must have been looking for those and not either side of himself. And both gunners had a, what they called, a squirt at it and it fell away but they didn’t, they only claimed a probable. We didn’t know what happen to it but it certainly fell away.
JM1: Had you ever discuss as a crew whether you would [emphasis] open fire because I know some gunners decided not to because they were afraid of drawing attention to themselves?
JM2: Well, funnily enough, we got some tracer coming towards us when we were getting close to the target and we didn’t know what, where it was coming from, but it passed underneath us. But the following day the ground crew dug a 303 bullet out of the tail wheel rims, so it was obviously a friendly aircraft. And the tail wheel had the double rims on it to stop it shimmying and it was that thickness of rubber that caught the, the bullet and they were able to dig it out and prove that it was a 303. So it was a friendly aircraft that had a go at us for some reason.
JM1: How about the weather that you experienced on operations?
JM2: This was always a problem. You’ll get ten tenths cloud over the target. Yeah, tell that to the marines. It was obviously ten tenths all the way, you know. There’s another thing flying in cloud that used to be unnerving to say the least, even in daylight, because you never know — people — we had a direction compass on but you never know when there’s a fault and an aircraft will drift in your path, yeah. In fact, often enough, you would hit the slip stream of an aircraft in front of you and you’d would drop easily four, six hundred feet like a brick because you’ve got no airflow over your wings with the turbulent air that you met in the slip stream, and that used to pin me against the roof of the canopy in no uncertain terms so, er, apart from the cursing [?] we got used to it.
JM1: [slight laugh] Did you ever have to land in very bad conditions?
JM2: Only once. We were diverted by fog to a fighter aerodrome. I forget what — North Weald I think it was — however, the short runway meant that it was a bit of a hairy do to get, to get it down on a short runway which our skipper was pretty good at and made a good job of it. Unfortunately, their ground crew did not know anything about Lancasters, so it fell to me to climb up the following morning, up into the cells. In each cell there’s a little calor gas pump which you have to prime the engine with before you try and start it, and in full flying gear I had to climb up on the main wheel and operate these things, using the bomb aimer as communication between me and the cockpit, and the ground crew with a starter [unclear] and that was a real sweaty job believe me. Up in the confines pumping this calor gas until we got the engines started. I think that was another time when Westie dropped me in it, maybe did it twice. So I had to do that in both the cells and I was sweating like a pig when I got back into the aircraft. But that was the only problem with landing in a different aerodrome, the short runway and having to do the mechanics myself, yeah.
JM1: As, as the tour progressed did, did you feel that you were more or less likely to complete the tour?
JM2: I don’t think we, I don’t think we thought about it really until the last four. When, when we’d done the thirty we thought, what shall I say? We, we were testing fate there a bit. We were pushing the boat out a bit but we were determined to finish as a crew so we, we carried on with the odd four but as I say which turned out to be a fatal decision.
JM1: Because members of the crew had not been able to do all the flights in sequence. One or two were injured or sick?
JM2: That’s right. As I said before our bomb — our, er, wireless operator picked up some shrapnel over the Walcheren Islands and he was in hospital at the time and we had the signals leader with us. It was his one hundredth operation and you can imagine his mind, mind when he had to bail out at that time, [slight cough] notwithstanding the fact we all had to do.
Jm1: Will you tell us about that last operation please?
Jm2: It’s, er — we were due to pick up which was known as a yellow tail, which had special Oboe equipment for, er, target finding, and this was supposed to be done over Lincoln. We were supposed to be number two in a vic of three with any loose aeroplanes fitting the box afterwards. The box formation was for fighter defence [slight cough] primarily but unfortunately we didn’t pick up a yellow tail over Lincoln and we had to settle for going in the box, which was unpleasant place to be really, and we continued to target in this way until on the run in to target we got [slight cough] caught by what was known as predictive flak. This is four guns controlled by radar, which fired a burst of four shells, and if we’d been able to manoeuvre it was fairly easy to avoid but because we weren’t able to manoeuvre — it’s usually about seven to nine seconds between bursts so if the first burst missed you you’ve got this moment in time to change the aircraft latitude, speed or location so that the next burst doesn’t find you where you should be. So, you get used to this system and its fairly easy to devoid, to avoid predictive flak, but we were stuck in the box and not able to move and it slowly crept up, as reported by the rear gunner, getting close and closer, until one shell went through the back of the aircraft, without exploding, fortunately enough, but took away the bunch of controls that lead to the rudders and elevators and part of the tail plane and made the aircraft virtually uncontrollable. At this point they were — it was decided with the damage so obvious that to turn away out of the stream and, er, as the bomb doors were still closed, the bomb aimer did — went through his jettison programme but it doesn’t matter because until the bomb doors are fully open the bomb aimer’s gear will not work for obvious reasons. If he dropped them with the doors closed it would tear the bottom of the aircraft out [slight cough]. So, it was my job to open the bomb doors and jettison the bomb because Westie already gone. He didn’t hang about. He’d gone.
Jm1: Went out through the front hatch?
JM2: Yes. He jettisoned the hatch and went out there and I went behind the pilot’s seat where my parachute was. We had clip-on parachutes. The, the skipper had a sit on parachute. He had a base parachute and he sits on his. So, as I went to get it out of the rack the, er, the navigator and the wireless operator went past me and out through the hatch and I [unclear] harness pin and I went through the hatch as well. And the skipper had apparently had — I met him later on in Dulag Luft, near Frankfurt, in — his fingernails were all torn where he was — the aircraft went into a vicious spin as soon as he let out the ailerons. That was the only control he had, was ailerons, and he went out through the top hatch but he had quite a struggle against the slip stream because it was pinning him to the fuselage with the increased speed. He must have been doing well over two hundred miles an hour, two-fifty miles an hour when he was trying to get out the hatch, which we didn’t have because we went out through the bottom hatch.
JM1: And the gunners went through the rear door didn’t they?
Jm2: Indeed. In fact, I heard them both say, ‘Rear gunner leaving.’ And, ‘Mid upper leaving.’ But funnily enough the mid upper, the, the rear gunner has no memory of leaving and wasn’t completely conscious until about 5 o’clock that night and yet I clearly heard him say, ‘Rear gunner leaving.’
JM1: And what height were you when you bailed out?
Jm2: We were twenty-two thousand [unclear] and I’d say we were between eighteen and twenty thousand or something like. It didn’t take very long.
JM1: No. When you came down tell us what happened when you landed please.
Jm2: I got my rigging lines a little bit crossed and I was trying to untangle the rigging lines and did so, managed to do so, and then I blacked out through lack of oxygen, lack of oxygen. I’d been without the oxygen for quite some time in the manoeuvring inside the aeroplane and I just blacked out through lack of oxygen and I didn’t come to until, oh, about four thousand, three thousand feet or so from the ground and I hit rather hard on a bunch of rubble and the Wehrmacht was waiting for me as a reception committee and I was a bit knocked about a bit and I came too really being frog-marched into a police station in Niebruch [?] and stuffed into an underground cell there.
JM1: Were the other members of your crew there?
JM2: No, on my own. We were widely separated because of the difference in bailing out.
Jm1: Right.
Jm2: [clears throat] I don’t know where the others landed although I must have been told when we met at up Dulag Luft. I can’t remember now.
JM1: How were you treated by the Wehrmacht?
JM2: The, er, the ordinary soldiers I think, I think they were a blessing in disguise because they kept the civilians away from us who were naturally a bit unchuffed about all this business. And, er, but I was put in a cell. They took my flying boots off me and put me in this bare board cell which was underground and, er, I didn’t have anything to eat for, er, quite some while. The following day the, er, sergeant of the police elected to interrogate me, by the simple means of sitting me in front of him at his desk, un-holstering his luger, sliding the [clears throat] breech back, pushing the safety catch off and pointing the barrel at me as he laid it on his desk, which felt a bit uncomfortable because I’ve fired a luger and know how hair trigger they are. So with him speaking German and me speaking English we didn’t get very far I must admit so we gave it up as a bad job and I went back in the cell. But, er, the following night I was moved from there to a Luftwaffe aerodrome on the back of a lorry and in the darkness [laugh] a voice said, ‘Have you got a fag, mate.’ Which I didn’t. The soldiers that picked me up took my wristwatch off me and pinched my cigarettes. I had a pack of cigarettes. They took the cigarettes out and put the cigarette case back in my pocket, surprisingly, but they pinched my cigarettes. I said, ‘No, I haven’t mate, sorry.’ But it turned out to be a Canadian gunner who’d gone down presumably nearby in the same raid. I said, ‘No I haven’t mate. I’m sorry.’ Anyway after a short journey through the all the rubble in the city. [unclear] used to clear a road through cities just to get transport through and they put me in this Luftwaffe transport base in a cell in, er, this ready room and whilst I was in there — I hadn’t had anything to eat for two days by then or drink — and one of the, er, Luftwaffe members, one of the ground crew saw me eyeing up his meal, er, two slices of bread and butter with molasses in. He saw me eyeing this up and he came over and give me [clears throat] half of it and this turned me really. It was the only kindness I ever saw off a German throughout me — in fact, it made me quite emotional, as I am now. He gave half his lunch to an enemy you might say, mm.
JM1: That’s quite something isn’t it?
JM2: It was for me, mm.
JM1: Yes and from there you went to Dulag Luft?
JM2: Yes. Frankfurt am Main for interrogation, er, ten days isolation, solitary confinement, in a ten by eight foot cell, which had a little window barred up, high up, and the only communication was a lever you had inside the inside wall which, when you turned it, dropped a signal out on the outside in the corridor to let the guard know that you wanted to come out for some reason or other. That’s the only communication you had with the outside world for ten days, apart from meals that were brought to you.
JM1: And you were interrogated again at Dulag Luft?
Jm2: Yeah. [slight laugh] The — I think there was a bit of smartness there because the — while I was being interrogated, the usual rank, name and number, and trying invoke information off you which I didn’t have much of any way. I didn’t have much to tell but what there was wasn’t worth telling so I didn’t bother. But during this, imagine I’m quite scruffy and dirty and unshaven and they brought in a young woman, a stenographer of some kind, to jot down the answers, all glammed up to the eyebrows, to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible, which it certainly did. [laugh] I felt a real scruffy object in front of this glamorous female. Yeah, a bit of psychological warfare there.
JM1: I, I’ve read that sometimes the interviewers, the interrogators, knew more about the squadron than you did. Did you get that?
JM2: They did. They told me who my flight was and who my flight commander was. Another psychological trick I would imagine but I was aware enough by then. I’d had a few meals and I didn’t respond to it. There’s no point. If you respond to it they pump you harder. You were told about this. The more you give away, the more they pump you, so you keep your mouth shut.
JM1: And where did you go from Dulag Luft please?
JM2: Stalag Luft VII in Upper Silesia, Poland. Quite chilly and that. It was December by then.
JM1: This was December 1944?
JM2: Yes.
JM1: Yes and what was it like in that camp?
JM2: A bit rough and ready. Food was the real problem. Food was always the main topic t of conversation in captivity because you never got enough of it and what the Germans doled out was pretty rough. Their sauerkraut was — I wouldn’t have give it to a dog but we’d have it. We ate it in most cases. We had what was known as pea soup and we used to separate the peas, and inside each pea there used to be a little tiny beetle, and we used to split the pea open and open the people [?] and get a little row of tiny beetles and we would save them while we scoffed the peas. Believe me this is quite true.
JM1: I believe you.
JM2: It’s hardly credible from a civilian point of view but beetle soup it became known as, yeah. Hunger was always the problem.
JM1: And Red Cross parcels?
JM2: Infrequent and, er, often we had to share one parcel between four or two and not, not, not — very few of them. In fact, there’s a record of them in here that, er, of the people who kept diaries. David’s done a log of the times that we’d done but it’s hardly worth bothering with now.
JM1: David is your son-in-law?
JM2: Yes. He is indeed. He’s the instigator of all this stuff except for the models. I brought the models in.
JM1: Were you concerned that your family should know that you were still alive?
JM2: That was another thing. They were allowed to write one letter, for the Red Cross gave us one air mail letter to write to our families, which I understand my mother never got for some reason or other, and from the telegram she got when I was posted missing she heard nothing from, for six months, almost the entire captivity period, except for a couple in Scotland, who had a, a fairly powerful short wave radio and they used to listen to the prisoners recorded by the Red Cross as being prisoners of war and my name was mentioned on one of these broadcasts, and they took the trouble to find out from the Air Force where my mother lived and informed her I was alive and well at that time, but for all that period she didn’t know whether I was alive or dead.
JM1: And what about camp entertainment? How did you spend your time?
JM2: [Laugh] Oh, er, we rigged up what was known as a, a pantomime for Christmas and called it “Pantomania” because we were all blokes in it and one amusing incident came out of that. We had a pirate scene and we organised a cannon, er, that was all papier-mâché and tubes of all sorts of things and at the back an elastic flap, which would propel a, a black ball of paper out the muzzle and this was coordinated with a flash of, um, magnesium. I don’t know where the hell they got the magnesium from. I’ve no idea. But they had it anyway. We used to get people working out. They used to pinch things all over the place. However, during the pantomime we turned this, the — they allowed us to run this pantomime provided a number of German officers could watch what was going on and, er, not allow anything what they didn’t like. [slight cough] However, we managed to turn this cannon in this scene, fire the ball of — black ball towards the audience with the flash, and this made the German officers jump up and quickly snatch their lugers out and start waving them about, wondering what the heck was going on. And it was only a black ball of paper but they stopped the show and it as quite some time until we persuaded them to let us get on with it. So that was an amusing incident that came out of it [slight laugh].
JM1: Was there any talk of escape at this stage in the war?
JM2: Well, they found a tunnel under the, er, under the stage where we were. It wasn’t much of a tunnel but they found it under the stage and there was a number of organisations in the camp, which I was never part of, that leant themselves towards this idea but nobody — it was too near the end of the war to chance anything particularly dangerous. I admired one chap, one particular at Colditz. They used to — they organised a playing field away from the castle, down below the castle heights. They managed to persuade the Germans to let them have a game of football because the quadrangle was too small at Colditz and they did this a number of times until somebody had the bright idea of pole vaulting over the wire fence that they surrounded this playing field with. And he took the sections of the pole vault down his trousers, assembled it on the playing field, and pole vaulted over the wire and made a home run home from that daring escape so late in the war, yeah. Incredible that, weren’t it? That was a record by the way.
JM1: Incredible. I get the impression the morale of RAF personnel was quite high in the camp?
Jm2: Yes, yes it was pretty good, yeah, I would, I would say so. The [laugh] one amusing incident came when we first went there, at Stalag Luft VII, we were on the same level as the sentries patrolling outside the wire but the various tunnels or starting tunnels that they did, we used to have to drop the soil out through our trouser legs on the walk around the edge of the camp, the periphery we had to, used to, walk round for exercise. They used to allow us so far away from the goon boxes, about fifty yards or so away, and the number — they, they took so much earth and we dropped so much earth through the bags in our trousers, walking round, that we found ourselves above the level of the sentries outside the wire. [laugh] Would you believe? [slight laugh]
JM1: Incredible.
JM2: Incredible. We didn’t realise this at first until we found ourselves looking down on the sentries walking round the wire.
JM1: Just before we move on, you’ve, you’ve mention a couple of phrases I think need clarifying. Goon boxes?
JM2: Ah, these were stationed every, I would say hundred yards or so, round the perimeter wire of the yard [?] and they stood up on stilts, about roughly fifteen feet or so above ground level, on a, on a narrowing tower. Each contained a searchlight and a machine gun and two serving officers, Wehrmacht officers, er, Wehrmacht personnel. So that, er, if you — there was a, a trip wire about fifty yards inside the main wire which you must not [emphasis] step over on fear of being shot at, night or day, and this searchlight was used at night to patrol this area at night, and you certainly would be shot at. In fact one person was shot at while I was there and he was killed. I think he went a bit mental and went scrambling up the wire and they shot him.
JM1: Now that’s different from the box that you were describing when you flew to the target. That’s a formation? An aircraft formation?
JM2: Yes. A vic, a three vic, an aircraft of three in a vic and the box at the back that we were in for the fighter protection.
JM1: So it’s an aircraft formation?
JM2: Yes.
JM1: And the yellow tail I think. Can you just explain that for the record please?
JM2: It was known as G-H bars [?]. Why? I have no idea. I don’t know what the latter stands for but the aircraft that carried yellow stripes on the rudder had this Oboe equipment which guided them to the target more accurately than anything up to that day.
JM1: So we’re dealing with navigation and target finding electronic equipment?
JM2: Yes.
JM1: So, can we turn now to the fact that you were one of those who was released and were on the Long March?
JM2: Yes. That was — we warned about this for some while, er, when we were doing the pantomime which was just before Christmas, but the Russians were, er, getting fairly close to the camp at this stage. By close I mean about fifty miles or so and the Germans were getting a bit edgy and it came out later that Hitler was pulling all POWs back towards Berlin, presumably to use them as some kind of hostages. But however, we were turned out once and then sent back into the billets, er, in January but then on, I think it was the 19th of January, at half past three in the morning, to start the march which was, turned out to be two hundred and ninety-seven kilometres in a snow bound country in Upper Silesia in Poland when Poland was experiencing the worst winter it had ever known. It was just a wasteland wherever you looked. The only indication of road that we were on was the telegraph wires that were on poles alongside the road to indicate where the road was that we were supposed to be on, often trudging through quite deep snow, which was trodden down by — I think there was about two thousand-odd of us on the march — but two thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven kilometres in twenty-one days, a hundred and eighty miles, which was quite a feat by people who were half-starved. In fact a lot of men died on that particular march.
Jm1: And where did you end up at?
Jm2: A place called Luckenwalde about fifteen kilometres south of Berlin and, er, we, we became in the middle of a shell swap between the Germans and the Russians at one time. In fact one, one Russian shell, presumably it was Russian, landed in our compound and exploded harmlessly, as it happened, but by this time the German guards had gone away from the camp and left the camp to us. They had retreated to their own lines, or whatever, and we were running the camp ourselves at that particular time. And, er, eventually these Russians came and mowed down the wire and said, ‘You’re free now.’ And liberated us and the following day put the wire up again and contained us, which was a bit of a [unclear] at the time as we had no contract, transport and we had nowhere to go so we just had to stay in camp until eventually the Americans stopped the Russians from crossing the Elbe back into their territory until the Russians allowed us [emphasis] to cross the Elbe back into American territory. Then the Americans sent lorries and picked us up and took us back to their territory.
JM1: And how did you get home from Germany?
JM2: We were flown from, er, Leipzig. They took us by lorry to Leipzig, to a German wireless school at the time, and then they flew us to Brussels in the courses [?] and then from there flew us home in Lancasters, eight at a time, back to England.
JM1: And that was your last flight in a Lancaster was it?
JM2: It was indeed, yes [slight laugh]. Not a very comfortable one on my side because I knew there was a little — we were strung along the aircraft, nose to tail, eight of us, to try a keep the centre of gravity in the aircraft, and I got myself near the wireless ops’ window because I knew there was a little window there I could look out. I was a crafty arse. And I was looking through this, timing the crossing and more or less from anybody who had a watch and I thought we should be seeing — and I saw the Seven Sisters in the distance and I said, a pal [?] said, ‘Pass it along. We can see Seven Sisters. We’re almost there.’ With that everyone had to have a look [slight laugh] and then about five minutes later the pilot sent the wireless operator back and said, ‘Tell the lads we can see Seven Sisters.’ [laugh] Oh, dear. This isn’t the end of the tale. When we came to Cosford we realised from the engine, well, all of us realised from the engine notes that we were in finals and the silence from the engine cooked, not knowing we were near touchdown, and we bounced along the runway like a ping pong ball. Oh lordie me, I forgot what — g-doing, g-doing, g-doing. I thought, ‘When are we going to finish this lot.’ You know. I don’t know how long but it seemed forever to me and finally we were rolling along comfortably [laugh] and the wireless op said, ‘I’ve come to tell you we’ve landed lads.’ Dear, oh dear. I don’t know who the pilot was, bless him.
Jm1: [laugh] So, once you got back you had some survivor’s leave?
JM2: Yes. Well, we had to go through all the uniform delousing and stuff like this that was going on and, er, what were we doing? We got a fortnights’ leave, yeah, and sent home. [laugh] I remember coming home with the kit on my back, a kit bag full of gear, all brand new gear, and it was night and I got home, knocked on my front door and my sister, pardon the — my sister came to the door and it was completely dark. It was still black at that time. It was about 9 o’clock at night. I said, ‘Have you got anything for the Red Cross?’ And she shouted back to my mother, ‘Have you anything?’ And my mother rushed out, pushed her to one side and grabbed hold of me [laugh]. She’d heard my voice. That was enough.
JM1: Did you stay in the RAF?
JM2: I was in till the following February. I was posted to the Isle of Man because I got married whilst I was in the Air Force and it was a compassionate posting, to, to Calvary at first and then finally to Jurby on the Isle of Man.
JM1: And did, did you maintain contact with your crew members in peacetime?
JM2: No. The only one I — well, two actually I saw. I was — we went from Calvary to Newcastle. They were changing the, er, position of the squadron, turning it into a teaching squadron, up at on the other side Newcastle and whilst we were up there they said to, to complete the complement they needed a fire engine for the aerodrome up at Newcastle and it was to be collected from a place called Witchord, Witchford. ‘Does anyone know where Witchford was?’ I said, ‘I know it. It was the next aerodrome to me in Mepal when I was operating there.’ And the flight said, ‘It would be you. Clever arse again.’ He said, ‘Well you’d better collect it.’ So I got the job of collecting it and it was a six wheel Fordson, painted in drab colours, and a water tank on the back and various things. Not a red fire engine but a Fordson and I went down and collected this thing and stayed with the family of the girl in Mepal overnight and ferried it up to Newcastle. But while I was on the way I somehow remembered the address of the navigator and I said —while I was on the way I stopped in Darlington and asked directions to this address. Unfortunately I didn’t know the number. I knew the road but I didn’t know the number and I knocked on a house and asked if anybody knew the Air Force officer and they did and gave me the number. I knocked at the door and Ray came to the door [laugh]. Oh, that was a good reunion, yeah. That was the first I’d seen him since Dulag Luft in Frankfurt and we had a good natter there and I carried on up to Newcastle. The other time was when I was working for Cravens in Civvy Street and I went back to Mepal. I hired a car and I wanted to, er, see if the rear gunner still lived in Thatchford, so I went to Thatchford with this hired car and called in the local pub and asked, ‘Does anyone know Charlie Anderton. He was my rear?’ He said, ‘If you’re lucky you might catch him. He’s just left.’ And I saw the back of him disappearing on a bike over a field so that’s all I saw of Charlie Anderton, yeah. I did see him but I didn’t meet him, no.
JM1: When you look back on those times how, how do you feel about what you went through and how Bomber Command was treated politically?
JM2: I think you tend to forget the nasty times. You seem to get a mental block at them. As I say, sometimes during the dark hours it seems like yesterday and then it gets a bit hairy. But, um, you tend to block this out I think during normal life. We were only very young, as I say, and the young are adaptable and, er, it’s over seventy years ago. It’s a long while ago.
JM1: Jim, thank you so much. You’ve given a marvellous interview. Thank you for your detail and clarity and information and emotion.
JM2: Thank you for listening. It’s a very ordinary tale I feel.
JM1: Not at all.
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 James Mulhall. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-23
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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AMulhallJE160823
Format
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01:04:05 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
James was born in Gorton, attended Catholic schools, and became an apprentice plumber. In November 1942 he joined the Royal Air Force. He then trained as a mechanic at RAF St Athan before being posted to RAF Henlow to assemble Hurricanes. He then went back to RAF St Athan to re-muster as a flight engineer. His next postings where at RAF Stradishall on Stirlings, which he thought were awful aircraft, and at RAF Feltwell on Lancasters. His crew was posted to 75 Squadron, serving at RAF Mepal where there were sometimes two full crews in a single Nissen hut. The crew’s first operation was a daylight operation to the U-Boat pens at St. Nazaire. On a run to Russelsheim they were coned and blinded by searchlights but managed to escape them with little damage. James said most of the flights were just enduring the cold and getting back as safely as possible. He elaborates on service conditions on board, recollecting instances of incendiaries hitting their aircraft. After completing the thirty operations (among them nine or ten daylight ones) the crew decided to do a final four together which proved to be a fatal decision. Those who bailed out ended up at Dulag Luft for interrogation. James was then moved to Stalag Luft VII in Poland in December 1944. He describes the conditions, food and treatment in the camps. James was in the long march which ended at Luckenwalde when they escaped. Prisoners were taken to Leipzig before being flown to Brussels and then home. James left the RAF in February 1946.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
France
Germany
Poland
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Oberursel
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1942-10
1943
1944
1944-12
1945
1946
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
75 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bomb struck
bombing
crewing up
Dulag Luft
entertainment
escaping
fear
flight engineer
Hurricane
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
Oboe
prisoner of war
RAF Feltwell
RAF Henlow
RAF Mepal
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
searchlight
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
Stirling
submarine
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/884/11123/AHoughWJ160905.2.mp3
1c6ad66a90fcf551165724a6609e3bda
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
Hough, William
William John Hough
W J Hough
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flying Officer Bill Hough (1924 - 2019, 2203740, 197350 Royal Air Force). He few operations as a wireless operator with 582 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
2016-09-05
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
Hough, WJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Bill Hough. The interview is taking place at Mr Hough’s home near Warrington in Cheshire on the 5th of September 2016. Mr Hough, you’ve asked me, you’ve invited me to call you Bill. Bill, I wonder if I could ask you just to tell us please a little about your life before you joined the Royal Air Force and your reasons for signing up.
BH: Well, I’d come from a farming background really but I didn’t myself go in to farming. After I’d left grammar school, I attended grammar school in locally, Northwich. And for a period, I think I was sixteen when I left grammar school but I knew eventually I was going to have to go in the forces. But in the meantime I had a temporary job with ICI which was a pretty big employer in this area, and then when the time come to join up I volunteered rather than be recruited. Mainly so I could go in to the air force rather than be recruited in to say the army or the navy which I wouldn’t have liked. So I volunteered for the air force as soon as I was able. What’s that? Eighteen and a quarter I believe it was when you were able to. So it was in 1943. Spring of 1943 when I joined up.
JM: Would you say that your experience of the Second World War was a factor in you choosing the Royal Air Force?
BH: My experience of the —?
JM: Well you must have seen some of the blitz bombing of Liverpool and Manchester.
BH: Oh certainly. Certainly. I was always attracted to aeroplanes I suppose. I remember going to air shows locally. I was in the cadets.
JM: The ATC.
BH: ATC yeah. For a while. So, and you know I got into various things by doing Morse code and that type of thing so, you know, I’d got a background in aviation and it was natural that if I had a choice I would go into the air force. And well that’s what I did. I was accepted. I was accepted as air crew as well.
JM: Where did you go to enrol?
BH: When I first joined up you mean?
JM: Yes.
BH: I went to Lord’s Cricket Ground. The nursery end actually [laughs] Yeah, I joined at Lord’s Cricket Ground. I don’t know why it was there. It was just a place that was used by the air force I suppose. And we were billeted in St John’s Wood in, there were some very posh apartments there and they were requisitioned. And that’s where we were. We didn’t stay there long because we, you were moved on pretty — you did some drill there but you quickly moved on to ITW. Initial Training Wing.
JM: And where was that please?
BH: Bridgnorth.
JM: So that was the West Midlands.
BH: Yes. Bridgnorth. Yeah.
JM: Do you have any memories of your time at ITW?
BH: I remember arriving at ITW. I don’t know if you know Bridgnorth at all.
JM: Slightly.
BH: Well it’s in two sections — an upper and a lower. And we arrived by rail and the station is at the lower end. The camp was at the top end. We were met by an officer there, a flight lieutenant I remember. And he made, we carried kit of course, and he made us jog all the way with full kit up this hill. It was quite a, quite a difference in height and, you know, we weren’t that fit then [laughs] and he jogged us right up this hill to the camp. I can remember that distinctly. And that’s what? A six weeks course or something isn’t it? ITW. Something like that. Which was pretty well all drill.
JM: Basic airmanship in that sense.
BH: I suppose so. Yes. I can only remember the drill part of it, you know. The parade ground stuff. I suppose to get you fit in a way. Everybody coming in was probably very unfit.
JM: And where did you go to after ITW?
BH: Well, by then I’d opted — I think you had a choice of where you went. Well not, not a choice but you couldn’t be a pilot or a navigator because they were trained overseas pretty well. But I opted for a wireless operator/air gunner. And, you know, which was going to be in two parts and eventually I was sent to the Number 2 Radio School at Yatesbury, Wiltshire. That was a pretty isolated place that was but that was, that was where I went. And that’s where we learned the basics of radio communication. And also did our first flying. Initially in Dominies.
JM: Yes.
BH: And then in Proctors.
JM: Proctors.
BH: Yeah. Well that, I think that was, I don’t know, it was quite a, quite a long course. Probably it might have been six months. It was quite an intensive course. You learned aircraft recognition. Morse code. You had to pass at a certain level and as I say you had to do this stuff in the air as well. First in groups in a Dominie and then on your own. Just with the pilot in the Proctor.
JM: Did your experiences as a cadet help you learning Morse code?
BH: I suppose that’s perhaps in a way why I opted to be a W/op air gunner. I suppose that did contribute. Yes. Yes.
JM: What sort of speeds did you reach?
BH: You had to be able to read twenty. Twenty words per minute. That was the pass out speed. Twenty words per minute. Yeah.
JM: And were you trained in the technology of wireless as it was at that time or was it merely a matter of sending and receiving?
BH: No, there was some technical stuff as well. It was all pretty basic. You weren’t a mechanic or anything, you know. You were an operator. Not a mechanic. Not a radio mechanic. You were an operator. So, but obviously you had to learn some basic stuff to know what went on behind the sets and so on.
JM: And when you’d finished at Yatesbury, at Number 2 Wireless School, where did you go after that?
BH: Well, I went to gunnery school which was at Castle Kennedy, Scotland. Of course I trained as an air gunner because at that time the position was W/op air gunner. It was sort of harking back to the smaller planes where you did two jobs. Whereas when the four engine bombers came in they were quite separate and I never did operate as an air gunner. I trained as an air gunner but I never operated as an air gunner. But I went to Castle Kennedy in Scotland. We did some ground firing initially with a turret on the ground. And then of course you got in to the air and I think we mainly flew Ansons then. You fired from the mid-upper turret at a drogue which was being towed by another aircraft. And as I say I trained there but never used the skill. If it is a skill [laughs]
JM: Well it is deflection shooting.
BH: Yeah.
JM: Did you find that difficult to master?
BH: No. But that’s the basis of it obviously. Deflection shooting. But I don’t know you’ve got to score. They used to score you on what, how close you were. That sort of thing. You got a certificate. It’s in my logbook actually. But you got a certificate when you passed out saying you know, I don’t know, gave you some kind of pass mark I suppose.
JM: So you’re now qualified as a wireless operator/air gunner.
BH: Yes.
JM: And what happened to you next, Bill?
BH: Well, it was [pause] it was OUT, I suppose it was called.
JM: Operational training.
BH: Operational Training Unit.
JM: Yes.
BH: And that was at [pause] Worksop wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.
JM: So you were at Worksop near Nottingham.
BH: Yes.
JM: On number, Number 8 OTU.
BH: Yes. Number 8 OTU while we flew in Wellingtons. I had that period before that. Number 6 AFU. That’s —
JM: Advanced airborne fighting unit?
BH: Flying Unit. I can’t remember doing any flying there. I remember being at Staverton but I don’t know what we did there exactly. It was a very short period. We soon passed on to the OTU where we flew in Wellingtons and I’m trying to remember when we crewed up but I think that was later. Yeah. It was. Yeah. We did the OTU at Worksop.
JM: Do you have any memories of flying in Wellingtons?
BH: Not a lot really. The positions were quite different there I think. I remember, I think I remember, the wireless operator’s position was down in the nose somehow, whereas later on it was all up on one level, you know. But I think that was down in the nose there.
JM: And did you fly on any missions as part of your OTU training? Did you do leaflet raids or anything of that sort?
BH: No. I think that was a lot of that was done wasn’t it? And when they first did these thousand bomber raids, you know, they included some people from OTUs just to make the numbers up. But they were mainly instructors I think. I don’t think it was in-training people. It was the instructors that went on those. And then after that we went to HCU which is a Heavy Conversion Unit and that was at Lindholme, which is near to Doncaster isn’t it? 1656 HCU. Now, I think that’s where we crewed up. We were then flying Halifaxes actually. That was the training aircraft at that time. For four engine bombers. And I remember the crewing up process was, I don’t know, a bit of a shambles somehow. I mean, I eventually got with a Canadian crew. Now, I can’t remember whether — I remember being in this big room and people going around saying, ‘Have you crewed up yet?’ ‘Have you?’ ‘We’re looking for a wireless operator,’ or, ‘We’re looking for an engineer.’ This type of thing. People just walking around. And, you know, not any system at all. Just leaving it up to, I suppose, the pilots, the captain of the prospective crew. But you see I think five out of the seven of our crew were Canadians and I have a feeling that they were already together. The only two English people were myself who was the wireless operator and the flight engineer. So, I remember, you know, Art Green, who was the skipper, coming up to me and saying me, ‘Are you crewed up yet,’ and sort of giving me a few questions [laughs] and so on. But eventually —
JM: Yeah.
BH: You know, accepted me and that was how you got crewed up and then you started flying in Halifaxes and started to get serious, you know, some serious training.
JM: What did you think about a Halifax as an aeroplane to operate?
BH: I can’t remember a great deal but it obviously didn’t have a great reputation. Not as good as the Lancaster obviously but you know it had its points and was a good training aircraft I suppose. But operationally it wasn’t a success was it? Well, not as successful as some others. That and the Stirling of course were not as successful.
JM: And was it when you were on Heavy Conversion Unit — was that the first time you did operations at all?
BH: No. I didn’t do any operations from there at all. The Lancaster was coming in at that. Well, it had probably been in for a while but it was coming in in big numbers and the Halifaxes were being phased out in favour of Lancasters. So the next step was, for us was to go to an LFU. Oh, what was it called? It was an LFS. Lancaster —
JM: Finishing.
BH: Finishing School. Yeah. In other words converting you from Halifaxes to Lancasters. Mainly for the captain’s purpose I suppose. I mean he was the one that would find the biggest change. I mean the wireless operator was, you know, was operating the same equipment and the gunners were operating the same guns and that kind of thing so it was mainly for the, for the pilot. But that was, you know, quite a short period that LFS. Only a matter of two or three weeks I think, something like that. And then from then you were posted to an Operational Unit.
JM: And where were you posted to?
BH: Firstly to Elsham Wolds. That’s where’s that near? I don’t know.
JM: Elsham Wolds is North Lincolnshire.
BH: Yeah.
JM: Not far from the Humber Bridge now.
BH: I think that’s near to Worksop as well actually.
JM: Not far.
BH: I seem to remember Worksop from there. And that was to 576 Squadron. There were actually two squadrons there you know. 576, and I think it was 103. Both Lancaster squadrons. And from there, we are getting now to September ’44. I mean I’d been training for over a year at that point. It was a long process. And from Elsham Wolds I did ten operations from there.
JM: Do you remember those operations at all? Do you remember how you felt on your first one?
BH: Scared to death I suppose [laughs] well, as you were on most operations for that matter. You just were a bit more familiar after a while. You knew what was coming. But on a first operation obviously you don’t. And I forget where it was too but it was there. I did ten from there and we also — there was a satellite base at Fiskerton which is near to there. And I think we were based there for part of the time for some reason. I don’t know why. But it was a satellite of Elsham Wolds. I did one operation from there. I did ten operations from Elsham and one from Fiskerton. And at that time we were recommended for Pathfinders. The crew was recommended for Pathfinders. So we had to go on another training conversion course and that was at Warboys. We went from Fiskerton to Warboys for the NTU. What does that mean? Training. What’s N mean? Anyway, it was sort of conversion from main stream squadron to, to Pathfinder. We were still flying the same aircraft of course. On Lancasters. And that was only actually three days I see. Just three days for this conversion. And then we were posted to 582 Pathfinder Squadron which was at Little Staughton which was near to Bedford, St Neots. And at little Staughton — it was formerly an American base but when Pathfinders were formed I believe they took it over. I mean Pathfinders hadn’t been in existence for, I don’t know, about a year or eighteen months. And the Yanks gave it up and the Pathfinders took it over. 582 Squadron was based there, that’s a Lancaster squadron. But there was a further squadron — 109 Squadron which flew Mosquitoes. So there were two Pathfinder squadron operating from there.
JM: And how many operations did you do with 582?
BH: Well I did eleven. I did thirty four altogether so that leaves twenty three from there. I did thirty four. Yeah. Fourteen to thirty four.
JM: Was your selection as a Pathfinder crew — was that based on a good record of bombing when you were at Elsham?
BH: Yes. It obviously was but it was mainly to do with the proficiency of the pilot and the navigator I think. I mean the navigator was the key man or was the key man in Pathfinders because, you know, they had to be bang on. Find the target, and mark the target for the Main Force who may not have been as efficient as our navigator. They would have had trouble finding the target if we hadn’t marked it so I think that was the criteria. That you had a good pilot. We had a very experienced pilot. He was [pause] he was a peacetime man, pilot. He was in his thirties actually. He was a flight lieutenant. Later squadron leader. But, I mean, some of the pilots were quite raw. In Main Force particularly. You know, twenty, twenty one, twenty two. And the only flying experience they had was in their training whereas Art Green he had flied before the war and then of course volunteered into the war. So he was a very experienced pilot. Very level headed and, you know. A man you knew you could rely on. Trust.
JM: Just for the tape you said Art Green. Is that short for Arthur Green?
BH: I suppose it is [laughs] I never, we always called him Art actually but [laughs] yeah. We always called him Art. I suppose it was Arthur.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And was it a collective decision to transfer to Pathfinders or did the captain make it and you had to go along?
BH: I suppose he was invited or selected and we had to go along with him. I don’t think he had a choice. No.
JM: Because it was a longer tour of operations wasn’t it?
BH: Oh yeah. You had — a normal tour in Main Force was thirty ops but in Pathfinders because you’d done so much training you were more, sort of, valuable. And a tour there was, was it thirty five, I think? I think it was thirty five. Yeah. Whereas in Main Force it was thirty.
JM: And was there a special badge that you got to show that you were in the Pathfinder force?
BH: Yes. You had a thing on your breast pocket.
JM: A brevet.
BH: Which we were very very proud of it. It was a golden eagle, ss it? I suppose. Yeah.
JM: Yes.
BH: The air force eagle. Yes. You wore it on the left breast pocket.
JM: And your job with Pathfinders was to illuminate the target with flares.
BH: Yes.
JM: Could you say a bit more about that please?
BH: Well, to me it didn’t [pause] sort of affect my job, anyway, you know. It, it was, I suppose the navigator and bomb aimer that would. And the pilot I suppose. But as far as I was concerned I was just a wireless operator in an aircraft. Obviously, you were going in first and you were, you were in a more dangerous situation because you were first in and sometimes you had to go around and go back in if you missed the target. That sort of thing, so — but apart from that as I say it didn’t really affect me.
JM: Did your aeroplane just carry flares or did it have a mixed load of flares and bombs?
BH: Well, often it was mixed. Yeah. You had a mixture quite often. Depends what you were. You sort of category. Sky markers, and blind markers and all that kind of stuff. So depending what you were you carried a mixed load normally.
JM: Do any of those operations particularly stand out in your mind?
BH: Well, I was shot down on one of them [laughs]
JM: That was —
BH: That stands out in my mind. Yes.
JM: Tell us about that please. If you would.
BH: And this was operation number thirteen [laughs] which might have been our worst. It was a daylight operation actually to a place called Heimbach Dam which was [pause] it was in Northern Germany anyway. But at that time we were — allied forces were advancing through Belgium and there. And just into Germany possibly and we were on this daylight raid bombing just ahead of our forces. In the American sector actually. And this was a dam that was just inside Germany. Heimbach. It was a daylight operation. We took off pretty early. Eight. Eight something I think. It wasn’t deep into Germany so it was only probably a two or three hour trip to there. The weather wasn’t forecast to be marvellous and I remember going. Flying in over Belgium and we were nearing the target. Flying over ten tenths cloud. The forecast just wasn’t good. The weather wasn’t good and we were flying in a stream obviously as we usually did. And we were on the outer starboard side of the stream on the right hand side which was not a good place to be. And then the, our gunner, Major Campbell. He wasn’t a major really. We used to call him major. He was a warrant officer but his nickname was major. Major Campbell. Rear gunner. He reported a plane on the starboard quarter and but he couldn’t identify it, he said. At the moment. It was quite a way off. Two or three miles away but I sort of fancied myself at aircraft recognition. I was always very good at aircraft recognition actually. And I stood up in the astrodome which was near to my position and I immediately identified it as a Messerschmitt 262. Now, that had not been in service very long at that time. It had been operated mainly as a fighter bomber actually. And I don’t think it had been encountered as a fighter but that’s what it was.
JM: And this is important because this was the first operational jet fighter in the world.
BH: Yes.
JM: And this attacked your aeroplane.
BH: Yes. It [pause] he reported this and I identified it as that and I thought he was keeping his eye on it when all of a sudden another one came directly behind us. And he reported that one quickly and said, ‘Corkscrew starboard.’ Which was the procedure when you had, you were being attacked but before we could really get into the corkscrew we were hit. The plane behind was the one that had fired. They carried cannon of course. They were pretty lethal these. And they were fast of course compared with a Lancaster. And it hit us in the port outer. Hit the port outer engine and we were immediately set on fire. Whether it was the fuel or the engine itself I suppose. There’s fuel tanks in that area. So that immediately took fire and we operated the fire extinguishers which didn’t make any difference. So the immediate outcome was for the skipper to say, ‘Abandon aircraft.’ And he ordered myself and the two gunners to go out the back entrance. The rest were at the front. So I clipped my parachute on. You didn’t wear it normally. You had it by your side. You had to clip it on to your harness at the front, and made my way down the fuselage. And the mid-upper gunner, the turret where he was located his feet protruded into the fuselage. You could see the bottom part of his body. There was only the upper part that was in the turret. So I remember going past him and giving him a bang on the legs to sort of tell him to get out in case he hadn’t heard or something like that and made my way down to the rear exit. And Johnny Campbell, the rear gunner was just getting out of his. He’d centred his turret, just getting out of his turret and by the time I got there he’d opened the door. The rear door where we got out. And he indicated to me to go first. And as I stood there my parachute came out. I never have known to this day what happened but my parachute came out through the door and deployed outside the aircraft. You know, pulling me as well and — sort of Johnny Campbell sized the situation up pretty quickly and got hold of me bodily and sort of pushed me out of the door. And going out I banged my head on the door and was lifted up. You know, normally have a parachute you should go down [laughs] initially anyway. But I was lifted up over the tail plane of the Lancaster. Banging my ankle on, on the elevator as I went out. But I eventually got free and after all the chaos that was going on in the plane and the noise everything seemed quiet. You know, just the plane had gone. I couldn’t see it anymore. I couldn’t hear anything. And the only problem was that my harness which you wear all the time in the aircraft. That you sometimes would slacken it off because it was a bit uncomfortable, you know between your legs. You would slacken it off a bit to make it more comfortable. And I omitted to tighten it up when I went out [laughs] and I was half out of the harness and I had hung on with two hands to hold on to the straps of the parachute. And otherwise I might have fallen out of it. But I eventually got down. I could see I was going to land in a field outside of a village. And as I got further down I noticed that there were people coming out of the village there. They must have seen the aircraft and seen me. They were running out of the village and I landed in this field which was, as I say, just outside the village. Not a very good landing obviously because I wasn’t able to do the standard roll because I was hanging on because of this loose harness. And it was quite windy as well as I remember. But I didn’t do any harm to myself and I was quickly grabbed by the villagers who grabbed the parachute and everything. Stopped me from being pulled along and there I was. It was a place called [pause] Tongeren I think it was, near to a place called Juprelle. It was in, it’s in northern, north western Belgium actually. And after about a quarter of an hour the Yanks came. I told you before it was in their sector and they arrived in a jeep and took me to hospital. Now, the outcome was that this gunner — I told you I banged the gunner on the way out. The outcome was that he didn’t get out. Everybody else got out but he didn’t. We always assumed that he was in the line of fire from the plane shooting over the top of the aircraft. Hitting an engine on the port side. He was probably shot, because he never got out. And he was, he was a replacement. That was the ironic part. Our own gunner — Ken McKeown, or Mac as we called him. He was called Mac. Mac McKeown. He was Canadian as well. Ken McKeown. The night before the operation he’d been, I was in the hut with him, we were both sergeants so we were in the same area there. He was cleaning his pistol. We carried a pistol on operations which was stuck in to your flying boot usually. But he was cleaning his and he put it in to the palm of his hand like that and pulled the trigger. And there was one up the spout and it went right through his hand. Clean through his hand. He was taken to hospital. He survived alright. It wasn’t serious I suppose in a way but he survived alright. But the consequence was he couldn’t take his position the next day. And I suppose the fellow that took his place was actually the gunnery leader. He was the Squadron leader. Gunnery leader. He didn’t normally fly. But I suppose he figured it was a pretty easy operation. Just over northern Europe. And he, he went in his place and he didn’t come back.
JM: Very sad.
BH: Yeah. It was very sad.
JM: Let’s have a break shall we?
[recording paused]
JM: Bill, we got to the point in the story where you were telling us about being shot down. I wonder if I could ask you to tell us a little bit more about that event.
BH: Well, I can tell you about what happened afterwards. I told you we were taken to hospital which was in a place called Hasselt which is in Belgium. It was a hospital. A very stark place I remember. It was operated by nuns. I was kept in for three or four days. I’d nothing serious. Just bumps mainly. No cuts or anything like that. After that I was taken to an American camp nearby where I stayed for one night and I recall having some very fine American food while I was there. Something that we didn’t get in the RAF. The Yanks were much better fed then we were. And then they took me to Brussels airport where I hitched a lift. There was no sort of formal arrangements. I hitched a lift on a Dakota back to the UK. First went to Down Ampney and then to [pause] where did I go to?
[pause]
BH: Well it doesn’t matter but it was Down Ampney. And then I went to somewhere much nearer the camp anyway. And then I took a train to St Neots where I phoned up the camp and said I was there. And they came and picked me up. I was still wearing my, all my old flying still, flying boots and my flying kit and everything. Got back to the station and all the other people had arrived before me. They probably hadn’t been in hospital. I don’t think anybody was hurt. Only me. And it was then that I learned that the mid-upper gunner hadn’t survived. And as for the flight engineer — we never saw him again. I don’t know what, we never knew what happened to him. I think he had, this was Denny Naylor who was the other British person, on the, in the crew. Flight engineer. And I think he had some kind of mental breakdown. I think it affected him and he never came back. So we had to have another flight engineer after that. And after that we were given a rest period I think. Probably, intentionally I suppose for people to recover. And I didn’t do another operation for probably six weeks or something like that. This was December the 3rd ’44 that we were shot down. And I think the next operation was February. Early February.
JM: Did you experience any reaction to your events? To your adventures?
BH: I’m sure I did as I say. I didn’t sleep for a long time. We used to come back in your mind, you know. You would see an engine on fire and all this kind of thing. It’s forgotten now but I’m sure at the time it did have a great affect on most people. All the crew. I’m sure.
JM: But there wasn’t any sort of support measures. Counselling or anything.
BH: No. We’d never heard of counsellors in those day [laughs] I don’t think. No. I don’t recall any of that. I mean if you had any problems like that you were soon shipped off. LMF. Lack of moral fibre. That was the term for it wasn’t it? I don’t know whether that happened to our engineer. Whether he just had some kind of mental problem. I don’t know. But as I say I never saw him again.
JM: Did you talk about it within the crew?
BH: About?
JM: What had happened?
BH: I suppose we did but not a great deal I don’t think. I don’t know what the correct approach was. Whether you talk about it or whether you forget it but I don’t recall talking to the crew about it and analysing and saying what we didn’t do properly and this kind of thing. Or what we should have done. I don’t recall anything like that to tell you the truth. It might be on my mind but I really don’t recall anything like that. No.
JM: That’s very helpful.
BH: But, you know, we operated as a crew afterwards again and did quite a few operations again with a new engineer and just got back to normality. If you can call it that.
JM: So you never thought well lightning can’t strike twice.
BH: No. I don’t think so because it does. I knew it had hit. With various, not with us obviously but with other people it could. Yes.
JM: And you completed quite a number of missions in early ’45. Right up to the war’s end.
BH: Yes. Yes. We went right up to the war. We [pause] the last one was — it wasn’t an operation. It was what we called a Manna. Where we took [pause] I don’t know how it was loaded. It was loaded in sacks I suppose — food. The Dutch people had had a very tough time during the war and a lot of them were all starving. And I think this Operation Manna, we only did one but it was before the war actually ended. I think it was the day before. May the 8th the Armistice was signed but this Operation Manna to take food to the Dutch people was on May the 6th or 7th probably. And we were required to load up the stuff in the bomb bay where the bombs would normally be and fly at a very low altitude over this park outside Amsterdam. Release the, open the bomb doors and release this stuff. And I do recall going in. There was, there was still there, a German anti-aircraft post that was still manned. And we could all see the look on these German soldiers you know. I think they thought we were going to bomb them. But that’s the last sort of operation we did.
JM: Now, I’d like to take you back a little way if I may. Could you tell us please, a little more of what it was like to be a wireless operator on a Lancaster raid?
BH: Well, as I say there was a lot of inactivity because your function was to listen. And what you might expect to hear was further instructions from the base. I mean, there was no sort of satellite communication and things like that. The only way you could get into contact with an aircraft that was quite a way from base was through medium wave / long wave radio which we had access to. In the vicinity of the airfield the pilot had contact with the airfield through the short frequency stuff. So as I say the the function of the operator was to listen mainly. And the messages you might get was, you know to change target. To change. Recall you. Something like that. If the weather was deemed to be too bad you might be recalled. And in an emergency you could transmit if you were going to ditch or something like that say. I mean in our instance we didn’t have time to do anything so, but if you were making a gradual descent and you had time to do something like that you could transmit. You were advised actually to lock the key down sometimes. You just locked the key down. It sent a continuous signal instead of being an interrupted signal which Morse code is. It just sent a continuous signal which would be picked up and it would indicate you were having problems. But otherwise as I say it was not a lot to do. I used to spend time in the astrodome which was nearby to have a lookout and see what was happening or say, identify something like I told you in the [pause] when we were shot down I was able to assist with the aircraft identification.
JM: So you will have seen, perhaps approaching the target you’ll have seen the searchlights and the anti-aircraft fire.
BH: Yes. Yes. Well, tracers and everything. It’s like a firework display when you’re going in I’m afraid.
JM: Did any of the anti-aircraft ever get close to your aircraft?
BH: Oh yeah. We had damage often, you know. You could hear it banging in the fuselage. And when you got back you might be peppered with holes. Oh yes. You got, and of course, you know if it was very, if a shell burst very close to you it upset the balance of the aircraft so — but you also got shrapnel from those shells. That was what did the damage but unless you got a direct hit I suppose you got away with it. But it was quite a sight going in. And plus all the stuff that was on the ground. The flares were there that we, that had been dropped. Yellow, green, red flares. And of course the fires. Often there was huge fires. So it was a spectacular sight in a way.
JM: Now, 582 Squadron was an important squadron in many ways but it had, as a member, the South African Captain Swales VC.
BH: Yeah.
JM: Could you tell us a little bit about that? Did you know that officer? And can you tell us a little about it?
BH: I only [pause] knew him, sort of to speak to. I wasn’t friendly with him or anything like that because most of the time I was a sergeant. He was an officer obviously. So we were in different messes. But after I got shot down early in ’45 I was promoted to flying officer but he’d been lost by then I think. So I didn’t really have close contact with him but I mean I was very familiar, quite familiar with him because he was a bit different. He wore an army uniform and he had a bit of a reputation. He acted as Master Bomber on various occasions. But apart from that, as I say, I couldn’t give any sort of personal assessment of him at all. But he was well — I know he was well liked. I used to know somebody from his crew. They were, you know were very fond of him. Trusted him. In fact I think when he was shot down there was only one crew member got out and that was the rear gunner who I did know quite well. I can’t recall his name now but I remember I used to speak to him at these reunions and things like that. But he was the sole survivor of that when Swales was shot down.
JM: He wasn’t the only VC winner on that squadron.
BH: No. There was one to Squadron Leader Palmer. Now, he was actually a member of 109 Squadron. Another Pathfinder Squadron. They did what was referred to as oboe marking. It was a beam that was sent out from [pause] from this country over the target and they would bomb on the end of that. They did a similar job to us but they only dropped flares mainly. But this particular operation, I don’t know, it must have been something special. He, Palmer who was a pilot with 109 was assigned to fly a Lancaster instead of a Mosquito and he was also acting as Master Bomber. So I don’t recall why it was this way but he was in a 582 plane at the time and when he was awarded that there was some debate of whether it should be credited to 582 Squadron or 109 Squadron. I suppose in fairness its 109 Squadron but he was flying with 582 Squadron and in a 582 aircraft at the time.
JM: Can we go back to your story because you’ve taken us very clearly to the end of the war. I understand you did a Cook’s Tour operation. Could you tell us about that?
BH: Well this was one of the things that we did after, after May the 8th. After the Armistice. There were various aircraft were consigned to do this so-called Cook’s Tour and it was to take ground crew mainly who, you know, had done a great job during the war. We relied on them for all the servicing and so and we got to know them very well. We normally had the same ground crew and we were allowed to put in [pause] I don’t know how many you could get in a Lancaster. Probably five or six. And take them of a tour of Germany to see what damage had been done with their assistance. And mainly, a tour was mainly down the Ruhr Valley. Where we flew down the Ruhr Valley, down the course of the Rhine at fairly low level. Sort of a sightseeing tour. That’s why it was called a Cook’s Tour. But, you know, on the way down you saw all the damage that had been done to places like Cologne and Ruddesheim and places like that. Mannheim. All the way down the valley. I often wondered what they could see because there was, there was really no viewing point in a Lancaster. No windows apart from the turrets. So they must have taken it in turns looking out of the turrets I think. Or going forward. The pilot might have let them in the flight engineer’s position. Something like that. But this, this, I think we did a couple of those. Just sort of appreciation of the work that they’d done really. And then after that we did trips to Italy. This, there was a great rush after the war to bring prisoners of war back. It was obviously going to take a long time to get them all back. So to, you know get some back as quickly as possible whole squadrons were sent to Italy to bring back prisoners of war. We flew to Bari, which was on the opposite side from Naples on the east side. And, yeah we usually stayed a night and then flew back with a compliment of prisoners of war. Now, I don’t know how many we packed in there but we packed them in quite a few. I mean a Lancaster is not, it’s not very roomy inside. There’s nowhere to sit. Must have sit on the floor. They must have sat on the floor and must have been very uncomfortable but I suppose it’s only a three hour trip so they were probably glad to, to, to suffer the conditions. But I often wondered that, you know, it must have been extremely uncomfortable. Particularly if they weren’t feeling too well with air sickness and that kind of thing, you know. But that’s what we usually did. We usually had a night, as I say, in Italy and I recall we were probably going to Naples. We had some few adventures in Naples with various [unclear] I don’t know what I was thinking about there but [pause] I remember going into a shop to buy something and with a few other people and somebody stole a knife. Had picked the knife up and must have taken it out. One of the people I was with. And this shopkeeper noticed it. And he got really upset. I thought oh we’re in trouble here. You know, we got out pretty quick. He didn’t follow us God he was annoyed. And I remember on one occasion we went to the opera. The Opera House in Naples. What’s it called? I don’t know. But we went to the opera which was a new experience for me. I’d never been to the opera before.
BH: I wanted to ask you really about your social life. That’s the wrong word. Non-operational life when you were operating with 582. What did you do when you were off duty?
BH: Well, you would normally, when you sort of started your day you would check in each mess. When there was an operation on there was a notice posted in the officer’s mess and the sergeant’s mess. If there was an operation on that day they would give you all the details. First of all they would give you the crews that were on there. The time of take-off, time of the meal, the flying meal that is before the thing and briefing. Time of briefing. All that kind of information. If you weren’t on it well that was the signal usually to go in to Bedford or St Neots. They were the places that we frequented most. Bedford moreso I think. Drinking or dancing. Plenty of dancing going on in Bedford I remember. Our skipper had a car actually which we normally all packed in. We went out as a crew mostly. Johnny Campbell had a motorbike also but if we were going into Bedford we’d probably go in the skipper’s car. You know. Seven of us in it. A bit overloaded but not everybody went every time I suppose but he had this car so that was the usual thing. To Bedford. St Neots was not a bad place. There was only pubs there but that was about it. Drinking weak beer in St Neots or Bedford. Or dancing as I say. There was quite a lot of dancing.
JM: And you must have had the experience of hearing of the loss of friends of yours.
BH: Yes. I lost [pause] well I lost a very dear friend in training actually. I think it was at OTU. No. Not OTU. Yeah, I guess it must have been OTU. We were flying in the, yeah it was a training exercise. It was in the St Ives area. That’s the St Ives near to Huntingdon. Not the one in Cornwall. We did a lot in that area. And his name was Hopkins. He was a wireless operator as well. He came from South Wales. And he was on the same operations as I was. Flying in Ansons. And he just didn’t, he crashed somewhere in that area and didn’t come back. But you know operationally you were losing friends all the time. You never got really to know anybody that well because you know you weren’t together that long. You had a lot of acquaintances but not a lot of friends. I mean, your closest friends were your crew.
JM: So we’re now up to the summer of 1945. Did you stay with the RAF?
BH: Well, I only stayed because I had to. Right after the war Canadians were back to Canada just like that. They were back the same month almost. So all my crew left right away, you know. Probably during May even and so we were transferred to various things. I remember going to Graveley [pause] yeah. To Graveley. Was posted from Little Staughton to Graveley and I think we did a couple of these trips to [pause] to Italy from there. With a different crew of course. But then later on — well before that we were actually, the buzz was that we were going to go to the Far East. The Japanese war was still going on obviously and crews were being trained to go out to the Far East. But in the meantime there was a tour of Brazil being arranged and this was — during the war Brazil was very helpful to the United Kingdom. They opened their ports to our ships. Particularly for repairs and stuff like that. Air Chief Marshall Harris decided that he would make a goodwill tour of Brazil and crews were selected. One was, there were three crews to go with him. With Harris. I think one was from 5 Group, one was from 8 Group which was Pathfinders and one was from 1 Group. So there were various criteria for this. I don’t quite know what they were. But one of the criteria I do remember was that we had some civilian clothes and I happened to have some and I sort of volunteered this and I was selected as the wireless operator from Pathfinder Force. And we had a pilot from 582 Squadron as well I suppose. Now, this was, nobody was quite sure what was going to happen but in the end it turned out to be quite a trip. We were to fly in three adapted Lancasters which had been painted white actually. And the interiors had been fitted to accommodate various people. They put some seating in of some kind. I don’t know how they did it exactly but, you know, I can’t imagine Harris sort of [laughs] sitting on the main spar or something like that but obviously they did rig up some kind of seating. Because there was Harris and he had quite a lot of aides obviously and we had to carry our own ground staff with us because during the flight out we had to service. Do our own servicing. So there was a lot of ground crew as well. But I recall we were there more or less when the Olympic Games were on. This year. That period. Their winter actually. Winter in the southern hemisphere. The end of July beginning of August. But it was quite a route and quite an experience really because for one thing we had to fly across the South Atlantic which had never been done before. The route we took was down [pause] we took off from St Mawgan in Cornwall. Flew down the [pause] we had to be careful where we were flying. The military weren’t allowed to fly over certain countries, you know. I think Portugal in particular. So we had to skirt Spain and Portugal and fly down the — we landed first in Morocco. I remember spending the night in Morocco and then the next one was down in Bathurst. I think it’s changed its name now. Bathurst in West Africa which was the westernmost point of Africa. That being chosen to make it as short as possible the crossing. And I do remember there we had great difficulty in finding the airport because it’s jungle there and if you’re flying over what looks like trees all the time trying to find a place where there’s a clearing which would be the airport. But we got there eventually and from Bathurst we flew across the South Atlantic but they made special arrangements for that I remember. The Brazilians spaced three destroyers at intervals across the South Atlantic in case there was any problems. I think we flew from Bathurst to [pause] was it Natal or Recif? Natal I think it was. Which was in Northern Brazil. And from there down to Rio de Janeiro where we were to stay while we were feted. Well, sort of followed Harris around. He was feted and we sort of hung on to his coat tails and got all the festivities and so on that went on. One thing I do recall about Rio. The airport there, it was more or less inside Rio. Still there I think. I remember seeing it on the map of the Olympics this year. It’s called Santos Dumont, after the pioneer. But it had water at both ends and quite a short runway. So, you know, it was tricky landing but we landed there because we wanted to keep the aircraft there because later, at later dates we were going to give access to people. To show, to show the aircraft to the people in that area. But that was quite a thing. We stayed there. We had all kinds of dinners and visits and this kind of thing. Entertained at barbecues. We flew down to Sao Paulo. To Port Alegre. We were assigned a Brazilian Air Force Captain, he was. Captain Umberto I remember his name was. He had a plane that he flew us around in. A twin engine Beechcraft. And we were flown around various functions. As I say to Sao Paulo and Port Alegre. But that was a marvellous time really. We stayed, I think the visit lasted about four weeks. But when the time came to leave one of the Lancasters became unserviceable and needed an engine change. And we were selected to stay behind with it which [laughs] was no great imposition really, I suppose. So we were there for another couple of weeks because they had to fly this engine in from Canada. So we had to wait for the engine to be flown down from Canada and then put in by the ground staff of course before we were able to leave. So we had another couple of weeks. I mean all the official stuff had finished by then so we were given a daily allowance I think it was to sort of feed ourselves and so on because before everything had been on the Brazilian government and that kind of thing. But when we took off to leave you couldn’t take off from Santos Dumont with a full load of petrol because the runway was too short. You had to have a minimum and we flew to another airport outside of Brazil which I think is now the international airport. And, you know, to refuel there before we flew on. Flew back. Flew — where did we go? To Recife again I think. And then to the Bahamas. We missed America. We went straight to Montreal. We never landed in America. Went from Bahamas to Montreal. Goose Bay. Reykjavik and then back to this country.
JM: What an adventure.
BH: It was an adventure. I wrote an account of it at the time. All the journey times and mileage and all that kind of thing but it was quite an adventure.
JM: I must ask you did you form any views of Harris because you travelled with him? What was he like?
BH: I don’t know that I ever really met him. He wasn’t in our aircraft. He flew with a Wing Commander, Swann was his name I think. He flew in the 5 Group aircraft from Wyton. No. I can’t form an opinion of him but he hasn’t had a very good press I don’t think. But I can’t recall speaking to him, say. Something like that or even — we were in his company all the time obviously because we were going to night clubs and that kind of thing and going to ceremonies but we never came in direct contact with him.
JM: So when you got back to Britain after this remarkable journey did you leave the Royal Air Force at that point?
BH: No. I was kept in. I was sent to — the trip to the Far East was gone by then of course because the atomic bomb had been dropped and the Japanese war had finished while we were in Brazil. On August the 8th. We were in Brazil then when the Japanese war ended. No. After that I was posted back to Finningley in Yorkshire where I, I was an instructor. I instructed on various wireless things you know for [pause] well I didn’t come out of the air force ‘til March ’47. So I was at Finningley for possibly six months on these instruction duties.
JM: I think you told us that you were a member of the 582 Association. Did you, did you maintain contact with your crew?
BH: I did because after the war I migrated. I went to Canada because of the influence of this Canadian crew and everything. You know, things after the war were not good. I was discharged, as I say, in the spring of ’47. I stayed at home for about six months working on the family farm but I thought this is not for me and we decided to go to Canada. So I stayed in Canada for about fourteen years. From ’47 to ’61. And during that time I didn’t actually meet with the crew. Only one of the crew. Johnny Campbell the rear gunner was the only one I met with. The rest of them lived out in the west actually. Campbell lived in New Brunswick but the remainder lived in Winnipeg, Vancouver. So I never got out there so I was in contact with, you know it was letters or cards or whatever. But the only one I met personally was Johnny Campbell that saved my life. I saw him a few times. He came. Well he came to, I was in Toronto and he came to work in Toronto actually although he was from New Brunswick. But for a while he came to work for one of the oil companies in Toronto so I saw quite a bit of him then. After I came back I gradually lost contact. I’m not in contact anymore. Probably nobody’s alive anymore I suppose but —
JM: When you look back on that incredible period of your life how do you see things now?
BH: Well, it’s something that you can look back with a certain amount of pleasure and satisfaction I suppose. But whether you’d want to repeat it I don’t know. But I often think that, you know — there was I, nineteen, twenty. With a lot of people all of similar age, you know. Pilots, perhaps a bit older than us because they had a longer training. But pilots of a four engine bomber with responsibility for seven crew. You know, people, people twenty two say. Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three like that. It was certainly an experience, but I think of my own grandson at times and I think when he was nineteen. When I was his age he didn’t, would he have been fit to go and do what I did. Would people nowadays at nineteen, twenty go and do what I did. It’s remarkable really how young we were and the responsibilities that we had at that age. Which, I’m sure, you know whether people would take to it today the same I really don’t know. But it’s an experience you wouldn’t have missed. But whether you’d, as I say, you’d volunteer for it again I don’t know. It’s certainly something that, you know has [pause] given me a lot of friends over the period. A lot of contacts and events to attend and that kind of thing. You know, I’ve always felt part of the RAF family since and I’ve always been going to any events that were planned via the squadron basis or whatever. Bomber Command basis. I belonged to Bomber Command. They had their own Association as well. So I used to belong to that as well. They used to have functions at Hendon and places like that. So, you know, it’s been life enhancing. There’s no doubt about it.
JM: Did you get your clasp?
BH: Yes. Yeah.
JM: Was that presented to you or —?
BH: No. I wrote off. I had to write off for it but I’ve got it.
JM: How do you feel about the way that Bomber Command was treated?
BH: I think we were treated fairly shabbily but I think it made some part reconciliation but not as we felt it should be. I felt we should have got some kind of campaign medal. And to his credit Harris always, I think he was the problem. He had disagreements with so many people. If you’ve ever read his biography or any biographies of the campaign that he was a difficult man to deal with and fell out with a lot of people. And a lot of people didn’t agree with what he did. The type of, you know this area bombing which, you know rather than strategic bombing. All the blame was put on him which I’m sure it wasn’t. It was further up. I don’t think he decided policy. He carried it out but he didn’t decide the policy. But I think he was treated pretty shabbily too. But —
JM: Bill, I think this would be a good place to finish. Thank you so much. You’ve given us a very full, thorough, detailed and very moving account of your service with Bomber Command. Thank you indeed.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with William Hough
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Julian Maslin
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-09-05
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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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AHoughWJ160905
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Pending review
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01:26:24 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Hough came from a farming background, went to a local grammar school in Northwich and was a member of the Air Training Corps. He joined the RAF in 1943. He describes his initial training at Bridgnorth. Bill then goes into the continuation training then going to wireless school where he became a wireless operator and air gunner. Bill was then part of 8 OTU (Operational Training Unit) where they flew Wellington’s, then the HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit) flying Halifaxes. Bill then went to Finishing School and flew Lancaster’s. A part of the Pathfinders, Bill flew with 582 squadron. Bill then reminisces his operations, one of which where his aircraft was attacked by a Messerschmitt 262. Bill then details being shot down and his experiences of getting back to Britain through Belgium, where he stayed with American forces and recalled that they were much better fed. Bill took part in Operation Manna and details the experiences of anti-aircraft fire. Bill also recollects his squadron and the Victoria Cross recipient, South African Captain Swales, Bill did not have close contact with him but knew he was well liked. Bill also remembers another Victoria Cross recipient, Squadron Leader Palmer, who was a pilot in 109 Squadron but was flying with 582 Squadron and a 582 aircraft at the time. He also describes his experiences when he was off-duty and often went to Bedford and St. Neots to drink and dance. Bill later details his experiences after the war and being selected to go on a goodwill tour to Brazil with Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris and was in Brazil when the war in Asia ended. After instruction duties, Bill emigrated to Canada and stayed for fourteen years, and met Air Gunner Johnny Campbell who saved his life. Bill’s interview finishes with the legacy of Bomber Command and receiving his medal clasp.
Contributor
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Benjamin Turner
1656 HCU
576 Squadron
582 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bale out
bombing
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Me 262
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
Proctor
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Lindholme
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Worksop
RAF Yatesbury
shot down
training
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/880/11120/AHolthamJ180522.1.mp3
132e2f9745f136cd924b3faae6e66582
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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Holtham, John
J Holtham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with John Holtham (1807076, 280924 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 487 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-22
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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Holtham, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslan. The interviewee is Mr John Holtham. The interview is taking place at Mr Holtham's house in Staffordshire on the 22nd of May 2018. John, I wonder if we could start the interview by you telling us a little bit about your background before you joined the RAF.
JH: Yes. Right. I’ll start with my father if I may.
JM: Please do.
JH: He was born in 1900, the youngest of four brothers and by 1915 three of them were serving so he ran away from home, lied about his age and joined the Army. Well, luckily his father got him out of that but in 1917 he joined the Royal Flying Corps and trained and qualified as a pilot, went to France flying over the trenches when he was only still only seventeen but then they asked for volunteers to join the Royal Naval Air Service and he and his friend both volunteered, were sent back to Calshot and learned to fly Flying Boats which in those days were made of canvas over a wooden frame. And he spent the first of the war flying over the Channel. Then World War Two came along and he wanted to rejoin the RAF. Of course, in April of 1918 the two forces, the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps had amalgamated but he was told that because he had been in the Royal Naval Air Service he had to go in the Fleet Air Arm. So that was what he did and he spent the rest of the war as the senior training officer at Yeovilton as he was considered too old to fly. Now we come to me myself and in 1941 they announced the formation of the Air Training Corps and as I’d been an Army Cadet I at once went to my headmaster and said, ‘Could we form a school company?’ And he said, ‘Yes, we could.’ Obviously, he was the CO and because I had some training I had instant promotion to flight sergeant. Now, in 1942 when I was seventeen and three quarters I went along to the Recruiting Office in Exeter to join the RAF but the flight sergeant said, ‘No. Go back to school and it will be to your advantage.’ Which is what I did and two weeks later a squadron leader turned up and interviewed me and offered me a place under the RAF University Entrant Scheme. They would send me to university for six months where I could study whatever subject I liked and at the same time take my preliminary exams with the University Air Squadron. So they sent me to Oxford. I went to St Edmund or Teddy Hall and read history and did my preliminary RAF training. So after six months early in ‘43 I was in the RAF proper. And after a few weeks we went to Heaton Park, Manchester where we were told what we were going to do and I was given the heading of navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator. NBW. It was a very long training. The longest in the RAF but it did mean that we would be in small aircraft where we had to do everything except fly the thing. So first of all we went to Cranwell for an eighteen week radio course which mostly consisted of Morse Code. They did tell us how to mend the wireless but when you're going five miles a minute in ten minutes you’ve gone fifty miles and you're probably lost so the private advice was if it doesn't work hit it with your fists and if it still doesn't work leave it alone. So at the end of that course we were off to Heaton Park again and then across the Atlantic on the Mauritania, about three hundred of us and it took eleven days actually because we zigzagged by day and went straight by night and we arrived in New York. Then after Moncton and New Brunswick had our first taste of a Canadian winter. After a few weeks there it was down to 33 Air Navigation School at Mount Hope, near Hamilton and, for our navigation course. This was twenty six weeks. Longer than the normal navigator’s course as we made two flights as a navigator and one as a wireless operator. At the end of that we were given our wings and then they asked for two volunteers to go to the Operational Training Unit at Debert in Nova Scotia on Mosquitoes. Well, myself and my friend Geoff we both volunteered and we were the only ones that did so we got the job and we went after a leave we went up to Debert which was right in the middle of nowhere and we were paired up with our pilots and we did, I think it was eight weeks course there flying the Mosquito. My first flight in a Mosquito was when I was still nineteen. Then across the Atlantic again this time with twelve thousand American troops as company. We landed at Christmas Day. I remember we had K-rations on Christmas Day. Not the best thing in the world but the catering facilities must have been stretched to their limit with that number of people. And then we went to another OTU in England at High Ercall in Shropshire to get used to wartime conditions. And then they took away the radios from the Mosquito and gave us radar, Gee radar instead which was much better as you could fix your position with great accuracy on home on the end of the runway. After a course there it was off to France and we joined 487 New Zealand Squadron at Epinoy near Cambrai and the war was coming to an end and there was not a lot of opposition. Our job was Army cooperation and we, our chief targets were anything that moved on the ground. So we flew very low and just popped off at anything like a train or a lorry that was on the road. When the war came to an end the New Zealanders very quickly went back to New Zealand and I was transferred to 139 Squadron. Now one duty we had was to take a dispatch daily from Germany. Nuremberg back to England and we all took turns which gave us a chance to go into the war crimes trial and you dialled your language and you could hear an instant translation. In the dock was a German general and he was later hanged for crimes against humanity. They looked a very ordinary bunch of men but the, Goering stood out from all the others in a white jacket. I remember hearing Shawcross, the British lawyer say the same thing. There are, then I had another job as well at [unclear] which was editor of the local, of the newspaper. The station newspaper. We did one thousand five hundred copies a week with a pin up which necessitated my going to the Windmill Theatre in London. We had a crossword, we had leading articles and I believe they’re all stored at the Air Museum. After some time I was given a third posting and this time up to, further in Germany at Lunenberg, near the frontier with East Germany. From there to the Maintenance Unit at [unclear] and was flying aircraft back to England to dump them. Have them broken up. So the longest trip I made there was just before Christmas in 1946 when the CO said he wanted turkey for everyone for Christmas and we flew to Northern Ireland. Think we landed twice to refuel. Brought four hundred pounds weight of turkey and flew them back to the station. This was the worst winter of the century and our final trip was down to Eindhoven where the aircraft froze solid and we were unable to go any further. I was discharged in 1947 and went back to university to take applied optics and joined civilian life. In 1951 I got married and also joined Auxiliary Air Force doing part time work teaching other people navigation. I left there in 1957 and my contact with the Air Force continued with the Royal Air Force Association which I’ve been a member for many years. I’ve been welfare officer, secretary and for many years chairman. I’ve now retired from all such things as I now feel that at my age I deserve to take things more easily.
JM: John, thank you very much. Could we just go back over some of those points and just discuss them in a little bit more detail? I’d like to start on this occasion right at the early stage in your RAF career when you were being trained to operate the wireless and as a navigator. Could you tell us a little bit more about how that took place and how easy you found it to master those skills?
JH: Yeah. Well, I already, I already had a good knowledge of Morse Code. We, we had to get your [air observer’s] badge you had to be able to Morse Code at twelve words a minute but with the RAF you had to have at least sixteen words a minute and I think we managed twenty two words a minute which is, a word is five letters so twenty two times five is over a hundred. More than one a second and you’d got so used to doing it that you could read a book and take it down at the same time. But it was something you never forget and even today seventy years later I can still remember the Morse Code but not as quickly as that. It was of limited use really because you don’t use your radio when you’re flying over Germany because it gives your position away and if your only message you receive are a change of target or a general recall. But in point of fact I never used it as such because we had Gee radar instead.
JM: And Gee worked on the basis of receiving signals from a ground transmitting station.
JH: Yeah.
JM: Was it easy to use Gee?
JH: Yes. Very easy. Yes. You had two little blips and you used to align the blips. I forget how you do it all now [laughs] but you could align the blips and push a button that gave you a reading and you could read off of the map exactly where you were or you could set on it the position of the end of your runway and then watch the two blips coming together and when they came together there you were over the airport.
JM: Your time in Canada must have been very important in your formation as a young man.
JH: Yes. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Canada. It was an eye opener. Canadian society was much looser and not so rigid as English society and it’s, it’s a great country, Canada. I’ve been back many times since and it really is a great country. The one disadvantage of course is the Canadian winter and all those who can afford it and are retired go down to Florida for the winter. But if you’re, they say that the best part of Canada is the West Coast. British Columbia. Vancouver. Vancouver Island. And having been there I can see that it is. They even play cricket on Vancouver Island so it is home from home for Englishmen.
JM: So, you convert on to the Mosquito. Tell us a little bit more please about what that aeroplane was like to operate and to learn to fly.
JH: Well, it [pause] it was a very complicated aircraft. One forgets how complicated it was but it had, it needed a very experienced pilot to fly it. All the pilots had to have a minimum of one thousand hours and you had to cooperate. The pilot and the navigator had to cooperate exactly to get everything right. But navigating you had to have your position within a hundred of yards of the track and it was a question of whether you flew under high tension cables or over them and the landing speeds and take off speeds were very high for aircraft of the time, a hundred and twenty miles an hour. And it was a very fast aircraft for the day. It cruised at two hundred and seventy miles an hour. Well, a Spitfire cruised at two hundred and fifty. And it had a very high top speed but we never had to use because we only used it in an emergency and obviously it was very expensive on the engine and very expensive on fuel and you shortened your range tremendously if you go belting across at four hundred miles an hour.
JM: Now, as a navigator you would have needed light in the cockpit to read maps or to do your work.
JH: No.
JM: But obviously that was a giveaway. So how did you get around that one?
JH: No. There were no navigation lights but we had a little torch. A little round torch about an inch across and you put tissue paper over the bulb so that it wasn’t so bright. Apart from my training flights in Canada I never flew in an aircraft which had a navigator station with a table or things like that. They were always up sitting next to the pilot and just with a map on your knees. But you got very expert and they always say a man is not lost, merely unsure of his position.
JM: But map reading at low level at high speed must be quite difficult to do.
JH: Yes. It is more difficult. Yeah.
JM: How did you go about that? What principles did you —
JH: Well, you’ve got to do it constantly. You can’t turn away from it. That’s why you couldn’t take time off to repair a radio set. If you do that you lose very quickly your sense of where you are. But the maps were very detailed and so you could figure out names. At night of course it was a different matter. If it was a black night there was nothing you could see at all on the ground and you [pause] I don’t know how we did it but we did do it.
JM: Now, your Mosquito was gun armed I understand.
JH: Yeah.
JM: Tell us a little bit about that.
JH: Well, they had four machine guns on the nose and four twenty millimetre cannon underneath the fuselage all firing forwards. It was particularly used for ground support. Shooting at anything that moved on the ground. It also did bomb specified targets. Particularly if the Army had asked for them. Rather funnily I was collecting money for the RAF Association outside the supermarket in Stone. This man came up to me and said, ‘Where were you in July 1944?’ I said, ‘I was still training.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Mosquitoes attacked our headquarters.’ I thought, ‘Oh dear.’ And then I realised he wasn’t English he was German [laughs] so I didn’t mind after all.
JM: Because you were with 487 Squadron which was a New Zealand squadron with a tremendous history during the Second World War. You were aware of those traditions when you joined it I’m sure.
JH: Oh yes. Oh yes. I mean the CO was a Wing Commander Kemp. He was flying in the Middle East and he didn’t want to stop flying. He knew they would stop him if his papers arrived back in England so he arrived to fly back so he arrived before his papers did so he could still go on flying and he had two DSOs and two DFCs. A very nice man he was. He was a peacetime veterinary surgeon and that’s what he went back to doing after the war.
JM: I understand that the Mosquitoes on 487 attacked quite specific targets on at least two occasions. Can, can you just tell us a little bit about those attacks?
JH: Yeah. Well, one of the most famous ones was the Amien Prison where they attacked the wall. An Australian squadron attacked the barracks and an English squadron was in reserve. The other one was the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen where they were holding two of the Resistance fighters and torturing them for information and everyone gives way in the end. And they asked us to bomb it and even to kill them. To kill the agents. Now in point of fact they dropped a delayed action bomb which went straight through down to the ground floor killing the Gestapo but didn’t kill the two agents who managed to escape.
JM: But there was a tragedy associated with that.
JH: Yes. Some of the Mosquitoes bombed a girl’s school. But the Danish were very understanding about it. They didn’t blame them at all. It’s surprising but they didn’t. No.
JM: Now, when the war was over you had the opportunity to participate in the Nuremberg trials which is something that history records but I have never met anybody who was actually associated with that.
JH: Yes we —
JM: Can you tell us more about that please?
JH: We all got a chance of sit in. You went on the balcony and put some earphones on and turned the dial to English so that you got a simultaneous translation. And the, all war criminals were in the dock together. They looked a very ordinary set of men apart from Goering in his white jacket. And there was a German general in the box answering. Answering questions. It was all very slow paced. This trial took many months. Some were acquitted. Some got lesser sentences and some were condemned.
JM: And executed.
JH: What?
JM: And executed.
JH: And executed. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, the Americans had their own executioner. A master sergeant executioner. He executed over three hundred American servicemen during the war over here.
JM: Good grief.
JH: Yeah. That was for murder or rape.
JM: Desertion or other criminal military offences.
JH: Not desertion. No. They were nearly all murder or rape.
JM: Was it? Was it? Yeah.
JH: Of course, a lot of them rape cases were black and you do see pictures now of blacks serving in with the white services but of course they didn’t. No black men served in the white services. They were all separate units. They went to different pubs. There was no mixing at all.
JM: But you, you did have black aircrew in the RAF.
JH: Yes. On my navigation course we had two West Indian brothers and a Nigerian and we had no problem with that at all.
JM: So there was no discrimination at that stage.
JH: No.
JM: You were all in the same uniform.
JH: Not at all. No. No. They were nice chaps and we got on very well. I met one of the West Indians later on. I’d landed somewhere and he suddenly, saw him waving at me. He’d also come in to land there. So I don’t know where he’d been or what he’d been doing but they had normal duties.
JM: Going back to your story you’ve mentioned that you were involved in bringing aircraft back to Britain for scrapping. There was no sense of holding aircraft for heritage in those days I gather.
JH: None at all. No. The principal place we took them was St Athans which was in Wales actually and I’ve never seen so many Lancasters all lined up wing tip to wing tip. All going to the scrap heap. It’s a wonder we saved any at all but a lot of aircraft, many, many types of which none exist because we didn’t save any. I was surprised to see a Defiant the other day which I didn’t know any of those existed. It was a useless aircraft but [pause] easily shot down.
JM: Yes. And, and then, you know you maintained your association with the Royal Air Force in to the 1950s.
JH: Yeah.
JM: You were saying that you were helping to train people to —
JH: Yeah.
JM: Learn the skills of navigation. How did you view the RAF changing in those post-war years?
JH: Well, it was, it was still quite a considerable sized force back then. There were one or two hundred thousand people. Now it’s only thirty eight thousand. As I say everyone knows everyone else’s name, you know. It’s like a boy’s club of sorts.
JM: Yeah. You have this marvellous model of the Mosquito here in your home.
JH: Yeah.
JM: It’s a wonderful model. You were telling me that the opportunity came to paint the spinners on the engines in a colour.
JH: Yes.
JM: Would you tell us about that?
JH: All the squadrons were allowed to have different coloured spinners. Ours was a blue ring and all the front of it was polished bright metal. So we had to do that and the CO didn’t want the ground staff to do it. He said they’ll resent it so you got to do it yourself.
JM: And that was hard work.
JH: Not really but it wasn’t what we were accustomed to.
JM: Now you didn’t maintain any contact with your pilot or the other New Zealanders after.
JH: No. No. I didn’t I’m afraid. But my great friend Geoff he’d been sent out the Far East and we did correspond for a time but he lived at Nantwich which in those days was a long way away from where I lived and we never met. I met one or two people but not many.
JM: No. No. No. Well, John, thank you very much for completing this interview with me. Thank you for all the information that you’ve given which is very detailed and very unusual and I’m sure it will go down in to the IBCC Archives and be of considerable significance to historians of the future. So thank you very much indeed.
JH: Pleasure. What I didn’t mention and wasn’t going to was one of my friends up in Canada —
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 John Holtham
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-22
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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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AHolthamJ180522
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00:27:33 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Oxford
Canada
Nova Scotia
France
Germany
Germany--Nuremberg
New Zealand
Description
An account of the resource
At the age of 15 he ran away from home, lied about his age, and joined the British Army. In 1917 he joined the Royal Flying Corps and qualified as a pilot and volunteered to join the Royal Naval Air Service. When the Second World War broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and spent time as the senior training officer at RAF Great Yarmouth. In 1941 John joined the Air Training Corps and the following year he was offered a place on the RAF university entrance scheme for six months. He then went to Oxford to read history and do RAF training. After six months he was able to re-join the RAF, and went to Canada for a navigation course. He and a friend volunteered to go to an Operational Training Unit in Nova Scotia where they were paired with their pilots and did an eight-week course on Mosquitos. After another Operational Training Unit in Shropshire they were posted to France, where they joined 487 Squadron. When the war ended John went back to New Zealand and transferred to 139 Squadron. His next postings in 1946 were to Nuremberg where he was involved in the trials. In 1947 he was discharged and went back to university. John got married in 1951 and re-joined the Air Force in a teaching capacity.
Temporal Coverage
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1917
1941
1942
1945
1946
1947
1951
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
139 Squadron
487 Squadron
aircrew
crewing up
Gee
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
RAF Great Yarmouth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/820/10803/AFisherJ170124.2.mp3
af1ed094dce2d464caf521e9583889c4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Fisher, John
J Fisher
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with John Fisher. His father, Flight Sergeant George Bedwell, was a wireless operator with 9 Squadron. He was killed 1/2 January 1944. <br />The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.<br />Additional information on George Bedwell is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/101500/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-24
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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Fisher, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is John Fisher. The interview is taking place at Julian’s home in Stafford. Also present is Ann Mullin, the subject of a separate interview. John, I wonder if you could start by telling us a little bit about your background. Where you were born and a little bit about your upbringing at that time.
JF: Yeah. I was brought up in Saxmundham in Suffolk. A little village on the A12. And that was seven weeks after my father was killed in the war. My first, I suppose early memory after that was probably only about a year later sitting in my pram and seeing tanks come across our driveway. And I often wondered what they were for but never actually at the time because I was only young and couldn’t ask it. I was brought up in a, obviously a house without a father. I’d never really asked why. Other children obviously had fathers. And children I played with and visited had fathers but I didn’t have one and I never asked why because I didn’t know what the question was. It must have just appeared natural and nobody ever told me why I didn’t have a father. And I suppose it was really, really only later in life, I suppose as late as late ‘50s early ‘60s when I really started to discover things about my father. Ann obviously knew. Ann Mullin, my sister obviously knew a little bit more about it because she was young when he was killed but I didn’t know anything at all. I think it was probably only when his medals arrived through the post unannounced that I started to wonder what that was all about. And of course I was probably, I don’t know, what was I? Thirteen, fourteen then. And started to ask questions of things like that. And then, I think about three or four years later his logbook suddenly turned up and it had obviously been in some water somewhere because it was very, very crinkled up. So I started looking at that. About that time there was going to be a pause of many many years because I’d met my wife [laughs] And that was in 1963. And three years later we were married and then we spent the next forty, thirty, forty years odd bringing up a family and making a living and all the other things you do which stop you doing the things you really want to do. So I suppose it was really about, just as the millennium turned really that I started to think what could we find out about my father. So I started asking a lot of questions. We have, had an Auntie Nancy who was really, who was my mother’s younger sister or middle sister. And she was able to fill me in a lot of things but she only knew so much and they only came out in little bits and pieces because they didn’t talk about such things and nobody talked about the war. My mother never talked about the war. And it was sort of a, not a blur but they obviously knew about it but I didn’t know where I fitted in. So just after the millennium we, my wife and I started to think because I’d got the logbook. And then we started to thinking about how can I find out a bit more about this. And that took then another two years. Because we’d still got a son at home who was heavily involved in the bank of mum and dad.
[recording paused]
JM: The pause was for a coffee break. John you were saying —
JF: Yes. So we, we started to think about what we could do to try and find out what, what really happened to my father. I knew he was buried in Hanover. And I think, I’m not sure, I think Ann may have visited the cemetery. Ann is sitting here by me so did you actually visit the cemetery? You didn’t did you?
AM: No.
JF: While you were in Germany.
AM: No. We were in the other end of Germany. Are you still on there?
JF: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. We were in [unclear] which was not, about forty miles from Munster. I think the next, I can’t remember what the next town was.
JF: Yeah.
AM: It was a long way away from Hanover. I know that. I didn’t really want to go.
JF: No.
AM: It would upset me too much.
JM: I think that’s an important point, Ann. When we met before you told me a little bit more about why you didn’t want to go.
AM: Yeah. I just —
JM: Could you say that again please?
AM: Yeah. I didn’t really want to go because I knew I’d get upset. And he wasn’t really there then wasn’t he?
JM: So, it was really —
AM: I always thought he was coming back. I used to say he’s just missing. He’s lost his memory. He’ll come back. All. Every time. Every time I had to had an argument with my step father I used to say he was coming back.
JM: I’m sure you must be speaking for many relatives of downed airmen. I’m sure you must. That’s a most important point.
JF: Yeah.
AM: I did remember him and, you know —
JM: Yeah.
AM: I remember going to tell Granny Bedwell that he’d gone missing. And I didn’t understand it all but she was upset so I thought this is something horrible but I couldn’t work out why. You know, you don’t think about it, do you? I was only about six. So —
JM: John, if you could carry on. Take on the story.
JF: Yeah. I’d talked before to my mother when we were on our own about visiting and suggested we ought to all go together to Hanover and she said she just didn’t want to go. And I assume it’s a similar reason to Ann really. She didn’t really believe it. I know she got married again and that, but that’s you know another story. But she just didn’t want to go. So I’m now sort of around 2000, 2002 and I thought we’re going to do something about this now. Try and find out. The first thing I did was to go to RAF Cosford which is just ten minutes away from us and ask people there what we could do. And they let me look at the book which said, yeah. They crashed. Missing over Weyhausen. And so my next logical step, being a nosy reporter was to find a newspaper in Weyhausen. The local newspaper. And try and find a journalist there who might be able to help me and they may have records or something. So, I found one in a place called, in near Weyhausen, in Gifhorn, which was the area. And it’s a guy called, sorry I phoned the number. I phoned the number of this newspaper and the first person who answered was a guy called Joachim [Gris] and, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Hello Joachim, I hope that’s how I pronounce his name,’ because I couldn’t pronounce his name. I thought it was Joachim and he said, ‘What can I do for you?’ And I explained where I was and who I was and that. He said, ‘You’re most unfortunate,’ sorry, ‘You’re most fortunate because I’m known around here as something of a World War Two buff.’ And he said, ‘I’m sure you know what one of those are.’ I said, ‘Yeah. We’ve got several in England who are the same.’ ‘Well, I’ll be very interested in this because it’s, it’s the sort of thing I like to investigate.’ So from that we had a natter and that and I gave him details. I emailed him with details out of my father’s logbook and all the details of the plane and things and the records from the RAF. And he then set about, which I didn’t know at the time he set about looking through Luftwaffe records to see if he could actually find anything. One of the early things he came up with out of his own paper in fact, was a photograph of a crashed plane which had appeared in there. It had been issued by, by the Luftwaffe. Presumably by their press office to show, look what we’ve just shot down. The plane was a little bit mangled. It was on the front page of their paper. And he thought that might be it because it was actually shot down the same night that my father’s plane was shot down and over Weyhausen. So I took this to RAF Cosford where they identified it as a Hastings.
JM: Halifax.
JF: Hastings.
AM: Halifax.
JF: Hastings. And they actually said, ‘No. This is a Royal Canadian Air Force plane.’ And they, they contacted a group of people who had been looking for this particular plane because one of the crew was an international, I say international, a nationally known radio broadcaster in Canada and they’d been looking for what fifty, sixty years for this plane. Or news about it. So they sent all the details to them and we assume now they will do the same. Go through records and they will find out what happened. According to the cutting the, all the crew perished in that so there wasn’t going to be a survivor anywhere. But of course it was a Hastings. It was a bit of red herring but it helped somebody else out of a problem. Meanwhile, Joachim decided to go to the National Records which is some miles away apparently. It’s about a hundred and fifty kilometres away or somewhere where they kept all the microfiche records. And eventually by keying in some key dates he found out that in fact my father’s plane crashed in another Weyhausen some miles away from where he was. I didn’t know there were two Weyhausens. And it’s the Weyhausen near the big Volkswagen factory which is still there at Wolfsburg and of course have a famous football team nowadays. Once he’d found that out he was able then to triangulate that with all the Luftwaffe pilot reports and eventually he came up with a guy called Wittgenstein, Prince Wittgenstein who was the Red Baron of the day. And Prince Wittgenstein actually downed eighty three planes during his short career. He’s also, I should say prince, he was a member of the royal family of Germany. And in fact he was related to our queen through Queen Sophia of Spain I understand. That may not be totally accurate but he has a, he has a relationship somewhere along the line with our queen. But then again they probably all are. They’re all related. He found out anyway. He’s the guy who came out of the clouds and shot my father’s plane down. The nasty story for him is that two weeks later he came out of the clouds to try and get another plane and crashed into it and he was killed. So he only lasted two weeks. Lasted two weeks after shooting my father’s plane down.
JM: John, I think I should pause here and ask you a difficult question. You found this photograph and this record of the man who had taken your life and the lives of many other allied airmen. What were your feelings about that?
JF: Initially, I think I’d like to throw bricks through his window [laughs] but not really. In reality it was a war. He was fighting a war just like our people were. I mean, we have to say my father had just bombed the hell out of Dresden. You know. Or my father’s plane. He hadn’t. He was a radio operator so he didn’t actually press any buttons but he was part of that. But we were fighting for freedom. We were fighting for our country. The German people were not necessarily fighting for their country. The German people were fighting for peace. That’s what they wanted. And they wanted to be rid of the Nazis. Whatever anyone said they were a cruel nasty lot and this is why when eventually we turned up in Hanover to stop with some people the first thing they did was to apologise for the war. And these were only a young couple in their thirties who had no experience of that war. And they just said, ‘We’re sorry about the war and we’ll help you any way we can while you’re here.’ And that was nice.
JM: Thank you. Did you find out whether Wittgenstein had any surviving family members?
JF: He has many, many, many surviving families. In fact, I trawled recently through the internet just to try and find out who his families were and there are Wittgensteins everywhere. You’ll see them mentioned in the last few weeks doing things. Either going to visit our queen, going to weddings, funerals of other Wittgensteins. And there seems there’s a whole lot of them. A whole lot of them.
JM: And have there been histories or biographies written about Prince Wittgenstein’s war service or the service of —
JF: Yeah. Certainly. There is a whole website devoted to Prince Wittgenstein who shot my father down because he was the Red Baron of the day. Nobody else had downed eighty three aeroplanes. And he, he was a night fighter. He, he was the probably their top night, well he was their top night fighter. He was the top, top fighter pilot and probably a big loss to the German Luftwaffe. But the one thing we realised is that they were very efficient. So when Joachim, Joachim came to look for the Luftwaffe records he was able to get out of those records the very docket which was signed on the spot. Noted on the spot of what the Germans found when they visited the site. And he was able to copy that and send that to me. And that clearly showed they’d found four, it didn’t, it wasn’t specific I think, they’d found four or five bodies in the aeroplane. The plane itself was intact and with the rear gunner still in place. Two others apparently had baled out, and either killed or died and were found in the top of a tree. But just to take that now a little bit back a bit. So in 2002, after two years Joachim had come up with the story. He’d found it was Weyhausen. He then contacted the mayor of Weyhausen and the mayor instantly said to him, ‘I have memories of this and I think there are people in the village that will have memories of this.’ And he asked around and found two people who were in the local school at the time and remembered the crash. And, and they even heard it. They heard it coming down. They remembered being taken to the site by their teacher the next morning and they were all gathered around this plane. And the name of the guy was Frederick Tager who, a very, very nice guy and still very young outlook and he remembered everything. He said the plane was there. The tail gunner was still there. Most of the plane was buried four or five feet in the ground. It had come straight down nose and ended up against an oak tree. They were cleared off by the Luftwaffe people and the military guys who came because they said there may be unexploded bombs in it. In fact, there weren’t. As it turned out there weren’t any. They’d dropped them all over Dresden of course. But they were cleared off and the Germans apparently because a lot of them still crept up in the trees and watched and the German people apparently stripped the plane of any useful things and some of it was taken away and the rest was buried. And that’s, that’s that. We visited in 2004. We were helped. My brother in law came with us. And his wife. The four of us went. Went to Hanover. Rented a car and seventy kilometres to Weyhausen and Wolfsburg. And we were met by the mayor. Had a reception. A nice reception. The mayor and various other people. And because Joachim was a journalist there was an entourage of ten journalists with him [laughs] because he was obviously making a bit of money out of it as well. He said he would from the start. And we had a bit of reception in the mayor’s parlour and everything and some drinks and things and a chat and the German press took some photographs and things. We were then taken to the site by this man who, one of the two men who originally remembered it. And it was in middle of a forest. It had all grown up and been replanted since it happened but the oak tree where the plane was was still there so he was able to identify it very, very clearly. In fact, there were still some gouge marks in the oak tree which we saw and he said they were almost certainly caused by the plane. And so we laid, we basically, we laid a wreath. Sorry about this.
[recording paused]
JM: We just had a short pause there.
JF: Yeah. The mayor quite kindly said he would pledge to lay a wreath every year on Remembrance Day. We should have gone back the next year to, to the Remembrance Day but I was ill unfortunately and so we couldn’t go. But we will go soon. And I’ve been ill off and on since but we will be going. We’ve said we will come back again. Meanwhile, the next morning we appeared in, on the front pages of about, I don’t know it was ten, twelve German newspapers and there may be a lot more who I didn’t know about which Joachim was responsible for. He’d also contacted our local paper, the Stafford Newsletter and eventually they came out to see me as well and we did some things. And we went, we’d previously gone to the Hanover Cemetery to see the graves of all the men and one thing I learned then was that in fact, this was from the curator or manager of the cemetery in fact all the remains were buried there. They weren’t just nominal graves. Which I hadn’t known before. I thought they just put them in a collective nominal grave and they didn’t. They were, that was all the bodies, they recovered them. They were quite efficient like that. The cemetery beautifully laid out. In fact it was on, on the garden programme the following week as one of the best gardens in Europe. It was a moving experience but it’s something we had to do. I don’t know what will happen. The plane. There’s quite a large chunk of the plane still there that I would think, we were told by the mayor there will be a lots of planes in that area and probably the only reason the night fighter was patrolling that area was because of the factories nearby. And that would probably have been normally been a safe route out from a raid because taking a large sweep round the north and coming back over the side of Spain and stuff. But on this occasion it wasn’t. He would have been patrolling there at the same time. I haven’t actually done a lot more about this since and I’ve sort of, that’s the one thing that I set out to do. It’s probably which I would never have done in my younger days. Most people don’t have time to do this sort of thing. And there must be thousands and thousands of people in the same boat who have lost somebody but won’t know anything about it. I’ve since of course become an interviewer for the International Bomber Command Centre and interviewed some flight crew myself and I’ve found out their experiences. And that also has been an experience for me to hear out what they got up to and how they survived. Some of them flew many, many missions. It’s, it’s, I would do it again.
JM: John, you’ve given us a very vivid story of this particular research journey. There are one or two questions that are in my mind. One of them is I wondered whether you’d ever come across relatives or friends of any of the other crew members from your father’s crew?
JF: I have tried and tried to find them. The reason I probably can’t — my father was the only married member of the crew. The rest were just young and he was the oldest at twenty four. The rest were eighteen, nineteen and I suspect they were the son of somebody and those people have now died since and nobody after that has had any memory of them because they weren’t married. They didn’t have children themselves so there is no one to keep their memory alive. I have tried looking. I’ve put messages on websites. On, on sites that relate to the war and relate to Number 9 Squadron even. But I have not yet come across a single person and I suspect I won’t. I will try again when the Centre is open because that, the information which is going to be on the Centre will have so much information about other people and things that some of those, it may just strike a chord. But I think there has been a greater awareness lately of the World War Two and of the sacrifice that people gave up. My father was looking after barrage balloons in Hyde Park and needed more money. Ann was on the way. And he took that extra shilling a week to become, to become air crew. That was —
JM: How do you —
JF: A high cost.
JM: How do you know that that was his motivation for remustering?
JF: I was told by my auntie, my mother’s sister that that’s what he did. Now, whether that’s right or not but somebody must have told her and I presume he told her at some stage. ‘I’m going to do this and I can get an extra shilling a week for this.’
AM: John.
JF: Ann may have heard this story.
AM: Yeah. I was just going to say my mother said he should have gone to Canada to do something but she wouldn’t let him. And I think she felt guilty then because, you know —
JF: Yeah.
AM: He was going on some course which he’d probably be here now. Well, maybe not now but, you know.
JM: So we have one of these situations where —
AM: A decision was made.
JM: A decision like that.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Had such a profound —
AM: Yeah. Made a difference.
JM: It really did.
JF: Yeah.
AM: She always wanted to go to Canada after that but she never got there.
JF: No. No. No. One of the things I think which we both know. He played the piano, didn’t he?
AM: Yes. He did.
JF: And a brilliant pianist and played in a band.
AM: Yes, he did. He was in a band.
JF: At, doing Glen Miller stuff and he probably would have gone on to be quite good because musically he was quite, he was really good. And I think that’s where my mother and him met. Is that right?
AM: I’m not sure. I’m not sure.
JF: Once again it was my Auntie Nancy who said all this.
AM: Yeah. Granny Bedwell had a piano which I used to go bang on.
JF: Yeah.
AM: Because I wanted to be like my dad.
JF: Yeah.
AM: I couldn’t.
JF: Yeah. We think my mother and father met at the Market Hall in Saxmundham.
AM: They used to have dances in there.
JF: We know that they had a first date in 1937 at the Picture House in Saxmundham because I’ve got the ticket.
AM: A picture of it.
JF: Yeah. I’ve got the ticket and I’ve given that now to the local museum. And I think probably eventually we’ll hand over the logbook and medals and everything to the local museum.
JM: Super.
JF: That’s it.
AM: I think that’s the ticket.
JF: Yeah. That’s it. Yeah.
JM: So what age was your father when he lost his life?
JF: Twenty four.
AM: Twenty four I think. I’m not sure. I’m not sure.
JF: Yes. He was.
AM: Twenty three. Twenty four.
JF: He was twenty four. Yeah.
JM: So a picture is emerging of the young man with family responsibilities.
JF: Yeah.
JM: With a sense of national commitment. And commitment to the national cause.
JF: Yeah. He’s got one daughter.
JM: He’s got one —
JF: And another one on the way.
JM: Yes.
JF: Me.
JM: Yeah. And makes this step to, to remuster as aircrew and he does a number of operations and then he loses his life.
JF: I think he did twenty four.
AM: [unclear]
JF: I don’t know that for a fact but I think that’s another thing which I gleaned from somewhere.
JM: Yes.
JF: Probably out of some records somewhere.
JM: Yes.
JF: We know nothing of his thoughts at the time of course. We just don’t know them because there’s no records anywhere. I did, while I was in Lincolnshire on my last visit there was a pub near where he was stationed and one of the, I spoke to someone who said, ‘Yes. Number 9 Squadron. They used that pub. And that’s where your father played the piano.’
AM: Oh.
JM: Because 9 Squadron was based at —
JF: And I hadn’t heard that one before.
JM: No. 9 Squadron was based at Bardney.
JF: That’s right.
JM: And there were two pubs based in the local village.
JF: Yes.
JM: Both within walking distance.
JF: Yes. That’s right.
JM: So it could have been one of those. I think one’s called the Black Dog.
JF: I think it was the Dog and Duck or something.
JM: Black dog, I think. Something of that sort. Yes.
JF: Something like that.
JM: Yes.
JF: And, and I was told then and I think actually that’s when we [pause] yes that was on the last visit. That would be for, I forget where it was now. A training session or something.
JM: Yes.
JF: Yeah. And, yeah, he said, ‘That’s where your father played the piano,’ because that’s where they all gathered.
JM: That must have been very moving. To have seen that.
JF: It was. Yes. I don’t think I can go there because it’s not there anymore. Something like that. Or it’s closed. It’s now a house. Something like that. Yeah. That’s my story.
JM: Yeah.
JF: And I would really love to hear of other people who would like to go through that same measure because if they follow what I did they won’t get Joachim now because I think he’s retired and gone off somewhere else. But there are loads of people who would help them and they, they shouldn’t sort of think oh, I don’t know, I’ve no idea where it is and I don’t know where I’m going to find it. It’s easy. It did take two years but it’s fairly easy.
JM: Well, we know that there are quite a number of privately published books available where families have —
JF: Yeah.
JM: Made researches of this sort.
JF: Yeah.
JM: But I’d like to think that the interview that you are giving today will encourage people who perhaps haven’t gone that far to take those first steps.
JF: I hope they do and I hope the children of those people do it as well because that’s further memories for them and that will show them exactly what they fought for.
JM: Yes. Yes.
JF: And you have to always remember that RAF people were volunteers and they didn’t have to do it. Ok the alternative then was ground crew. Ground forces —
JM: Yeah.
JF: And things, but it was a volunteer organisation.
JM: Would you say that this family research that you’ve done has that significantly affected your view of what Bomber Command did during the Second World War? I had the impression when you started out telling us although you grew up as a young man after the Second World War that you hadn’t really been totally aware of what had been going on and that this story has actually increased that awareness. Is that fair?
JF: No. I hadn’t really. Because you’re so busy growing up, aren’t you?
JM: Yes.
JF: There was only one incident that really came back to me about what war is all about. That was when myself and two neighbours. I suppose we were only nine and ten then or something like that and we used to go fishing in Saxmundham in a particular pool which was up a big steep hill. Past the church up a big steep hill and we’d go fishing there. And one day, on our way back we decided to stop in a copse which was very, very overgrown with ivy and everything. And we came across a well and we thought this is lovely. This well was covered in ivy but we uncovered the top of it and it had got a thick concrete top on it. A really massively concrete top about a foot thick. And we thought that’s strange isn’t it? You don’t put that on a well. So we played around on the top for a while and lit a fire on top. You always light fires when you’re youngsters. And then we started exploring the sides of the well and could see that a lot of the bricks around it after we pulled the ivy away were actually crumbling. So we got our knives out and that’s the other the thing you always carried when you were young, a knife [laughs] and started scraping away. We scraped away one brick and pulled some others out and then some others. Lit some bits of paper, shoved them down the well and we could see by the light of that before the flames went out that there was a lot of metallic things down there and didn’t know what they were. So we all, by this time we’d got a hole about two foot wide and being careful we didn’t fall down we all picked up bricks and collectively threw one each down this well. There was a massive explosion. A fire ball whooshed straight up in the air and we fell backwards. I lost all my eyebrows and a bit off the hair. Julian, my friend lost his and Christopher, his brother lost his eyebrows. And we fell backwards and we ran like hell and while we were running away, ‘Don’t tell anybody. We mustn’t tell anybody. Don’t tell anybody. Don’t tell anybody.’ And this is the first time I’ve ever told anybody [laughs] including my mother. Anybody. We gather because we did creep back later, it and they were all, there was lots of iron things and things around. I assume that they were incendiaries. But they appeared to have been very unstable.
JM: Yes.
JF: Now, there were other shapes of things down there which wouldn’t have been set off by the incendiaries. I can only assume, I can link these probably with the tanks that I first saw sitting in my pram after, just after the war rumbling by. I think they dumped all their surplus in that well because they would have been heading down that hill from the coast and I think that’s what happened. The bad news is that after many, many years that well became the garden of, on a new estate of a house. I visited it a few years ago and we couldn’t really find it but we knew where it was and it was still covered up in ivy and stuff. We assumed it was filled in. Julian, my friend, you’re Julian, asked somebody about it. He said, ‘Oh yeah. That was filled in and it was — ’ such and such. Now, I think the house belongs to somebody who I used to know in Stafford but I’m not sure so I won’t talk about him because the poor devil is sitting on a bomb probably. We did, we met up at a reunion of Leiston Grammar School about four years ago and the first thing Julian said, ‘Have you told anybody?’ And I said, ‘No. No. We wouldn’t do that.’ He said, ‘Perhaps one day we should do.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but not yet.’ So my mother knew that we lit fires in the woods so we said we had a flare up in a fire. We’d lit it with a, we used, used to get tins of paint from a local builders and off their scrap yard and used them to start a fire with, you’d like to find out. So we said it flared up, and we all got burned. That’s how we explained that because nobody would even believe us —
JM: No. No.
JF: If we said a well blew up.
JM: Right. Now, John, if I could ask you another question here. These researches that you’ve told us about they more or less coincided with the time when the, the perception of Bomber Command in the national psyche was changing. Leading to the development of the Bomber Command Memorial in London and the award of the clasp to surviving Bomber Command aircrew.
JF: Yeah.
JM: I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your views as to how Bomber Command was, has been treated.
JF: Yeah. I think what it is which I’ve ascertained since of course the proper, there was a lot of anti-propaganda around. The war was also very political and there were people in the military who decided for one reason or another that you could only fight wars on the ground and that there was no other way. Tanks. Tanks and men. And that attitude I think remained. The other thing was bombing or carpet bombing which is what we were really involved in then caused a lot of, a lot of ordinary people to die. Thousands upon thousands. Especially if you look at Dresden and places like that. And even Berlin and Hanover. They all suffered. So it wasn’t really very nice or courteous to talk about it and people didn’t. They forget that we were on the receiving end of such things as well and, you know deadly V bombs and things. There was no stopping them. They just killed masses of people. Not military stuff. Just people. And the whole point of all of that was to, to turn people against war and to disillusion them and to dishearten them and say, ‘Let’s give up. Let’s talk to Hitler.’ And it was the other way around as well, you know [unclear] And it was only really later in years wasn’t it and we’re only talking now after the millennium that things really started to change and people suddenly said, ‘Hey, these people actually did a brave job. They died for this country. Why shouldn’t we honour them?’ And, and the Memorial in London was, I suppose really the start of this new feeling. And now the International Bomber Command Centre has, has enhanced that really. And I suppose, and also I think the military or the people at the top used the excuse that the RAF was a volunteer organisation. Therefore it couldn’t be officially recognised. And so they didn’t do anything really. They just volunteered and they went out and bombed people and that was it. That was wrong. That was wrong because without the RAF Hitler would never have given in that quick. Because the, the country was demoralised purely by the bombs. We couldn’t have done that with people on the ground. We would eventually have probably but we couldn’t have done it that quick. And we have to remember our country at the time was bankrupt. We’d borrowed so much money off America and other places that we hadn’t any money left. So you know it was essential to finish that war quickly. And I think it would have gone on and on and on had it not been for Bomber Command.
JM: Thank you. Could I ask you another question, please? You and your sister are obviously direct descendants of your father. You’ve done this research. What has been the effects of this research on younger generations and on the family as a whole? Is there a discernible reaction?
JF: Yes. I’ve spread this around my own family. My own children. The grandchildren are still a bit young to understand but one of them is nineteen. They’ve all seen this. They’ve all seen it and they’ve realised what went on. My grandchildren are all in America, and my children and so they’re a little bit out of the war they were. Although America were involved later on but they were still a bit out of it. The general population didn’t get involved. But they’ve all seen the information which I’ve got and the press. The press cuttings and things. And they understand now what went on. Which is quite good. And I think I’ve read recently that our children are now going to be told about World War Two more as part of their studies. That I think is essential because the future of the world really can be only peace. War achieves nothing and it never does in the end. It’s a temporary solution. It doesn’t achieve total peace. We’re now at verbal war with the, with the EU. You know. That’s ok. Verbal’s ok. That doesn’t matter.
JM: Jaw jaw.
JF: It’s war and fighting that destroys the world and could well do in the end. Terrorism is something we didn’t have then. It didn’t exist. You fought a war. Went in and fought it and came out and there was a victor. That doesn’t happen anymore and its made war worse I think. And I think the younger generation are getting to realise this. That if we continue to have wars involving people and nuclear bombs and all the rest of it there will be no war left. No world left. Because that’s the, that’s the state of war nowadays and weaponry. Its, its so disastrous whereas before it was very very very directional. I don’t know. I don’t think I’d like to be a younger generation now because the future I don’t think is particularly good.
JM: Perhaps I could turn to you Ann now as we’re drawing to the end here. We’ve met before.
AM: Yes.
JM: You gave me a very full interview. And now you’ve heard what your brother has to say.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Has this changed your views at all? Has it added to your knowledge? Do you see things in any way differently?
AM: No. I knew it pretty well. I knew Johnny went to Germany and all that. You know. I was there but I mean the people we stayed with, the lady was lovely. We went, the first three weeks we were there we didn’t have army quarters. And the man there never spoke to us once and he watched war films on the telly in just black and white obviously in those, it was the sixties but he was horrible. But the lady was lovely.
JM: Just a different experience.
AM: He hated us. I know. You could feel it. But you know. We hadn’t done anything had we?
JM: No.
AM: You know.
JM: It’s an interesting contrast.
AM: Yeah.
JM: Because your experience of meeting German people was quite different from yours at that —
AM: Yeah.
JM: But perhaps, was it at a different time?
AM: Yeah. Sixties.
JM: Would the proximity to the war? So that might explain the difference do you think?
AM: ’63, ’64. No, ‘64 because I had Andrew then.
JF: We’re talking just sixteen years.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
JF: After the war and memories would still be very very much alive.
AM: I mean, you know —
JM: Yes.
AM: I got on quite well with the German people that I met. But not him.
JM: No.
AM: He was — and I’ve never lived anywhere like that before, you know. I’d only been married a few years then so —
JM: Do you think he might have served in the German forces?
AM: Oh. I think he had. Definitely.
JM: So that might explain his —
AM: Yeah.
JM: Reluctance.
AM: But he was just horrible.
JM: It’s been a fascinating, fascinating afternoon listening to you both. I realise that through my incompetence at the beginning of this interview I forgot to ask you to give your father’s full name and rank and where, where and when he was born. Could I ask you to do that now please just for the record?
JF: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JF: Over to Ann I think. George Kenneth.
AM: George Frederick Kenneth.
JF: Frederick Kenneth.
AM: Bedwell. And he was a flight sergeant. And I don’t know where. I think he was born in Kings Lynn.
JM: Right.
AM: Or it could have been —
JF: Oh, actually —
AM: I’m not sure.
JF: I’ve only just discovered this.
AM: Oh. Do you know where he was born?
JF: Yeah. He was born in Lewes. Sussex.
AM: Lewes? Where’s that?
JF: Lewes. That’s on his birth certificate.
AM: Oh. Oh. I never knew that.
JF: Yeah. Lewes. Sussex.
JM: Right.
JF: I don’t know why. We don’t know how.
AM: Oh.
JM: You don’t know anything about his parents.
JF: Oh, we know about his parents.
AM: Yeah. Granny Mabel. Granny Mabel.
JF: Yes.
AM: And Granddad Walter.
JF: His parents were living, we don’t know where. I presume they were living in Saxmundham somewhere. Or Leiston.
AM: I don’t know.
JF: But we don’t know. They may have come up from Lewes.
AM: Yeah. They were in Kings Lynn during the war.
JF: Yeah.
AM: Because we went.
JF: Yeah.
AM: We went there.
JF: They went off to Kings Lynn because his father was working. Got a job in a factory there for war munitions and then he was lodged up with our grandmother.
AM: Granny Bedwell.
JF: Yeah. Granny Bedwell. And that’s as far as —
AM: I think my dad lived with them.
JF: And the stepfather —
AM: Oh him. Yeah.
JF: Lived with them as well.
AM: Yeah.
JF: He came from a Dr Barnardo’s Home. That’s about —
AM: Emma’s still got all that on her phone ready to put, print out. Haven’t you Emma?
JM: But we don’t know, you don’t know where his musical talents originated from.
JF: We don’t.
JM: No.
JF: Absolutely. No. His job was a roundsman at the International Stores.
AM: Yeah. He used to drive, ride a bike didn’t he?
JF: Rode a bike.
JM: Yeah. We don’t know.
JF: He used to bike from Leiston every morning to Saxmundham which was five miles. And that was his job. But he —
AM: My eldest son’s inherited that. Andrew. He can. He just learned the organ and everything, didn’t he?
JF: Yeah. Yes.
AM: He still does it. He’s still in bands.
JF: Yeah. Ann’s son was a bandsman in the —
AM: The army. Yeah. He was in the army.
JF: What regiment was he in?
Other: The Queens Own.
AM: The Queen’s Own Highlanders.
JF: The Queens Own Highlanders. Yeah. And then he went on to form his own band in Sweden.
AM: He still goes. There’s a royal family in Sweden and everything. So yeah, he’s got it, I think.
JF: Yeah.
AM: I never got it.
JF: No. I tinker.
AM: I plonked away at a piano. I thought I can’t do this.
JF: No. We’ve no idea how he learned. We can only assume that his father and mother, one of them could play the piano.
JM: Yes. Yes.
JF: That’s the only thing.
JM: I know when I’ve met one or two other ex-wireless operators they have often told me that they, they were selected for that partly on the fact that they had been in the Air Training Corps. They’d learned the Morse Code. They had some interest. Some prior interest in radio. But I don’t get the impression that your father was like that.
JF: No. In fact, he —
AM: I thought he was rear gunner as well. Yeah.
JF: That’s right. He went in as a rear gunner.
JM: Right.
JF: He failed all the tests.
JM: Ah.
AM: He didn’t want to shoot people.
JF: No. He didn’t want to shoot. He failed them. Yeah. On the, they did a number of flypasts and shooting at targets and he failed. So he then went for training as a, as a radio operator.
JM: Right.
JF: And obviously picked that up quick.
JM: Yes. Had an aptitude for it.
JF: Yeah.
JM: You had to send and receive Morse at a certain level.
JF: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JF: Yeah.
JM: It wasn’t an easy task in any sense, was it?
JF: No. No. No.
JM: And the wireless operator was very often a sort of Jack of all trades in the crew because he would be needed to support other crew members as look outs or do whatever was needed as part of the team. But there’s no record really of your father leaving any evidence of that in his letters or —
AM: No.
JF: Nothing at all. No.
JM: No. No. No.
AM: No. I read all my mother’s letters at the time.
JF: Yeah. The last letter home we assume was the one where I was conceived.
JM: Good.
[recording paused]
JF: Just, just to end this, Julian. There are lots of unanswered questions I think. We’ve been able to piece together some of the answers but there are a lot which are not. But we’ve got enough to get a picture of my father and having been to the site where his plane crashed a lot of people have not been able to do that. They’ve just been told they were missing and that’s it. And of course those, rest of that crew were unmarried and over probably just a period of a few years they were probably forgotten about almost. There was nobody to remember them. But we’ve, we have answered a few questions between us. I hope it encourages more people to do the same.
JM: John and Ann, thank you very much indeed.
JF: Thank you.
AM: Thank you.
JM: Very good.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Fisher
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-24
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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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AFisherJ170124
Conforms To
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Pending review
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00:47:55 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Description
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John Fisher was born six weeks after his father was killed on an operation over Germany. He became more and more curious about what had happened to his father and finding out more about him and the events leading up to his death as he got older. John’s father had been a wireless operator based with 9 Squadron. John began researching with the help of RAF Cosford and made contacts in Germany to help fill in the gaps of his knowledge. He also visited the crash site and the graves of his father and his crew.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Hannover
9 Squadron
aircrew
childhood in wartime
final resting place
killed in action
perception of bombing war
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/794/10776/ADawsonR171107.2.mp3
8ad9cef294f74f5a98b99c14641317ab
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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Dawson, Ron
R Dawson
Description
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An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Ron Dawson (1684989 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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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.
Identifier
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Dawson, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the international Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Ron Dawson, flight sergeant, later warrant officer. The interview is taking place at Ron’s house in Stafford on the 7th of November 2017. Ron, would you start us off by telling us a little bit about your family background please?
RD: Yes. Well, I was the, there was four of us in the family and I was the, my brother was four years older than me and then I had two sisters, four years and five years older than, younger than me. And we lived in a terraced, small terraced house and from there I, when I was sixteen and a half, when I was sixteen I joined the Air Training Corps and then the Air Training Corps I trained to be air gunner and strange as it may seem, my schoolfriend, who we went training on bomber pilot, he changed, he became and we were training as air gunners together. And we trained, and you did your air gunnery course which was an exciting course because you did flying on different aircraft, we did Anson aircraft which had a turret behind the pilot and of course being a gunner, that was ideal and they used to, an aircraft coming along, towing a windsock and we used to fire the guns at the windsock and then my pal joined up and we got in this air gunnery course together and then we went to, when it was all finished, we went to an airfield in Leicester, there was hundreds of different people, pilots, bomb aimers, navigators, and the pilot was trying to get a crew together and he was walking along and talking and with me, he said, he came over, he said, tell me, who are you? I said I told him my age, who I was and he said, what do you want to be? I said, a rear gunner. Oh, he said, I am looking for a rear gunner for my crew and I said, wonder of wonders, my pal, who gave up Bomber Command, gave up pilot and navigator course and we are on the course together and we did a gunnery course, flying an Anson aircraft with a turret, and then in a Boulton Paul Defiant, which was a fighter aircraft, and it was, it had a turret, and it was exciting. And then we all met in this very large room at the airport of Leicester and this man came to me and he said, can you tell me who are you? Well, I said, Ron Dawson, and he said, what did you train? I said, I’ve been trained as an air gunner, oh, he said, I’m a pilot, and he was Australian. And he said, I’m a pilot, I’m looking for a gunner, I said, well a rear gunner, he said, that’s fine and I said, my pal who managed to get the same course, we did the gunnery course together, and I said, I joined up with the pilot, the navigator and other people and we flew. In the early days, we flew in the, the old aircraft called the Whitley, it’s nickname was the flying coffin, because it was square shaped like a coffin and it flew nose down and I did a couple of operations over Europe in that dropping, one was dropping leaflets and the other one was dropping bombs. And then I got together and we were, we were recruited to, as a crew, doing raids on different parts of Germany, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin and I said it’s, it was exciting going to these different places and I said it was exciting to see the aircraft fighting in the sky, the Germans firing at us and I said twice, on, once on a trip we were attacked by the German aircraft and he fired his guns at us but he never hit us and another time we were there they came and he, the aircraft attacked us and he shot us up, shot the backend of the plane and we had trouble with the mechanics to control the aircraft and we had to land at a [unclear] in Norfolk which was controlled by the Americans and we landed there because there was some difficulty with the mechanics of the aircraft and in controlling it and they had a runway over a mile long which enabled us to control our aircraft and stop and then another time we were shot up and we had to land and we landed at an American Air Force base and I remember the American coming to me and saying, are you RAF? I said, yes, I am, I’m an air gunner, rear gunner, oh, he said, and where [unclear], I said, this is my aircraft, my God, he said, it’s all bullet holes, I said, yes, fortunately none of them have hit us and I said, and another time, we got shot up and then I said, I was flying coming back from Germany on a raid, and we got attacked and we got, we had to bail out, I said, we were over twenty thousand feet and I said it was almost laughable when I was, I said, I went forward the aircraft, you, normally I would drop out the, out the rear turret, backwards, with me parachute on, but if we could we all went out the front so the pilot could count the crew had got out and I said, I bailed out of there the front and I said, we were twenty thousand feet and I said, it was, it was unique, I said and, I said I was, we carried a whistle so that if you ever come down in the sea, you don’t have to shout, you blow the whistle and attract attention and I said, I was blowing my whistle and I was shouting hello! This is Ronnie, this is Ronnie, is calling everybody, hello! And I said I was [unclear] down some twenty thousand feet and I said, I landed and I, immediately I could see my aircraft which had crashed and was burning and I turned my back on it and started to run away and I got, I was hiding up and I was hiding in these bushes, I had no idea where I was, except I thought I was in Germany and I said I, it was coming daylight and I got into these bushes and I looked out cause I heard a dog barking and I thought, they’ve got the dogs on me tail and then I looked up, it was getting late, and I could see these crossroads and the crossroads had signposts there, the Germans never took the sign posts down, so there was a little farmhouse nearby and I saw this farm and this dog was really [unclear] barking and when he disappeared I went out to look at the crossroads to see where I was. And the first words that stuck out in me mind was Luxembourg and I thought, oh, I’ll just go back and hide, now I know where I am and, but the dog started barking again, I thought if I go back and hide in the bushes, the farmer will, I don’t know whether he’s good, bad or indifferent, but I said, I walked into the village, and I said, it’s a mystery of mysteries, about eight to ten children came from nowhere, told them to call [unclear] through the village and no sooner we’d done about twenty yards, then the sirens went and the children disappeared and I turned the first corner and it ended into a little wood and I said, I got my maps out cause I’ve read the signpost and I found where I was and I thought, good, and I was told in, when I was in training, if you get shot down and you come near Switzerland, that’s a neutral country, it’s a good country to get to if you can but the Germans smothered the border to stop anybody trying to escape so I said, I made me mind up, I was in Luxembourg and I’d walk across France and across Spain because Spain wasn’t exactly [unclear] friendly with Germany and into Portugal and I said, I don’t know how many hundred miles it was and I said, I set off walking, but again I got disturbed and this little man stopped me when I was sitting in this little wood and he said in French, vous RAF, tombez avec parachute, you RAF, fall with the parachute and I said, I’ve never been more pleased about learning French at school than I did then, cause the words came easy. And I said yes and I was picked up by them and they hid me away and it was a case of hiding from the Germans and I knew where I was, Luxembourg and then I got out of there and I set off for Spain and I, over France and Spain and Portugal but I got picked up and I was, joined the RAF from there, almost flying in different aircraft, finishing me air training course, and when I did in 1944, I was on me fortieth op and I got shot down and I couldn’t fly again and I was, I got picked up by the underground and taken care of.
JM: Now, I believe Ron that you were, you were, I believe you were sheltered by the Resistance for quite, I believe you were sheltered by the Resistance for quite a long time.
RD: Yeah, yeah.
JM: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
RD: About?
JM: About the time you spent in hiding in Luxembourg.
RD: Oh yes. When I, when I was hiding from the Germans, I didn’t know where I was, and then I was hiding in the bushes, and then I heard a dog barking, and I thought, oh, the Germans have got a police dog on me tail, and I looked out and it was a farmhouse with crossroads, and there was a farmer and his big dog were standing by a little farmhouse, he went in and there were signposts at the crossroads, the Germans never took signposts down, so I said, ah, that’s where I’ll know where I am, and when I went down, I saw the words, [unclear], Luxembourg, and I was just a few kilometres from Luxembourg and I thought, great, and then the underground picked me up, and I was hiding and training with them and it was really exciting coming down after being shot down at twenty thousand feet in the air and blowing the whistle and shouting, this is Ronnie, this is Ronnie, and I landed and then I saw the Luxembourg, I saw the crossroad signs, saw that I was in Luxembourg, and I was going back into hiding, and then the farmer saw me, so I went into the village, and I walked in the village and about eight to ten children joined me and then the sirens went and the children disappeared and I went into the wood, and I looked at me, I got me maps out cause you would given when you would training, you were given an escape package, with foreign money in, French, Belgian, German, and the little maps to tell you where you were and I said, I decided that I would, that’s what I would do, but I got picked up by this little man and he came, he said, vous RAF, tombez avec parachute and he took me on board and I was glad to know it was Luxembourg.
JM: I believe for some time you were living in a house that was only two doors from the Gestapo.
RD: What?
JM: I believe for, you were living in a house that was only two doors down from the Gestapo headquarters.
RD: Two what?
JM: Two doors, two houses, close by the Gestapo headquarters.
RD: Oh yes, yes, and it was exciting and it was frightening in some words, not exactly frightening, but I went training and I was flying and as I say, I got shot down, then I got picked up by the underground cause I was in these different houses and they, I found out, [unclear] I read me maps and everything where I was and I thought, I’ll set off walking from, to Portugal because you couldn’t, the Swiss border was so heavily protected and so I got picked up by the underground who took me on board and took me in a house and hid me and I was hiding away when I was, this man came and took me and he took me to his house and it was in Luxembourg and it was a nice house that I learned much later it was only four, five doors from the senior German police officer and I was hiding in this house and it, they looked up to me, and then they picked up and put me in the underground and it was, it was living, when I was flying, I did about, I did over forty operations and I got shot down, and I wasn’t hurt but when we had to land at this airport, which is a big airport, the Americans were there and when the Americans came and saw the aircraft, and said, are you part of the crew? I said, yes, he said, what are you? I said, the rear gunner, my God, he said, look at that! He said, I said, all the Perspex of the rear turret was shot away, there’s bullet holes all over, how I’ve never been hit I don’t know, but I said it was, I was picked up by those people and I was learned to, trying to fly.
JM: Ron, can I just take you, can I just take you back to your time in Luxembourg?
RD: Time?
JM: When you were living in Luxembourg.
RD: Yeah.
JM: Does the main
RD: I was living in Luxembourg, I was picked up and this, this family picked me up and I was, I’d seen the sign posts and I looked, I got in the wood and looked at me maps and I saw where I was, I was delighted and then this little man came and asked me if I was RAF and I joined up with him.
JM: Does the name Ferdie Schulz mean anything to you? The name Ferdie Schulz?
RD: Yes, and the man, the man that looked after me, was a man, he, I was picked up and taken into the village. And there’s a lady there and she was talking to me in French and it was, she was talking very fast and difficult to understand and I said, the door opened and I said, this man came in, tall, heavily built, short cropped iron grey hair, I said, this man’s Gestapo, he’s German, but he said to me in German, sprechen sie Deutsch? I said, nein. I said, I speak English. Parlez vouz francais? I said, en peu, just a little I speak, but I am English, and from that moment on he hid me away and he took me to his house in the middle of Luxembourg. His wife was a Spanish lady who was neutral of course and she was scared stiff because she was not anti-German but not pro German. And she was scared stiff because only a few doors away was a very senior German police officer and if she’d been caught, she could have been hurt, she could’ve been. Anyhow, I got out of there
JM: How long, how long were you living with them?
RD: Ey?
JM: How long were you living with them?
RD: I lived with Ferdie Schulz from the March to the 8th of June.
JM: Right.
RD: Because the invasion came on the 6th of June.
JM: Yes.
RD: All the names and dates blend in.
JM: Yes.
RD: And then I, I was in training and
JM: When you left their house, when you left their house
RD: Yes
JM: I believe
RD: When I lived Ferdie Schulz’s house.
JM: You went to the Ardennes
RD: I went to live in Belgium and then in Belgium I went into the Ardennes forest
JM: Yes
RD: And I lived in the Ardennes forest and I joined up with a [unclear] groups of people and they were all European, French, German, Italian and we were all in this camp and I was sitting when the invasion had started and we could hear the invasion, the, the Allies had landed in Europe and were coming forward, and we were in this camp as I say, nearly all European nationalities, and we were debating what to do, should we come out in the open and meet the Allies or wait and I said, I went outside in to have a pee and I said over the top of the bushes, I saw these round helmets, my God, Germans have found us and I said, run, the Germans are here! And it turned out to be the Americans.
JM: So, you were liberated by the Americans.
RD: Yeah, and then the Americans picked us up, looked after us, took us into the, into the Ardennes forest and I was living in the Ardennes forest with a group of other people and then I was moved into Belgium and it
JM: Now, I believe that the Americans actually arrested you in the forest.
RD: Well, what happened was, when I went outside for a pee, I saw the round helmets, I thought, run, it’s the Germans, and then [unclear] with the Americans and the Americans came and they talked to us and they, he said, we have to arrest you because we have to interview to find you who you really are and we are going to put you in this school house with some other people and outside in the yard was full of German soldiers and I was looked after and interviewed and hidden away, well, I say hidden away, got to know everybody, and it was, it was, living in the with Ferdie Schulz, just a few doors from the senior police officer, then things got a bit scary, they had a maid and she found out I was there, and they moved me on, into a village called Troisvierges, three virgins, in Northern Belgium, and I lived with a doctor, Doctor Isha, and his wife and he had a wife there and he was old and he had a daughter called Guedette and he had a maid, she was seventy odd, and we lived there for a while. And then they moved me on from there into a hiding place in the forest in north, in south Belgium and then I got out when the Germans came, well, when the Americans came, I got out and they interviewed me and I eventually got back to England and was transferred, it was funny, when I was picked up I was more or less left to go on my own devices and I said, I was guided up to the north of, to the north of Europe and then taken over into Europe and in Europe I met Ferdie Schulz who looked after me, he looked after me for several weeks, and then, after a few weeks, the Germans, the Allies came forward and he took me along and we met the Allies.
JM: I understand that after the war, you met up with the Schulz family again through their daughter.
RD: That’s right.
JM: Will you tell us about that, please?
RD: That’s right. I went back, I went back to see them, Ferdie Schulz, in Europe and it was, it was exciting and frightening to think that I’d lived so close with them to the senior German police officer and that they risked their lives.
JM: And he was involved with Radio Luxembourg.
RD: That was Luxembourg.
JM: And he was involved
RD: And from Luxembourg I went to the Ardennes forest in Belgium
JM: You did, but Ferdie Schulz was involved with Radio Luxembourg I believe.
RD: Radio?
JM: Radio Luxembourg.
RD: Radio Luxembourg.
JM: He was involved with that?
RD: Oh yes, well, Radio Luxembourg came and interviewed me.
JM: Right.
RD: And it was, they were so interested into the story
JM: Right.
RD: And from there on I went, the Americans came forward and the Americans looked after us and then I went
JM: You went to Paris I believe.
RD: Went to Paris, yes, was nice Paris, nice in Paris, and it was a strange world in Paris but it was such a big city, it was a lonely place but I was taken up to the, to live with Ferdinand Schulz in his house and as I say, he had a Spanish lady who was in neutral
JM: Yeah.
RD: And she was frightened because in case the Germans
JM: How did you get back from Paris to England?
RD: Well, I was living in a camp among a lot of other people, Europeans, German, Italians, French, Belgian and I went outside for a pee, saw these round helmets and I thought, oh, the Germans have come, and I shout, the Germans have come, and this voice said, [unclear] and it was the Americans and I said, the Americans then got us all together and they said, well, you have to be interviewed to see if you are really who you are, to see if you are an ally and so you’ll be arrested by us and I was arrested and I was put on the back of an American lorry and taken up to South Belgium and I was taken out there and put into a school and I was told I would have to be there till I was interviewed and I said anyhow, I went in the school and the Germans interviewed me and then I, I was, they believed who I was
JM: I think you mean the Americans interviewed you.
RD: Well, the Americans I meant, the Americans and they left me on me own to get back to England and I got back to England and got picked up and got helped and it was all exciting, it was coming back to a new world, after being shot down, you know, it was, and how frightening it was, to live so near a senior German police officer and it was, I wasn’t caught.
JM: You successful evaded for so many weeks
RD: And the Americans came and took me, put me in a school, then took me to the North of Belgium and left me and I mean, I made me own way back to England and I, I must tell you, I had no money and I was walking in Paris cause I’d the freedom of the Americans and I saw this notice, it was a notice on the wall that said, something about a British regiment, I said, I went inside, and I said, there was a captain there and he said, yes, who are you? I said, well, I’m English, he said, how do I know you’re English? I said, well, I tell you the story I’ve been shot down and I said, really what I’ve come for is to see if I can get some money. You’ve got nothing here, it’s not a charity, and the door opened and this fellow is a captain and a major walked in and he said, what’s going on? And when he heard the story, he said to the captain, give him the money, I’ll take the responsibility, we’ve got his name, his rank and his number and we’ll get it back from him later. And I said, so they gave me the money, and I said it’s, then the Americans took me into Northern Belgium that’s more or less left me.
JM: But when you got the money in Paris, you were able to get home.
RD: Right, yeah, yeah, they took me to the North of Belgium and left me and then I got on a plane, made me home with it and I was picked up at the, Germans, the Americans picked me up and they took care of me and I was hiding away and I got free.
JM: When you got home, your family must have been thrilled to have you back.
RD: When I got home?
JM: Your family must have been thrilled to have you back.
RD: Well, I remember that I’d no money and I just wanted money to let my family know I was alright and the British officer gave me the money and I got a message sent to England to tell them folks that I was alright. And the Americans dumped me in the North of Belgium and let me to find me own way back and then I went back and I found my way to the railway station and I got a ticket and I phoned up and told them where I was and the family met me, my dad and two sisters met me at the Stafford railway station and they looked after me.
US: [file missing] You want to tell that story?
RD: Yeah.
US: And then you can tell that story and then Julian asked and then, when you got back to the UK, how did you get a message to your dad and where did they meet you, not at Stafford, it was at Durham or Newcastle.
RD: Yeah, yeah, well,
US: Tell.
RD: What happened was that when I got the money, we had a good drink, and then the Americans took us forward to the North of Belgium and left us on our own but I had money to get across
US: You had no money, they left you in Belgium, you made your own way to Paris, and it was the English major in Paris
RD: OH yes
US: Who gave you some money.
RD: Yes, the English and army unit, English army unit gave me the money and I managed, they left me in the North of Belgium and I managed to get over there.
US: No doubt.
JM: Yeah, ok.
RD: [file missing] and I spoke to them, they said, we’ll come and meet you, anyhow they came and they met me and I was with them and it was, it was nice meeting up with the family again and it was exciting story to tell and
JM: And I believe after the war, you were a policer officer.
RD: Ey?
JM: I believe after the war, you were a police officer.
RD: OH yes, yes, I joined the police force and it was the thirty years of the policemen, well, twenty odd years, and then I was in a special unit, and it was, they took me in this special unit and the British army looked after me and then I, from there on I, it was the case of meeting different people and getting home and
JM: Ron, could I, answer up and just take you back a little bit?
RD: Is what?
JM: Could I take you back a little bit because there are one or two questions that I want to ask, just to clarify it for the recording. What squadron were you in?
RD: What?
JM: What squadron were you with, when you were shot down? Was it 4?
RD: 429 Squadron.
JM: 429, and where was this based please?
RD: 6 Group Bomber Command Canadian.
JM: Right.
RD: So, I was with a Canadian group and it was they, they looked after me.
JM: Yes. So, you were in a Canadian squadron, but you had an Australian pilot and you were English.
RD: An Australian pilot, an Irish engineer, a Scottish navigator and the foreigner was me.
JM: [laughs] and the operation on which you were shot down was one of the most important and famous operations of the war.
RD: Yeah, well, it was, I was shot down on the major, the biggest loss of Allied bombers which was in ’44 and there was 97 British bombers shot down.
JM: And where were you attacking?
RD: And that was the heaviest loss of bombers at any time.
JM: Yeah. Where were you attacking Ron? What was the target? What was the target?
RD: Pilot?
JM: The target.
RD: Target, Nuremberg.
JM: So, it was the Nuremberg raid.
RD: Yeah, it was on the way back from Nuremberg, this twin engine aircraft shot us up
JM: And you, you
RD: I bailed out by parachute
JM: Yeah.
RD: And there were twenty thousand feet and I was shouting and whistling
JM: And the other crew members, they bailed out too, did they?
RD: Ey?
JM: The other crew members all bailed out?
RD: Yeah, they, I found out later they were, they bailed out and were arrested
JM: They were all captured
RD: Yeah
JM: So, you were the only evader
RD: And I was the only escapee.
JM: Right.
RD: And but I didn’t know that, but it was all now exciting and to think that they, American, the British gave me some money and I was able to go into Paris and
JM: Ron, Ron, can
RD: I remember I got, [unclear] two or three other people and we got drunk with champagne and the champagne was, it was cheap [coughs] and the more we drunk, the more they charged us until we got angry and said, no, you’re robbing us and then everything came fine and they looked after us and I got back to England and mom and, dad and two sisters met me at the railway station and mom was, couldn’t stop crying cause they got a telegram and I’ve got a copy of the telegram that said, regret to report that your son was, is missing, reported as missing in action and I said they made enquiries for several weeks and months and they couldn’t find and mom came to conclusion I was dead. And then out of the blue this wonderful news for mom came and they were delighted, delighted and the family looked after me, the Americans looked after me and it was living at home, making the best you could, and I had a bit of money as I said, from the British army and I was, everybody drank champagne [laughs].
JM: And your squadron, 429,
RD: Ey?
JM: 429 Squadron
RD: 429 Squadron, 6 Group
JM: Yes
RD: Bomber Command
JM: Yes, and was that the Lancaster Squadron?
RD: Canadian Squadron
JM: Yeah
RD: And they were Halifax bombers
JM: They were Halifax bombers
RD: Yes.
JM: How did you feel about flying the Halifax? Did you like it?
RD: Everybody used to say the Lancaster was the pride of the joy of the Bomber Command, no way, I would put all my faith in this Halifax, it could, it got, I mean, I was actually part and parcel of the truth of the matter, got badly shot up and the aircraft stood all the battering we’d got, from being shot up and I got shot down and purely because one of the [unclear] had been damaged and I couldn’t manoeuvre the aircraft, we had to bail out. And it was bailed out and it was, I thought I was dead. I bailed out and with the flames were shooting across the aircraft, and I thought, if I, when I bail out, if I pull the ripcord, the burning petrol may go into the parachute, and it’ll burn and I’ll die, so I said, I’ll count to ten when I bail out, and I started to count and I got to six and I, I didn’t panic, I just said, bugger it, I’m pulling the ripcord, and I said, I got out and pulled the ripcord, and I said, it was a delight really but I said, it was frightening because I was sure I was dead, because when I opened my eyes, I could see me feet, where me head should be, and I thought, it can’t be, your feet should be at the ground, I’m going to Heaven, and then I realised that the harness of the parachute, me leg was trapped in the harness and I was upside down, I was upside down in me parachute, and I was delighted, blowing me whistle, shouting me name, and then I got out, the Americans picked us up, put me in this school house and the American, I got, money from the British and the Americans took me to Northern Belgium and left me.
JM: Ron, you’ve given us a lovely interview, you’ve given us a lovely interview, you’ve told us so much about [unclear]
RD: Is that alright?
JM: I’m gonna leave it there for tonight because I can see it’s tiring you so I’ll leave it there thanks on behalf of IBCC.
RD: Any time you want to come back.
JM: Thank you
RD: Because there must be a thousand stories about flying and that sort of thing and me family now know the story living in [unclear] Nuremberg and
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 Ron Dawson
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-07
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
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ADawsonR171107
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:43:44 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Luxembourg
Germany--Nuremberg
France--Ardennes
Description
An account of the resource
Ron Dawson flew over 40 operations with 429 Squadron as air gunner. He joined the Air Training Corps at the age of sixteen. He trained on Ansons and Boulton Paul Defiants and remembers flying in the Whitley. He crewed up at Leicester airport. Tells of being attacked by enemy fighters twice. Gives a vivid and detailed account of when he was shot down on the way back from Nuremberg. They all bailed out but while the rest of the crew was arrested, he found his way to the Luxembourg border and was taken up by the Resistance. He was then taken to the house of a man called Ferdie Schulz and he stayed there from May 1944 to the 7th of June 1944. From Luxembourg he went to Belgium, where he hid in the Ardennes forest with other people from different countries, until the invasion started and they were then liberated by the Americans, who after questioning them regarding their identity, let him go to fend off on his own. After the war, Ron became a police officer.
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-04-30
1944-04-31
1944-05
1944-06-07
1945
429 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
Defiant
evading
Halifax
Resistance
shot down
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/735/10735/ACayhillE180208.2.mp3
fae5c508c5967105b298ae8a271038de
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
Cayhill, Edward
E Cayhill
Edward Cahill
E Cahill
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Edward Cayhill (1921 -2021, 157619 Royal Air Force) He worked as a civilian Meteorological officer at RAF Scampton before joining the RAF and flying as an observer on Meteorological flights with 519 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-08
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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Cayhill, E
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Mr Edward Cayhill. The interview is taking place at Mr Cayhill’s home in North Wales on the 8th of February 2018.
EC: Correct.
JM: Mr Cayhill, Edward, please would you tell us a little bit about your family background first of all?
EC: I was born in Scotland in, near Motherwell. Motherwell, on the 11th of August 1921. A big family. A family of eight of us and I was the eldest son. Therefore, in Scotland the idea was that the eldest son would be encouraged financially and otherwise to further his education and so I was, my father said, ‘We’re going to try and get you in to university.’ So I worked hard at my studies and [pause] in 1938 my father died in Scotland. A big family. 1938. So my, and I applied for a place at Glasgow University and I was accepted for a place. However, it all came to fruition that there was no way in my family set up that I could continue with university. The war was imminent. We had advisors, advisories, advisors coming around the schools suggesting jobs for future careers and so on and I went up to the Civil Service place in Edinburgh and had a, take up there and I was accepted as a technical assistant grade three in the Meteorological Office. Now, as the days went by things were heating up. The war was about to start. I [pause] stop here. Can it be stopped?
JM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
EC: I was sent to the Royal Air Force Abbotsinch as an observer.
JM: Yeah.
EC: A weather observer, and worked there for a couple of years. And this is, I’ve got, I was very keen on getting airborne so I was flying with any chance I could get. And that went on for a couple of years. For instance I went up to Scone Airport, Perth as an observer teaching newly entrants and aircrew lectures. And then I spent about probably three years doing various jobs around Scotland and then from that stage on I [pause] my next move was to Aldergrove in Northern Ireland, and in Northern Ireland I trained [pause] Oh, I’m sorry about this.
[recording paused]
EC: 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove in July [unclear]. Now, that was when I’d left the Meteorological Office in Scampton where I was. Posted there. I was still a civilian and my job was to brief the crews who at that stage, 1674, at that stage Guy Gibson who was the CO of the Dambusting squadron they had been recently, on my arrival they had just recently done the bouncing bomb. So I was a civilian still then and, but the Squadron, 617 Squadron continued similar training. That is about the bouncing bomb, and that meant low level. When I say low level I mean low level. So, I would come in each day and brief the crews. And now, the bouncing bomb having done, Guy Gibson was still there and the squadron which included Flight Lieutenant Allsebrook continued doing similar training when the training area was [pause] we would take off from Scampton and we would fly low level. When I say low level, low level up across Yorkshire into Scotland and then on the road to the Isles. That’s by Tummel and Loch Rannoch, out there and I had cadged a trip and my position was the one that the pilot was Allsebrook, Flight Lieutenant Allsebrook, but he said, ‘Well, my mid-upper gunner won’t be coming so you can have the mid-upper seat.’ So I, low level all the way up there and it was really low level and we came through the valleys with the idea of a drop then. However, down at very low level over Scotland there was a God almighty bang and wind came through the aircraft all over the place and silence for a while and full bore climbing and we were on our way back home. And then eventually, this is your, ‘This is your captain speaking. I want you to [pause] what happened back there, we hit a rabbit. We hit a rabbit. And what did we hit? I want all the crew to answer this,’ [laughs] So everyone sitting up there, ‘You hit a rabbit.’ ‘That’s right.’ So, on the way back, now the idea of this rabbit business was, what he had said, we were not on intercom with them, he had said to the bomb aimer who was down there and was covered in blood and feathers and a bird strike, it was a bird strike and so the skipper said to the bomb aimer, ‘Take up all those big feathers and get rid of them. And all that gory mushy messy stuff put in our sandwich bag.’ In those days it was brown paper bags. ‘Put them in there and who knows. That could well be a rabbit.’ And so anyway [laughs] now every squadron I believe, bomber squadron had a line. They called them line books, and the line book was tall stories usually, and this story went into the, I’m sure this is still in the book [laughs] And so I cadged as many trips as I could while I was there. And then I was transferred on to other things and I went on to the flying side of it.
JM: That’s lovely. Could I just ask you a little bit to go back a little bit in that sense? You were saying that you were doing the meteorological briefing for the crews.
EC: Correct.
JM: Where did you get the information, the technical information from? Was it from the station or did it go through a network?
EC: A network. It all came in on the printer. Various sources.
JM: Right.
EC: We had, well information was short but we got a lot of stuff on the teleprinter.
JM: And did you have to make your own synoptic charts up, or did you simply have the job of relaying what somebody else had done somewhere else?
EC: No. We would automatically draw the charts up.
JM: You would.
EC: Yes. That was something I was also trained in.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes. So you were strong in maths and science at university level to do that work.
EC: Not, not really. No. Most of the basic stuff came through on the printer.
JM: Right.
EC: You plotted the charts.
JM: Right. Right.
EC: You analysed the charts, you know and —
JM: Yes. I mean the information that you were being given. The pressure, winds, whatever. Where was that coming from because you need information from all over the place but you didn’t have it from Europe? You only had it from the Atlantic.
EC: Well, from Bracknell.
JM: From Bracknell.
EC: From Bracknell. It was Meteorological Office Headquarters.
JM: At Bracknell. Still is. Or was.
EC: What information they had.
JM: Yeah.
EC: And who, the out stations had received it.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Used it to their best advantage.
JM: Yes. Yes. That’s very interesting. So you do, you do your, you make up the weather forecast based on the information that you were given.
EC: Correct.
JM: And then you go in to the briefing room to brief the crews before the sortie.
EC: That’s right.
JM: Did you, were you there for the whole of the briefing or simply for your bit of it?
EC: Oh no, we stayed on there and the others did their bit. Bomb aimer and —
JM: Yes. Yeah.
EC: The CO and all the rest of it.
JM: What was the atmosphere like if they were going out on a bombing sortie? Do you remember the atmosphere in the, in the briefing room?
EC: They were very [pause] they didn’t make any, there was no fuss. It was a job to be done. That was my understanding of it. We all did our bit. The wireless operator. The bomb aimer would say his bit. Each expert as it were to be known would say his bit and then the CO would then say, ‘Well, ok boys. That’s it now. Off we go.’ Da, da, da, da, you know.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And when they came back after the sortie it was quite likely that the weather forecast over the target wasn’t very accurate.
EC: Well, quite right.
JM: How did you react to that?
EC: Well, it was you debriefed and you’d, there was a lot of jocularity, you know, ‘I’m back Jocky,’ [laughs] you know, but we took that as part, part of the job.
JM: Right. Right. So we have you there at Scampton in the summer of 1943 after the dams raid. Gibson —
EC: Immediately after. Yes.
JM: Yeah. Gibson was still around. Did you speak to him? Did you meet him at all?
EC: Yes, well I briefed him.
JM: You did.
EC: He’d be at the briefing. He was always at the briefing.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: He’d kind of retire, you know but he was there.
JM: Yes. Did you form any impressions of, of Wing Commander Gibson? He has had so much publicity, I wondered if having met him if you had a view of him.
EC: He was a cool, cool, cool, cool customer.
JM: Was he?
EC: He didn’t seem to get excited about anything. ‘Oh yes. Is that so?’ You know.
JM: Just like that, yes.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes. When he, when he left the squadron he was replaced by Squadron Leader George Holden who had come down from 4 Group. I wonder if you remember Holden at all?
EC: No. That doesn’t ring a bell.
JM: No. No. Are there any of the other 617 crews that you do remember as characters, or did you have much to do with them?
EC: Not really. Well, I was a civilian, you know. I lived out and travelled in.
JM: Right.
EC: To do my briefings.
JM: Yes.
EC: Plot my charts and do my job and envying them. I wanted to be a flyer. Be a flyer, as well.
JM: You did.
EC: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: So —
JM: But so there’s none of them that stand out.
EC: There’s no. I —
JM: As people you particularly knew, knew well.
EC: No. My memory doesn’t recall.
JM: No. Do you remember if they actually talked about the dams raid in the summer after the raid had taken place? Did they talk about it at all? What they had done. The crews.
EC: Well, each one had a debrief. You were debriefed. They were debriefed.
JM: Yes. I meant more informally. Did they chat about it? Was it something that they knew what they’d done informally? You can’t remember.
EC: I can’t remember. No. Sorry.
JM: No. That’s ok. No. Ok. Were you there in September of 1943? Had you, were you still on the station then?
[pause]
EC: I’ve got my flight with Allsebrook was in May ’43. I’ve got that. And then I’ve got the 18th [pause] Well, I don’t know where, the 18th ’43 [unclear] Flight Lieutenant Sanders and then September ’43 the Ventura, [unclear]
[pause]
EC: So, all I’ve got here is that on the 5th 1943.
JM: 5th of —
EC: 5th of, that was when the [pause] sorry, sorry May ’43. Fifth. It was the fifth month.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t know about the date. That was the Lancaster with Allsebrook.
JM: Yes.
EC: Ok.
JM: Yes.
EC: And that was described here as low level training. Scampton, Fort William, Stranraer, back. That’s the one I‘ve just talked to you about.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes.
EC: Now, in August I would be, would not have been in that area.
JM: Right.
EC: Would not have. In August. September [pause] I was posted up to Northern Ireland.
JM: Right.
EC: And then in, here’s something specific. Posted to Number 2 Observer’s AFU Millom. Ah. This was for the training to become an air met observer.
JM: Yeah. Millom is —
EC: That’s a jump.
JM: Millom is in Cumbria, isn’t it?
EC: Yes. In Cumbria.
JM: Yes.
EC: And it was on that one that we did the nav course. Air gunning — there was a gunnery range over on the Isle of Man. And we did a navigation course which we did in the, flying on Ansons.
JM: Yes. Can I just —
EC: And just come back.
JM: Can I just take you back a little while there. I’m interested to find out what it was that persuaded you to join the RAF. You were already making a major contribution to the war effort as a, as a meteorological officer. Why did you join up?
EC: Because I wanted to go on flying. I particularly, I was surrounded by these in uniform and flying. I wanted to fly. And the only way I was going to get into flying, they’d started the Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights and the training was, the initial one was Millom. We went up to Millom and, well I would go, that’s when I went back, went into uniform at that change. But the base was Millom and we were trained in navigation, air gunnery, quite a few of the essential things.
JM: Yes.
EC: Training then from Millom.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t know if that’s any help to you.
JM: It is. Do you remember very much about the training that you were given in terms of navigation and observations? Do you remember that at all?
EC: Yes. We had lectures on the navigation.
JM: Yes.
EC: And we had when we were airborne in the Anson we were given tasks like fly from here to [pause] it was almost invariably you would fly over ‘til you saw the, the tower at Liverpool and you would then go up to Scotland. Down to Stranraer.
JM: Yeah.
EC: In to the Stranraer area.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: And there would be a qualified navigator with you, you know to [unclear]
JM: Yes.
EC: And so on. But it’s becoming vague now. It’s very complicated. Not vague but complicated.
JM: So how long was the training that you went through at that stage?
EC: [pause] the whole thing probably lasted about six weeks.
JM: Really? Yes.
EC: That was to four to six weeks.
JM: Yes.
EC: I would think.
JM: Yes.
EC: It was a kind of crash course.
JM: Right.
EC: A crash course.
JM: And where were you sent after that, please?
EC: There is something here [pause] I’ve got my glasses [pause] Posted to Number 2 Observers AFU, Millom in June 1944. That’s, that’s a fact. Training flights were in Ansons for air experience and map reading. Second navigator to first navigator and the area’s bounded by Bardsey Island, Inishtrahull, Isla, Millom and down to Birmingham. And then I was posted to 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove. Ok.
JM: Northern Ireland.
EC: In July 1944.
JM: Right.
EC: So, I was then in to flying.
JM: So you —
EC: I told you I was probably not much help.
JM: It’s wonderful. It’s very valuable. So you were at the Heavy Conversion Unit.
EC: Yes.
JM: And were you training to fly Halifaxes or Lancasters?
EC: We were then in Halifaxes.
JM: Halifaxes. Right.
EC: Not Lancasters.
JM: No. No. So where did you, where were you posted after you’d finished at the Heavy Conversion Unit?
EC: I think I was posted to 1674 Heavy Conversion Unit, Aldergrove in 1944. Training. These were the training flights. Halifax air observer flights in the base area. Stornoway. Rockall. Climbs to eighteen thousand feet. And then I was, in September ‘44 I was posted to 519 Squadron at Skitten. So I’d done all my training.
JM: Yes.
EC: And then they had opened up these weather flights.
JM: Right.
EC: Weather reconnaissance.
JM: Right.
EC: And I got on to the weather reconnaissance. And that was, that’s my life since that date. September ’44. I’ve been mostly on weather reconnaissance. I’ve got, this is all small stuff which is you don’t mind me just opening that.
JM: No. Please.
EC: There’s my log book which I kept up to date just to [pause] back to [pause] The research flight, Farnborough, that’s it. [unclear] What we did at the Met Research Flight, Farnborough, I flew, we flew Halifaxes and Mosquitoes.
JM: Right.
EC: On a bit of research.
JM: Yes.
EC: Flying as high as we could go.
JM: So the high altitude meteorological research.
EC: Yes.
JM: Yes.
EC: Met research. It was called Met Research Flight, Farnborough.
JM: Right.
EC: So I was on that. What we had was, we had Halifaxes and Mosquitoes. Two pilots, one engineer. The pilots took alternate Mosquito. I was, every Mosquito flight I would be on that and we would fly as high as we could until we stalled. You know, you’d think [unclear] so and like and there were two pilots [Thomason] Thorne. Thorne. [Thomason]. These are all the 1st 2nd 5th 9th 12th 15th 20th at Farnborough. So on and so on and then it was all authenticated by the, signed by the officer commanding M RAF. So this was all authenticated and then still at Farnborough in January 1950.
JM: So you were staying, stayed on in the RAF after the war was over.
EC: No. I was flying as a civilian then.
JM: You were back as a civilian.
EC: Back as a civilian.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: And I used to, like with [Thomason] and Thorne I used to fly with them on the Met research flights in uniform. But then I was demobbed.
JM: Yes. I see. Tell me about flying in the Mosquito.
EC: Beautiful. Beautiful. My position, it was naturally a two seater. Pilot on the left, met observer on the right with my judgement on all the weather and then when we came down from, we’d go as high as possible. You can see by the heights. I always put the heights in. The Halifaxes went up to ten thousand feet. The Mosquito to forty thousand feet. A fifteen thousand foot descent. There’s mostly, like in February 1950 I had, on the 2nd I was airborne on a Mosquito. On the 7th I was airborne in a Mosquito. On the 8th, on the 13th on the 14th 15th 16th 21st 21st 22nd. Climbed to, well climbed to forty thousand feet or as high as you could go. Thirty eight thousand five hundred. And then when we came down to fifteen thousand feet my job was then finished and the pilot, I knew him, we were great pals, pilots. He said, ‘Do you know, I’ve always thought this, the Mosquito could do a loop.’ So at fifteen thousand I had finished with the meteorological stuff so I just strapped myself down and said, ‘Ok.’ So he said, he put the nose down, [unclear] feet and he flew it back and came from out there and stalled out.
JM: Oh, it stalled at the top did it? Yes.
EC: But oh, but that I told you I was not —
JM: No. It’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. I’m interested, when you were making the observations on these weather research flights were you making them with symbols in a notebook of [pause] What was it that you were actually recording?
EC: We had the, a special form actually.
JM: Right.
EC: A meteorological form.
JM: Right.
EC: For each position.
JM: Yes.
EC: I don’t think I’ve got one. But anyway yeah there were special forms.
JM: And were you, were you looking at instruments that were giving you recordings of outside air temperature or whatever it happened to be?
EC: Both. Instruments and weather and visual.
JM: Right. Instruments and visual observations.
EC: And visual.
JM: Were being made by you.
EC: Stratocumulus, cirrus.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: Above us or below us.
JM: Yes. Yes. Operating at that height, forty thousand feet. That was quite exceptional in those days.
EC: Oh, yes. Well, the highest —
JM: Did you have any special kit or special training for operating at that altitude?
EC: No.
JM: No.
EC: No. No special training.
JM: No special —
EC: No special pressure suits.
JM: Nothing like that at all.
EC: No. No.
JM: So just normal RAF flying equipment.
EC: That’s right. Come out in the morning, go to the parachute section, draw your parachute out, and the truck would be there to take you out. Then you would go to the met office and have a briefing and then off you go.
JM: Off you go. Was it cold at that height?
EC: Well, you had heating in there.
JM: You had eating in the aircraft.
EC: Oh yeah. Yeah.
JM: Good.
EC: Oh, very cold. Very cold.
JM: Yes.
EC: Just trying to get something that might help you [pause] No. I’d just be repeating myself. So, what I did, I was in the met office. A civilian until the Scampton episode. And from then on I was going in to uniform.
JM: Yes.
EC: And they had started these meteorological reconnaissance flights.
JM: Yes.
EC: And I got in to them.
JM: Right. So you operated in Halifaxes and Mosquitoes in a meteorological —
EC: In a meteorological. What happened there was, when did the Mosquitoes come in? [pause] Well, of course the war ended. Where does that put us?
JM: ‘45.
EC: ’45, the war ended. So, what did I do then? Oh, the war ended and I thought, ah this is going to confuse still further but this is my memory. Ok. The war ended and I thought, oh no. I want to emigrate to America. Get away from all this. Get over to America. So I thought where’s the money? You’ve got no money. So I attended a Civil Service Commission and anyway, I got in to the Met Office as a technical assistant grade 2, I think it was. Whatever it was. And they said, ‘Now, what we want you to do now is they’re [pause] they’re going to, we have discovered we have a jet stream in the northern latitudes but there has been some suspicion on some very high flying aircraft that there’s one in the Middle East somewhere.’ That was it. ‘So what we’re doing we’re sending you out there,’ And there was, the war ended boom boom and there were pilots by the hundred. No jobs. Aircraft by the hundred. No purpose. So they said. ‘What we’ll do is we’ll send you out to Habbaniya in Iraq and we’ll send [pause] — the RAF have promised a squadron of —’ [pause] that was it, ‘Of Mosquitoes for this investigation.’
JM: Right.
EC: For the Middle East.
JM: Right.
EC: Jet. And you’ll be the kind of organiser and so on.
JM: Yes.
EC: So I said, ‘Ok, that’s fine.’ Maybe I’ll save some money while I’m out there. So, I went out there and, you know I was told to report to a Squadron Leader Shellard who was the officer in charge of RAF Habbaniya which is on the Euphrates about fifty miles from Bagdad. And so I got off the aircraft, went into the flight lieutenant. He said, ‘Oh, you’re, you’re Cayhill, are you?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ve got good news for you and bad news for you.’ He said, ‘First of all your flight won’t, you’re flying won’t come to anything because the Mosquitoes that came out, there was no hangar space for them so they were moored on the airfield on the bund. Open air.’ June July temperatures. The aircraft wood warped.
JM: Warped. Yes.
EC: And they were declared unfit for flying.
JM: Oh.
EC: So, I was [pause] but so Shellard said, ‘Well, look we’ve got problems here. We’ve got a war going on in the Far East and the French are getting kicked right, left and centre and they are flying the evacuees, injured back home and they’re coming up through one of my wee stations down in Shaibah.’ The north end of the Persian Gulf, and so, ‘There’s no forecaster down there. There’s just the assistant and passing stuff. It would be better if we had a forecaster down there so you’re going down to — ’ That’s when I, that’s before I went out on this job I had sent all my gear including my logbook out to, and it was as the ship came around to come up to Basra it ran aground in the Persian Gulf.
JM: And that’s when —
EC: Five hundred, so the papers said, five hundred armed natives rushed on board and pilfered all they could except things like bulldozers and things like that.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: And so I went down to Shaibah and then I had to spend my time there. And anyway, sorry we’re diversing and we don’t —
JM: We are but that’s fine. Again, if I may I’d like to take you a little bit back because you were telling us about operating the Halifax on the weather reconnaissance flight.
EC: Oh course.
JM: Could you tell us a little bit more about how that would, how often you’d go up? Where you’d go to? How did that actually work please?
EC: We had fixed routes which you would select on, the meteorologist would select on the day and then the routine would be, you’d got the full crew, the met observer, depending what kind of aircraft. I started off on Hudsons. Twin engine. Now, the twin engine we don’t, that was from Wick. When I was at Wick. But before that it was the Halifaxes. Now, in the Halifaxes there were fixed routes which were there in black and white.
JM: Yes.
EC: So you would fly out and do low level for part of the way. Every fifty nautical miles you would make a weather report. You would climb, clamber through bomb bays and whatever up to the wireless operator and he would send that message back to base.
JM: Right.
EC: And then after so many miles out you would do a climb to five hundred millibars. That’s about eighteen thousand feet. Now, we were very primitive in those days. The idea was you would climb to maybe, it was in millibars but call it two thousand feet and you would then circle there to allow the temperatures to regularise. Steady up. And then you would take the temperatures, the dry bulb, and wet bulb, and put that in. Always in code for that part of the war you know and so on. So you had to then encrypt it and then you climb another roughly eighteen hundred feet, level off, allow the temperatures to level off, take the readings, code them up, go up to the wireless operator to send them out, and then up to five hundred odd. Now you do two climbs to five hundred millibars, eighteen thousand feet and then you’re coming back home doing a kind of triangular somewhat penetration. A long way out. A long way back.
JM: That’s very interesting and there’s a couple of things that you’ve said that I want to clarify for the, for the recording. You were climbing to heights in millibars where there would be a certain known pressure.
EC: That’s right.
JM: So you weren’t climbing in feet. You were climbing to a pressure level.
EC: You had the altimeter beside you as well.
JM: Yes. Yes. That’s good. The second thing is that the information was sent back as you were recording it via the wireless operator in code so that if the Germans were listening they wouldn’t be given —
EC: That’s right.
JM: A free weather forecast.
EC: That’s right there was a decode book. You know it was book. Decode book.
JM: Yes.
EC: Number so and so, page so and so line so and so.
JM: Yes. Yes. Yes. Were your, were your crews, the pilots and the other members of the crew were they perhaps men who had done a tour of duty on bombing operations or had then been specially selected for that sort of work?
EC: They weren’t specially selected. No.
JM: No.
EC: No. They all had so many flying hours in, on different jobs.
JM: Yes. Yes. So they might have been men resting between tours of duty.
EC: Could be. Yes.
JM: For them that would have been a fairly easy task I imagine.
EC: No problems for them. Yeah.
JM: No. Was there any risk of you being intercepted by long range enemy fighters?
EC: There was always that risk on, on all these flights were given names. Code names. The one I started talking about, the one over the Atlantic that was Business.
JM: Right.
EC: The one over the North Sea starting was Rhombus. The one that went straight north out into the Arctic —
JM: Yeah.
EC: Was Recipe. The one down from Cornwall was Epicure. Epicure. They all had. The one, the one from Gibraltar. I didn’t do the Gibraltar one. The one at Gibraltar was, what was the one down there? Just missing for the moment.
JM: Yeah. That’s fascinating. So we had these separate routes identified by code names.
EC: That’s right.
JM: Taking weather aircraft north, south, east and west and you could, you could be ordered to fly on any of those depending on your duties.
EC: That was done at briefing.
JM: That was done at briefing.
EC: Yeah. The weather forecast. They’d see the weather forecast. They’d see that was a pretty blank area now. We need some information. Do that route.
JM: Yes. Yes.
EC: On the, on the Recipe which was taking off from Wick originally and then we moved to a wee place further north, would you believe it? To Skitten. Took us far north because at that time you had the Germans at the Dutch coast err the —
JM: Norwegian.
EC: The Norwegian coast, and they would come out and of course you had the convoys coming from Liverpool. The sea convoys from Liverpool going all the way around there to Murmansk to feed the Russians.
JM: Yes.
EC: And they were open targets. The Jerries used to come out there and —
JM: Yes. Yes, yes. You mentioned the Jetstream earlier on. I think I’m right in saying that’s a narrow band of high velocity air.
EC: That’s correct.
JM: When did you first get to hear about the presence of the Jetstream?
EC: Well, it was, you mean the second one? The one down in —
JM: No. The concept of the Jetstream. The fact that it existed over, over north west Europe.
EC: I wouldn’t like to say then, I did give you a date I think. I would suggest that like airlines flying to America and so on the, it was very rarely. They wouldn’t, at one time they wouldn’t allow a two engine aircraft to fly direct to America like I did, a long time at London airport briefing crews there, and they, and they’d come in and what are the winds? Ah. Then we’ll do the polar route depending on the winds and whatever winds we had then they’d probably, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly when they said jet, that’s a Jetstream.
JM: Yeah. The reason I ask, Edward is that I had it in my mind that it was the United States Army Air Force with their very high flying B17s and B24s leaving the contrails. I had it in my mind that it was they who first of all identified the Jetstream, and I wondered if that was you believed to be the case.
EC: I would believe that is the case.
JM: Yes.
EC: I’m not sure but I would believe. They always had the higher flying aircraft over their own country.
JM: Yes.
EC: And certainly the Jetstreams over there.
JM: Yes. It must have been fascinating to be a part of the science of meteorology at a time when with computers, balloons, rockets so much more information was coming through and you saw this. Perhaps after the war was over.
EC: Oh yes. Did. Did. We, clearly the details which are probably not too relevant, but my position I would say with flying with what we were flying but we had to be started using B17s eventually.
JM: You did. B17s as well.
EC: Oh aye. Towards the end of the war.
JM: Yes.
EC: We had Hudsons which [laughs]
JM: Yes.
EC: Twin engine things got no distance at all and then we got B, the B17.
JM: Yeah.
EC: That was fabulous. Up to thirty thousand feet. But what would I say was special about it? Well, they changed our job totally from being just getting north of the Orkney Islands or the Shetlands with a Hudson to a much longer range. We used to go way, way up there. But I remember my, as a Met observer my position would be in the nose of the Fortress. I would do my weather and then I had to take, and then I put it in to code and then crawl, push on a trap door to get up there, through there, through the wireless cabin and give him my message and he would then transmit. It was all in code, you know. And then, however in the meantime there was aircraft [laughs] Jerries were coming out across our path looking for ships to torpedo.
JM: Right. Yes.
EC: And the [pause] it’s like suddenly there would be an aircraft showing up and he’d say, ‘Ok. What’s the colour of the day?’ Now, the colour of the day might be two, two red cartridges and a green or something, or whatever and that was, so that was then my job. So everything black as pitch, you know most of the time in the winter time, ‘What’s the colour of the day?’ Get your torch out. We could have been shot down before you could work out the colour of the day. I’m rambling on. The old memory’s beginning to —
JM: Well, we’re having a lovely conversation. I hope I’m not tiring you too much.
EC: No. But —
JM: It’s fascinating.
EC: But I’m sorry not to be so specific.
JM: No. No. So, after you’d served as a civilian in the, in the Middle East.
EC: Yes.
JM: What did you do with the rest of your working life? Did you stay in meteorology?
EC: Yes, I, when I came back from those two years in the, and I told you I was going to go.
JM: Yes.
EC: I had been writing to the American Consulate and you needed in those days a sponsor to get, to emigrate to America. And so I, one of my friend’s uncle was a solicitor over in Detroit. Lafayette Buildings. Memories, it’s weird isn’t it? Lafayette Buildings, Detroit. And I thought, ok so I saved up a fair bit of money. I had been corresponding with the Americans and the last one read my letter. I got a letter from them, from their Consulate in Baghdad. So when I got home to Scotland there was no letter. I thought, you know what? So I thought, well I said, I know I’ll emigrate to Canada and then go across from Canada. So I booked a flight over on TC or something, and landed at Montreal and then came down to Winnipeg was it? No. It wasn’t. Anyway, at the junction where you go across they said, ‘Sorry, you can’t come through. You’ve got to have a working permit that you’re working in Canada.’ ‘I’ve got to have a job in Canada?’ ‘Yes.’ So I took a job emptying a grain ship, you know. And then out of a job. The second job was more popular on an assembly line in the car industry making body parts and so on. So once I had that I went across and I thought ok here I am in Detroit. I’m in Detroit but I’ve got to go back there and I went to the Lafayette Buildings where he was and I said, ‘I’d like to speak to [pause] anyway there it goes again. ‘Oh, he died three weeks ago.’
JM: Oh dear. Oh dear.
EC: He died three weeks ago.’ So I thought that’s it. So I thought, ok. I’ll go back in to the Met Office in the UK and just to make the best of it. See what they can offer me. So I booked from New York. Sailed from New York. It was mostly boats in those days. So I got on a bus around there and somewhere enroute the bus driver, we stopped for refreshments, he said, ‘Mr Cayhill?’ I said, ‘That’s me.’ He said, ‘Oh, there’s a message here from the place you booked your ticket.’ So it was to say that there’s a strike in New York and the ship has been diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Oh no. So I pretended I couldn’t hear and hung up. So I went on to New York and stormed on to it [laughs] I stormed into their offices. ‘Don’t panic. Don’t panic. We’re laying on a special train from New York for us and you’ll go all the way around up to Nova Scotia here.’ So [unclear]
JM: Marvellous. Marvellous. I’d like —
EC: You’ve got nothing out of me.
JM: I’ve got a lot of out of you, but I would like to take you back if I, if I may to the, that time, the summer of 1943 when you were a civilian working at RAF Scampton with the 617 Squadron. In the period of time after the dams raid.
EC: Yes.
JM: What, what do you remember about Scampton in those days? Do you remember the base? Do you remember where you had your office?
EC: Yes. I do. Yes. A very small office there. Briefings, we always went to the briefing centre for all the briefing.
JM: Yes.
EC: Operations. I presume it was operations for, the next briefing is from so and so and so and so to so and so. So you prepared all the documentation you could.
JM: Yes.
EC: And you went over and you gave your spiel.
JM: And some of the briefings that you gave to 617 Squadron were part of the operations that they took part in in the summer of 1943.
EC: Yes.
JM: Do you remember any of those operations at all?
EC: No. The only ones were associated once the low level training part subsided and that was with Allsebrook.
JM: Yes.
EC: That was the last time that I flew with them.
JM: Yes.
EC: Or probably the last time I briefed any of them.
JM: Was it? Yes.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Right. Because I was keen to find out something about the atmosphere on RAF Scampton in those weeks after the dams raid. They had trained so hard. They had achieved so much. To find out what it was like to be there in the aftermath of that. That’s —
EC: That’s right. In actual fact Gibson himself, I think it was a fact was shot down by one of the RAF, a Lancaster.
JM: That’s, that’s one of the stories. It is. Yes.
EC: Oh, it’s a story.
JM: Yes. Yes. I tend to not to agree with that but it is one of the stories that we have heard. But that was two years later wasn’t it?
EC: Yeah.
JM: That was, one year later 1944.
EC: You don’t believe that.
JM: I tend to go with the view that it was an accident as a result of his relative unfamiliarity with the Mosquito.
EC: That’s right.
JM: And the fact that they didn’t transfer the fuel as they should have done.
EC: And they ran out fuel.
JM: And they ran out of fuel. I have been to —
EC: I accept that.
JM: I’ve been to the crash site in, in Holland and his grave, and Squadron Leader Warwick was the navigator who was killed with him. I’ve been to that. I have looked into it but it’s quite right that recently a rear gunner came out and he said that he had shot it down. A two engine aircraft.
EC: Yeah.
JM: Not knowing what it was.
EC: Yeah.
JM: So, we’ll never know. We’ll never know. But that was 1944. In the summer of 1943, you know you were there and 617 Squadron was operating against targets in Italy and elsewhere. I wondered if you’d remember that but perhaps you’d moved on at that stage.
EC: No. I can’t. No.
JM: No.
EC: Sorry.
JM: No, that’s ok. That’s fine. I have to ask. Shall we have a rest there for the moment?
EC: Ok.
JM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
EC: Have you had, the squadron was based in Darwin with daily flights. They made long period daily flights until the bomb itself went off.
JM: What year was that roughly?
EC: The year was exactly [pause] Darwin. Darwin. This was the period [pause]
JM: So, for the, for the record Edward is telling us about the time when he was operating in Australia, in the Pacific Ocean in support of nuclear weapons testing on the Caicos Islands and you were doing weather reconnaissance to ensure that the winds did not bring radiation on to the mainland of Australia.
EC: I think [pause] Yeah. That was 18th of February 1956. Shackleton, 818. Wing commander flying. That was our crewmen. I was air met observer. Ballykelly via Bordeaux. The Carcassonne Gap to Idris. This was on, out —
JM: Right.
EC: And then again Idris to Habbaniya and then [pause] No. I’ll start again and then Habbaniya. Shaibah. Sharjah. Do you know all these?
JM: Yes. I do. Yes.
EC: Sharjah, and then Mauripur. And then on to Mauripur. Mauripur to Negombo. Negombo via Subang to Changi, Singapore island. And then Changi to Darwin. Darwin, Pearce Field, Perth down to Perth, this is setting it all up.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Pearce back to Darwin and then I set up tracks which we were flying so we were flying but the —
JM: So this was 19 —
EC: Conditions were, those ones there were twelve and a half hours.
JM: This was 1956. You just gave us that date. 1956.
EC: 1956, yeah.
JM: And this was in support of the nuclear testing.
EC: That’s right.
JM: That was taking place at that time.
EC: That’s right. That was the atomic bomb.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Test that.
JM: Yeah.
EC: Still at Darwin and that was [pause] so the summary of flying hours as an air met observer on 269 Squadron for the period 5th of Jan ‘56 to the 16th of May, da di di da, on Shackletons. The two hundred and eighty five hours and then there was still a Shack and then because I was the top man, you know [unclear] with the wing commander we went down to different, to Alice Springs and Alice Springs back to Darwin, you know. And then we did our trips in the [pause] we were flying regularly 5th 8th the 11th, 14th of June, 17th of June, Shackleton to [pages turning] still in Australia. Darwin. Then transit Darwin to Essendon. Laverton, Richmond, Sydney, Richmond, Darwin, Darwin, then go Darwin to Changi. Changi to Negombo which was Ceylon. Negombo, Sharjah. Sharjah. Habbaniya. Habbaniya. Idris. And Idris back to Ballykelly. That was all in, the last of those flights was the 10th of July 1956. And then we have a transit to the Christmas Island for the whole set up. That was in, the 19th of January 1957. Flight Lieutenant Kerr. Air obs, acting air observer, St Eval to Lurgans. That’s going out the long way around. Lurgans to Kenley Field. Kenley Field to Charleston. That’s South Carolina. Charleston to Moisant. Moisant to Biggs Airfield in El Paso. Biggs to Travis Air Force base up in California and then a big long one across the Pacific to Travis which is California to Hickam Air Force base Honolulu. And then Hickam down to Christmas Island and so on and so on.
JM: And of course Christmas island was the H-bomb tests, wasn’t it?
EC: That’s right.
JM: I have a —
EC: Well, I’ve done, I’ve seen and experienced three personally and I’m very closely associated for the rest of them. I set up the Met set up for that. On the day of the decision — have you been to Christmas island?
JM: No. I haven’t.
EC: It’s a very large coral island, about the middle of the Pacific full of little waterways and so on and there was an airfield. They made, the army made an airfield. Rolled coral in the north end of it there and then the ships would, could come into the fjord, the waterways. And on the day of the, if I say the first bomb they would say, they would wake us all up about three o’clock in the morning, those who weren’t flying. I would have all the time twelve hour meteorological flights going on. I had a team of six. One flight sergeant and five sergeants and myself who used to fly twelve hour flights. Reconnaissance all around. Anyway, my job was, I would go aboard as the weatherman to the target and then the [pause] I would report when I’m on the target back to headquarters, it’s satisfactory or its not satisfactory for a drop and then in my aircraft which would stay on site the weatherman, we had all the cameramen. Ok. With their cameras. And then the target was four hundred miles south of Christmas Island. A little island called [pause] anyway a tiny little island which was mostly unoccupied and we’d use that to bomb. A Valiant would come on top at forty five plus thousand feet. He would come across and if it was decided it was on, drop from that height. And then the Navy had a ship over to the east of the target and they were monitoring everything, the bomb all the way down and they would call, ‘Forty five seconds. Forty seconds. Close eyes everybody.’ [laughs] And then, my position in the nose there would be a bright flash. You’ve got no goggles on, gloves on, curtains pulled past the, around all that, would, would be again a funny light through all the sounds, and then, ‘Ok. Eyes open everybody. Forty five seconds,’ and then would be the countdown. And then the first thing would be apart from the light, was an attack. The aircraft really shook [pause] and then it stopped, and then there was another smaller one. And in the meantime then the cameras were turning and photographing it all.
JM: And that shock was the shockwave hitting the aircraft.
EC: That was the first one which was direct to the aircraft was the shockwave from up there, and the second one was a reflection off the sea.
JM: Right.
EC: And that was a minor one. Now, the British are fantastic, I think. Now, the, from then on I’d say it was all being controlled by the Navy over there who were at sea. The aircraft, Canberra aircraft were sent off and they timed it beautifully, and they were timed to go through at different levels into the stack, you know and they were called Sniffer, their call sign. Sniffer One. Sniffer Two. Sniffer Three. Go through the cloud at different levels taking samples. Back to Christmas island. There was an RAF York on the ground there and all those samples were on there. The route, the usual route was up to Honolulu, or to San Francisco and they were in Aldermaston the following morning at 9 o’clock. Incredible.
JM: Were you ever concerned after that about the health issues of operating there? A number of servicemen —
EC: Oh, I was told about it. They said, you know. I had no [pause] we became so good at dropping this bomb.
JM: Yeah.
EC: All our accommodation on Christmas Island was tented.
JM: Yeah.
EC: There was only one kind of wooden hut and that was the CO, but because we knew exactly what was happening we used our own island, the southern tip of our island as a delayed drop from our own island and we were all at the top end of our island, you know. And really fantastic.
JM: And how long were you there for in total?
EC: Oh, exactly I’ll tell you [laughs] [pages turning] [pause] Christmas Island. Transit Christmas Island, down this area.
[pause]
EC: I was there all of the 19th [pause] These are the days I flew — 19, 20, 21st reconnaissance flights [pause – pages turning] I did, I finished with it [pause] for the period of 10th of January ‘57 to the 28th February ‘57 I did a hundred and twelve hours ten, ten minutes of flying time. And then it went on and on and on [pause — pages turning] The last entry in my book [pause — pages turning] I went back to training. Air met observer from then. So you can then, my grand total of flying was two thousand six hundred and four hours. Mostly meteorologically associated.
JM: Yeah. That’s a wonderful record.
EC: But again, I haven’t —
JM: Yeah. Just to complete the story when you came back I gather you spent your career as a meteorologist with, with airports. Is that correct? Were you doing weather forecasting? Did you say earlier you were doing weather forecasting?
EC: Yeah.
JM: For airlines. It doesn’t matter, Edward. It doesn’t matter.
EC: No.
JM: We can leave it there. Edward, thank you so much for allowing me to go back with you into your story and you are a unique individual and your stories are very valuable. Thank you very much.
EC: I know I haven’t answered you, what you, specific points you wanted me to raise with you.
JM: Well, you have answered as best as you can and that’s all I can ask for.
EC: Ok.
JM: On behalf of the IBCC thank you very much indeed.
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 Edward Cayhill
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Julian Maslin
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
2018-02-08
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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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ACayhillE180208
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:03:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Christmas Island
Great Britain
Iraq
England--Cumbria
England--Lincolnshire
England--Hampshire
Northern Territory--Darwin
Scotland--Stranraer
Northern Territory
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-06
1944-09
1950
1956-02-18
1956-07-10
1957-01-19
Description
An account of the resource
Edward Cayhill was the eldest of eight children and with his father’s encouragement was hoping to go to university. His father died in 1938 which meant that the university dream was cancelled and Edward went to work as a Civil Servant in the Meteorological Office. He began his work as a Met observer with the RAF at RAF Abbotsinch before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. Edward desperately wanted to join the RAF as aircrew which he finally did. He joined the RAF and was attached to the Meteorological Reconnaissance Flights at RAF Farnborough where he flew on Halifaxes and Mosquitoes. When he was demobbed he continued to fly with the Met Research Flight as a civilian. He eventually joined 269 Squadron and took part in the Met research flights in relation to the nuclear testing in the Pacific.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
1674 HCU
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
briefing
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
meteorological officer
Mosquito
observer
RAF Farnborough
RAF Millom
RAF Scampton
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/536/8772/AWatsonJ150904.2.mp3
ee8d08328019cf700e7fdf3bbbb410ba
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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Watson, Joan
J Watson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Watson, JB
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joan Watson.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin and the interviewee is Mrs Joan Watson. The interview is taking place at Mrs Watson’s home on the 4th of September 2015. Mrs Watson, Joan, I wonder if I could ask you to start by just telling us a little bit about your background, your family history, etcetera.
JW: My name originally was Joan Betty Watson and I lived, I lived at, in Maple Street, at Bracebridge. And very often we’d go into Lincoln for dances and whatever. There was quite a few aerodromes around Lincoln and lots and lots of airmen. I really don’t know how many but I think there were twenty five thousand airmen that were killed in the war there. By then I was about eighteen but still very young. What else?
JM: Where did you go to school?
JW: Oh I went to school at Bracebridge. The Bracebridge School. Until I was about eleven and then I went to work at Ruddocks in the centre of Rugby.
CW: Lincoln.
JW: Hmmn?
CW: Lincoln.
JW: Oh Lincoln. Yeah. And then on to Rugby.
JM: And Ruddocks you were saying was a printers.
JW: Yes. I was in the printing room and, and also in the packing department. I was there until I was about twenty six. Yeah. Earning six shillings a week. So it worked out about tuppence an hour. Hard labour [laughs] but we enjoyed it. We enjoyed life and although these bombs and things were being dropped I don’t think you realise. You don’t.
JM: Did you have a blackout at home or at work and did that affect you?
JW: Oh yeah. You used to have your curtain, all your curtain, black. All your windows were on a frame or we did and with black. Blackout on. And if anybody, you know, shone a light or anything there’d be wardens about and they would tell you to come and put the lights out so that it wouldn’t show. For the planes to see that were coming over. But Lincoln were very lucky. They were very lucky. They didn’t, they only got — I think there were three bombs. One in the lake, one on the nurse’s quarters but no one was killed or hurt. And then a house which was bombed. But not actually bombed. I think crashed or something into it but no one was killed. So they were very very lucky in Lincoln.
JM: Very fortunate. Yes.
JW: Yes.
JM: Yes.
JW: Not that you want to have a bombing session anywhere but —
JM: Did you have any evacuees coming up from London?
JW: Yes. My, my mother had two children. Two girls from Sheffield.
JM: From Sheffield.
JW: Yeah. They were, you know, quite good little girls but when you think they came all the way more or less on their own. Well, with, people brought them but they had to stay with us, just strangers. It was marvellous really how it all worked out.
JM: How long were they with you for?
JW: Oh. I think about nearly a year I think. Some of them. Yeah. But they weren’t very old. They were only about seven. Seven. Probably ten year old. Very young.
JM: Did they have any contact with their families from Sheffield?
JW: Only once. Because when they arrived they hadn’t got many clothes. My mother said, ‘Well, you know, I can’t give them clothes,’ because we was on rations.’
JM: Yeah.
JW: And coupons. So finally my mother wrote to them and said, “Well, will you bring them some clothes because I can’t afford my coupons to buy them clothes.”
JM: Yes.
JW: Yeah. But anyway —
JM: Yeah. And after they went back was there any further contact with them.
JW: No. No. Because years went on. No. We didn’t. we didn’t keep in touch at all with them.
JM: Did you know anybody who had a job as an air raid warden or a fireman? Or anything?
JW: Oh well all the men up the road. Up the road. I lived in Maple Street in Lincoln. And all the men took their turn at fire work. You know.
JM: Fire watching.
JW: Fire watching and things. Even I went out with my dad at 3 o’clock in the morning because we all had our turn to go to work.
JM: And was that a —
JW: Because you all still had to go to work in the morning.
JM: Yeah. And was the fire watching — were you walking round the streets or did you have go to one particular place.
JW: Pop in. You’d pop in home. Have a cup of tea and then out again. Cheated a bit. And, yes, I mean really, I know it awful to say but the war to me didn’t affect me like, well, Coventry or Birmingham. It wasn’t, I know it’s awful to say but it wasn’t as bad for us.
JM: But you must have been aware of all the airmen.
JW: Oh yeah. Oh gosh. You used to go to a dance and really enjoy the dance. And you’d say to this airmen, ‘Oh, see you next week.’ Of course they didn’t come back. Loads. What was it? Twenty five thousand wasn’t it?
JM: From Lincolnshire. Roughly. Yes. Yes.
JW: Yeah.
JM: We often read of girl’s putting gravy browning on their legs and drawing — did you do that?
JW: Oh yes. Yes because no — I didn’t do that. No. No. And yes because we didn’t have tights or anything then. The Americans brought the tights in but we, you know, one thing you couldn’t afford them sometimes. Sometimes you had to give coupons for things like that. So clothing, I used to, oh we used to make underwear out of parachute silk. You know, nice underwear.
JM: Where did the parachute silk come from?
JW: Well, I don’t know. It must have been perhaps from the aerodromes, maybe. I don’t know.
JM: Yeah.
JW: But yeah.
JM: Now, you said there were lots of different nationalities including Americans.
JW: Oh yes.
JM: How did you get on with those? Did you see them?
JW: Oh fine. Fine. I’ll tell you what did annoy me a little bit. My brother was a prisoner of war and you’d have Germans and they’re prisoners of war. Because my brother was shut away kind of thing and they were free. And it used to annoy you a little bit. I mean we didn’t treat them nastily. I don’t mean in that way but you used to think well my brother’s shut away in — you know.
JM: Those enemy POWs must have been doing some work on the farms or whatever.
JW: Yeah. They went on the farms and different things. Yeah.
JM: Yes.
JW: Yes. Yes.
JM: Did you speak to any at all?
JW: Oh yes. We used to speak to them because well some of them couldn’t speak English anyway but you know you’d make, you’d make yourself known and whatever. And if you were dancing anyway you just used to jump and jitterbug about. That’s it.
JM: So you’re saying that these prisoners of war might have been in the dance halls.
JW: Oh yes. They were.
JM: Really.
JW: Yeah. And in the cinemas. You’d sit next to one in the cinema. Yeah. That was strange wasn’t it?
JM: That’s very strange.
JW: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you could. You know they were free and you know I used to think well my brother’s locked away. I think he was on the Malta convoy. Remember the Malta convoy?
JM: Yes.
JW: He was on that. When the ships, a lot of ships were sunk. Weren’t they?
JM: Yes.
JW: But yeah because yeah they were on the land. They were working on the land these Germans. They used to have these big coloured patches on them to show that they were prisoners of war. But —
JM: And how did these young men seem to you when you spoke to them.
JW: Well they were friendly. Just — you know. Just as though they were English quite honestly.
JM: Right.
JW: Yeah. But –
JM: So they weren’t Nazis.
JW: Oh no. No. Well I didn’t meet any anyway. Perhaps with Lincoln, Lincoln might be more sociable from other places but —
JM: Would you tell us what it was like living on the rations that you were?
JW: Oh terrible. Terrible it was. You weren’t starving. You weren’t starving but you didn’t get — I mean you got an ounce of butter each. Everything was rationed. You was alright if you were probably on a farm because they’d have the butter and the different things. And clothing. I used to make my own clothes out of whatever or you’d have an old coat and you’d cut if up and make a skirt or [pause] you’d manage. But —
JM: Did you get any extras from the farms in Lincolnshire?
JW: Oh no. No. We didn’t live, well Lincoln, well it is farm land I would say but no. No, you didn’t. But my dad had a couple of chickens or so. And he had them in the garden. So we got eggs alright. But yeah. Henrietta. Do you remember Henrietta?
CW: I do. I do.
JW: My dad had a chicken. Henrietta. Because she was on the seat with him. Then when the poor old thing died nobody would eat it [laughs] but yeah. I mean really as I say I don’t think I realised and a lot of young ones didn’t realise it was a war. Yeah.
JM: What age would you have been when the war started?
JW: Fourteen. So I was about eighteen when I was dancing and getting out at night you know. But no —
JM: Were you ever frightened?
JW: I used to be a bit frightened walking home. Because you’ve got to go near The Common. You remember The Common? And, you know, it was all very open land. Mind you you didn’t read things in the paper like you do nowadays with these murders and things going on like that. It wasn’t like that then, it was, it was quieter. Much quieter.
JM: So your fear was more as a young girl rather than from enemy action.
JW: Oh yes. Yes. Yeah. But we used to meet all these people and the lads were lovely, you know. You’d have a dance with them and whatever and they were lovely most of them. Of course the Australians were here, the New Zealanders were here, Canadians, the Poles. They were all here. In Lincoln there was a bit of everything I think.
JM: Yes. There were Australian squadrons.
JW: Oh and the Aussies yeah.
JM: And Polish squadrons, nearby.
JW: Yeah.
JM: Yes.
JW: Yeah. Yeah. A bit of everything.
JM: Yes. Did you ever go to a very famous pub called the Saracens head? Do you remember?
JW: Yes. Yes. Not very often because it was very posh.
JM: Was it? It was where the officers went was it?
JW: Very posh. Yes. Yes. No we didn’t go there very often.
JM: So where were your —
JW: But I didn’t drink in those days anyway. Well, I don’t drink now but I mean I didn’t drink then. Probably somebody who drank a lot might go to any of the pubs. They were quite popular the pubs were.
JM: How much would it cost for a fruit juice or something a lady would drink?
JW: Oh I don’t know. I’ll tell you what the cinema was. The cinema was sixpence, nine pence and one and sixpence. So no wonder we had low wages. Because —
JM: So was sixpence at the back?
JW: One and sixpence you were posh. Yeah. Yes it was.
JM: What sort of films did you watch?
JW: Well it varied really. I can’t remember now what they mainly were.
JM: Were they Hollywood Films?
JW: Oh yeah mainly, mainly Hollywood.
JM: Yes.
JW: Because in those days they were mainly. But they were good films. Good. Or Charlie Chaplin. That’s what they were. And, ‘Old Mother Riley.’ That type of film there used to be.
JM: Did the glamour of Hollywood. Did that help when you were living on rations?
JW: Not really. Because the clothes. You think of people in Hollywood. The lovely clothes they had. We didn’t. We was kind of — I don’t mean we were untidy. I mean I used to make all my coats or change them from one coat to another. You just, you just accepted it.
JM: What did you think when you heard the aircraft taking off to go out on a raid?
JW: Well Clive knows that Waddington, which is on the hill, you used to go. Posted there wasn’t you Clive? And that was above where my mother lived. So if you’re hanging out the washing and these bombers were going over. Oh terrific noise. Terrific noise. And I was talking to someone — oh Margaret from Grantham the other day and she was saying a lady she knew used to count how many bombers went out and how many bombers came back. You know. But I wasn’t, I wasn’t in that area. That area. Type of thing
JM: You wouldn’t know whether she was upset if she realised that some had been lost.
JW: Oh no. No. I mean you’d hear them coming back but well unless they came right over us — they might be coming in from a different direction might they? So they wouldn’t probably be going back over the hill towards. But they were noisy. And the Vulcan. Very, very, very noisy. But yeah, I think, I don’t think we ever realised there was a war on in Lincoln. I mean you did if you’d lost someone. Naturally. But —
JM: Did you know people who were in that situation? Who had the telegrams?
JW: We had a telegram from my brother. About my brother. And no [pause] well you can’t really explain what it’s like. You think they’re a long way away but, and you know you can’t see them but there’s nothing you can do about it.
JM: No. No. No. Were you aware that the war was going well as the years went on? Did you think that we were going to win?
JW: I don’t think, I don’t think we even thought about that. You kind of live from day to day.
JM: So even when the Americans arrived they weren’t in Lincoln but they were in Lincolnshire.
JW: Yeah.
JM: How did you feel, other people feel about that?
JW: Well you felt that they’re helping anyway. And I’ll tell you what. They did send a lot of stuff. Foodstuff to us.
JM: So you got the chocolates and the stockings.
JW: Yeah. And the tights.
JM: The stockings.
JW: We’d never heard of tights until the Americans came and I mean I used to buy tights from the market with little ladders in and I had a little hook and I’d do my ladders all the way up. Well until you could see where it came to. Then I’d sew them up the rest. But yeah. Oh we managed. We managed. Yeah.
JM: Now we’ve just commemorated VE day this year. Do you remember what you were doing on VE day?
JW: Yes. I went around the Stonebow in Lincoln. And loads of people were there with drink and whatnot. I didn’t drink at the time but they all got in to Stonebow which is — Do you know Lincoln?
JM: I do.
JW: Yeah. Well you know the Stonebow there.
JM: I do.
JW: Well everybody was accumulating there.
JM: Right.
JW: Because Bracebridge, where I lived was about two miles from Lincoln I think. Wasn’t it?
JM: Yes.
JW: But we used to walk all over, we didn’t, or bike. Get a bicycle. But really as I say I don’t think you could realise it. I would hear about Coventry and places and Birmingham. How badly it was bombed. But you don’t realise. You feel for them.
JM: Now you say that you lived at Bracebridge.
JW: Yeah.
JM: And we know there was a factory there that repaired Lancasters.
JW: Yes.
JM: Did you ever see any of this?
JW: No. Would that be Waddo?
JM: Yes. It was.
JW: Yes.
JM: Not far from Waddo and they would trundle down the road there. Down the A15.
JW: That’s right. Yeah.
JM: But you didn’t see that yourself.
JW: No.
JM: No.
JW: No. Because that as over the hill to us.
JM: Right.
JW: Yeah. And we didn’t go over a lot that way did we? Because that’s where you were wasn’t it? Waddo.
JM: Would you say that, from the point of view of a young woman did the war help you in any way? Did it give you skills or opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have had?
JW: I don’t think so. Not, not in my age. I don’t think so. No. I mean the job I did was printing at Ruddocks. And I was saying I think to you the other day you’d got about two hundred and fifty sheets of paper and you fed them into this machine individually to be folded into books and different things. But, you know, every day was much the same more or less. Yeah.
JM: When the war was over Britain went through quite a difficult time. Rationing continued etcetera. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like in those in those days. In the days immediately after the war was over?
JW: Well I we went down from Lincoln because I got married to a Lincoln man. And we got married and then we went down to live in Cornwall. Not St Mawgan [Pause] St Eval. Down there and there was a little village and everything was rationed still but gradually we’d get a banana each. Or we might get an apple each. Or — that was a treat to us. A banana was a treat to us.
JM: But that was down in Cornwall.
JW: Yeah but you know they only had so many. So if they ran out that was it. If you weren’t there or then there was another man in Lincoln where I worked. You’d look out the window and he — Mr Cammack. He was just like Santa Claus and he’d come tottering along and he’d got a sweet shop. And he’d put his hands up to let us know he’d got his sweets in. But he, we’d have to get coupons for them. But it was a treat to have perhaps a kitkat or something like that. But I think it perhaps did us good. Really. You know. Everybody was treated the same. So, it was, it was good.
JM: Do you remember being surprised when Mr Churchill was voted out of office in 1945?
JW: I don’t remember much about that. I don’t. I don’t. I can’t remember. I can’t remember that I don’t think. Probably at the time I’d have thought about it but it wouldn’t be in my mind really.
JM: Yes.
JW: I’d be probably too young to be thinking about politics then. So –
JM: Let’s stop there for a minute shall we?
[recording paused]
JW: Windows out. Yeah.
JM: Joan I believe you witnessed an air crash at Waddington. I wonder if you could tell us about that.
JW: It was just below Waddington. On the hill. And my sister lived in cottages which was at the brickyard at Brant Road. And this bomber came back with its bombs on. Which sometimes they used to get rid of before they came back to Lincoln. But this one couldn’t get over the hill I suppose and it hit the hill and it blew all the windows out of my sister’s house. And so she couldn’t go back to live there until they got the windows in again.
JM: Did she —
JW: But nearly — sorry
JM: Did you find out what happened to the crew?
JW: No. No. Didn’t. No. I mean at the time I might have done but I can’t remember. I mean things are fast aren’t they? You know.
JM: Where did your sister go to live?
JW: Well it didn’t actually affect her living. It was just that she stayed with us. My mother. With us.
JM: Yeah.
JW: I know we were a three in a bed kind of arrangement until they got the windows in. Because if it was raining and things there was nothing to stop the rain coming in.
JM: Whose responsibility was it to put the windows in?
JW: I don’t really know. Unless it was the brickyard company. Because it was where the bricks were being made with these kilns.
JM: I wondered if it might have been the local authority.
JW: I would have thought it was the London Brick Company. I would have thought.
JM: Right. Right.
JW: Because they were the people who rented the cottages so I would imagine.
JM: When the aircraft blew up it must have made a huge noise and it must have frightened people.
JW: Oh yes. Oh and my sister was. Really frightened. And she’d got a boy of about oh three I think. And he was terrified. I suppose, really, it did affect the really young ones. What was going on. And I mean it was just down the road to where Glad was wasn’t it? No more than probably just over the road. Down here. So it must have been a terrific noise.
JM: Yes. Joan did you get the opportunity to travel around Lincolnshire much during the war?
JW: No. No.
JM: So you were always —
JW: Because of the petrol you see. Petrol was rationed and even aircrew got a little bit more but other people didn’t. Yeah. So.
JM: And bus travel and train travel.
JW: Yeah. Bus travel was ok. Yeah. For local. Like going into the city and back and forward.
JM: Yes.
JW: You didn’t go far in those days. No. I mean the furthest I went to after the war was out to Blackpool. But that was after the war. Rationing I think was fair but you didn’t get very much. There wasn’t, I mean an ounce of butter was nothing really wasn’t very much. You got one egg. Jam was rationed. Everything was rationed. So — but the Americans sent a lot of food over.
JM: They did.
JW: You know. So that was a big help.
JM: Now you said you were fourteen when the war started. So you would have been at school at that stage. What age did you —
JW: Yeah. Well at fourteen I left school. You did in those days. It was after I left school that you started work at sixteen. But I mean I went to work at fourteen.
JM: And did you deal with the war at all at school?
JW: No. No. No. We didn’t, Nothing. You know, you just went home on the bus. You went in in the morning on the bus. As I say Lincoln didn’t really get affected too badly really. So —
JM: Even though it was such a main centre for the Royal Air Force.
JW: Yes. And when you think, when you think, I don’t know if I’m right I did hear once there were forty ‘dromes in Lincolnshire. I don’t know if you know that. I don’t know.
JM: I have heard that figure mentioned. Many of them were built during the war weren’t they?
JW: I don’t know but I know I’ve heard that there were forty dromes and that’s why, although it didn’t get a lot of bombs on it. They said that’s why it got bombed but they didn’t get a lot of bombs on it.
JM: You didn’t see the aerodromes being built at all?
JW: Didn’t see what?
JM: The aerodromes being built at all.
JW: Oh no. No. As a matter of fact we used to go to Waddington for Open Day before the war and you know the buses and everything used to run up there. Up to Bracebridge Heath and there used to be an Open Day there for —
JM: So they had a funfair and things like of that sort.
JW: Oh yes. Yeah —
JM: And did they put on a flying display.
JW: Yeah. Well I can’t remember now. But I always remember the buses lining up for people to get in. To go home kind of thing. Take them up there. Yeah.
JM: Joan, thank you very much. It’s been, it’s been lovely to talk to you. Thank you for your contributions.
JW: Yeah. Thank you.
JM: Let’s turn it off now.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Joan Watson
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Julian Maslin
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-09-04
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Sound
Identifier
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AWatsonJ150904
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
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Civilian
Format
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00:26:20 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Joan Watson went to Bracebridge School and then worked at Ruddock’s of Lincoln as a printer. Joan discusses evacuees, the bombing war, home font (local men doing fire watching at work), and social life in wartime: dancing, cinema and gatherings. Talks about prisoner of war working as farmhands. Reminisces multinational allied forces in Lincoln, an air crash and war damage. After the war she married and went to live in Cornwall, at St Eval.
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
England--Cornwall (County)
England--St. Eval
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
bombing
crash
entertainment
evacuation
firefighting
home front
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/525/8759/PNorringtonAW2201.2.jpg
7686919a7015466f48da7f5869802ecc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/525/8759/ANorringtonAWJ160827.2.mp3
984821193f71d0d37a1129cf4387f750
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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Norrington, John
Alfred W Norrington
A W Norrington
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Norrington, AW
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Norrington (1876617 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 101 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin, the interviewee is Mr Alfred Norrington although Alfred is often known as John and will be referred to by that name in this interview. The interview is taking place at Mr Norrington’s home in Bramhall, Cheshire. John I wonder if I could ask you to start by telling us a little bit about your life before you joined the Royal Air Force?
JN. Well my life as a young lad, I can remember always wanted to be on the engineering side. I was always keen on pulling pieces, things to pieces and putting them back together again and then oh, the war started and we was under the bomber, German bomber run to London. At night times we’d hear the bombs come down and then we would be in the shelter and I was growing up into the war area as it might be. The bombs were dropping close to us and I used to think to myself ‘when I grow up I am going to get back at you.’ We’d lie in bed at night time, we’d hear the droning of the bombers and the synchronised sort of drone ‘woom, woom’ and we could tell it was Germans. Anyway er I decided I was working away, going to work and I wanted to go join the Air Force. I was working, I was in a reserved occupation, lorry driving and two of my mates came home on leave one was in the Air Force and one was in the Navy. So we decided to go to London for a day out. I thought meself overnight, I’m going to join up, I am going to volunteer at Romford on our way to London. So the following day we got the bus and we got off the bus at Romford. And I went into the volunteering, enlisting place at Romford and I said I wanted to join, I wanted to volunteer for aircrew in, on Lancaster bombers. So they took my name and address and then we continued to London and had a good day. The following day I went to work and my boss said to me ‘where did you get to yesterday?’ I said ‘I took the day off and I went to London and I volunteered to join the Air Force.’ He said ‘Oh alright then.’ About three weeks later, I went home, went to the office for my orders and my boss said ‘I have had a letter from the Air Force about you.’ I said ‘Mmm.’ He said ‘They were asking me if I am willing to let you go.’ So I said ‘Well I hope you said yes.’ So he said ‘I know you want to go, so I have said yes.’ Fast forward about another five weeks and then I got me calling up papers to go to Cardington for medical, oh I was successful there and then it was about another week or two before I got me final papers to go to London to join the Air Force and be kitted out. From there we went to ITW. It was, it was two, one was at near Bridlington and then another one we went up, oh up north, up north near. Anyway, I went through the ITW work and then after that, mind you we had a leave in between and from then we went to St Athans and.
JM. ITW is initial training?
JN. Wing. Yes.
JM. Could you tell us what you did on ITW?
JN. Well, it was mainly discipline, I had to talk about the Air Force er managing of it, the leave, the respects of what you were doing. It was mainly disciplining young men, you know to be subservient to orders from people with authority which was very nice. I thoroughly enjoyed it and then I came home for another leave after then and then from there we went to straight to St Athans. Then for to do Air Force place at St Athans.
JM. St Athan in South Wales?
JN. South Wales yes.
JM. And that was for engineering training?
JN. That was for the engineering training and then we had sort of, in the hangar we had tables. In the hangar there must have been about ten to twenty tables each with an Air Force corporal around each table and around each table there was about four sometimes six students us us, ourselves, you see. And then we would take notes we‘d have maybe a week on electrical systems, we‘d have a week on pneumatics, we’d have a week on flying controls, we’d have a time on er automatic pilots and we’d have time on fuel flows, fuel systems, emergency fuels. Everything regarding the flying of the Lancaster and also you would have emergency drills and then also you would have certain days of physical training. You could do what you wished, whether it was boxing in the gym, running, out running I used to like running, things like that. Weight lifting and then you would go in and then you would follow it up with another subject. Er, you got, the leave occasionally you got to go home and then after well, after what was is it about nine months, oh quite a while, eight to nine months at St Athans we was really trained and then we had the examination and this was really, really serious. But right from the word go I have always been interested in anything mechanical and even remembering when I went for my interview er about joining the Air Force. I sat before a board there was five Air Force officers there and they were asking me what I wanted. I said ‘Engineering, I want to be a flight engineer, nothing else, I am going for that.’ And they asked me, one or two questions, how to time an engine. Well with working on the lorries in the, the garage at home before I joined up, used to, we’d do all our own repairs and I quoted how to time a petrol engine, right from the word go, the sequence of getting the cam, the distributor right, the er valve timings right, things like that and the chap who was leading said ‘That’s very good thank you very much.’ I said ‘Also do you want to know how to time a diesel engine?’ [laugh] He said ‘No’ he said ‘we won’t have that’ he said, ‘there is no diesel engines on aircraft yet.’ But anyway, anyway I was accepted, I got a, not boasting I come out top on the passing out parade and I had to lead it. The flight sergeant of our squad who was just behind me, just to the left. There was, there was sixty on the little squad what I was leading. We had the parade round the St Athan‘s parade ground, there was the air commodore on the flag, under the flag pole to take the salute and I am marching out in front. I was about six paces in front of my squad who were eight across and about twelve back things like that. So we were walking away and the sergeant who was walking just behind me instructing me, he said ‘When you get level with the, the platform that he’s on’ he said, ‘Order eyes squad, number one squad eyes right.’ So I said ‘All right then.’ So we are marching away there and I was leaving it a little bit late and he went, ‘Eyes right, eyes right.’ Out of the corner of his mouth. Anyway I gave the order ‘Eyes right’ and took the salute and the rest it went off like nice. I came out after we passed out we got leave and er I came home and I was telling my father that I led the parade, he said ‘Oh good heavens if I had known’ he said, ‘your mum and I would have been up there on the train.’ Anyway that was work and then from there I went up to Sandtoft I think it was and from there, there was, there was er, what were we doing? [pause] put it off just one second, tape wasting. Erm, talking away about the engineer and oh I have forgot the sequence of it now. We was, there was about twelve engineers, or temporary flight engineers in training went to Sandtoft and then we used to get out onto the airfield and we go on the aircraft, on the Lancasters that were still training and the pilots that were flying them were also training. We used to go on as a spare bod as just for the experience of going up in the Lanc, the Lancaster. The first time I went up it was quite an experience. I had never ever been up in an aeroplane before in my life and I sat in the mid upper turret. It was vacant there wasn’t a mid upper gunner at the time for whatever reason and flying around there and er it was a Czechoslovakian crew or Polish we had loads of those coming over flying. And we flew, we were doing just circuits and bumps and we were going downwind and a bird flew into one of the air intakes on the starboard outer. Of course that was an emergency for the crew, they feathered the engine but the point was they started jabbering in their native language and I thought to myself ‘Good heavens, what is going to happen now?’ Anyway, anyway we went down, they feathered the engine and come in and did a three point, a landing on three engines. So that was my first little experience of what might happen. But I never ever thought that anything was going to happen to me, you know you always thought you was clear of everything. After about five weeks there doing this that and the other, still having discipline and training, map reading and things like that, we sent, got sent to I think Sandtoft, another Sandtoft and from there we, I was crewed up. Went into the sort, one of the huts on the site and all the other crews that had just come in were there to be crewed up. Other crews come in, they had been flying Wellingtons. They got the knack of twin engines you see and they did their training on Wellingtons, but the crews were going on to Lancaster’s. Well they needed then an engineer and that is where they met the engineers. Anyway we was all in this hut and our names were called out and then, ‘Sergeant Norrington’ yes, ‘Sergeant Norrington with Flying Officer James.’ Oh I was just going to say, when I passed out at St Athans and went up to the what’s it’s name school, I can’t quite remember when I got me wing at St Athan, I think I got me wing [telephone rings]. Yeah got me wings and then we got crewed up and, and came out and the crew introduced themselves and things like that. And the following day we went, we were crewed up to go onto a ⸻oh sorry we went at Sandtoft we was converted onto Halifaxes, seemingly the Halifax had a stronger undercarriage than the Lancaster. So everybody going to fly Lancasters had to do their training, I think it was about eight weeks or something like, training on the, on the Halifax. So that was it, while I was waiting when I got to Sandtoft we had to go in and be re crewed, reassessed on the fuel system of the of the; Halifax. Now engines, flying controls everything was identical to the Lancaster which I had learned. Got really into that and then the Halifax had a different size type of system. So we had to learn all about the fuel system, how to change tanks, emergency tanks on, on the Halifax. And that was it, passed out on that and then from there we went over to Hemswell which was the Lancaster Finishing School and that was where we really got into a Lancaster, oh, the feeling was marvellous.
JM. Can I just take you back a bit because you are one of those people who had the opportunity to fly both aeroplanes. How would you assess the Halifax by comparison to the Lancaster.
JN. Oh not a touch, not a touch. It had, the Halifax had quite a few problems, stalling, it used to drop the port wing viciously so you weren’t allowed to try or to learn when you were training, you weren’t allowed to do any stalling moments on the Halifax unless you was above twelve thousand feet, to give you time. But other than that it seemed to be to me, I suppose it was preference with me wanting the Lancaster it seemed to be a lumbering type of aircraft. I wouldn’t say I, I enjoyed the time that I had with it, things like that. I enjoyed the different systems, every time I had to change fuel tanks I had to go back to the middle of the aircraft between the spars. That’s where all the fuel cocks were then go back up again. We passed out we did circuits and bumps and then cross countries, bombing, bombing targets at home and then we were then going to Lanc, Lancaster Finishing School where we got to the Lancaster.
JM. So you were at Hemswell north of Lincoln, not far from Scampton.
JN. Yeah, that’s where the Lanc, where we finished up before we went onto the squadron and er I remember going on, on to, to the Lancaster and there was a second pilot an instructing pilot, ex tour, tour expired pilot who was give, teaching the up comers all of the things like that. So we taxied out and then we pulled onto the runway, we all did all our final checks and then right we’ve got a green from the caravan and so he, he what we used to call him, the spare, not spare, I’ll remember it in a minute. The spare pilot.
AM. Duty pilot?
JN. No, no it will come to me in a minute [laugh]. He said ‘Right, off you go James.’ Lyle the skipper he just opened the throttles right the way up and we did more or less a left hand turn on the engines. So anyway this co-pilot pulled the throttles back, he said ‘Now James,’ he said ‘that’s your first introduction to airscrew torque.’ So he, all right so we taxied around and came back onto the runway that we come on and he said ‘Now when you go when you lead with the throttles, if you open the throttles like that it goes round. The airscrew torque will say goes to the left.’ So what we had to do when we started off, the four throttles like that you started to open up and you finished up with throttles like that. You’d have the port outer flat out, the port inner on three quarters, the starboard inner half - [unclear]what and the starboard outer that would be ticking over. And then the skipper would, we would go forward on a run and then at twenty miles an hour the tail would come up and then the pilot could steer the aircraft with the rudders. By this time then we were about a quarter down the runway and then I as an engineer, used to have my hand behind the throttles and the skipper used to say ‘Full throttle.’ And I would put the stick right way through up to the gate and lock it on with the friction what’s its name. Then we would go up, things like that. The pilot only touched the throttles twice during a flight. The throttles he had command over at the initial run till he got, it was about sixty miles an hour when the tail come up, things like that. And then coming in to land, skipper would just open up until the tail come up and then I would take over, that was it and the rest of the time I would handle all the throttles, the fuel systems, things like that. Then coming into land when we got permission when we come in onto the funnels and it was pancake, then the skipper would have the throttles coming in to until he had got his stall out and then he would throttle back. That was the only two times that the pilot ever touched the throttles, the rest of the time was the engineers.
JM. So you were doing your OTU training at Hemswell, you were learning how to fly the Lancaster.
JN. Yes.
JM. Did you do any of the leaflet raids or any of the other raids?
JN. No.
JM. You never did any?
JN. No, we never come onto that no, we just did the straight, at Hemswell the straight cross country what’s its names – [unclear] things like that and then we went over to the squadron. We was on the Squadron 101 for about three days when we got our first op.
JM. So you were at Ludford Magna?
JN. Yeah we went onto Ludford Magna that’s where we⸻
JM. You were just posted there, it wasn’t a question of choice?
JN. Oh no, no, no choice we just went over, straight over there, I remember getting into the van and all of us. Two or three crews went over there and er, and we did, we did three ops. As I say there was no, looking at that photograph up there in the dark and when we opened the throttles for the first time, the first op and I thought to myself ‘What have I let myself in for here.’ Anyway off we went then down the runway and ah, we did, I think it was four, about four ops and then the skipper called us together and he says ‘They are asking for a volunteer crew to go onto Pathfinders.’ And he said ‘We wondered.’ We just had a coffee outside the NAAFI van, it used to come round, things like that, we’re having a coffee. So all the crew was there, even the special wireless operator, we will talk about him in a moment. Called us together and they said, he said ‘We were asking for volunteer crews.’ But he said ‘I want a hundred per cent agree, agreeance before we go for it.’ Well we all agreed except the wireless operator who was married. He was the only one married amongst us, a Lionel Wright from Screwling [?]near Chatham, he said, oh he said ‘I object to it,’ He said ‘I am quite prepared to do what I signed up to do,’ he said ‘but I have seen what we are going through’., He said ‘so no’, oh, no, he said ‘no, I won’t volunteer for it.’ I forgot to mention the proviso if you could proviso, your tour of operations ceased at three and you went over to do your thirty ops again. For what ever reason that’s what Lionel said, he said ‘I’ve done the three ops’ he said, ‘I know what we are going to go through.’ So he said ‘No I am not going to do that.’ I don’t doubt if those three ops had have counted he might have said yes. But anyway that was it so Lionel said. The skipper said ‘well no, all right.’ He said ‘you know what your mind is and we will take you.’ So we didn’t go on, we stayed on with Ludford Magna. The first op we did it really opened my eyes you know, it is quite frightening to the point of it, you know you just wondered what was going to happen but I was that occupied I always, I never sat down, I always stood up at the front and when I am stood up my head was about the same height as the pilot ‘cause he had a little seat a little bit higher. So it was quite a level talking field if we spoke but it was also through the mike. Even if you spoke through the mike you automatically spoke to the pilot, you see. And then we went on and I managed to take in what I had let myself in for. Er, along the way we had incidents every track, trip, every trip there was something happened what it was happened. Erm, the daylight oh er, the daylight trips, when you do, did the first daylight it certainly opened one’s eyes about on the bombing run. When you think you had all the bombers airport, bombing commands up the east coast right from the north right down to Essex well they were all bombing the same target. They were all leaving at the same time you were about six hundred mile on the coast, they were all going over and they were all converging by the time you get to the target you get all the Bomber Force and hundred to two hundred bombers all over “H hour.” But the first three to four ops in the night we didn’t realise you just went [sneeze] ⸻excuse me⸻ there was only you up there, things like that, things like that. Anyway the first daylight we went, oh it would be frightening there. It was a little incident we was flying along we was on the bombing run and just to our left was eh B Baker from our Squadron, Flying Officer Tibbs. Only – [unclear] like that. Then there was us and then on the bombing run it was quiet. The skipper will not entertain any casual talk, it was strict like that. ‘Cause he said, he always used to say the navigator wants complete silence ‘cause whoever spoke everybody heard you know. He wants complete silence ‘cause he was mustard our navigator. Anyway was flying on at stage one it was Duisburg and along came, off to our starboard wing came a Mosquito things like that and he had a bit of plaque on the side “Associated News Agencies”. Anyway we were going in the bomb aimer, the bomb aimer is going ‘Steady, steady,’ things like that anyway the skipper, and he looked, things like that, the next minute he went up over the top, this Mosquito went up over the top. He came between us and Tibbs, things like that. Anyway as he got to Tibbs we don’t know what happened then. The following day in the paper there was a photograph of this Lancaster dropping its bombs. What’s his name and I think it said ‘The photograph of the war.’ Our special wireless operator David Burnett he, he wrote down to London to the what’s its name about it and asked. They sent two photographs back which I’ve got over there of the bomb and it showed you the bombs coming down from B Baker. It said the photograph of the war in the paper, now if that Mosquito had stayed where it was for another four to five seconds, what have you that photograph would have been Mrs Norrington’s little boy John in the photograph of the war. But anyway he came over and he was right beside Tibbs you could see the air, the roundel, B Baker. And I was having me main ops egg and chips with Sergeant Hewitt his engineer about four to five hours before. It is marvellous how little ones went on like that, so we got that. Another time er it was I forget without referring to it, if I, it was, Guy Gibson was our master not target indicator, not, not, not Pathfinder bomber, bomber, bomber Mosquito. They used to get to the target, mark the target with a parachute and on the end of the parachute was a flare, things like that and we would come along eh we didn’t, we couldn’t bomb indiscriminately we had to bomb on instructions. We were on the bombing run and Guy Gibson came over ‘Strongbow one to strongbow two,’ he says ‘I am at three thousand feet, I can see everything.’ He said ‘give em hell, give em phutt.’ And that was the end of Guy Gibson. What had happened oh his instruction was ‘Overshoot red two, drop the what’s its name down to the TI and then it might drift.’ We used to come along Gordie the bomb aimer, he come along and he would bomb that flare, things like that. Well when the wind drifted it would take it away from the carpet. So then Gibson would come in and say ‘overshoot the red TI by two seconds.’ Or ‘undershoot’ and things like that and that was the way it goes. Anyway that was it we read the paper the following day where Guy Gibson he’d gone and I got the photograph of that raid and they were saying. And also a picture of Guy Gibson’s grave, just inside what’s its name erm.
JM. What do you think happened to Gibson, ‘cause some people say he was shot down by one of our gunners but the general feeling is that he crashed the aeroplane because he didn’t know how to handle the Mosquito, do you ever think ⸻
JN. Oh no,no, no, once I know he was flying the Lancaster he flew the Lancaster “Dambusters” I mean once you fly, flown ‘cause when you’re training you go up from small to big you just don’t go in feet first. He knew what he was doing. I would think, he said ‘I am at three thousand feet.’ Well when you think of all the, all the Lancasters while they are dropping bombs and he is down at three thousand feet. Now whether it clipped him something like that but I mean he landed in Sweden was it about hundred, hundred and twenty five say a hundred and fifty mile away from where he went silent. So what happened then I don’t think I think he had to go down, and he wouldn’t crash land. He, he it’s all, you don’t know what to think. But that was, was what’s its name and when other bomb, target markers they talking around there, you know him and the deputy. You know it’s like they, talking outside a café having a drink of tea you know. Then we would erm, over the target the bombs would go and the Lancaster used to give a bit of a shake. You could feel the bombs dropping away there and then we would turn onto a reciprocal course for home. About half an hour before we got to the target the navigator would always come on and say after, after the what’s its name, after the target, ‘if anything happens head for this direction.’ That direction compass reading and that will be the nearest American forces or English forces to get down and things like that. Then also he would give the skipper his reciprocal course out of the target. It must have been oh maybe about a fifteenth or sixteenth, well through the tour and was approaching the bombing run and coming on, Lancs was coming up either side of us, you could see them and I thought of something, something was wrong, the sequence had failed what ever, I couldn’t put me hand on it. Anyway we dropped the bombs and we carried on and it must have been about quarter of an hour before I realised, ‘reciprocal!’ ‘Jeepers, crowthers, skipper’ said Jim.’ We’d all, everybody in that crew knew the drill before we got to the target where the navigator would give us our reciprocal course pilot to come out and which direction to head. And not one of the crew had remembered it ‘till we got over, well by this time we was about another hundred and fifty miles deeper into the what’s name. So the skipper turned round [laugh] upped the revs, ‘cause the throttle was fully open, the, the gate up increased the revs, he put the nose down and when you got to about a hundred and eighty it used to shake things like that. Come back, anyway we come back and we were that late getting back they got us down a bit of a, things like that. But would you think, you know, everybody had forgotten we would, you are always on the go as I say I was always on the go, looking around, looking up, marvellous that one. Anyway the special wireless operator David Burnett was – [unclear] was known as airborne cigars ABCs things like that. And we was a night trip and he came over the intercom and he says ‘Gunners’ he says ‘keep your eyes open,’ he says ‘there are two night fighters, they are arguing who is going to shoot a Lancaster down.’ The words hadn’t left his mouth [laugh] the mid upper gunner ‘Corkscrew starboard go!’ The skipper, you know never said what, straight down or went down nose down like that and think well, this 88 was coming from our starboard. Wherever they came, you went towards them and you went down, see, and went round, anyway I went up into the roof, hit me head, like that ‘till we pulled out. Pulled out and come over resumed the course and he went round and he come back again and so we did starboard, port down and this port down, another corkscrew. He went over and as he went across the top of us there was a Lanc off on our right wing he must have seen him coming, so he corkscrewed towards him to go down and as he went to corkscrew his wing, his starboard wing obviously went up to give him a tilt and this 88 got him and shot at him in his starboard wing. Anyway he levelled up and the flame, he caught fire in his starboard wing. We was watching him like that he was flying straight and level then and the flames were silhouetting the whole fuselage. We saw the rear turret, the rear gunner go out the back and we saw one, two, three, lost count going out. [unclear] you could only get out the front you couldn’t get out the back door ‘cause you went straight into the tailplane, thing like that you see it went out and then there was a pause and then the skipper came out, the last to come out. He got out and about a couple of seconds and she went down like that. Just so serenely went down but it all went like clockwork, the drill things like that and that was the, the mid upp, the.
JM. Special op.
JN. The [pause] the German speaking wireless op. They were all Jewish or of Jewish descent all of the, nearly every aircraft had one of these Jews and they were ⸻ ‘cause Jew wasn’t a bad, nasty word that people are calling it now, not really that way ⸻ but they had their own war against Hitler and it was their way of getting back and David Burnett he was only eighteen same as me, things like that, but he saved it, what’s it’s name, things like that saw them coming.
JM. Did they serve under their Jewish name or did they change their names.
JN. Oh no there was one, we had, we had two one that was Jacob, what was, I don’t think I got it in me what. Oh it will have it on it on the flight sheet, the bombing order, ops order got that one in there. And David Burnett well that’s an English name and things like that. But the first one we had he was quite a decent guy very rotund very very fat in other words. He used to sit at a table just behind the wireless operator and every op that we had after each op, oh for a starters when we were in the dispersal waiting to take off and Jacob would go round and collect anything he could find, bricks anything that would go into the flare chute. Now evidently when we dropped the bombs, the flare chute, the flare was synchronised with the bomb – [unclear] when he presses his button, the bombs go like and the flare goes down and it takes a photograph of what have we done you see. Well then Jacob used to sit beside the flare chute so after the bombing run the flare chute was empty and what he used to do, he used to throw these stones or these bricks, if you get a half house brick or a good house brick, they go down. He used to say ‘I have my own private war with zee Germans’ he says ‘when we are over zee target’ he says ‘I got dropping bricks onto them.’ So you can think of some poor German walking around clock, stop, stutter, woom [laugh] You know I used to laugh about it, but er⸻
JM. Could you hear them on the, on the intercom because their jobs was to pretend to be German radio operators weren’t they, could you hear that?
JN. Oh yeah. If ever he spoke, when ever he spoke he spoke but what he did on the what’s it’s names would be like, and he also saved us a bit once. Just shows you how, we were coming back and and it was bad weather at Ludford Magna and we were diverted. Now evidently what Lionel Wright our wireless operator he never got the message from base to divert, I think we diverted to Tangmere if I remember rightly. He, he never got it but David Burnett he was listening in and he heard that you know they’d come over, but he never heard Lionel tell the pilot or tell and also the navigator ‘cause he wanted to know anything like that. So he came over and broke in and says you know ‘There is a diversion for us.’ That was it so we went, come back, so that, it was another little thing that, a little anomaly. But er it was always about half an hour maybe, about three quarters of an hour from the target on a daylight and we used to, every now and again the skipper would come over and he’d go, ‘Rear gunner you all right there?’ ‘All right fine skipper.’ ‘Mid-upper?’ ‘Yes, fine skipper.’ Gordie the bomb aimer ‘You all right Gordie down there.’ ‘Oh a bit of trouble skipper me bomb sight should be’ well, he said ‘I have got it to pieces.’ ‘Oh what’s gone?’, anything like that.’ Well first thing I thought, now the bomb aimer, the bomb aimer‘s panel and the skipper’s blind flying panel are both worked by a vacuum. Now on the starboard engine there was and on the two starboard engines, on the two starboard engines there was a vacuum pump you see. And it came in the one on the starboard engine did the pilot, blind flying and the one on the port did the bomb aimers equipment. So and there was a gauge in the middle with a needle, things like that and that was always on for the blind flying panel. You used to look at it and you can see it there so that was it. Anyway Gordie the bomb aimer came on he said ‘it wasn’t on.’ The first thing I did was looked at the gauge well switch the gauge – [unclear] switch the gauge over and it was down. Well I thought, I said ‘What it is your, your vacuum pump on your engine isn’t working Gordie.’ ‘So what are we going to do?’ ‘I’ll switch it over to the other one.’ Now when I did that it def, it robbed the blind flying panel of the gyros you see, so I could only leave it for about two to three minutes. So I told him what I was going to do, obviously I told the skipper, things like that the gyros would do about twenty two thousand rpm in the blind flying panel. So I switched it over to Gordie, I said ‘Put your things back together,’ I said ‘you have got about quarter of an hour, twenty minutes.’ So I switched over to him like that, got it going. I said ‘I am giving you five minutes and then I will have to go back to the skipper‘s to keep his going.’ So for the bombing run I was to and fro ing things like that. That’s another little what the engineer did all the, everything was cropping up.
JM. Did the captain ever train you to fly the aeroplane in the event of him being injured.
JN. No,no I did flying at the ITW in a link trainer and I did some more in between me ops, when I was, when I finished me ops I landed up at West Raynham on MT. Lorry driving Queen Marys that type and I used to I got in touch well got to know the sergeant who was in charge of the link trainer and so I used to go in there. I have got that in me flying log book – I think, one or two. Oh when we were flying the Halifaxes on two or three times we had a dual control one so I used to get in then. Got it straight and level, that’s all I was bothered about then and then er, no I didn’t do any more. There is another time, it was a daylight oh, [laugh] we got heavy flak on a daylight coming up and we were hit, stop [recording stopped] The bombs, we get Flak and it hit the number two tank, things like that and the spray was coming out the back just like a vapour trail and I said to the skipper ‘We have been hit in the starboard wing.’ As I say it was a daylight and unless you, until you have flown at night time in a Lanc you don’t realise how the sparks are coming out. There is such a high compression engine that they are decarbonising are they are flying. So I thought, Oh, spray and sparks coming out. So I said to the skipper ‘I have got a leaky tank’ I said ‘I am going to switch all the gauges over, the tank cocks over to run all four engines off that leaking tank.’ So I got the engine, the radio operator who is sat near the cross feed tank cock in the middle of the fuselage, got him to turn that off. So what I started to do me, me gauges and, and cocks I started running all four engines off that leaking tank. Now there was about two hundred and fifty gallons in that tank but in the tank outside of that there was another hundred and fifteen gallons and that you can’t run off that, you have to transfer. The idea was you had to transfer that into number two tank, so I am running all four engines off a leaking tank and also transferring another hundred and fifteen gallons into a leaking tank things like that. So I cut the revs down to diminish the sparking effect because all that was in my control, all the skipper just had to do what he could. So he is sort of flying skew whiff a bit and then late, like it lasted about forty five minutes before all that fuel had gone dry you see and it seemed like an eternity on there. Anyway I am down off waiting for the red light, when the fuel pressure drops the red light comes on see, so I am waiting for that red light to come out before switching over to a full tank, you see. So I am down here by me cocks, my skipper was here, I was stood beside him and then my gauge, my fuel cocks were here, just round the corner. So I am waiting for the red light to come on to switch over to a full tank you see and anyway the skipper comes on the intercom and he says ‘I hope you’re keeping your eye on my fuel engineer’ he said, ‘I don’t want my engines cutting.’ I said ‘You fly the bloody aircraft’ I said, [laugh] ‘you fly the ruddy aircraft, I will look after this.’ And a couple of seconds later the light came in and so I switched over you see and then all I had to do then was start running off, the outer number two tank and then transfer that, because the skipper is having a job to keep that wing up. Anyway I started when I got stabilised and then I worked out so I said to the navigator ‘How many mile is it to the target?’ So he said ‘Oh, about five hundred.’ Well you could work an estimate out of one gallon per one mile as a rough. I never achieved that, I’ve achieved point nine five but never got to one. So that was a guide so I looked at me gauges so I said to the skipper ‘I said ‘we have got enough fuel to get to the target.’ So he said right and he carried on and little by little that weight came up so it got a bit more easier for him. We bombed things like that and then we turned round. I said to the engineer, said to the navigator ‘How many mile is it to the enemy coast?’ French coast, so he told me I think, ‘about six hundred.’ I forget the actual figures so I said ‘oh, skipper’, I said, ‘We have got enough fuel to get to our coast.’ So he said ‘All right,’ so I kept the revs down , we were coming down slowly and then we were approaching the coast I said ‘We’ve got enough to get home skipper.’ Things like that. Anyway the skipper cutting a long story short he got a DFC for pressing on things like that and when he got it he dedicated it to the crew and things like that, so that was another one that. Erm, another daylight. We got, we got [laugh] have you seen the Mae West haven’t you?
JM. Yes.
JN. Well, big sort of cover round here, well, the astrodome is up there and the wireless operator is sat here things like that and down beside him he used to have his side pack like you got with Very cartridges. He had a Very pistol which was a massive big what’s it’s name it had so much kick when you use it you had to put it into an an into a –[unclear] into the roof and fire it on accounts of the kick. That was decided what’s its name, if we got flak and the astrodome more or less ripped away, things like that. Some flak, some flak had come down [laugh] cut his collar off, things like that, cut his collar off [laugh].
JM. Cut his collar off?
JN. Yeah he used to have a moustache, I never seen a moustache drop so quickly [laugh] all things like that, that chopped that away and when he looked inside his bag, some flak had gone in, now the, the car, cartridges as well about inch, inch in diameter something like that and you get the percussion cap in the middle, there was six of them in there and some flak had, and it had gone right beside the percussion cap. If the flak had hit that percussion cap that would have gone up and it is right beside a fuel line, it went across – [unclear]. So [laugh] he was looking after us that day up there. Oh dear, happening.
JM. John would you tell us about your crew, you talked about a couple of members, could you tell us who they were and something of their backgrounds.
JN. Well for a start, got to know them, obviously we was all different characters. The, the, the skipper he had his little, he was twenty eight, he was working part time, well part ownership of an engineering shop he wanted to fly he joined up and he was learning his training in a Tiger Moth and as a check he is flying over somewhere in Canada there was a chap out duck shooting and evidently the noise of the Tiger Moth scared the ducks, he couldn’t get the, so he shot at the aircraft. So poor Lyle he got some flak in his backside, his back cheeks [laugh] to this day he still got it in, that was a flight coinc, anyway. He came over and they went onto what’s its name Air Speed Oxfords then onto Wellingtons, then onto course. The bomb, bomb aimer Gordie Bullock he came from Northern Canada and he was a gold miner, worked down the mines, things like that, he was quite a character. He was a flying officer the skipper was flying officer and the navigator he Bob, Bob Irvine he was in, he was an academic, Saint, something to do with teaching but not actually a teacher. Those were the three the main crew. Wright, Lionel Wright the wireless operator he came from Strood as I said, things like that. I didn’t know much what he did. Johnnie Walker was the rear gunner he was younger than I and you know, he was just eighteen same as me, he was a bit, a bit of a loner. He never sort of came with us, he was friendly and things like that but he just done his job. Erm, he used to, used to talk occasionally over the what’s its name, skipper would ask him if he was all right you know. And every time, every time we dropped the bombs skipper used to say ‘all right Gordie,’ Gordie ‘all right skipper, bombs gone.’ ‘let’s get the hell out of here.’ [laugh] – [unclear] ‘Bombs gone.’ And the voice used to come from the rear gunner ‘let‘s get the hell out of here.’ Get back home. Erm, another daylight we got flak and down, ‘where was it?’ [unclear] Down the side of the aircraft here there was two rods one did the rudders, the others did the elevators. Two rods about an inch wide, inch in diameter, two rods like that all the way down from front to back, down that side of the aircraft. Skipper, skipper if he did this the rods would go back and forwards with the rudders, you know like that. Anyway got this flak tat tat tat, tat all over the place and then the skipper came over and he called and he said to me, ‘Me controls is jammed engineer.’ So I said ‘All right then I’ll have a look,’ So took me oxygen, put, disconnected me oxygen mask and then put me portable on ‘cause with the oxygen level but then I didn’t have any communications. Didn’t have, didn’t have a portable communication like that. So I unplugged and I went back looking down and as I walked back these two rods, well they used to work like that in runners. Some flak had come through from the outside and it had come up, and it had pierced, and it had jammed between two runners, the two what’s its name things like that. And it couldn’t, that’s what it was you see anyway so I got me portable oxygen bottle and I managed to knock that out, things like that. I’m not, can’t talk to the skipper ‘cause I couldn’t say ‘oh it’s this, I am doing this, I am doing that.’ I managed to knock it out and it went, so then it was free he could tell, things like that. But [laugh] when I said to the skipper you know about the what’s its name ‘you fly the aircraft.’ You know I felt like when I was going to go back in you know ‘I am going back here now you fly the aircraft.’ But when I knocked it out that what it, and I would loved to have been able to get that piece of shrapnel, things like that was stopping it. Erm, ‘cause what he would have had to do is to fly on the trimming tabs you know, ‘cause it would have always have been the opposite, you wanted to have gone up you would have to go down. That was another incident that everything, coming up oh.
JM. Can I just? [Appears to be doing some adjustment to the recorder]
JN. Yeah, yes we come back from an op one daylight day, come back from an op and called up airfield, William Squared [?] airfield what’s its name “Pancake.” So coming in and they said ‘There is a bit of a cross wind.’ So came in Lyle ready for it, anyway we planned, flared out come down and this wind caught us, so Lyle the skipper said ‘Overshoot!’ so first thing I did, open the throttles right away, straight away –[unclear] and then the starboard outer engine cut so next thing I’ve got to feather I said ‘I am feathering.’ Things like, which takes about four minutes, five minutes, seconds, four seconds, five seconds to get the drag off that aircraft and Lyle struggled with it. How he kept it going I don’t know, anyway we had full power on the three engines and that way, and we took off and got up on the circuit. Come out of the circuit so I said ‘Well when we get to the circuit’ I said ‘I will unfeather and then we will do a test.’ So he said ‘All right then.’ So we unfeathered and got that working again and then I started running that starboard engine you know on the fuel flow, things like that and it hesitated once or twice things like that. So anyway we came back into land and after we went in to the crew room, then we had the message that the [bleep] so anyway as I said the red light was still on on our starboard undercarriage, so I said I would do some tests. So behind the, the wireless operator was the hydraulic tank and hydraulic pump for the undercarriage hydraulics. Well when the undercarriage goes down pump down when the jack reaches the end of the travel the pressure builds up so the cut out, there is a cut out on the, on the hydraulic system otherwise the pump will be pumping at nine hundred pound pressure right away. And that cut out used to go ‘bang!’ things like that. So I said to Lionel, I said, ‘we are going to lower the undercarriage, come down’ I said, ‘tell me when you get the bang.’ So he is listening and said ‘Yes, I’ve got the bang.’ So I knew the pump was working and pushing it down. Now on the side there is a call light, every position had this call light. So if I pressed the call light mine everybody would get one and if they weren’t on they’d come on, pay attention to whatever is doing. Well that was in through the what’s its name, through the same switch. This is what I learned at St Athan on the electrics, well I came into being there. Now we had a two speed super charger M Gear and FS Gear to get up to the twelve thousand feet and change gear you know [laugh] well if the selection of that, if it, you never took off in FS Gear you always had to be into M Gear, medium super charge. Now if that was in FS Gear you used to get the red light, things like that. So I checked that and that wasn’t working and, and the other, other one is was the call light and then another light that went back, forget where that one went but I knew that they all went through, all went through this undercarriage switch, the, the hydraulic pump light went through this switch the indicator for the what’s its, undercarriage went down and I knew so that’s what it was. I said to the skipper ‘Well, I think it is the switch on the under cart’ thing like that, So I said ‘It’s up to you whether you, you know.’ So he called up so they said ‘we will divert you to Carnaby.’ Right on the Yorkshire coast. So we diverted over to Carnaby and we were coming in over, the, the you know the funnels lights, the lights of it coming in, they’re in the sea on the what’s its name so we coming in low it’s day light then coming in so the skipper says ‘good job they have got these, good job they have got these lights, because we’ve got paddle blades on the what’s its name if anything happens.’ Bit of a quip ‘If anything happens we’ve got paddle blades.’ We’re coming over the hedge and touch down and he said approaching, the skipper said ‘well all the crew go to the crash positions between the two spars.’ So I said ‘Well, do you mind if I stay here’ because I said ‘when you touch I will cut the engines, if it goes down on fire I will cut the engines.’ And he said ‘alright engineer thanks very much you do that.’ So we came over and sailing down and I looked beside me we were doing, well we could stall about eighty five things like that eighty five to ninety. We’re coming in and there is a fire engine right beside us before we touched down. Anyway Lyle come down and he kept that wing up, landed on the port wing the port wheel ‘till that went ‘till the air speed dropped then come down and we were all expecting whoosh. We just, before that, I cut the engines, cut down just down like that and she landed. Saying to myself ‘quickly!’ caught the engine and kept it running, things like that. But that was all on account of a little micro switch that wasn’t functioning everything like that, ah.
JM. John, as you got to the end of your tour, you did thirty operations.
JN. Thirty one.
JM. Thirty one, was it a time of tension as you got towards the end of the tour?
JN. No not really, no it’s, we got used to it we knew, we knew we all volunteered we knew what we were letting ourselves in for er, but there were loads of frights, I mean to say I wasn’t scared, there’s not any, you know, frightened, you are not where you are crying for your mother and things like that. The worse time, well three or four times where I felt really, really afraid you know was when we was attacked you know by the Junkers and then also when we got the fuel what’s its name. The tension of waiting for that fuel to be used up before a spark ignited it things like that. [unclear] but you knew what you had to do, I never faltered in doing what I do, it was the way I was trained. I was that interested into it you know, and I thought, well I can’t let the crew down. But if you’d made a mistake you were letting seven others go, you know, fall by the wayside. I just put it down to experience we’d be one daylight er, there was one off our starboard wing a Lancaster I’d been having a meal this is what happened on three times at the table having the main op, it was egg and chips that was a treat, main ops meal been having them I’d been at the table various table you know I didn’t sit with who [unclear] every day. The officers they were in their own mess they were, things like that, kept with them. But you get to know the persons, things like that and I been flying and I’ve seen on a beautiful daylight, I have seen one flak come up puff, puff, puff and I seen the one completely obliterated and I thought to myself. It was B Baker I been out, I was having a dinner with them, you just turn round and oh well you go on with it. Erm, collisions we used to get a lot of collisions if ever you get into a bombing run you know was the worst of all. Was on one bombing run and as the Lanc above us to the left oh about twenty feet above us and as I say when you leave the coast you are all sort of converging. So over the target you are gradually converging and this one was coming over and he had got his bomb doors open so I just tapped the skipper on the shoulder, things like that, steady, hold it there skipper, I said to the skipper ‘keep staring like that’ and he got his bomb doors open and as I say he is gradually converging things like that and our skipper was watching, ‘bomb doors!’ [emphasis] ‘bombs gone skipper’. None of this holding for a photograph, went over like that. Now I mean we didn’t see when they came down but we don’t know if they had gone down. We’d been in and seen the bombers, especially at night time, you see the bombers beneath things like that. If you see one between you out like that you know your bombs are not going to hit him but there’s you know somebody behind. Its, over the target it is catch as catch can you are all doing your best. But you used to get the ma, the master bombers in the Mosquitoes, you’d hear them milling around some of the funniest names call signs you know so that they weren’t sort of recognised, one might be. And they talk like you and I talking - [unclear] overshoot. Guy Gibson he was coming out so easily. ‘I am at two thousand, three thousand feet chaps give them I can see everything give them hell.’ And that was Guy Gibson gone.
JM. When you got to the end of your tour what happened to you after that?
JN. After the tour I came home on indefinite leave I got home, I went straight home down to Graves to me mum and dad. I was on leave oh, must have been about two month ‘cause I finished me tour and then you had this rest period. I think it was six months before you were due to go back on ops again you see. Went down there with me mum when I, when I left the squadron to go home they gave me some ration coupons and of course I went out with them they gave me just for so long. So I had to ‘phone up the Ludford, yeah Ludford Magna to send me. Anyway they sent me some more, what’s its name coupons for me mum and then I had a telegram to report to Brackla, Nairn right up Scotland right at the tip. So right they sent the travel warrant things like that, so I went up, caught the train, things like that, I think it took me nearly three days to get up there, all the way through changing and this that and the other got up to Brackla and Nairn was just about eight mile inboard. So I got up there [laugh] and I ‘phoned up the station you know to say I was here, would you send transport for me. So they said, I think it was about eight o’clock at night, maybe a bit less. ‘Oh’ he said ‘we are too busy for you tonight’ he said, ‘book in at the local hotel.’ So I booked into the local hotel and then the following day I got cal. Transport, transport came in for me and when I got to Brackla there was about six hundred expired aircrews like myself, things like that. But they were closing Brackla down, so I was only there for four days and then I went into the office he says ‘We’re gonna send you away’, he says ‘you are back on leave.’ He said ‘Where would you like to go? where would you like [emphasis] to go?’ I said ‘Well I have just had a long leave down at home,’ I said ‘I would like to go to me girlfriend, me fiancé in Bramwell.’ So he said ‘all right then.’ He filled, so I got a train down here and I was here in Bramwell with Nancy, we were courting then. I, I had permission from her Mum and Dad, come down and I was with them for about two to three months things like that. Then I got a call up to go to erm, West, West Raynham, West Raynham well he said, early on when I, I got finished I said ‘what I want to do, I want to go onto MT.’ With being a lorry driver before I joined up I was a, I used to come home from school on a night time. I’d be about twelve, thirteen and in the next road was a haulage contractors. I used to go round there and go out with the lorries, and come and fill them up with lorries, fill em up with petrol. And then of a weekend the governor would ask me if I would like to go in on a Sunday and help the fitter that used to do the repairs on a weekend and clean. I used to clean the parts, I’d get me self three shillings I think I used to have more more spends than me Dad used to get. We’d go in and then of course I was half working on the lorries and things like that. I was in my element and Ben the fitter he was quite a nice chap, thinking about it if I asked him a question he wouldn’t say ‘No, no get that cleaned, I want that clean.’ He would answer me and explaining to me, that’s where I learned to time an engine and things like that. I used to go out with things like that, it was marvellous. And then I said to the governor there that I would like to come when I leave school, ‘I would like to come and work for you.’ Used to go out with him. Anyway I left school on Friday and I started work on the Monday as a tail board monkey, things like that and we used to go up through London to the other side of London with oil and things like that. And the, the bomb the blitz had been going on during the night. We had gone up in the days there had been hose pipes over there. One it was in the paper, one a loc, a bus had got blown up, you might have seen it, on its side we went right by that and that is what inspired me more so. Cor, I would like to get back at that lot.
JM. I want to ask you about that John, you made that your motivation. When you got to the end of the war and you had done your tour. How did you feel about that, did you feel you had your revenge, how did you feel about what had happened.
JN. I felt that I had done my bit. I felt what satisfied or gratified that I had done my bit. I was glad that my boss let me go. Because I thought when I’d gone home on leave, I will give you an example in a moment. I’d gone home on leave and I’d seen other tall young men walking around and I used to think ‘Well why are they not in the service? Why are they not?’ Disregarding your rejecters you know. Conch, contryv [sic] what they call themselves. And then one weekend I got a leave, I came home, I was half way through me tour came home and er, I got a week, a week’s leave. I bumped into two of me school mates Ray, Ray [unclear] Rover? I can’t form it! He was in the Army and he was home on leave, he had been wounded he was and he was on the French Coast and he got wounded he came home. And the other one was a, see their faces he was in the Navy and he was in, he was out in the Atlantic on a victualling ship. The victualling ship used to carry food supplies and they used to rendevous in the Atlantic to feed the Destoyers things like that you see. He was on that and he come home on leave. So I met them I said ‘Well we will go to the Queens.’ To dancing tomorrow night, they said ‘alright.’ I said ‘I will see you in the bar downstairs.’ So I said ‘well let’s wear our civvies, I said ‘alright then.’ So we all three civvies, three young eighteen, eighteen and a half nearly nineteen old. And it was a narrow bar, about as long as this but just as wide and a little bar not much wider than the windows and the door and a table at this end about this length. So we walked in, two boys Ray and George they sat down we’re having a pint so I walked up to the bar. Now I know the manager of the Queens hotel ‘cause he used to be at the dance where we used to go dancing upstairs. Quite what’s its name and he was leaning one side of the bar on our side not behind the bar the barman there and then he had a colleague that was leaning on this sides. So we walked up, I walked up, ‘what you doing.’ ‘Oh three pints please.’ So waiting, he did me two pints, well I couldn’t, I couldn’t manage three, I hadn’t big enough hands. So I went back and dropped the two pints onto the lads and I went back and he was saying this ‘look at that lot there,’ he said ‘my son’ he was saying it so I could hear it. He said ‘Oh’ I said, the first time he said ‘my son’s out on a victualling ship, on a Destroyer.’ On a victualling ship that was it ‘out in the Atlantic.’ He said ‘look at this lot here.’ He was leaning away. So I came back, put the two glasses down and went back for me third one so I said to him, I said, ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you was saying’ I says, I said, ‘but that chap on the left’ I said ‘he is in the Merchant, he is in the Navy.’ I said ‘and for all you know your son and his victualling ship might have been supplying to him.’ I said ‘the other one there’ I said ‘and he is home and he the war, injured, leave from France.’ I said ‘ he is in the Army’ I said ‘and now me’ I said ‘I’m in the Air Force.’ I said ‘I have just come home on leave.’ I said ‘I am on ops.’ I said. Anyway this chap who was talking he felt that ashamed, not the one who walked away and the owner of the what’s its name, I could tell he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to do. So that’s where I was glad, I was glad that I volunteered you know, thought, or probably wouldn’t have thought about it at the time. But if I had remained young working, things like that people might have spoken about me, ‘look at that young man there, my husband’s away you know fighting.’ All little things like that sort of turn over in your mind but.
JM. John, did you keep in touch with your crew once you’d finished your tour and are they still with us or what happened to them?
JN. Yes, yes the skipper sadly died about four, five years ago he was ah he was twenty eight he was. We finished ops and then I retired in nineteen seventy. We kept writing. He came over on holiday, he came over twice him and his family. Now we was here, I was up here then and obviously, he ‘phoned up he was at Chester. He said he would, he’d like to meet us, so we went over to Chester. I said oh, alright then we will go over and see them. So we went over to Chester, my mum was up on holiday me dad had passed away then. So David, Denise he wasn’t married then and my wife who was alive then and me mother we went over to Chester where they were. And talking away there things, we had a lovely meeting there and we took ‘em round. Prior to coming and I knew we was going over to see them so what I did, I saw my gaffer at work and I said ‘I have got my skipper over.’ Things like that ‘what’s the chance of bringing him round?’ I was on holiday at the time so I said ‘like’ so he said ‘yeah’ he said ‘I’ll get a pass for you.’ So, anyway we went over to pick them up and Lyle said ‘There is a little place nearby’ where one of his friends had been over, a lovely little church.’ He turned out to be a lay preacher after what’s name ‘and there is a stream rolling beside it.’ Sounds so tranquil so beautiful ‘and there is an organ.’ He said ‘and my friend said I would like to go and see it.’ I said ‘well alright if we can find out where it is.’ I asked a local, he said ‘just round the corner, some little place.’ We went in there with me mum, David and Denise and it was a lovely church, it was so picturesque, so help me Bob the organ was playing inside the church. That made Lyle‘s day, things like that. So we took him home and then from then I said ‘now we are going down as a surprise.’ So we drove over here, we drove them to Woodford and went in and I took them round the factory, things like that, I introduced them to the what’s is name, my foreman, gee [unclear] eh, eh William Squared was what’s its name MG 139 was their what’s its name. So I said ‘this is where it was made.’ He was over the moon with that, then after that we went out. We took them to a Chinese meal in Hazel Grove and then went back to Chester things like that dropped them off and then came back and it’s four o’clock in the morning after that day when David and I. Now point, best part was David could drive and he used to drive my car. So when we got over there when we sort of drove from the Chester hotel going down, David drove my car and I drove Lyle‘s car and he said ‘the biggest fear John’ he said, ‘I landed in London’ and they went into Tottenham Court Road somewhere to a car hire business.’ And he said ‘they had a Hillman Minx.’ He said ‘they turned me loose in Tottenham Court Road.’ And he had never driven on the wrong side of the road before so everywhere we went I drove his car and he liked it, very nice that worked out and then. I went seventy, I went over there on my own and had a nice entertaining three weeks over there. And then now he has passed away and now his son, no sorry his daughter Carol and her husband they come over. They are teachers, things like so it is nice for David and this they come over and they stay with David and Denise at what’s its name and the mid upper‘s son, mid upper gunner’s son Brian he lives right on the east, west coast of Canada he comes over occasionally he was here about two. So I keep in touch with them but it’s lovely, in my dotage I sit back and reminisce what has happened you know.
JM. John you have been absolutely marvellous this morning, thank you very much for your interview. I think you have really showed me just how complex the Lancaster is and the range of skills that you mastered absolutely fantastic. Thank you very much indeed.
JN. My pleasure, my pleasure.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with John Norrington
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Julian Maslin
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-27
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ANorringtonAWJ160827
PNorringtonAW2201
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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01:17:11 audio recording
Description
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John Norrington was a lorry driver when he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. After initial training, he went to RAF Sandtoft on Lancasters and Halifaxes; he crewed up with Flying Officer James, then was at RAF Hemswell for the Lancaster Finishing School. John was posted to 101 Squadron at RAF Ludford Magna where he flew thirty-one operations in Germany and France until demobilised.
John discusses Czechoslovakian and Polish aircrew, Jewish personnel, and German-speaking servicemen tasked to listen to German radio communications and disrupt them. He talks about civilian and service life, military ethos, losses, plus personal recollections of Guy Gibson.
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
France
Germany
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Carolyn Emery
101 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
demobilisation
faith
fear
flight engineer
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
Pathfinders
RAF Hemswell
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Sandtoft
RAF St Athan
recruitment
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/468/8351/ABarkerWG160912.2.mp3
5bfb31a75ec95140f42b72d5e93e8c64
Dublin Core
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Title
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Barker, Winifred
Winifred Barker nee Goldthorpe-Womersley
W Barker
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Barker, WG
Description
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One oral history interview with Winifred Barker.
Date
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2016-09-12
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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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Julian Maslin the interviewee is Mrs Winn Barker . The interview is taking place at Mrs Barkers home in Appleton near Chester on September the 12th 2016 .
WB: Appleton just, it was Upton.
JM: I apologise Upton, Upton near Chester thank you. Winn would you start by telling us a little bit about your life before you joined the Royal Air Force?
WB: Well, I was born at home at 29 Chellow Street in Bradford the eldest of three children and went to infants school and then on to a middle school and left school at fifteen, and went to work in an office in Bradford which is called the Bradford Dyers Association I started as a junior to work up to be a shorthand typist which I did attain slightly before the war started. I'm stuck now I don't quite know what else to say. I was seventeen years of age when war was declared so I wasn't eligible for the forces at that point. But I and a friend did join Civil Defence at seventeen and we were in a report centre when, if the alarm went off for air raids we had to report for duty and we were telephonists so that messages came through as to which type of bombs had been dropped and what services were required and we had to telephone for fire or the air raid wardens or the hospital or whatever was needed and then at that point I decided that I would like join the forces but I had to wait until I was older and then at nineteen years of age I decided I would like to join the Air Force and if I waited any longer I would be called up to do Munitions or Land Army both of which I didn't really take a fancy to. So at a few years before I was twenty I enlisted for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force now then I'm not quite sure where to go from there. I volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force on the 8th August 1942, just before my twentieth birthday I found myself in Morecambe for three weeks of square bashing on the promenade and getting initiated into service life this was after being kitted out in my uniform next I was sent a rail warrant to Doncaster and the service police on the station arranged transport up to RAF Bircotes a satellite of RAF Finningley where Douglas Bader was stationed I found it very exciting but I never met him. Soon after I was posted to RAF Oakley in Buckinghamshire a satellite of RAF station Westcott, my rail warrant meant travelling to London and changing on the Underground I found this very daunting as annual holidays from Bradford to Blackpool with my parents and siblings was as far as I had travelled by rail. Can I stop for a minute now....I soon settled into service life and made some lovely friends in K hut [?] of different trades and from many parts of the country Pat was born in New Zealand , Phyllis from Canvey Island, Ada from Walthamstow, Rita from Guernsey ,and Peggy from Oxford. We all went to Peggy's wedding to her Polish pilot Stefan and my husband and I visited them after the war. We all kept in touch after the war but sad to say Pat and I are the only two veterans left these friendships are precious memories. Can I stop now....Oh it's things that happened at that station. I celebrated my twenty first birthday at Oakley and the CEO noticed my cards and said I should have a treat, he reserved to seats at the local theatre in Oxford and paid for a meal for my friend and I to go to a hotel and then to the theatre.
JM: Go on then...
WB: Err we walked into the hotel to have the meal, the waiter came to ask us what we would like to drink, well at this point Phyllis and I were so surprised as we had never been into a public house in our lives and hadn't had anything to drink so the waiter suggested a sherry which we agreed to and then we had a lovely meal then off to the theatre [laughs]. When he said what sort of birthday, you know, fancy you shouldn't be having your twenty-first birthday just doing your ordinary duties you need an occasion so I thought it was extremely you know great of him to say to do that really for a little junior you know Stenographer [laughs] oh dear. So then the other things now after this are I don't whether my duties would have been interesting at that particular station? Right I'll talk about this then, are we right? My duties included typing station routine orders once a week which were recited by the Warrant officer on parade reading, oh errm all the camp service men had to parade apart from the aircrew and the Warrant Officer knew the station routine orders off by heart because he was semi-illiterate so I was asked to read letters for him and reply to letters for to his wife, he had joined the regular RAF as a young man he had a fantastic memory and was well liked. I also made out leave passes and rail warrants typing flight instructions for the training flight crews on rice paper which I found very exciting in the event of bailing out and getting captured it could be eaten. The aircrew trained mainly on Wellington bombers at Oakley 11OTU which was the final training unit before the crews were posted for operations, I'll stop there a minute cause yes [pause]. Pay parades were every fortnight on the parade ground, names were called from the registrar and we marched to the paymaster and saluted saying our rank, surname and last three numbers of our service number the loose money was handed to us and we marched back into line [laughs]. My husband and I found on reflection that we once went to the same camp dance at Marham in Norfolk but we did not meet so it was not until after, after we were demobbed and met that we started courting [laughs]. My cousin who was in the REME, the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers stationed at Weymouth in Norfolk took me on the pillion of his motorcycle to Leicester to a concert on a twenty-four hour pass when I was stationed at the time at RAF Marham it was a nice wartime treat for us both. Well I want to stop now because errm. The repatriation of prisoners: one morning I joined some airwomen who had to report to a hanger on the station, a plane had landed with a group of servicemen from various branches of the armed services who had been repatriated from prison camps as we welcomed them we noticed they seemed surprised not quite able to comprehend what was happening, they were then given a full english breakfast which turned out to be too much for them to digest after their treatment as prisoners of war the medics were called and it was an exciting episode for everyone and especially for us a memorable diversity from our everyday duties. Some of them had a number on their arms, I was quite surprised because I thought they had come from ordinary prisoner of war camps but I don't think I imagined it but they were very reticent to really say very much about what had happened to them but they were just pleased to see errm to see uniformed members of the forces mingling with them, and talking with them.
JM: Do you know what happened to them, did they go on to other places?
WB: I think they were sent home for an extended from there...I think that's what they were looking forward to, they were all male but they were from lots of different parts of the armed forces.
JM: Did they look haggard and tired?
WB: Errm they looked rather tired, but most of them were in uniform so perhaps they hadn't been in prison too long .
JM: Or maybe they had been given fresh uniforms ?
WB: Maybe yes, I don't know really.
JM: Ok.
WB: They were certainly pleased to talk to some females [laughs] from the camp who were very pleased to speak to them.
JM: Thats good, thats very interesting thank you.
WB : I can't say much more about that 'cause that episode is a little bit vague understandably really, oh there's another interesting bit here about this, yes shall I start again?
JM: Please.
WB: We often had practice air raids on the camps air crew were immediately sent to the underground shelters but certain air women designated as wardens had to don gas masks and gas capes and started to take gas precautions against possible gas attacks it was a serious business but it did produce lots of laughter [laughs] that's all about that, that I can think of really.
JM: Was it the wearing of the gas masks that produced the laughter ?
WB: It was the fact that all the men were underground and the women were having to deal with it.
JM: Very good.
WB: Because we had to, we were given large buckets with some kind of liquid in and some long handled brushes and we had to start decominis.....whats the word.
JM: Decontaminate.
WB: Decontamination of the walls and lots of laughter was coming from the underground positions whilst we were dealing with all that, but we joined in with the laughter as well of course.
JM: Good, good.
WB: Now then there's just something here, I'm not sure about this one at all really 'cause it's very vague, am I still on tape now? One night there was a loud bang we had just settled down for the night and we were not called out, it seemed there had been a crash with two planes but we never found out what really happened so we kept quiet about it.
JM: Were you aware of how many crashes took place at an operational training unit.
WB: I don't think we had any crashes on our unit apart from this particular event but it wa kept really quiet.
JM: Did you get to know any of the flying personnel?
WB: Oh yes, yes I could mention something about that yes we intermingled with them quite a lot the quota from males to females it was about five to one [laugh] because the length of training was only six weeks and the aircrew were constantly coming in and moving out. They practiced on Wellington bombers on night flying operations and then the next thing was operations.
JM: Do you remember any of the aircrew in particular?
WB: Yes, I'll just tell you a little episode now that might be interesting, I had my first proposal of marriage at twenty years of age from a navigator but I refused him I was very fond of him he was a very nice person but not fond of enough to get engaged we did keep in touch when he moved on to operations and I heard from him that on one occasion he had been sick so he missed that operational sortie that particular time his crew flew without him and were shot down all lost their lives, it had a profound affect on him he survived the war. The same person who had courted me for quite some time we were on the camp together, took me to his home in North Norfolk and his family were very nice they were farmers and everything was very homely and the table was a white washed table which could be scrubbed as you can imagine in a farmer's family and when it came to tea time the bread was brought the homemade bread was brought and laid on the bread platter and then I was wondering what I was going to have for tea, the next thing that came on the table was a big pan and erm something inside this pan, I thought it might be stew but it didn't turn out to be stew it turned out be winkles [laughs] which I had had never ever had in all my life and I thought to myself however am I going to eat these winkles. Well his mother started to butter some bread and the plates came out and a spoonful of winkles was put on my plate and I had to look at the family to see how to eat them and they all had a pin and you had to take the winkle out of its shell on a pin and eat it and I said to my friend Leslie, I don't think I can eat these would I be allowed just to have the bread and butter and he said yes [laughter]. Oh that's it, oh dear I think I've missed alot out of this, but this is all I've got to say.
JM: Would you tell us what happened at the end of your service, when you were de-mobbed?
WB: Oh well, yes I did move around from various stations for short periods, but most of these memories are from when I was stationed at RAF Oakley, because I stayed the longest period there and made the most friends but eventually I was demobbed on the 8th May 1945 after serving for three years and eight months at the point here I would like to mention is that, no one who has been in the services forgets his service number which is quite remarkable. So I went back home, we had moved house by then to a different house but we were still in Bradford and my position at the firm where I was when I left was still open for me and by that time I had, I'd gone up from the junior to a shorthand typist so I took my place there and stayed there for quite a few months and then someone from the Land Army came back into the typing pool and was made the chief typist, and I was rather cross about that so I gave my notice in and then went to another firm as a shorthand typist.
JM: So would it be fair to say that your RAF experience had toughened you up?
WB: Possibly, yes I took umbridge I was disappointed really.
JM: And I get the impression you look back on your RAF service with a great deal of affection and regard.
WB: I definitely do yes, I had a very happy time making a lot of very new friends and yes I had a happy time.
JM: Could I take you back to the beginning of your story, you've told us about your background growing up in Bradford was joining the RAF, going through the training was that quite a shock was it a different environment from where you grew up or did you adapt to it quite easily?
WB: It was a different environment in the sense that life was different,we were living the women were sleeping in Nissen huts separated from the other parts of the aerodrome, for instance the mess where we ate and the headquarters where I worked so we had, so we were given bicycles so from then on we had to cycle from one part of the aerodrome to the other and soon afterwards I found out I had increased two stone to my weight from all this cycling around but I settled to it quite easily really, because it was exciting and what I wanted to do be in a different environment. The vicar from my church wrote to some friends that he knew in Thame which was the local village from where the camp was and they invited me and a friend to go and visit them and stay overnight in their beautiful cottage which had a lovely garden so we had passes to go there and that was really nice because these two maiden ladies treated us as their own and they said any time we had a short pass we could go and stay with them which we did so that was something that was really nice. And at another point another friend in our hut, she'd come over from America and her mother had hired a cottage somewhere near the station we could also go there on weekends and they had a beautiful garden with an orchard and plum trees and she said you can pick as many plums as you want so my friend and I picked as many as we could and put them in a parcel and sent them home they were Victoria Plums.
JM: Lovely, in my researches before meeting you today Winn, I've read that some of the the young ladies who joined the WAAF found it quite difficult to mix with girls of a quite different background and also the idea of living communally was a shock to many of them. Do you remember any of that at all?
WB: I don't remember it been a shock to me because I settled to it quite easily to it really. The ablutions were a bit peculiar because they were stone like troughs on a long err you know position and we had running water but we had no plugs so we all had to buy a plug and carry it around with us in our kit bags when we moved because otherwise you just had running water to wash your face, and your hands and your body so that was funny really because you needed to have a few inches of water to use your ablutions ,do your ablutions properly. But I don't remember finding it difficult personally no. I wanted to be in the forces, I wanted to be doing my bit for the country.
JM: And so it follows that the idea of military discipline was not difficult to adapt too?
WB: Oh the discipline you mean, yes I didn't like I didn't like parading I definitely didn't like parading and I did baulk at the idea that in station routine orders you were not allowed to wear greatcoats until a certain date of the year whether it was cold hot or what and you weren't allowed to wear gloves at a certain time, so that did err me very much I did think oh dear this is silly but of course you had to do as you were told, so that was a little bit hard for me but on a few occasions when there were general parades and the WAAF had to join in the WAAF officer let me off [laughs].
JM: How did you get on with the WAAF officers and NCOs ?
WB: Oh very well, yes very well the WAAF Officer was very kind, I think she was I think her rank was Pilot Officer because it was a satellite and when she went on her leave she always sent me a postcard and it was the comical Lucy Attwell's postcards with the shining face and the little blue eyes she was blonde with blue eyes she very pretty and we talked to each other just on an ordinary basis it wasn't as officer and airwoman she just spoke to me as an ordinary person a friend you know she was friendly. The Station Officer was friendly as well because we all worked in close proximity to each other but of course on duty on parades it was different.
JM: Mmm good, did you ever think about remustering in other trades, or were you quite happy to be a clerk?
WB: No, I was quite happy I knew I wasn't good enough to be in control in the control room or anything like that and I didn't fancy the mechanical side of it because after leaving school I always wanted to be in an office so that was why I took to it quite easily most of these friends I made were in different trades one was a parachute packer and another was a tailoress who mended uniforms and another was an engineer so you know we mixed quite well really but I was quite happy in my job.
JM: Did you talk about the way the war was going and your work on the station did you talk shop as it were or did you talk about other things when you were off duty?
WB: I think we talked about other things, I think we talked about dances and clothing [laughs] and clothing points and that sort of thing we went to, we could go to dances in the local towns with transport from the camp and this very nice warrant officer said to us don't wear your uniforms wear your civvies he said “I won't tell” [laughs] so that was quite...
JM: Did you adapt your clothing, did you make your own clothing or did you use your points to buy ready made clothing?
WB: Well I seem to remember we had a fancy dress party once and I wrote home and my Auntie made me an outfit for that and sent it on to me and it was a draught board with a very short frilly tutu skirt [laughs] but I didn't win a prize but I did take my own civilian clothes not a lot of course you couldn't get much in your kit bag could you? But I did wear a skirt and a nice frilly blouse for dancing and we did wear our nylons, well not nylons it was silk stockings then wasn’t it?
JM: That reminds me to ask you, talking about nylons did you ever have any visits from the American servicemen who were in that part of the Midlands?
WB: No, no I didn't come across Americans much being on a RAF station really there were on different stations mostly I think, so amongst the aircrew there were people from Canada, Australia and New Zealand but we didn't have any Americans.
JM; No, no, I wondered if any had visited from other nearby bases but you say not.
WB: I don't think so no, I can't remember that when I was at Marham it was an American station so there was some Americans there but I was only there a few months so I didn't get to know anybody there.
JM: What about sporting activities?
WB: Sorry?
JM: Sports, did you play much sport?
WB: I played hockey against a men's team, and we won because we got them on the ankles [laughs] but that was all, I don't think I did anything else any other sport my sport was dancing.
JM: And you'd go regularly?
WB: Oh yes, I'd never miss a dance went to all the dances.
JM: Were they on the camp or in the local town?
WB: They were...we did some on the camp but mostly they were in Oxford we were taken to Oxford most of my memories were from Oakley really from that area.
JM: I want to ask you quite a difficult question in some respects you mentioned the possibility of getting engaged to the Flyer.
WB: Leslie.
JM: Yes, did many girls get engaged or get married to flying personnel and did they have many losses ?
WB: Well my best friend Peggy did marry the Polish Officer, pilot officer and we all went, we as friends we went to her wedding she got married during the war and her Father wouldn't go to the wedding because he didn't want his daughter to marry a foreigner and Stefan was a very nice person he really nice, but her Mother went and he did survive the war because my husband and I went to visit him after the war and she wrote and told me with all these friends that I corresponded with we knew all about each other's lives after the war because we wrote to each other and told them about our children and what we were doing and everything but another friend did marry a man from the ground staff and she kept in touch with me and told me that they'd had a son called David and I knew all about her and Pat of course who is still the surviving member now with me she wrote and told me all about her family she didn't go back to New Zealand she stayed in London and she married an airman from the camp but they all survived they all survived the war the ones my friends that I remember survived the war.
JM: That's good to hear .
WB: They were very lucky.
JM: I've also read that perhaps unsurprisingly some WAAFs fell pregnant during their time on camp do you have any recollection of anybody that you know having done?
WB: Yes, one.
JM: And what happened to them?
WB: one, one WAAF that I only knew not really personally but she did fall pregnant and her husband she was married and her husband was an MP so I don't know really what happened to her but they were all discharged as soon as they were made pregnant and of course most people who joined up I believe we not married, unmarried so there weren't very many that wasn't married. But there was only one that I remember.
JM: Alright.
WB: She was discharged immediately so we lost touch with her.
JM: Did you ever get the chance or want to want to have the chance to fly in any of the Wellingtons?
WB: Oh I didn't get the chance to fly but my name was on the list because I did want to go in an aeroplane but apparently there had been some accidents somewhere around the country I don't know where and so it was not allowed anymore. But one of the friends that was in my hut did manage to get up unbeknown to the authorities what she was doing and she did have one or two little spins up did this girl.
JM: I expect you were quite envious was you?
WB: I was really yes, but I was disappointed I did want to go up in a plane.
JM: In a way Winn you were living the life which was in advance of where we are now of the women doing special jobs while the men were in the cellars you were living a life where women had extra responsibilities and duties, would you say that women were treated fairly during your time in the services as women or was there discrimination?
WB: I think so I don't think there was any discrimination really because the jobs that airwomen could do were very you know there were lots of jobs they could do that were similar to the men, the could be drivers, definitely engineers, parachute packers and that sort of jobs so they were not limited the jobs that you could do as a woman.
JM: And were women officers able to give orders to male airmen.
WB: I don't think so I think they were just in charge of the women, they were, there was a WAAF officer in every headquarters in every station but I think they were for the women that were serving really I think the men officers took command really.
JM: When you look back on your service you obviously feel that you did do your duty.
WB: Yes, I'm sure I did all I was asked to do yes.
JM: And do you feel a member of the extended family of Bomber Command which you really are?
WB: I definitely do yes I do because we've already been on one holiday to Bomber County which is in Lincoln and we've been around quite a lot of memorials that's why we went and we to the one where was the Dambusters headquarters.
JM: That would be the Petwood hotel.
WB: Yes and was it the 107 squadron Dambusters?
JM: 617.
WB: 617, and we went to all the memorials in the area around about there and that was a special holiday that my daughter and husband took me on, we all enjoyed that and we're going again this year on my birthday to go to this new memorial that going to be built there.
JM: Good, good.
WB: So I'm very much involved in it I feel.
JM: Good.
WB: I was very pleased to be asked to have these memories voiced.
JM: Well they are very important you have told us a great deal that I'd not heard before about life as a WAAF and I'm sure that the memories that we have recorded this morning will be of great interest to people researching the Second World War and Bomber Command for years ahead and so thank you very much it's been a marvellous interview thank you very much indeed.
WB: Thank you.
JM: Winn, I gather that you have thought of two other stories you'd like to record so please tell us.
WB: Yes, on one occasion I do remember being stationed at RAF Oakley and for some reason I decided to take a shortcut across the parade ground to the other corner where I was intending to go and I got roundabout the middle when a voice yelled out “airwoman” get off the parade ground and I nearly fell back in dismay because I thought what on earth have I done so I was taken to account for why I was crossing this and I was told that I was never ever must you walk across the parade ground unless you were detailed to be on parade. Another occasion was that I remembered that periodically the WAAF officer would distribute some Helena Rubinstein lipsticks and face powder compacts to us freely which were given by the company of Helena Rubinstein in America so we were all elated to have this free makeup which was a very expensive item.
JM: Thank you Winn.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Winifred Barker
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Julian Maslin
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-09-12
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00:41:46 audio recording
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Sound
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Pending review
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ABarkerWG160912
Description
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Winifred Barker grew up in Yorkshire and worked in an office before she volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She served as a clerk at RAF Oakley, an operational training unit.
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Carmel Dammes
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Buckinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1945
civil defence
ground personnel
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Finningley
RAF Marham
RAF Oakley
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/242/3387/PCromartyGE1601.2.jpg
713c8e51f5763e62d4eda4b9f11e54f9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/242/3387/ACromartyGE160305.1.mp3
efbe41056dde54715af8a2233c18d12b
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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Cromarty, George Eric
George Eric Cromarty
George E Cromarty
George Cromarty
G E Cromarty
G Cromarty
Description
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One oral history interview with George Eric Cromarty (b. 1924).
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-05
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Cromarty, GE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM. This is Julian Maslin and I am interviewing Mr George Cromarty today March the 5th 2016 for the International Bomber Commands Central Archives. We are at Mr Cromarty’s home *** Stoke on Trent and it is about half past ten in the morning. There are no other persons present. George thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me today, could I ask you to start by telling us a little bit about your background before you joined the Royal Air Force?
GEC. Where to start, I was born in Bermondsey, South London, South East London, my Father was a builders labourer eh, I am one of eight children, two elder brothers and the others younger than me obviously so I was third in the family. We had a hard life I suppose, things were never easy, money was short but we still all survived, all of us, they must have done something right. Em, I always wanted to fly even as a very small kid. I think I told you I used to watch em writing in the sky, writing Persil and Sunlight and that sort of thing and I would always like to do it but never dreamed that I would get the chance. I never thought that for one minute and eh until the war started and then I thought perhaps there was a possibility that I could join the Air Force eh. But still didn’t think that it would happen but it was still a possibility. I left, I was in London during the bombing which wasn’t very nice and I think I was sixteen then when I finally left London, went to work in the Midlands, in Bedfordshire. Working in the building trade you, you couldn’t, you were in controlled labour so you couldn’t chuck the job in at any time you had to stay there. So if you wanted to join the Forces you couldn’t you wasn’t allowed to you were in a semi occupation that was it, reserved occupation that was it so I couldn’t pack the job in until the particular job we were on finished and then they let me. But then by that time I was due for call up and they let me go anyway. So eh, I asked to go for the Air Force and eh I went to Astra House in London before a selection board and I think there was four or five people round the table that were doing the interviews. They all had rings round their arms up to their elbows, I don’t know what rank they were I have no idea but they were obviously well up in the Air Force. I told them I wanted to go as a Pilotbut my education was no so there was no chance of that at all really, I still wanted it. They said “you can go as an Air Gunner” I said “I don’t want to go as an Air Gunner I want to go as a Pilot.” At the end of the table there was this Officer and I know he had a huge band on his arm so he must have been at least and Air Vice Marshall. [laugh] He was sitting on the end and he was a big man, a broad man, he made three of me he was that big and he had a big Walrus moustache and eh, he looked at me and he looked over his glasses and he said “and what’s wrong with Air Gunners?” and I looked at him and said “nothing” and when I looked he had an Air Gunners Brevet on his chest. That put that one stopped, anyway they didn’t say no more they said alright “we’ll leave it for that for now” the next thing I knew I got called up for the Air Force of course then I went into in eh, in Bedfordshire, Cardigan, eh
JM. Cardington.
GEC. Where the balloons come from, Cardington wasn’t it, that’s where I first went and from there I went to Tangmere on the South Coast where 486 New Zealand Squadron, hope my memories good there, I am sure it was 486 New Zealand Squadron, they had Typhoons at the time. I worked on those and every opportunity I got I used to jump in the cockpit, if they were towing them I was first on in the cockpit, ‘cause someone had to get on the brakes. When they were towing someone was on the brakes and it was usually me and if they were towing them into the buts to fire the guns it was me that got in the turret, they didn’t bother, nobody seemed to bother you know, everybody else was quite content to let me do it. I would sit in the Typhoon and stick it up on the ramp, you know, lift the tail up and point it at the buts and then they would fire the guns and of course it was me that fired the guns, sit there and press the button. I used to love that, really love it and eh we used to refuel the planes that came in from other Squadrons and land at Tangmere this is during the eh, first part of the Normandy landing I think it was and they were doing quite a bit of low level strafing you know the Spitfires, Hurricanes you name it they were there. They would all land at Tangmere and I was part of the gang of GDs that went out and helped refuel them. I mean I didn’t do the refuelling or reloading but I was there to help.
JM. GD is?
GEC. General Duties, AC2 lowest rank possible in the Air Force but General Duties was what the class that they called us and em, of course we used to help them to reload. The Pilots would lay around on the grass in those days. They would get out of the planes lay on the grass while we refuelled them and made sure they had enough ammunition. They would take off from Tangmere, go across to France and when they finished they came back to us usually and refuel and if they were going out again we would rearm them. Sometime that would come back again, refuel and go to their own drome. They used to Mess at Tangmere, they always used to gather at Tangmere, we’d have hundreds of planes there at the time and it was quite exciting even then. I used to love that, you would get on a truck with a trailer, trolley ack on the back and you would pull it out to the plane. They didn’t have starters most times, you would start them with a trolley ack and eh, this is what we used to do and it was good time and I suppose I stopped there for about six months. There was an Education Officer there and I got talking to him and I told him I wanted to go as a Pilot. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t try to discourage me but he said “why don’t you come to classes and we will see what we can do” And this is what I used to do and the Air Force let me have one day off to go to classes and I used to go to Education Classes and I would do stuff on a evening on my own, giving us work to do. I would do Maths and English and things like that ‘cause my writing and English was atrocious, it was bad, so they did teach me a lot.
JM. You told me you felt at a disadvantage being left handed.
GEC. It was a terrible disadvantage because they wouldn’t let me use my left hand in school they would wrap me across the knuckles with a ruler. My left hand was quite bruised most of the time where the ruler was crack across the hand. I had at one time my arm was strapped behind my back to stop me using it em. It wasn’t a nice time as a kid being left handed because I am sure the idea was if you were left handed you were backward, you weren’t normal and eh I had an elder Brother who was very clever. The fact that he was very clever made it even worse because they picked on me even more. They thought if he was clever then I should be and I wasn’t so that was it. So as I say it was a hindrance but in the Air Force it didn’t seem to bother them, they weren’t bother whither I was left handed or right handed and I liked that eh, I did write a little poem.
JM. Could we look at that later on.
GEC. Yeah, I’ve got a little poem I wrote when I was there but em, Anyway I joined, went to the Education Classes for about six months and in the end he came to me one day, this Education Officer and he said “ I have got a request for you to go to Flight Training School, eh Gunnery School, would you be interested?” “Well eh yes anything is better than stopping here, you know” So he said “right we will put you down” and within a couple of weeks I was at Flight Training School. Went to Dalcross in Scotland and went to Gunnery School there. I had a lot of trouble being sick, I got air sickness and eh they did say to me at the end of it, at the end of the course “if you want to pack up you can, because the sickness is that bad, if you want to pack up you can but we are not asking you to, as you will probably get over it eventually” I said “no I don’t want to pack up, I got this far, I certainly don’t want to pack up through something as silly as being sick.” So anyway they let me carry on and after that I think I was only sick once it, it seemed to stop for some reason. Whither, I still think to this day, it is probably something to do with your ears, it’s balance and I still think to this day that’s all it was, you know. I was sick in the Anson and I was only ever sick once in the Lancaster. I was never sick in the Wellington or Stirling or any of those. So it was only the Anson and only once in the Lancaster and that once was a different Pilot it wasn’t my own Pilot and that was the only time, I don’t know perhaps it’s something to do with the way you feel I don’t know, but it didn’t happen again.
JM. Could you tell a little about what it was like training to be an Air Gunner?
GEC. Em, I can tell you an incident in the Ansons, it was ok we was flying up the Cromarty Firth, which is my name and when we used to come back I mean, it’s a bit silly I know but when I was sick you had a helmet, gas helmet, plastic helmet and I was sick into that. So of course when I came back I used to have to go into the toilet and wash it out, clean it all up. In the toilets was an old Scotchman he was always there and he would come up to me and say to me “ah good morning to you lad” or something like that.I can’t use the accent but he would say “have you seen Cromarty this morning” and I would say “yes” it was the town of Cromarty and we used to fly quite near it. That was the same regular thing, I would get asked the same question. We flew up and down this Cromarty Firth in Martinettes with the tow beside us that we were shooting at. I enjoyed it, it was good fun. But one time we took of and I think, I think it was three gunners to a plane if I remember rightly. The Pilots were Polish so em, you couldn’t really have a conversation with them, you get in turn into this turret but they are a funny turret because you put, put your head in and the seat is just a little platform on a, on an arm and when you put your backside on this arm you can alter the controls so that it lifts the seat up. And of couse as you lift the seat up it pushes the guns down and you manoeuvre from side to side just the same as you do in a normal turret. As I say you turn the controls to lift your seat up so as your seat goes up and then when you focus your gun on something or you want to go up you want to go down you go up from the controls. This particular one we had every time I depressed the controls the seat went up and it kept going up and up and up and so I was squashed in the top of the turret. Now they didn’t, you weren’t allowed to land in the turret, when you land nobody was in the turret when it landed. See in this case I am stuck in the turret and I can’t get out. There is a jettison at the bottom of the turret which I can’t reach but someone else in the plane could. They tried to jettison, to release it but couldn’t so of course I was stuck there. Then they had to get special permission for us to land with me in the turret which was unusual and eh but this is one of the things, one of the incidents happened you know. Apart from that the rest of training went pretty well.
JM. I understand that different Gunners had bullets with different paints on so they could work out is that actually what happened?
GEC. Yeah each Gunner had a particular colour, there is three Gunners one had red, one had yellow one had blue so that we all fired at the same drogue and it was then cause when we landed they’d drop the drogue on the runway and count the number of particular spots on the drogue. If mine was red the number of red holes in it were down to me.
JM. And a drogue would be kind of a long sleeve of material.
GEC. A long sleeve is about twenty foot long I suppose, it’s quite long.
JM. Did you train to fire at night?
GEC. We did,not really not there, no. Not in Gunnery School that was nearly always done during the day., but then you did when you started getting onto Wellingtons, then you did. But then you were doing it with cameras not with bullets. But em, but say with the Ansons with live rounds, I think I done really well, I think I got seven per cent hits sounds lousy but they seemed to think it was pretty good at the time. So you got seven hits out of two hundred rounds, sounds terrible doesn’t it but as they say most of it you wouldn’t have wouldn’t have hit them anyway. The chance of hitting something is pretty slim you just aim and hope, you know. I think this is what it was but em, they seemed quite satisfied with seven bullets.
JM. But what happened after Dalcross?
GEC. From there we went to a place called Bridgenorth I think, I don’t know why we went to Bridgenorth we didn’t go straight to a unit. I think there must have been too many Gunners at the time, you know too many trained Gunners they just couldn’t ‘cause then you got your Sergeant when you left Dalcross and we went to Brigenorth I know. We did a bit more training there, ground training we didn’t fly at all and then from Dalcross to OTU.
JM. And OTU was?
GEC. Bruntingthorpe 29 OTU that was on Wellingtons, that was pretty good. We used to do night flying there, we used to do cross countries eh we did quite a bit of night flying there. Then we would be attacked on the way by different fighters when we went round. They would never tell us where but em, you had to keep your eyes open and eh and they would attack you again with cameras and we had cameras fitted to the guns. We took film of what we were doing and they took film of us.
JM. Did you spend a lot of time on aircraft recognition training?
GEC. Yes you do that right from the off. Right from when I first joined Aircrew which was in Regents Park, went to Regents Park that’s where we first went and you do it there ‘cause that’s where you do all the Medicals and everything at Regents Park and eh. You do all your training, quite a lot of the basics there, most of the aircraft recognition there, but em.
JM. And was it at the OTU that you formed a Crew could you tell us about that please?
GEC. Yes it was at OTU that is where you first get a Crew, without the Engineer, no Engineer there.
JM. How did you Crew up how did you form a Crew?
GEC. They just stick a load of people in a room and say sort yourself out and that was how it was. I think with me the, the Pilot, the Navigator and the Mid Upper Gunner they were all Bank Clerks so I think they had something in common, ‘cause in those days Bank Clerks was quite a good job, wasn’t it? So I think they had something in common there.So that probably drawed them together. With me I probably one of the last Gunners to be left you know, so I got picked because I was the last one. But em, we got on alright as a Crew we seemed to get on ok.
JM. Your Captain was an unusual –
GEC. Yeah he was South African em he was in the South African Army Air Corps. He was a Captain, Flight he was a Lieutenant not Flight Lieutenant he was a Lieutenant in the Army and during the time we had with him he was made up to Captain. So he was a Captain in the Army, he talked semi German if I can say it that way. It wasn’t an English accent but it wasn’t a pure South African accent it was quite a lot of more German accent. He did say yah and nein, not a lot he tried to stop himself I am sure. But he did say it when he got excited he would say it which was quite funny really. He had a peculiar name, I could never say his name and the last three letters of his name was r.o.n. Ron, so this is what we called him was Ron we always called him Ron. Say we couldn’t say his name Brand or something like that his name was but it was an African name. None of us could say it, he accepted Ron and that’s it, so we called him Ron. But he was nice bloke I liked him you know, a bit stern eh, eh he kept us in control, there was no messing about with him, you couldn’t mess around with him. We would go out for a drink together, we would get drunk, blind drunk most nights when we did go out. We’d go out as a Crew all the lot of us, we didn’t have cars in those days we had push bikes so we all rode down to the pub on pushbikes but you never took the pushbikes home they were always left there until the next day none of us could ride them but em if we weren’t flying we were drunk, it was a good life.
JM. Did you do your first Operations, did you do Nickel Raids ?
GEC. We did a Nickel on Stirlings, I don’t know what was going on, I can’t really remember why we did it but we actually did a Nickel up the Coast, then across to France and we travelled right up the Coast to Holland dropping Nickel all the way.
JM. Now Nickel was the code for leaflets wasn’t it?
GEC. It was the foil, we were dropping foil.
JM. Window ?
GEC. Window yes, yes so we dropped that along the Coast, went up and back again. So that was the first real op if I can say it that way, though it didn’t count as an op.
JM. It didn’t ?
GEC. No that was on Stirlings so that was on Conversion Unit.
JM. And where were you on Conversion Unit?
GEC. Eh Swinderby.
JM. Swinderby near Lincoln.
GEC. Yeah, in Lincolnshire yeah. That was ok there I liked it there. Stirling’s were nice planes to fly, they were heavy if I can say it that way. They were nowhere near as agile as the Lancaster no they was all slow and cumbersome.
JM. Limited ceiling.
GEC. Yes they did have limited ceiling, it was limited ceiling although we really didn’t test it ‘cause we were only just getting used to four engines, that was all and that was when we would get an Engineer when we got there, that is where he joined us. I can remember one day in a Wellington we were flying along somewhere and eh, we swapped over Gunners the other Gunner got in the turret, I got out and walked up the fuselage. It was only a narrow gangway up the centre of the fuselage and eh, they are only fabric only and eh and as we were going along the plane lurched for some reason to one side and I came of the gangway put my foot right through the canvas. They didn’t say nothing they just accepted it, it wasn’t really my fault. I was a bit clumsy but it wasn’t really my fault it did lurch ever so badly, he really, it went from one side, really tipped and I just wasn’t ready for it and I just woop, and your foot’s of the board. The board is only about a foot wide and you are off the board and through the floor but eh, there it is.
JM. And from Swinderby you went then to Lancaster Finishing School.
GEC. Lancaster Finishing School that was at Syerston at Newark, wasn’t there for long, only there for a few days about nine days, no longer and then from there to the Squadron.
JM. And tell us about your posting to the Lancaster Squadron.
GEC. To the Squadron, we didn’t do much at first, when we first got there. You don’t straight away go into it, they keep you training, we did a couple of high level flights a couple of cross countries, things like that.
JM. This was six three zero Squadron?
GEC. Yes 630 Squadron.
JM. And this was at ?
GEC. East Kirby in Lincolnshire em but as I say they don’t throw you straight into it and then the first Op. that I did was with another Pilot, not my own but I done it with this Pilot. But none of my Crew went on an Op that night, I was the only one that did because that particular plane was short of a Rear Gunner he was ill for some reason and they were short of a Rear Gunner so they stuck me in it, so I went on that on me own. Now the others, the first Op. with my Pilot we had another Pilot with us. So there was two Pilots and that was the first Op. we did, I can’t think where we went now.
JM. Now what age were you when you started flying on Operations.
GEC. On Ops. Nineteen I suppose [unreadable] I would have been nineteen.
JM. Can you tell us what it was like to sit in the rear turret of a Lancaster as you were going on an Operation?
JM. Em, it’s, it’s when you, the first thing you find in the morning you look at the board and you look to see if your names on the board, the name of the Pilot is on the board, not your name it would be the Pilots’ name to say whither you are on that night or not. You do this every morning when you get up, you go for your breakfast and in the Mess hall in the hall in the entrance is the board and on the board are the names of all the people who are on flying that day or that night and you look down that first to see if your names on it. But if your names on it you knew you were in, on for call. Now usually eh, you went for briefing about three o’clock in the afternoon, something like that, depends what time you were taking off, but they would tell you what time it was. You would go to briefing and when you would go to briefing they would tell you where you were going. Of course you all, you would go into the room, all the Crews are in the room and the maps on the wall but the wall’s covered in a curtain so you can’t see where you are going it’s just the cover. Then they take the curtain down and it’s either a gasp or a ha! You know and everybody gasps as to where you are going. Once you realise where you are going and eh, at that time you would get a bit scared, can I say it that way, you would say oh, bloody hell that’s a long way [laugh] you would get a bit worried then. Once you started getting dressed it used to, I mean with me we had so many clothes it used to be unbelievable. I wore silk gloves, I wore woollen mittens, electric gloves, gauntlets over them. My body was silk vest, silk long johns, ordinary vest, ordinary long johns, shirt, trousers, eh, May West, heated suit, capox suit, waterproof suit all on top of one another, so when you finished you looked like Michelin Man, you couldn’t move. Flying boots, diving sailors socks right up to your thighs, big woollen socks and eh, see once you got dressed you couldn’t move. This used to take you about an hour to get dressed of course if you wanted to go to the toilet you either went then or you never went at all. And eh you had to then get dressed and once you were dressed you went into the final briefing and then they would tell you where you were going. I think that was the worse time and then you would take off at say five o’clock in the evening, six o’clock in the evening, you make your way out to the truck and they would take you out to the plane. You used to sometimes sit outside the plane for say, quarter of an hour, have a smoke. I never smoked until I joined Aircrew, you sit in classes doing aircraft recognition, navigation whatever you were doing and we sit in classes and they would say after about an hour, break for a smoke, of course I didn’t smoke. Everybody else was smoking and I was sitting there not smoking and in the end you joined them you know, you had to have a smoke didn’t you? So I ended up started smoking, biggest mistake I ever made, smoking. Then of course, when we went to the plane we would, say sit outside for ten minutes, quarter of an hour, have a smoke before we got into the plane. More often than not I would be the last one in, ‘cause quite often I could turn the turret to the side and climb in from outside where everybody else had to go through the door. If I had to go from inside I had to, you had to lift yourself in. You had a couple of bars over your head and you had to, you’ve got the rear wing spar and you had to lift your feet up into that spar. So you pulled the, hands on the lead bar, lifted yourself with your arms and you slid your legs in. Then you had to work your way in sliding all the way into the turret, so your feet went into the turret first, ‘cause you couldn’t walk in, there wasn’t enough room, no height you know there was just enough room to crawl through. You slid in and plonked yourself in the seat, I know a lot of them when I’ve been to Coningsby they talked about people having their parachutes in the fuselage, stowed in the fuselage. I didn’t mine wasn’t stowed in the fuselage it actually was me seat, it formed the cushion for me seat and I used to actually sit on me parachute so it wasn’t until I, I used to put it on outside the turret, but once I got inside the turret, the seat, formed the seat and the harness was already on. Once you got into the turret it wasn’t a great deal of room. You had a bit of a wire and you pulled the wire and the doors shut behind you, there were two sliding doors. There was a chopper on the top of course to cut yourself out should anything happen, which was more dangerous as it was because it was there. More often or not you hit your head on it because every time it bounced, you bang on the chopper. That’s the thing that happened once I think we done about ten ops, I don’t know, quite a few and eh, and they decided the Pilot had to do circuits and landings and he didn’t like it at all. He thought it was below him to do circuits and landings so we took off and we done a couple of circuits and a couple of . Probably about the third one eh, he asked for permission to land and the control, girl in the control tower said, eh, I can’t remember what the plane was but we used to fly “Uncle” if we could, She’d say Gauntlet,Uncle permission to land, we ask for permission she’d say “Gauntlet, Uncle permission to land” permission to land and she’d say “bounce to the end of the runway and turn left” [laugh]. It really got him annoyed anyway we went round this once and he came and he hit it that hard, he did hit the ground with a thump, I banged me head on the chopper, I thought I had knocked me bloody head off on this chopper ‘course he burst the tyre and it stopped on the runway lopsided and we all jumped out the plane. I had to spin the turret on its side and out and everybody else pours out the doors. Of course we look around and there is no sight of the Pilot anywhere. Well what has happened to him.so a couple of them go back in to try and find him. When they get back in there he is in his seat, in the cockpit, sitting there snoring. He was blind drunk [laugh] he had got upset for sending him on circuit and landings he’d gone and got himself loaded with whisky. He got away with it, nobody said a word, we didn’t say nothing, just got him out the plane and back to the Mess before anybody knew.
JM. George can I just pause you there just for a moment just for the tape, did you say Gauntley, Gauntley was the call sign for six three zero Squadron.
GEC. For 630 Squadron yeah, “Silk Screen” was the drome, “Silk Screen” that’s it yeah. That’s right we used to call up “Silk Screen” we would say “Gauntley, Sugar, Gauntley Lead” whatever. “Silk Screen, Gauntley, Uncle” The two callsigns, yeah. It’s a lot to remember, I am pleased I remember this.
JM.I want to take you on a bit, because you described so vividly sitting in the aircraft.Can you tell us what it was actually like taking off and when you were on a raid?
GEC. Before you took off you were, you were frightened, you were. You’d get in the plane, and you’d sit in there and they’d taxi in line there’s twenty five of you fifty all waiting to line up on the runway. At the end of the runway there was always the caravan and there was always people waiting there waving you of, always, every time there was always someone there. Probably a dozen perhaps thirty or forty people there waving you off. Once you took up the runway, once you went down the runway you were, you were on edge and of course the tower, I am stuck on edge I don’t face rear, I face the side and you lock it on the side for takeoff this is because if anything goes wrong you can jump out quick. So of course as you go up the runway the tail lifts of and the wheels get of the ground and he says, full power he says to the Engineer then he says through the gate, so they obviously go up to a gate with the throttles and he pushes him through to give him that extra power to get him off the ground. Once he does that you lift of the ground and you start to fly. From then on you are not bothered the fear has all gone. I don’t know how to explain it, you are not afraid any more, it’s just you are there, you accept it and then you sit back and enjoy it and honestly I do, you enjoy, you enjoy the flying. I did anyway whither other people did or not I don’t know, I did I used to actually enjoy it and it wasn’t until you got to say the French coast or the German coast or even the Dutch coast you know, Denmark em, it wasn’t until you got to there and flak started coming up that you was concerned again, I don’t think it was you was really worried. You worried when you got to the target but you didn’t worry before that. You know em, that’s a thing that em, used to happen to us, you would see these huge balls of fire, beautiful colours, this big ball. Say it was all the colours of the rainbow in this ball and we used to call it spoofs. I don’t know if you ever heard this before but we used to call them spoofs and when we came back they’d say “how was it” and we would say “yes we saw a couple” Oh yes you are bound to see them they did do them you know. It wasn’t until several years after the war I found out they weren’t spoofs. I mean this was quite a while after the war and I found out that they weren’t, I think they should have told us.
JM. Would you like to tell us what they were?
GEC. They were real planes, they were planes going up, I didn’t know it nor did any of us but it was planes. It was always on much the same level as us. So it was other aircraft, other Lancasters.
JM. Blowing up?
GEC. Yeah, Yeah.
JM. And this was due to ?
GEC. Enemy aircraft fire, anti aircraft mostly, I suppose the odd one would have been fighters but if it was we didn’t know. It was definitely aircraft going you know. I thought it at the time but when we came back and would say something they would say “No it’s only Spoof.” So you’d sort of well alright, they must know what they are talking about so we let it go. I suppose if we had known it would have really frightened us, really frightened us so I suppose it’s as well that we didn’t know, yeah.
JM. Now you completed twenty two operations between the autumn of 1944 and the end of the war and I understand that some of them have left a particular memory with you Politz was one and Dresden was another, could you tell us about those please?
GEC. Yeah em, we did one daylight, I think that is an easier one to tell you em it was only on Dortmund Emms Canal. I think it was Dortmund Emms Canal, I am not certain about this but it was one, it was a daylight anyway. It was the only daylight I did, the planes, normally you didn’t see other planes you occasionally seen one whip past the tail, you didn’t see many, they were there but you didn’t see ‘em. But in the daylight you see ‘em, they are above you, below you, everywhere. There was a plane that was right over the top of us and I watched his bomb doors open and I watched his bombs fall and they went past our tail by I imagined inches but it must have been more than that. It was that close if you can imagine a bomb going past your turret and that is how it was and that was really frightening.[Laugh] I said to the Pilot, for Gods sake get out the way. He said he could see me as much as I could see him and I thought that was it, alright, that was it was really frightening. But eh, that was the only daylight I did and I didn’t want to do any more. [laugh]. The Politz raid the Pilot got the DFC for that was because we left left Lincolnshire went out to the North Sea out to Denmark, crossed Denmark and lost the engine as we crossed the Danish Coast. Em, we weren’t very high at the time, we were climbing I think we would leave this, this country and we would start climbing towards Denmark, I suppose when we got to Denmark we were at about six to seven thousand feet, no more. Of course we had lost the engine, it meant that we were very slow then to pick up. I heard the Pilot and Engineer talking between themselves, he said “ how’s thing Joe?” the Engineer was Joe. “are we alright” “yes” “any, any, how’s the fuel?” “ yes that’s ok” “think we can manage if we go on” “ Yes we are alright” Didn’t ask anybody else just the Engineer. “Alright we will carry on” and so they carried on and we crossed the tip of Sweden and then into the Baltic and eh we couldn’t get the speed that we wanted and we couldn’t get the height. I hear people talking today of Lancaster’s doing 260 and 290 mile per hour we never did 290 mile per hour we used to do 190 and if we were down hill would perhaps get 210, 220 out of it but that was all. Certainly with a full load on it you couldn’t do too much more. You might have got 200 with a struggle. Not everybody could do it so to keep us all together we used to stick to eh 190. So as I say as we went along we couldn’t get the height, I think the bombing height was 14000 but we could only get up to about 10. We ended up about ten minutes late over the target I do know that and we went across the target and eh we got picked up by the blue searchlight and we were actually on the bombing run then so the bomb doors was open and we were doing a nice steady run. The beam caught us and as the beam caught us some German Gunner must have been trigger happy and he fired probably too soon because the other searchlights hadn’t coned onto us only one had us and none of the others. ‘cause what happens the blue one comes on and the others cone in on it. Well only the blue one had us and the others hadn’t coned in and the shell went under the back of the plane and tipped it so we went nose down and we went from ten thousand down to about six thousand I suppose and the Bomb Aimer had gone forward in the turret and smashed the bomb tit that he had in his hand, that smashed, it was useless. So the Pilot said “what are you going to do?” He said “ I can’t do it from here we will have to jettison” So he said “we will go round again then and jettison” I am sitting in the back and thought “oh my God” they must be mad. But there it is they turned round and went back in again. The Wireless Operator jettisoned the bombs, when the Bomb Aimer told him the Wireless Operator jettisoned the bombs. So we jettisoned the bombs and we set our way home eh, the whole trip was oh, about eleven hours so the engine packed up after two hours so we still had another two or three hours to do before we got there. So it was quite a long way on, on three engines plus the fact, I can’t think what engine it was but whatever one it was it affected the mid upper turret, the mid upper turret wasn’t working. Luckily it wasn’t mine because if it had been mine we would have gone back for sure. But eh the mid upper had packed up so we had no upper turret, if had met anything we were in trouble and eh, but eh we got back ‘cause when we landed he called up to land they said, I don’t know what it was Gauntlet Sugar I think we were in “number fifteen or number seven to land” and he said “nein, nein number vun, number vun” I don’t know what they thought in the Control Tower at the time they must have thought it was a German Invasion.[laugh] Anyway we got over it.
JM. You must have felt a huge sense of relief when you got back after that.
GEC. It was, it was it’s nice, it’s nice to get back on the ground and of course the first thing you did, the minute you were out the plane, was light a cigarette, sit there, shaking I’m sure.
JM. Now I understand that your Navigator had an interesting technique, tell us about that.
GEC. He always stuck to the middle of the stream if he could. I mean he couldn’t see the stream no more than any of us could. But I, me being in the back I don’t think anybody else could see the planes around us, perhaps the Mid Upper Gunner could. Me being in the back could see them crossing over, they would go from Port to Starboard I would watch them. If two or three of them did it I knew we were coming out of the stream and I would say to the. The Navigator would call me and say “how are we doing George?” and I would say “they are going from Port to Starboard” “right two degrees Starboard” he would move the plane over and then he would say straighten it up again, or two degrees Port then a couple of minutes “two degrees Port” were in the middle of stream and of course when we talked about it afterwards this is what he told us. All the time he kept altering the course to get us in the middle of the stream, “never on the edge” he said” they bit you off on the edge, I’ll make sure you're in the middle” I always thought he was a bloody good Navigator for that, nobody objected, least of all the Pilot who had to do the corrections, he never used to say nothing. But I think it’s him that got us through it, the Navigator, I am sure it was him as much as anybody. The Pilot was good no one can argue on that, he was a good Pilot. They were a good Crew all of them, I can’t argue with any of them but the Pilot and Navigator I think were exceptional. It’s those two that got us through it anyway I’m sure of that.
JM. You took part in the Dresden raid.
GEC. The Dresden Raid, yeah, we were the first in at Dresden, we bombed at ten o’clock. I think 250 planes were the first ones into Dresden. It was very good we actually lined up on Leipzig, so we, we homed in on, we actually did the course to Leipzig and them from Leipzig we done a straight line from Leipzig to Dresden. Now Gerry thought that we were bombing Leipzig I’m sure so he concentrated on that but we then actually over run Leipzig straight into Dresden and bombed Dresden. So they wasn’t expecting it at all. There wasn’t a great, there was flak from Leipzig quite a bit but there was none from Dresden, hardly any at all. So they wasn’t expecting it, it was very quiet when we got there, nothing there, the flares went down and we bombed on the flares then we turned, as we turned away it was starting to burn, and it was really burning. I could see it a good fifty or sixty miles after we left the target I could see it burning and it was really burning you know really bad. And em Bomber Command sent 750 at twelve o’clock and the Americans went next day and had another go, so there wasn’t much left of it. I think you know a bit much wasn’t it, bit drastic but eh I suppose it’s war isn’t it.
JM. I understand you had seen some things in the Blitz of London which influenced how you felt about;
GEC. Yeah I was there during the bombing in London and em, I lost a lot of Family, quite a lot. I mean probably fifteen, twenty of my Family were killed. Not my actually Family but my relations Aunts, Uncles, Cousins. One particular Family lived at a place we called Downtown, they had a block of flats it was right in the Dock area of London and eh, they lived there because when the Docks were bombed, the first day of the bombing they moved them out into a school a bit away from the Docks and the bomb actually hit the school and killed all the people in the school. So all the Family that were in the flats, the flats are still standing today, but they moved them into the school and they all died and that was eh, it was me Uncle me Mothers’ Brother, his wife I think he had about seven, seven, eight children and only I think one of them or two of them survived. He lost an arm and an eye, me Uncle. So and there were a lot of the Family like that, you know who died, so em, I,I,I wanted revenge you know they, they, I. It was unnecessary he bombed London willy nilly he didn’t care what he hit, did he? So I don’t see why we should care and when I hear people say “you shouldn’t have done this, you shouldn’t have done that” I think he should, you know, I think he was right in everything he did.
AM. Lets have a pause there shall we. [tape paused]
AM. Will you tell us some more of your stories of the Operations that you took part in?
GEC. The one to Leipzig, em, We couldn’t get, the cloud was fairly thick, we went from here to France and from France to the French Alps but we couldn’t get up high enough to get over the Alps and eh of course we had gone into ten tenths cloud. We couldn’t see really where we were going. Eh, we circled and circled to try find a way out and we we couldn’t and a lot of people I know, we found out afterwards, a lot of people turned back, probably half of our Squadron turned back and em. In the end the Pilot saw a gap in the clouds and he said to the Navigator “I am going to go for it” So they went for this gap in the clouds and once we got through it, me being in the back could see that the gap that we had gone through and the lightning was dancing across it full blast. So it was a bit scary we had actually gone through a wall of lightning more or less. But eh, as I say we got there all right and we got back all right so it must have been ok. We, we went to a place called eh, Wesel there were only twenty five planes on, on that one. The Controller called us into bomb and the first plane in well almost the first one dropped a couple of bombs into the river, into the Rhine and the Controller screamed his head off “stop bombing, stop bombing” and eh nobody took any notice we all carried on and bombed but the rest of the bombs actually went onto the town of Wesil. So it worked in the end and none of them fell on our side in the end so everybody was happy on that one.
JM. Now I think Wesel is spelt Wesel and we are dealing with the crossing of the Rhine in the Spring of 1945 April?
GEC. Yeah, Yeah it must have been, I can’t remember dates like that but you are probably about right, yeah, it was it was, the Army was advancing through France and Germany in those days another one was on a place called Royan on the French coast. They sent us there, the Army had gone completely round it. So it was just stuck in the middle on its’ own, Germans in the middle, British or American Army all round it and they sent us there because there was a lot of tanks and they were causing a bit of trouble so they sent us there to bomb that and we bombed that. There was no resistance at all we just went over and dropped bombs and came home again. It only took a couple of hours, it was a very short one. So you couldn’t really call that one an op, just a day out. I dunno much else that happened, I know at one time I, I wanted to go to the toilet and couldn’t, got dressed and thought I will go when I get in the plane and of course you know where it is, you forget all about it. Of course we carried on, we’d been flying for about eight hours and I wanted to go bad by then and I said to the Pilot “can I get out of the turret?” well we’d crossed back into France and he said “all right go on, come out, go to the Elson in the fuselage” Of course I walked back to the Elson, or crawled back to the Elson and eh you have got your parachute harness on and eh I am banging the button on the harness and it won’t release. I am just bang, bang, bang, bang and it just won’t release it. It just stays there and of course I am in such a predicament by then and I just said “oh bugger it” and I just crossed my legs and peed and it goes all down me legs into me boots, doesn’t it. I got back into the turret and plug the suit in, it will soon dry it but it didn’t it shorted it out and it fused the bloody lot. So of course I didn’t say nothing more to them but em, I, I often wonder, I probably did suffer a bit with frostbite because it solidified in me boots. So I didn’t do that again, I made sure I went to the toilet after that.
JM. Did you ever have problems with ice crystals in your oxygen mask?
GEC. No, no it got pretty cold no but it never really got that bad, it never really got that bad. I heard some people did but it didn’t happen to me anyway.
JM. I understand that your tour of duty was influenced by your Captains sporting activities ?
GEC. Yeah, he was full back for the Springboks. In his early youth he cracked his skull so he was the only person in the Springboks team to wear a crash helmet, so it was a head guard, wasn’t it?
JM. This was the rugby team.
GEC. Yeah, Yeah ‘cause nobody else in the Team would wear a hat, they don’t today do they or very few of them. He wore this thing because as I say he had a cracked skull at one time. What it meant was that being a Rugby Player he would get called for the to play Rugby, because he had to go up to Twickenham to play it. So of course, more often than not if there was flying at the weekend and rugby at the weekend it would be rugby rather than flying. Of course when he got the DFC everybody on the Squadron said he got the DFC for rugby playing not for flying.[laugh] Which is probably true. Another little incident I can remember quite well, we used to have to do gunnery duty on the ‘drome around the ‘drome there was I think six or eight gun emplacements there were two, mounted twin point fives and they was all round the ‘drome, I think there was about eight of them altogether. All the Gunners on the ‘drome were on a rota to man these guns. Now if you weren’t on Ops you were supposed to be on the rota to man guns. Of course, sometimes on a Saturday night we would have a dance in the Mess, so we would all get done up in our best clothes and went to this dance. Usually about seven o’clock in the evening it lasted until twelve. On this particular Saturday we em, it was our turn on the guns you know we was, I think there was about eight pairs. Me and the Mid Upper Gunner we were allotted to a particular gun. What you are supposed to do when you are told you are on to find out where your gun is, go and have a look, see where it is and everything about it. Go and have a look at it and see that it is working all right and then come back and you are ready should anything happen in the evening, you are ready to go out there. Well we didn’t bother, no nothing will happen, we didn’t bother we went to the dance all in our best blues and of course the siren went about nine o’clock didn’t it? Course we had to get on our bikes then and find this bloody gun. So we hadn’t a clue, we had a rough idea where it was. So we would get on the bikes and go up this country lane, no lights is there, it’s all black and eh, we, we driving along and I said “it must be here somewhere, well it’s on the left, it can’t be on the right, no it’s definitely on the left” we look over this edge and there is this mound in the middle of the field “it’s there, there look there it is you can see it” “alright” he said “where is the gate” I said “ I can’t see no blooming gate” he said “go on I will give you a lift over” So he puts me foot in his hand and hoycks me over this hedge. Of course the hedge has got barbed wire in it, in’t and of course as I come down it just rips me trousers from top to bottom. I said “well that’s it I am in the field at least” So I run across the field to this lump and of course it gets up and goes moo and runs of [laugh]. Of course another half an hour later we are still trying to find this gun. Eventually we find it, we pull the cover off and pull the cover of and when we are standing there, pulled the cover off, hadn’t even cocked the guns or anything over comes Gerry a JU88 and he is ever so low, he couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred feet up but he didn’t fire he just went straight across the ‘drome and em if we had been on the guns as we should have been we could have had a go at him[laugh] but we didn’t. After that we went to [unreadable] the gun, we didn’t leave it to chance anymore, good days though.
JM. Could you tell us a little about what it was like to live on East Kirkby on the base there. What was the accommodation and the food and the atmosphere like?
GEC. It was a Nissan Hut there was about a dozen people to a hut. Crews were in one hut, Officers in another, bloody cold, we didn’t have central heating or anything, we had a, what do you call them, a pot bellied stove, just a little stove in the middle of the room and we could go and get coal or wood from the corner of the, there was a heap of coal at the edge of the field you know the are where the tent, where the Nissan huts were. We’d go and load a bucket up with that and fetch it back, stoke the fire up, keep the fire going. There was a lake quite near and round this lake was moorhens, ‘cause moorhens would lay their eggs round the edges and we used to go out and raid this nest and collect the eggs up. Perhaps about two dozen eggs, we’d sit round, put the frying pan on this stove and cook these eggs. The trouble was we didn’t think to break them into a cup first we’d break them into the pan. Of course you would get about ten or twelve eggs in the pan and keep breaking them in you know and one of them would be addled wouldn’t it of course it ruined the lot, start again. [laugh] We did that again and again. But we used to have a feast on moorhens eggs.
JM. Did you have the experience of loosing friends on Squadrons?
GEC. Yes I lost a Mate eh,on the raid on the Rosettes. He was a Tail Gunner, his name was Herbert Davies came from Shropshire, the same as a Rear Gunner the same as me. We got on well together we used to go out drinking or girlfriends and eh. This raid on Rosettes he got shot down, as far as I know he is buried in a cemetery in Berlin. I have never been to see it perhaps I ought to one day before I get too old. The Pilot I know is buried in Belgium but the rest of the crew were never found. I think they only found two of the Crew. The Pilot was American, his Pilot was American. Dave I called him, his name was Herbert, horrible name, he was Welsh, Welsh accent because he lived in Shropshire which is Welsh almost Welsh wasn’t it ? [pause] he was the closest that I knew, you know I mean other people, lost other people there that we knew. The worst part was when you came back and eh they’d come into the hut and picked up somebody’s belongings and eh you knew then they weren’t coming back, that was about the first year. I mean in debrief you knew that someone was overdue but you never knew where they went because they were over due. They could go almost anywhere, they could be in France, they could be in England somewhere. But eh when they came in to collect their belongings that you knew that they were gone. That was upsetting you know, that really was upsetting and it used to happen a lot we didn’t loose, we didn’t, six thirty didn’t loose a lot of planes at least I don’t think they lost a lot but eh the ones they did loose it used, it used to feel it.
JM. Did the replacements come in, did the replacement crews come in quickly.
GEC. Fairly quickly yeah, there was, there was usually ones to take their place pretty soon, yeah. It was the planes that they had the most trouble replacing.
JM. As a, as an Air Gunner did you have much to do with the Armourers in terms of maintenance of guns and bullet loads and things.
GEC. No, no you didn’t you didn’t do a lot to that, no. I mean you had to know how they worked and every thing about them to work them. You relied on them to look after them and they did usually. I can only remember one occasion when I got into the turret and turret was swimming in oil, me boots just were sliding on the oil and eh I thought it would give me trouble, I thought if it is leaking you know the oil that bad, I am going to have trouble but eh, before we took off they sent for the Armourer because you know you couldn’t talk to anybody, they had to do it by Aldis Lamp and they sent for an Armourer and he came and had a look because he used a tissue or something, paper, because he mopped up this oil well he saw it would be alright and left it at that. ‘cause we took off, I think we were late in taking off at that time because of this. But it did happen it was alright in the end and it did work out, so it must have been something they spilt on the floor, rather than a leak.
JM. You mentioned that your Pilot got an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross was there any discussion about the awarding of medals, what was the attitude of people to that?
GEC. Em, I don’t think any, I didn’t really give it a thought, we came back, we came back of that raid and eh the same night they gave him a medal it wasn’t , it wasn’t discussed or anything like that it was just immediate you know straight away, the DFC. We didn’t fly no more, that weekend we was sent home on a hol, on, on leave so we had I think it was nine days leave so they did that immediately. Didn’t talk about it just said get on, right get on leave. So they gave us a week to get over it which I suppose is a good thing in a way.
JM. Did you have any experience of knowing of cases where Operations were too much for men.
GEC. There is only one that I can remember, LMF but em there, there wasn’t a lot there wasn’t many. I don’t, I can’t remember a lot about it. I know it happened and I know the person, I can’t think of his name now but I do remember the person and he was just frightened, that was all there was to it, he just couldn’t cope. Which is unusual most be people do, most people hide their fear don’t they? But he couldn’t and that was it. So I mean, I don’t blame him for one minute, probably more brave than I was because he had the guts to admit it, there it is.
JM. Could we now turn perhaps to how your Operational Career finished and what happened to you at the end of your Service could you tell us about that please?
GEC. When the War finished in Europe it was still going on in Japan wasn’t it, my own Pilot, the day War finished he went straight back to South Africa. He didn’t even say goodbye he just went and that was it. In the Mess one day and he was gone. We were immediately allocated with another Pilot, the Crew was still together but just a new Pilot and eh they were talking then about going to Japan or going to the Middle, the Far East and they were saying that we would convert to Lincoln Bombers and go to the Far East but we had to volunteer for it. We had to volunteer as a Crew, so we discussed that between us and we all said yes, this is what we had in mind going to the Far, converting to Lincolns and going to the Far East but em as I say they dropped the Atom Bomb and that was it finished that so that, stopped it. Because once that happened everything was eh finished and they just shut down six thirty Squadron, shut down straight away, more or less. Em, they went me to Weeton just outside of Blackpool to eh retrain and I went as a Fabric Worker of all things, repairing bi planes a little bit of upholstery or what ever. I did I think what was a six weeks course at Weeton and then from Weeton I went to Holmesea South and there I went into the workshops at Holmesea South and we did a, we looked after maintenance of all the vehicles which in those days, quite a lot of them were canvass backs, canvass tilts on them. We resprayed the cars I had I think three or four people working for me, because at that time I would have been a Warrant Officer so they had to find me something to do. I had a couple of Jamaicans in there and I had a chap an Irish chap he was a Sergeant, Sergeant Gunner. There were a couple of LACs in there if I remember rightly. There were about five of us in this place and we used to go out and pick up a wagon or lorry or car or something and fetch it in if it was a bit dented and I would get them people to straighten it up and we would respray it in the shop but eh, I didn’t like it, it wasn’t it wasn’t me. So of course they came across to me one day and said would you be interested in leaving, so I said “yes.” That was it I just packed me bags and went but eh, if I had been flying I would have stayed, I would have stopped to this day but eh, once you stop flying you loose interest.
JM. Could I just ask you finally just to say how you feel about the way Bomber Command has been treated and your feelings about Harris and Churchill.
GEC. I think it has been treated very badly, I always have done but eh. We’ve never got credit for what we did whither we wanted to or not. We didn’t get credit for it, we got a stupid little medal, it’s not a medal it’s a piece of tin, which I don’t thinks’ right at all. I mean people got medals just for going from here and stepping one foot in France and they got a medal for that. But we, not me personally, a lot of them did sixty ops or so. Although they did get a medal if they were in before 1944 I think it was but after that they didn’t get no matter how many ops they did they didn’t get a medal for it. You got the European star which everybody got if they were in Europe no matter what you did. So it wasn’t really a medal for being in active service in France or Germany it was just a medal for being there eh, so that I think was unfair. There it is can’t alter it. With regards to Harris, well I admired the man, he had a difficult job it is something not many people can do, is it? There is not many people who could have done his job. And he did what he did, what he believed with what he had and really did believe in what he was doing, you have got to admire him for that. I mean, I think I have told you they used to tell us he would get his boffins, his local men and get half a dozen of them and give them a couple of bottles of whisky and send them to the country and say “come back with the next target for me” and they would come back and tell them which target to bomb. There was not method to it, it was just random. There was a bit of method but this is what we used to say. Course another thing we had a saying, a little ditty what we used to say, Merseyberg, Colingsberg, Politz and Gadinia 2154 going sick. 2154 being the amount of petrol, fuel you carried, that of course meant that it was the longest you could go so you knew you were up for ten, eleven hours. So of course that was the words, you know and Merseyberg, Colinsberg. Politz and Gadinia they are all ten or eleven hour trips so that is the little ditty that used to go around the drome. ‘Cause specially if you got on that night was one of those, that would come straight out. On the whole it was a good life, at least I think it was. I am still here, a lot are not for those I feel very sorry. [Pause] some nice blokes, some very nice people that I knew. Dave in particular was, I thought a nice person nothing aggressive in him at all no, no he was a nice person. It shouldn’t happen to people like that but it did and it happened to a lot of them didn’t it? It’s the evil ones like me who stayed. I always said I must have been ever so evil because he never called me they reckon he only calls the good ones.
JM. George Cromarty thank you very much indeed. I thought that was an excellent place to stop.
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ACromartyGE160305
PCromartyGE1601
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Interview with George Eric Cromarty
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:17:35 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
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Julian Maslin
Date
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2016-03-05
Description
An account of the resource
Mr Cromarty joined the Royal Air Force as an AC2 and served as ground personnel before training as an air gunner. He flew operations as the rear gunner with 630 Squadron from RAF East Kirby. He discusses what operations and life on a station were like and how Bomber Command has been remembered.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
Contributor
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Hugh Donnelly
29 OTU
630 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
fear
final resting place
fuelling
ground personnel
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Dalcross
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tangmere
sanitation
Stirling
training
Typhoon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/222/3364/PCarrollT1601.2.jpg
6dcf778874a17c8eddc32754f15ef8a6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/222/3364/ACarrollT160418.2.mp3
6fcf0cd59fbdbb3b017155d7d3cae483
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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Carroll, Thomas F
Thomas Carroll
Tom Carroll
T F Carroll
T Carroll
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Thomas "Tom" Carroll (1923 - 2019, 184755 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-07
2016-04-18
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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Carroll, TF
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin. The interviewee is Tom Carroll. The interview is taking place at Mr Carroll’s home, near Tarpoley in Cheshire, on the 18th of April, 2016. [Pause.] Tom, good morning. I wonder if you could start by telling us a little bit about your background, where you were born and brought up.
TC: Good morning to you. Yes, I was born in a place called Woodlands, Doncaster, in 1923, 5th of August 1923. It was a model village, and the king and queen came along and declared it to be so. I lived very happily there, with loving parents. My father was a miner, he came from Ballinasloe [unclear] in Ireland. And my grandfather – we all lived together in the same house at this stage – my grandfather worked down the mine when he was eight years of age. I think it’s – I’d like to say a little about him, because I asked him ‘wasn’t you frightened?’ when I was a little boy and we went walking with him around the village and so on, ‘weren’t you frightened, Grandad, at eight years of age working down the pit?’ He said ‘well I was at first.’ And I said ‘well what did you do Grandad?’ He said ‘well they put a piece of rope in my hand, and told me to pull it down, until I couldn’t pull it down any further.’ ‘And then what did you do?’ He says ‘they told me to release it.’ I discovered later on of course this was part of the fresh air that would be brought into the mine. [Pause.] He did, he did this, and I suppose – ‘were you allowed to, when you’re allowed, were you allowed [emphasis] to work down the mines?’ Well he said in those days there was a lot of poverty around, and if you got a letter, you could send a letter to the head teacher, and say that if you had a job they would allow you to go. So that’s how he worked down the mine. Grandad and I became very good friends, and on one of our little walks, he suddenly said to me ‘you know life Tommy? Life is nothing but smoke, magic and dust.’ Now I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but there was something about the words ‘smoke,’ ‘magic,’ and ‘dust’ that stayed in my mind until I began to write books. And then I thought, that’s a title of a, I gave to my novel ‘Smoke, Magic and Dust.’ Because, when I grew up, and had lived through the war, smoke, magic and dust made sense [emphasis] to me somehow. I’d been living a life not knowing where I was going or anything, and then, some magic came along and I realised that that was all part of it. And then Hitler, himself, became dust, towards the end of the war. And I thought to myself, really, life is smoke, magic and dust. We all I’m sure can say to ourselves at one time of our lives ‘where’s life taking us to? What is it all about?’ And then we experience some magic, perhaps we fall in love and get married, and that’s magic. But at the end of it all, of course, it all comes to an end in dust. Anyway, that’s how I came to write a novel later on, I’ll talk about that later on. But, everything was happy. We were living a simple life, walking out with my friends, and everything was farmland around the village. We would walk out, bluebells gathering, nuts we got from the trees in the little woods around the place, and then, we, when we were a little older, life began to change [emphasis]. Because of this man called Hitler, and what he was doing, and how he’d invaded this country, and yet another one, and by this time, my mother and father were getting very concerned, because my mother had lots of brothers who’d been in, not only in World War One, but Uncle Bernard had been in the Boer War as well [emphasis], and I remember sitting at his feet at our house and listening to his stories about the Boer War. One of them I’ll mention. At night time, they used to throw barbed wire entanglement around the troops because the Boers would perhaps attack them, and so they hung metal tin cans to the barbed wire which would sound an alarm if they were attacked, and they stacked the rifles ready just in case. And they were attacked, or at least they thought they were one night, the cans rattled on the fence, everybody leapt up, grabbed a rifle and began shooting in the direction of where the noise came from. And everything went quiet, and in the morning, when dawn broke, they found out what had happened. The mule that carried the water for them had somehow stumbled into the fence, and now it was dead, shot dead. But, later on in life I realised what these camps, prison camps were like. When the Jews were later imprisoned in camps. But at that stage, [shuffling] we just [unclear] going from there. [Beep.]
JM: Tom, could you tell us what it was that lead to your enlisting in the Royal Air Force?
TC: Yes. When I was, when I was fifteen and a half, I left school. I learnt to do shorthand and typing, and I thought it would be jolly nice if I could become a newspaper reporter. But, I didn’t. I became, at that early age [chuckles] an assistant cashier for an inter, an international company. Erm, the erm, I’m just trying to think – [Beep.]
TC: I was working for this international mining company, and the war had started, of course, and we were all speculating, young people working there, what would we do when our time came to join up. Immediately I wanted to join the Air Force. The prospect of flying was far more interesting to me than firing at people from a trench [emphasis]. So I must confess, it was excitement of the prospect of flying in aeroplanes that I thought of. And, it sounded much cleaner and scientific and everything else. That’s why I wanted to join the Air Force. And, when I went to be interviewed, by the authorities when I approached them I was eighteen years of age, they rather talked – I wanted to be a pilot, but they said ‘we’ve got a better job for you in the Air Force than being a pilot,’ I said ‘oh, how’d’ya work that out?’ They said ‘well you sit next to the pilot, you won’t be called the pilot, you’d be called a flight engineer, but you’ll be able to take part in operating this aeroplane, and you’ll be an engineer as well [emphasis]. So, that’s a very important role.’ So I said, ‘jolly good, I’ll do that.’ Up till then, the only thing I could do was mend punctures on a bicycle. But they said ‘don’t worry about that, you’ll be trained.’ So in due course of course I was called up, and I was trained at, I remember going to [pause] to, I think it was, it was, I think it was Mablethorpe I think it was, were we did our ground training. Drill and all that sort of thing. And this was where I met a guy called Ken Cameron, who became a friend of mine, a wartime [emphasis] of mine. Dear Ken was killed in the Air Force later on, but we were in it together. Everything [emphasis] we did together, Ken and I, Ken Cameron. He came from Scotland, he came from, he lived in Scotland, and [pause] we were at a dance I remember, at Mablethorpe, it was a very hot day, and we had the ice cream man outside. So we went downstairs to buy an ice cream, and ran slap bang into the arms of a, Warrant Officer Bloomfield, a flight sergeant, a sergeant and a corporal. Well, the outcome of all of that was the warrant officers taking the name of flight sergeant, taking the names of the flight sergeant, taking the names of sergeant, and the corporal, and took our names, and we were marched in and put on jankers for a week, scrubbing pans and all the rest of it. And Ken and I were also having to march up and down and round with a log held on one shoulder each, [unclear]. Anyway, it was a very interesting period. And eventually we went down on the first course of training, which was to be [pause, beep].
TC: So, after the misery [emphasis] of scrubbing all the pans clean, then it became the business of getting us prepared us for flying. And we, we did a course down at RAF Locking, in Holton, and then onto the actual course itself, down at South Wales, at, erm –
JM: [Whispers] St Athan. [Louder] St Athan.
TC: Holton.
Other: St Athan.
JM: St Athan.
TC: St Athan, rather. At St Athans. Erm, [pause] I must say this about the training, if I may. The training in the Royal Air Force, and all the other services I guess, must be the best training in the world, because if you didn’t understand a certain thing, they stayed with you until you did understand it. And in the end, of course, came the day when passed out, and we were sewed on our sergeants wings. That was tremendous. Tremendous. After that we were given some leave, and Ken Cameron, my friend I mentioned earlier on, instead of going all the way up north to Scotland in those forty-eight hours, he came home to Yorkshire with me, and spent a weekend at our house. That was tremendous. And our friendship blossomed [?]. We went back to, we trained then, as, with a crew – we had to be crewed up then. And we went to a place in Yorkshire called Lindholme, and I remember entering this room – how we even saw [emphasis] one another I don’t know. It was absolutely filled with smoke, everybody was smoking their cigarettes, and I was smoking too. But this guy came in, this officer came in, and said he would leave it to us to get crewed up. There were pilots in the room milling around, with air gunners and navigators, and they were all looking for a flight engineer to finish the, to finish the crew off. And a pilot came to me and said ‘would you like to be flight engineer in my crew?’ And I said ‘yes.’ I joined with them and it was terrific, that we were allowed to choose to fly with the people we wanted, we felt we wanted to fly with. So, I said ‘who’s that guy then?’ And someone says ‘oh it must have been a shrink’ [chuckles]. But it was very clever, I think, to be left to choose our own friends to work with. So, that’s how I became part of a Lancaster crew.
JM: What did you think of the Lancaster as an aeroplane to fly in?
TC: Well, we originally trained on a – it was a Halifax, which I thought was a very good aircraft. And then, halfway through the course on the Halifax, we were told we were going to fly Lancasters. And I thought the Lancaster was absolutely terrific [emphasis]. I was so interested, I knew every [emphasis] nut and bolt in that aircraft. I really, I really did. In fact, that’s how I gained my commission through knowledge of the Lancaster. I remember, we were posted then from this place to 100 Squadron at Waltham, and I remember the name of the group captain, Group Captain Newbiggin, and Wing Commander Patterson was the wing commander, I remember them both, and after – it’s very interesting to recall how, what happened when we arrived on the squadron. The [unclear] said ‘you go and see the [unclear – maybe wing commander] now boys,’ he said ‘you give us a buzz and you can go in and see him.’ Okay, we waited for the buzz, and eventually the buzz came, and we marched into his room and saluted. But to our surprise he wasn’t sitting down there to welcome us, he was lying flat out on a long table, and he was wearing, on this hot day, it’s true, he was wearing his overcoat [emphasis]. Somebody said to me, whisper, ‘he’s flak happy.’ Flak happy? [emphasis]. So he said – he told us he was going to take us on our first trip – second dicky. And we duly left. And the [unclear] saw us coming out with these long faces. Second dicky was – he was suffering from, obviously, flak happy, he laughed, he said ‘he’s not flak happy at all,’ he said ‘the reason he’s lying on that table is occasionally because he had a crash landing after doing so many ops, it’s affected his back and he has to lie on his back for a while,’ and the reason he was wearing that overcoat, he says ‘it’s just arrived this morning for him, and he was trying it on when his back went’ [JM laughs] ‘so he really is very, very good.’ And he says ‘the last time you’ll see Wing Commander Patterson flying around on his bicycle,’ and truly that did happen. But nevertheless, after a period of small cross countries to check out our navigator, who incidentally was a Canadian, we were declared fit to go. I was very happy with my pilot – I remember my first time we did a most wonderful landing together in training. The way that he looked at me and I looked at him, it was smashing, it was. So we went on our first op. I just can’t remember what [unclear]. Anyway, it was, it was somewhere in France I think, just my memory, and I remember the wing commander was flying in my skipper’s seat, he was sitting next to me. My skipper was sitting in my [emphasis] seat next to the wing commander, and I was sitting on a little rumple [?] seat at the side. Anyway, I reminded him at twelve thousand feet that he had to put oxygen on, so we all did oxygen, and everyone said yes they were receiving their oxygen, and as we approached France I saw, it was like kiddie’s sparklers, up in the air, and the wing commander says ‘don’t worry about that, light flak is, is, only goes up about twelve thousand feet, don’t worry about it.’ So we didn’t worry about it, and he said ‘I’ll explain what the heavy flak looks like when we get there.’ And, on we went. And suddenly, a searchlight came on, and began, and swept towards us, and he said ‘now, if a searchlight comes on like that to us, you have to do a corkscrew,’ and he described what to do, and he said ‘this is what we do,’ he says ‘you dive through [emphasis] it, you don’t run away from it, you dive through it.’ And then he had difficulty finding it again, well we dove through it, and the searchlight went out, it must have been faulty or something, but anyway we got the idea that you did a corkscrew through an aircraft beam, and you dived through it not away from it. So we thought that was very good training, I was very pleased with Wing Commander Patterson, by then. ‘Cause what we’d done, we’d called him Harpic, you know [JM laughs], clean round the bend [both laugh]. His nickname was Harpic as far as we were concerned, and he never, never escaped that name, but he was known with affection from now on as Harpic. Eventually, we saw what he’d been talking about, this heavy flak, I was rather frightened I must say, because the heavy flak, it lit up the sky with a flash as big as a motorbus. A fla – but out of it you can see big black pieces flying out of it, so we said ‘that’s heavy flak.’ Yeah. Well we had to keep on, with flying [?] and we got to approach the target with the heavy flak pounding away. I didn’t see any aircraft actually getting hit that night, but I thought, as bombs went, you know, I heard ‘bombs away,’ my foot [foot shuffles on the floor] felt peculiar [emphasis]. It had been hit up and down, I thought ‘God, I’ve been hit already,’ first trip! I didn’t tell anybody, I took off my flying glove, I put my hand down my flying boot and stocking, and tasted my hand to see if it was blood. Nothing there. And it wasn’t till a moment or two later, I thought ‘I know what it is.’ I’d been standing on a bomb slip cover. A bomb slip cover is a small piece of metal with a clip that you could pull out with your hand in case the bomb wasn’t released mechanically, you could release it by hand, and this had rattled of course under my foot when bombs were released. So I never told anyone about that, I kept that to myself. Then, on, on our – we landed back safely of course, and we were debriefed, and after briefing we went back to our place, and we were all sergeants at that stage apart from Jack Slater, the Canadian, ex-mounted [?] policeman, a bomb aimer, Goody navigator, a Canadian, he was an officer, pilot or flying officer – both, they were both flying officers, and our pilot, he was a flying officer as well. So our mid upper gunner was a chap called Robinson, and when I say we called him Robbo, we did, because he was a Czecho-Slovakian Jew I think, we could, nobody, nobody knew exactly where he came from, but he was a fantastic gunner, and we put up with him because of that really, although he couldn’t speak. We said ‘why [emphasis] Robbo, did you call yourself Robinson?’ He says ‘well, if we were shot down,’ he says,’ I give ‘em my name, rank and number, my name’s Robinson,’ he said ‘they’d think I was an Englishman.’ [Chuckles.] A Britain, oh dear, oh dear. Anyway, that was Robbie. But he had a little grammar phone, did Robbie, that he carried about with him, and in this Nissan hut where we were sleeping, it was a thin walled hut, made of metal, thin metal war hut, and you could hear the rats moving around in these thin walls, and Robbie and, erm, well he didn’t sleep very well to begin with bemuse, well we were still thinking about the trip, but eventually we, everybody fell asleep except Robbie, who got out, took out his little grammar phone and sat beside the stove in the, the stove in the middle of the room, and began to play records. ‘Shoo Shoo Baby’ was one of them, and what was the other one now, ‘Shoo Shoo Baby’ and [unclear], and another one, ‘Let’s Take the ‘A’ Train.’ And as the ‘A’ train went faster and faster I have to say it inspired the rats [emphasis] to move faster and faster [laughter] it’s amazing really, its true. The rats seemed to wake up and run faster as the ‘A’ Train was playing. Eventually Robbie got tired too, went to bed and fell asleep. I don’t know how long we’d been sleeping, but we were awake at – I woke up, I could hear somebody moving about the room very quietly – this is true – and what it was, there were people coming in, and there was one crew who hadn’t come back, and what they were doing, they were cleaning the bed spaces out from that and making it ready for the crew who were coming in the next day [emphasis] to take their place. So, that made me think, I’ll tell you, because I never ever [emphasis] thought I would die. I was – and all the young people I’m sure who flew, thought the same as me, they were too young to die. And so I was never really frightened very much. I always thought I’d get out of it. But anyway, we did a couple more ops, and by that time, we were legendary [chuckles]. We were the people who’d done three operations, and Group Captain Newbiggin, the group captain said to my pilot ‘do you mind if I borrow Sergeant Carroll and the wireless operator? I got so many hours to do every month to keep in touch, and I’d like to borrow them.’ So, the pilot couldn’t refuse the groupie [chuckles]. So off we went, and he was a nice, he was a lovely station commander [cough, followed by beep]. Group Captain Newbiggin was a, was a marvellous fellow really, I thought he was terrific, and we did about an hours’ training together, and we came back alright, and we said ‘we’ll have to do that again.’ And I thought ‘yes, if we’re not, [laughs] if we’re still here.’ At least, that’s what Mitch said to me, ‘that’s if we’re still alive.’ But we didn’t mean it seriously, we thought we’d go on forever. Anyway, I went up with him this next time, and we’d been flying around doing all sorts of [uclear] flying and all the rest of it, flying one-three [?] and all the rest of it, and then I noticed that our air pressure was going down, very rapidly [emphasis]. ‘Oh.’ He said ‘what’s wrong, Sergeant Carroll?’ I said ‘there’s something wrong, sir, our air pressure’s going down, we’ve got to do something about it because we’ll go off the runway be – we can’t land without any air pressure.’ He says, ‘can you do anything about it?’ I said ‘if I find where it is that, I can repair it.’ I was confident I could fix it. So I thought ‘I’ll check, I’ll check it first of all on the source,’ so I swung down into the bomb aimer’s compartment, and in the bomb aimer’s compartment on the port side was a container for compressed air, and I could hear, even with a flying helmet on, I could hear it’s ‘ssss,’ ‘ssss.’ The noise coming out, escaping. And it was, there was a loose connection on the pipe as it turned into a curve. A little gland had become adrift. So I did as all good flight engineers would do, I took out the chewing gum from out my mouth, stuck it round, I got some binding tape out of my bag, wound it round and that was a job done [emphasis]. So I got back again into my seat, he says ‘that was quick work, what was it?’ And I told him, he says ‘well that’s a story I can tell the wing commander flying tonight.’ And it was a short while after that I became a flying officer [laughter]. And, or I’m pretty sure it was because of the chewing gum and this tape.
JM: Would I be right in thinking it would have been quite unusual to have a commissioned flight engineer?
TC: Oh it was, yes. I was, I didn’t know any.
JM: No, I’ve never heard of any others.
TC: No, I was. There were others though, of course. But, later on in the war there were quite a few. But I was probably one of the first, I think. So [pause], oh there was Mitch, the wireless op who had been with me, he spread it about he said, ‘if it hadn’t have been for Tom,’ he said ‘we wouldn’t have been here today, we would have been off the end of the runway.’ So he said ‘we’re gonna take him out tonight, and we’re going on the razzle.’ And it coincided that – there had been a clampdown, and it coincided with a very special girl appearing on the stage. And she was the girl who appeared in all the new, in one of the newspapers, of Daily Mirror fame. Jane.
JM: Jane.
TC: And she was there at this theatre [emphasis] in Grimsby. Well, we all got there after several – I must say, I think we were a bit sloshed, and they came on the stage, she came on the stage, and of course the spotlight fell on us because we were in uniform, she’s, she said she wanted someone to help her, and of course the crew grabbed me, threw me onto the stage [laughs] and I was, I had to do a high kicks competition together with the rest of these, along with these little legged girls. And I with my short fat legs couldn’t kick very high. But nevertheless she gave me a huge big kiss afterwards as a reward, and it was a big greasy patent [?] kiss [JM laughs]. My lips and everywhere were smudged red. I got back to my seat and I began to wipe my face with a handkerchief, and the crew said ‘don’t you dare throw that away’ [JM laughs], you see. And the flight engineer was always the last one to get onto the aircraft. He got the final checks to do before takeoff. So the bomb aimer got on first, wouldn’t go up the steps until he’d kissed the handkerchief belonging to Jane. And that became the ritual, the whole of our trips. First he did it to Bill the pilot, then the navigator, then the wireless operator, mid upper gunner, then there was Mitch, the rear gunner. They all kissed this, we wouldn’t do anything – it’s crazy [emphasis] I know [JM laughs] –
JM: Not at all. A little.
TC: But that’s what kept people going during the war, these crazy things. So that was that –
JM: That –
TC: I don’t know what happened to that handkerchief in the end. But somehow it disappeared. I don’t know where it went, but it was, sometime after the war I think, sometime [chuckles].
JM: By now you’re operating in the summer of 1944 and it’s about the time of D-Day.
TC: Oh –
JM: Could you, could you tell us a little bit about –
TC: Yes.
JM: Your experiences of operating around D-Day?
TC: Yes. Well there were two things really. What we were really, we were a bit afraid of was the Ruhr. The Ruhr, we called it Happy Valley because there were fighters waiting for you before you went in, fighters waiting when you went out and on either side of the Ruhr there was big eighty-eight millimetre guns, and we were told on this occasion, oh we knew it was the Ruhr again, ‘don’t worry boys, we’ve got a crew going up the side of the coast dropping window. The night fighters will be there, and by the time they find it’s a ruse, they’ll be short of fuel and they’ll need to go back again, so you’ll be okay.’ Not on, somebody must have told the Germans about it, and I saw more aircraft shot down that night – there must have been about twelve [emphasis] I think I saw, and what, what was happening was, they were waiting for us approaching the Ruhr, what they couldn’t shoot down they somehow – well we had to get into the Ruhr to go – shepherd us, it was like shepherding us into a pen. And we went on like this, and we were supposed to be radio silenced of course, from the crew, but honestly this is true, a little voice spoke up, and it was of a Lancashire or Yorkshire voice I couldn’t tell, and it says ‘please God, let me get back from this one, and I’ll be good to Ethel.’ That, well, we don’t know who it was, we don’t know who Ethel was, and we don’t know whether, if he got back to be good to her or not, but that’s what I remember of that one. I remember some very, very brave things too. But, let me tell you about a couple of things then I’ll get onto D-Day. There was one time we were flying, and I remember Wing Commander Patterson telling us about doing a corkscrew through the, through the searchlights, and on this occasion, a searchlight took a lucky strike on an aircraft. We were at twenty-thousand feet, this must have been a bit higher, and it fell flat on this Lanc, illuminated this Lancaster, seven people in it, they knew all about diving this way and that way and corkscrewing, but it was like slow-motion [emphasis] in this searchlight, and then climbing up this beam, was MU109, and just, it got so far, you could see it, and just like a kid’s sparkle came from it, and the next thing was, the poor old Lanc blew up, never to be seen, a dark [emphasis] space where it had been, seven people in a Lancaster had been, and that was the end of that. That really did make us think, that one. And the other one that I remember vividly, was we hadn’t got H2SR, radar in our aeroplane at the time, and the MCs, Master of Ceremonies, were marvellous people, they were like commenting on a cricket match. ‘Right-o chaps, that’s bang on, lovely, now, instead of bombing the reds, bomb the greens, bomb the greens [emphasis], lovely, spot on.’ And off they went. And these people were fantastic in the, when they were marking a target, they were so brave [emphasis], I thought. This Lancaster, it was a Lancaster, because I heard him afterwards bailing his crew out, they were flying about twelve-thousand feet, they were shot at from every direction, and they were hit, and he bailed out his crew, and the engineer went last out of it, [unclear] was going out of it, but he was still talking when the plane blew up. And the deputy then came in and he [emphasis] then started talking just as though the other chap had been there. Yeah I’ve never ever experienced such bravery as I’ve seen in the Air Force. People just ignoring death completely. It was, it was, things I could never forget it, never ever forget it. So, that was that. And I’m going to explain about D-Day. It was decided that the thing to do, we’d been bombing all the railway tracks, marshalling yards, all that sort of thing, and we’re doing this on this particular occasion. And we seemed to be getting no flak hardly, no night-fighters, it was dead easy [emphasis]. Anyway, amazing, ‘keep a good look out for something, something’s going to happen.’ So we headed back home and then we were looking down into the early hours of the morning, I saw a number of ships, I’ve never seen so many ships in my life. They were, it was, you know, it was D-Day I was witnessing, fantastic. And off we went, and we were told at debriefing that was what it was. The other thing I remember about flying are the V-Bombs, you know, and we could see our fighters fling past us, to go and shoot down these [unclear]. Fantastic, well just before, just towards the end of the war, of course, you’ll remember the [pause], Holland was flooded. The dykes had been opened, and the poor people were flooded up to the rooftops, practically. And the RAF Bomber Command was asked if we could help. And 100 Squadron was taking part in, it was called Operation Manna. Oh off we went, I’d been twice, and we flew, we seemed to be just grazing the rooftops, dropping parcels of food and water, and children no older I would say than eight or nine, they were running along the rooftops like cats [emphasis] catching these, and having fun and catching these things before they could fall, drift into the water. And I remember the bomb aimer Jack Slater saying to me, he says ‘one thing Tom,’ he says ‘it’s far better dropping food and water than dropping bombs isn’t it?’ And I had to agree. And I thought about that when I was with him a short while afterwards. The war was over, and we were doing a three day trip to Germany to see the extent of damage. We didn’t want to go really, but somehow or another we had drawn lots or something and we had to go. And, it was, we were staying – we landed at Gatto [?] airport, we were duly met by a German chauffeur who drove us to, I think it was a Yugoslav Embassy really –
JM: This was in Berlin?
TC: In Berlin. And it was a magnificent, I had never been in such an opulent place. It was wonderful [emphasis]. And the food, drink, everything, fantastic. There was even someone there who looked and sang like Lili Marleen, woman who sang like Lili Marleen. And there was a member, there was an army officer there, I knew, I got to know him, he was a French Canadian I think, and he was sitting at a table, there were no other girls there, and we were all young and wanted to dance to the little orchestra that was there, and he was sitting with about eight most beautiful [emphasis] looking girls, they were all French or, different nationalities, they were all in opposite uniforms, but they were all beautiful. So Jack said to me and Goody, ‘you’re, you’re a good dancer Tommy. Go and ask him, ask him if he can, if we can dance with the girls.’ So I had a couple more drinks and I ventured over to him, and I said ‘excuse me sir, do you mind if I danced with one of your retinue’ or something, he said ‘yes,’ he looked at me, he was about six-foot-seven I think, a big heavy looking fella, and he said ‘but you will bring her straight back won’t you?’ That, it was the way he looked at me frightened me to death [laughter from TC and JM]. More than all the trips I ever done [laugher]. Yeah, so I danced with this girl, and I do declare that I, that the space between my hips and her hips was about three foot [laughter]. I was dancing away from her. All I, and she said to me, ‘excuse me,’ she says ‘but have you been wounded?’ [Laughter] in a French voice. I took her back, and he said, he told me to sit next to him, and I did, I couldn’t really stop it and he had, I never tasted brandy before. And he had this big goblet there and he topped it up with brandy, and he drank that. He kept me there talking, took me nearly, told me what he was going to do, he said he’d make sure that Berlin was alright and turned around,’ and I thought ‘I bet he does too.’ [Laughter.] He was so fierce, I thought ‘it’s bound to do what he wants.’ And that was, the first night |I think we’d stayed there. And on the second day Jack Slater and I decided to go down to the Birches [?] Garden, to try and see the Reichstag rather because that’s where the Germans were going with their valuables to try and get the new currency to try and buy food with. So Jack and I went along there with our packed lunches, and on the way we saw this girl, she had a baby in her arms, and she was so young looking and frail, and she indicated she was hungry. Jack and I promptly gave her our sandwiches for which she thanked us profusely, and then I remembered I had a tuppence-ha’penny bar of Fry’s chocolate in my pocket, which I took out and gave to her, and she give a bit to her baby, and I’ll never ever [emphasis] forget the look in that baby’s eyes, when it reached out for more. And I vowed [emphasis] at that time to myself ‘I’m never going to talk about war or have anything else to do with war after this lot, not now,’ not after seeing what happened in Germany, you know, what war had done. And I never did. I didn’t register with 100 Squadron, or 626 after this, or anything, I kept quiet, until I think we were talking about the war memorial in London.
JM: The Bomber Command memorial?
TC: Yes. And the Dutch had already done it for the, for us, but Winston Churchill or nobody else had ever done it for Bomber Command, which, that didn’t suit me at all. But anyway, the Gibbs brothers were very important, gave a lot of money towards it. And we went there, to the war memorial in London, and in fact I wrote an article about it which I sent to a colleague of yours about it, but on the way away Joyce was wheeling me in a wheelchair at the time, and one of the WAF officers said ‘oh, you mustn’t do that Mrs Carroll, plenty of big strong men here who can do that for you.’ And this fellow, he was about six foot odd, tall, and he had more medals than most of the RAF people there had on, and that’s because, although he hadn’t been flying, he’d been to Afghanistan I think three times, or was it six, I forget. And, as he wheeled me away, we stopped under a tree because it was very hot to get a bit of fresh air, and he says ‘my father was in the Air Force, you know, Flight [unclear] Carroll,’ I says ‘was he?’ ‘Yes, he was in Bomber Command.’ ‘Oh, what squadron was he on, do you know?’ ‘Yes, he was on 100 Squadron.’ Well, I says ‘really?’ And he pulled his bit of paper out of his pocket, and on the four, was it the fourteenth of March I think it was in 1944, he says he’d been on an operation, and Joyce, my wife, she pulled my operation book out of her handbag, and on the same date, we’d flown in different aircraft of course, to the same target. Well, he asked if he could take a photograph of me, and I strongly maintain, I know that the photograph he took, who he saw, was not me, it was his father. And he cried, we all cried didn’t we? Anyway, that was, that was the end of the war memorial there, and then I said that I wasn’t going to do anymore towards the Air Force or the RAF ever again. But, I thought later on, something at home happened –
Other: It’s okay – [beep]
TC: And then we came out, change of squadron. My partner [?] became squadron leader attached to 626 Squadron, Wickenby. We didn’t fly many operations there, we went, before war began, close to the end. I remember we went to Ludwigshafen, that was the twenty-fifth op that we did was Ludwigshafen, and we went to Dortmund in February, February of forty-five, [pause, shuffling papers]. And Cologne, we were at Cologne from 626, and then it, towards the end of the war, it became, the Dutch requested, they said the dykes had been opened, the rooftops were almost reached by floodwaters and would the RAF help. So we dropped, we went on the third of May 1945, we went to drop food in Holland. And again on the, I forget, it’s the second and third we went there dropped food for Holland. And I remember, we were flying over the rooftops, almost skimming the rooftops, and the kids were on the rooftops like cats [emphasis], just between the ages of say five and eight years of age, trying to grab the things before they landed in the water. Tremendous. And Jack, the granddaddy of the crew saying to me, ‘it’s far better dropping food and water than dropping bombs Tommy.’ And I had to agree with that.
JM: Did you take part in the operations to bring back the prisoners of war? Operation Exodus?
TC: Never brought – no, we didn’t take part in that, no. It’s after that, after we’d finished the operations, 626, the next thing I remember is being trained – what would it be after that? Oh no, yes, after we’d, the war ended, all I remember is everybody leaving and going to various homesteads. The Canadian people went back to Canada, Bill, he went back to Wales, still playing rugby [chuckles], breaking more bones I would have thought. I went – what happened to me? Eventually I went up to be trained as, I retrained as an air traffic control officer in the Air Force. And I was sent up to Scottish Command. That was a very interesting situation. All I remember was that we were responsible in the RAF for any, for the safety of aircraft, [unclear] air traffic control centre, Prestwick. We were responsible for the safety of all aircraft, military, civil, up to ten degrees west. Any other distance further west than that, that was the responsibility of America. And I remember, this particular room we had, we had our set up, it was fascinating really. It was about the size of this living room, and the wall I am facing now wasn’t a plaster wall, it was etched in glass. And on that glass was etched every airway and RAF station, main master airfields that we had, such as Kinross, Lochenrouse [?] and Leuchars and so on. And they had special equipment at these airfields, they had long runways to begin with, that was important. But they had a piece of equipment, that if an aircraft called ‘mayday’, or any other emergency, a light would shoot out, and it would emit a signal, would make a light shoot out on this etched glass board we’d got, and where the aircraft was deemed to be was where the light crossed in the cocked hat [?]. So there I was on this Saturday morning, sitting at my desk in charge of everything, on a Saturday, everything quiet, everything – nobody flew in the RAF on a Saturday in those days. And I was reading the Scotsman, feet up on the table, reading the Scotsman, having my coffee, I’d checked all around, the master airfield, everything fine, nothing to worry about. ‘Pan, pan, pan.’ This is so-and-so-so-and-so. I’ve got a flame out. I’m at thirty-thousand feet, heading from Abbotsinch up to Lossiemouth.’ Splash, coffee flew all over the place. I switched on what we called a gun in front of me, as a light shot out from, to form this cross up on the board. And what I’d got – we called it a gun but it flashed on there three hundred and sixty degrees of the compass on the board, which I could get a bearing on either transmitting into a course to steer, or they’d ring you showing distances, separating each wing with their [unclear]. So I was able to flash this gun onto the cocked hat [?], and see that this aircraft was in fact thirty miles from Leuchars, and he said, he was plunging down like a stone, it was no, it was a youthful voice, and I’m over forty of course by this time, experienced, he thinks ‘if I just get in touch with air traffic control, they’ll tell me what to do and I’ll be safe’ [emphasis]. He didn’t realise these things could go wrong. So ‘pan, pan, pan,’ so I get back to him, I forget his call sign, I said ‘you’re thirty miles east of, west of Leuchars. Turn right on the heading of zero-nine-zero,’ and he did that, and I knew the runway of course zero-nine-two-seven, main runway, and I pressed a switch on the controller at Leuchars came on, ‘what is it Tom?’ I said ‘I’ve got one for you, a flame out,’ he said ‘oh crikey.’ He says ‘I’ve put people on painting the runway.’ I says ‘well you get them off, quickly else because he’s got a flame out and he’s gonna,’ – ‘hang onto him if you can.’ So ‘I’ll hang onto him as long as I can’ I said, and of course the lower the poor chap got, the less these lights shone out from these respective airfields, until the end of it the only light I’d got on was the one from Leuchars. And as he approached Leuchars of course, he’s now getting low, he’s twenty-thousand feet descending, less than that, and then the light at Leuchars began to twiddle and, oh. I knew it was hoped, he was over the top of Leuchars by this time. So I maintained his heading out onto zero-nine-zero, timed him for a few seconds, turned inbound [?] two-seven-zero, and he broke cloud at seven thousand feet and saw runway straight ahead, he said [emphasis, JM laughs]. And the controller came in at that point and said ‘runway clear Tom.’ I said ‘well, he’s just landing now.’ That little chap phoned, he phoned back to thank me afterwards, but little did he know what a close shave he’d had. And I remembered a similar thing in Germany, I was doing air traffic control in Germany, and I was at Gutersloh, which happened to be Herman Goering’s airfield [emphasis], and you’ve never seen anything like that airfield. Perfect. No running around bits and pieces there boy, fifteen hundred weights and things like that, all by railway. Bomb dump [?], fuel, everything [emphasis] by rail. And I was sitting in the control, doing approach control on this particular occasion, with a CRDF tube in front of me, you know what I’m saying don’t you?
JM: I did, yes. Say it, would you say it for the, for the recording?
TC: Yes, yes. CRDF tube it’s – whenever an aircraft speaks to me on the frequency that we’re on, a light will shoot out from the CRDF tube and it will point to, and I can get either a steer for it to come to our airfield, or I can tell him where it is, where it is on the tube. Whereabouts it is. So that’s a CRDF tube, I hope I’ve explained that alright.
JM: You have. All these experiences that you’ve had as an air controller were after the war?
TC: Yes. Yes, this, this was after the war. But the RAF was strong, was very strong in Germany at this time because the Cold War on [?] with Russia. Anyway, there’d been a clampdown on at, I forget what squadron it was, but they’d been operating fighters from there. We were opping Canberras from where I was, there were Canberras. They took part in Suez, the Canberras from [unclear] airfield. I mean I could go on for hours about what happened there. But anyway, what happened was they diverted, I think it was eighteen, or was it twenty-four aircraft, to Gutersloh, where I was sitting in the chair there, and that was the most fantastic job. The people in a caravan at the end of the runway at that stage could talk them down, but it’s a longer job. You had to be really smart and quick to get people down in a hurry. So, it, I was absolutely thrilled by this opportunity to get them down. It was, I forget what it was, there was a green flight, a red flight and whatsoever [?], so many aircraft in each [unclear] stacked up, all above one another all coming in. And I took one after the other, one squadron after, one flight after another to bring them in. And I brought them in over, overhead [?] turned them out [?] parked them in [?], smack down the middle of the runway, then the second lot did the same. And of course, while you got this sort of thing going on, you’ve got the group captain to wing commander flying, all the, all the high persons [?] there, and of course I was congratulated afterwards by everybody. That was a tremendous thrill.
JM: That’s a, that’s remarkable. But I know that there’s another remarkable element to your career, which is that you’re now an author, writing about your experiences. Could you tell us a little bit about that please?
TC: Well, yes. I, I used to tell my grandchildren stories at night. I used to go, if I was babysitting with my wife, I would go and take, lie on the bed next to them, falling asleep myself [laughing] and make up a story to tell them. And they were so impressed by these stories, that in the end they said ‘Grandad, why don’t you write them down?’ And of course I did, and I wrote a story about wizards first, ‘The Angry Witch,’ ‘Witch’s Revenge,’ and ‘Witches on the Run.’ And they were the first three, and the next one I wrote about was ‘Somebody’s Kidnapped Santa.’ And the last one I wrote about is a solar powered dog, and that’s waiting for, I’m doing a sequel to that one, and I’ve got to do a sequel to another [emphasis] one I’ve wrote as well, which is ‘Smoke, Magic and Dust.’ Now ‘Smoke, Magic and Dust’ means something to me. I was out with my granddad, I mentioned him earlier on, and he said to me, on one of our walks, that life was only smoke, magic and dust. I was too young to understand what he meant by that, but the words ‘smoke, magic and dust’ remain with me, and always will remain with me.
JM: And that book is about your RAF service in part?
TC: Part. In, in book two it’s, yes. It leads up to the part where I joined the Royal Air Force. And everything in it, about the flying, training and the operations are all true, absolutely true. The only thing that’s slightly different is I’ve had to change the names slightly, about Jack Slater and Goody because, well, they did certain things and it’s better that they were private. So, some of the things I wrote about them aren’t true. Everything else is true, except when I went to college, there was a German girl that came to visit us at this college, this is true, and she spoke about Hitler and Germany and all the rest of it, she was a beautiful girl too, I fell in love with her, I was fifteen, and I wondered how on earth I was going to get her to talk to me. And I knew that if I could, and she was staying over Christmas, she would come to the Christmas Dance at the college, we always had one. So I thought, ‘well I wonder how I’m going’ – and then I remembered the Hitler planes, and the other fascist planes that had bombed Guernica. So I said to her ‘what did you think about Guernica?’ And the teacher at that time, he was called, he was called – he was a nice guy, but he was, he was annoyed with me. He said ‘you mustn’t ask questions like that Carroll. I’m surprised at you.’ Because, she didn’t answer. I knew she is [unclear] at home, and it turned out, so I kept quiet. But I knew she looked at me and she knew what I’d said about Guernica, and it came out that she was going to serve at Christmas and come to our dance, and she did come to the dance, and I got her to dance with me. All the boys were lined up one side of the gym, and all the girls along the other, and the teachers I know were putting bets on who would move with her [?]. And they said ‘well nobody will move,’ so I thought ‘well I’ll move,’ when they said, and they told us what to say, ‘please may I have the next dance with you?’ [Laughs] Joyce, my wife will tell you about that later. But, so I went, I broke ranks walked over, and said ‘please may I have this next dance with you?’ So we danced together. And we became quite friendly all the time she was there. But when, then when it was over she went back to Germany, and that was the end of that. But in the book, I kept her in my book that we kept in contact with one another, and, she came back on a further holiday and became more than friends. And so, during the war I never mentioned this to the crew. But in the book, I’m so concerned about ‘are we bombing her?’ Wondering if she’s alright and what will, what will happen to her. But you’ll, it’s all mentioned in the book.
JM: Tom, thank you very much. I think that would be a very appropriate place to finish the recording. Tom Carroll, thank you so much for sharing with us all your memories so clearly, so vividly, it’s been a very, very interesting interview. Thank you.
TC: Thank you.
JM: Wow.
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ACarrollT160418
PCarrollT1601
Title
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Interview with Thomas Carroll
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:14:31 audio recording
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Date
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2016-04-18
Description
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Tom joined the Royal Air Force as a flight engineer. He did his ground training at Mablethorpe, followed be a course at RAF Locking and RAF St. Athan. Tom speaks highly of the training he received. He went to RAF Lindholme where they crewed up as part of a Lancaster crew, although they originally started on Halifaxes.
Tom was posted to 100 Squadron at RAF Grimsby. He pays tribute to the wing commander and group captain. The former taught them to corkscrew and dive through a searchlight, reassuring them about flak. Shortly after sorting out a problem with the air pressure, Tom became a flying officer. He recounts the crew’s ritual on each flight with a lucky handkerchief.
Tom explains how they were anxious about the Ruhr and how they observed a Lancaster shot down by a Me 109. He also describes the bravery he witnessed. Tom noticed a huge number of ships coming back from a raid on marshalling yards and railway tracks; it was for D-Day. He was involved in Operation Manna, dropping food parcels in Holland.
Towards the end of the war, Tom moved to 626 Squadron at RAF Wickenby. They flew to Ludwigshafen, Dortmund and Cologne.
When war ended, Tom retrained as an air traffic controller in the Air Force. He was sent up to Scottish Command and describes a couple of incidents. He became an author, writing children’s books and about his RAF experiences.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Cologne
Netherlands
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
Contributor
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Katie Gilbert
Sally Coulter
100 Squadron
626 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crewing up
flight engineer
Halifax
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Me 109
memorial
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
promotion
RAF Grimsby
RAF Lindholme
RAF St Athan
RAF Wickenby
searchlight
superstition
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/212/3351/ABlackhamCP161023.1.mp3
41156d573a080b43ea5fb588daf52a1f
Dublin Core
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Title
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Blackham, Charles Philip
Charles Philip Blackham
Charles P Blackham
Charles Blackham
C P Blackham
C Blackham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Charles Philip Blackham (1923 - 2019, 1624693 Royal Air Force). He flew operations with 550 Squadron.
The was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-23
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.
Identifier
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Blackham, CP
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin, the interviewee is Mister Philip Blackham. The interview is taking place at [deleted] Cheshire, on the 23rd of October 2016. Philip, good afternoon.
PB: Good afternoon.
JM: Could I ask you to tell us a little bit about your family background, where you were born and brought up and where you went to school?
PB: Well, I went to Stockport School, which is a well-known secondary school in Stockport on the main Wellington road going south out of the town and I was there for four years and I rose from being seventeenth in the class to top of the class. Amazing because they decided to honour my parents who’d paid for me to go to the school, I hadn’t won a scholarship so I went on to be top of the class to my absolute amazement, sharing that top position with another young man in the class of twenty or thirty cadets and pupils and I got my school certificate with a distinction in art, believe it or not, and physics.
JM: So you have some science and maths in your background.
PB: Yes, I was a hopeless failure at chemistry. Otherwise I passed in everything.
JM: And what had you thought you would do with your life, had you got a choice of career in mind?
PB: I thought I was gonna be a priest at one stage but it didn’t happen, it didn’t go on in that direction. I became an apprentice in mechanical engineering at a very big and famous diesel engine company called Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day, a very, very wonderful firm which I had greatly admired and it’s just been dismantled in the last twelve months.
JM: And had you started your apprenticeship before the war began?
PB: No, the war was already starting, I think. I hope I’m right about that because I can’t be absolutely certain.
JM: Had you got any experience of flying? Had you ever thought of joining the Royal Air Force when you were at school?
PB: No, no, I hadn’t, no. I just wanted to get into the services cause there was a war on and my father had fought in the Great War and become very lame so I had to stand for [unclear] his good example, he was still alive and hobbling from war wounds in his legs.
JM: So you perhaps didn’t feel to join the Army but perhaps the RAF was a choice.
PB: Well, I had no interest in the Army whatsoever. The Air Force interested me because it was aeroplanes and petrol engines where of tremendous interest to me.
JM: So, your interest in engineering was really a factor of perhaps you becoming a flight engineer
PB: Oh yes, yes. I also became an engineer, I took the engineering qualifications at Barry, South Wales.
JM: Right. When you were in the RAF.
PB: Yeah, qualifying, after qualifying as a pilot, took the engineering degree as well.
JM: Right.
PB: And I still got the certificates.
JM: Let’s go back a bit. What age were you when you joined the RAF?
PB: About seventeen or eighteen.
JM: Seventeen or eighteen. Had you seen anything of the air raids against Manchester or Liverpool?
PB: Yes, yes, we had a bomb in our own garden in Stockport, a district known as Edgeley and this was a plane that was dumping its bombs I think and the neighbour tried to throw a sandbag on a firebomb and while he went to fetch another sandbag because the first one burst, a high explosive bomb dropped, about as near as that wall there.
JM: That must have done a lot of damage.
PB: And I had me motorbike, I was, I must have been seventeen cause the motorcycle at the time had been inverted so I could fit a bicycle dynamo to it, cause it wasn’t an electrical motorbike, it had an acetylene light, 1929 model, I was very fond of it, it was a lovely thing and I got it going extremely well, used to take people out on it, going horse riding in the country in Cheshire. All over the place on a 1929 Raleigh motorbike so I was fond of engines.
JM: Right.
PB: And I had totally rebuild that engine myself. So I was going to be an engineer and I was and in due course became the chief, something, the title for my position in Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day, [pauses] I’ve forgotten the title.
JM: Doesn’t matter.
PB: I had a big title for the whole of Europe at London office, they moved me from Hazel Grove, Stockport to the west side of London.
JM: I imagine you could probably have stayed in that company during the war as a reserved occupation.
PB: Yes, they were trying to reserve me and I wanted to get out to it and get into the services.
JM: Why did you think so strongly to, that you wanted to join up?
PB: I wanted to be in the action because the war was at its worst at the time, at the time of the Blitz and the bombing.
JM: So, we’re in 1940, the summer and the autumn of 1940.
PB: Yes, I can’t see you very clearly by the way, there is a very bright light behind you. I don’t know whether the curtains could be closed, could they, just to reduce the strength of the light, that’s a good idea, thank you.
JM: What did your family say when you told them that you were going to sign up?
PB: Nothing. They just, they accepted it, there was a war.
JM: Did you have brothers perhaps, at all, older brothers?
PB: Yes, my brother came with me into the Air Force, my older brother and he was recruited, conscripted, I volunteered, so I could be with him,that was how it happened.
JM: Right. Do you remember where you went to enrol?
PB: Oh, I’d been in the Home Guard already, by the way, I had no interest in the Army, I had been a Dad’s Army member, a very happy one too and I used to walk home down our road from the Headquarters of the Home Guard to my house carrying a rifle and ammunition. That wouldn’t be allowed now, would it?
JM: No, it wouldn’t.
PB: At my young age and I had the amazing experience of being told, if you don’t stop asking stupid questions you’re gonna be thrown out of this lecture room. That was what the Commanding Officer said to me.
JM: And what were the stupid questions you were asking?
PB: Oh, just quizzing him about things he was lecturing us on, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you exactly.
JM: Well, they weren’t stupid questions if you were, seeking clarification.
PB: They weren’t stupid questions, they were questions about six rounds, rapid fire between yonder bushy top trees,that was the sort of terminology. And I became a Home Guard driver eventually, that’s another thing that levered me towards being a motorist. I knew how to drive but hadn’t driven, so I got myself into headquarters where the, there’s an Armoury in Stockport, a major building for military purposes called the Armoury, and I got myself recruited there as a driver and took a party of Great War veterans with their respirators and tin hats to a village nearby, name was Marple, in snow and ice, and I’d never driven before ever [emphasises] on the roads, but I had a motorbike, so I knew what the rules of the roads were, this 1929 Raleigh which was my pride and joy incidentally and got myself to Marple which is a very, very hilly area and I was stupid enough to get the passengers to get out and push instead of bouncing as I should have done up the steep hill called Brabyns Brow.
JM: Let’s go on with your time with the Royal Air Force. Do you remember where you went to enrol and what happened to you once you joined?
PB: I went to Manchester to enrol, was immediately accepted, I was fit and well and very thrilled about going into the Air Force.
JM: And where did you receive your initial training?
PB: Cambridge University.
JM: Was it?
PB: Would you believe that? Wasn’t I lucky? In St John’s College, Cambridge, which is a very famous college
JM: It is.
PB: And had a very famous choir.
JM: It has.
PB: And I was there in the ancient buildings on the river Cam.
JM: And were you receiving basic military training there or was this aircrew?
PB: Yes, Air Force engineering and stars and sky and [glider]
JM: How long were you there for, do you remember?
PB: Twelve months.
JM: Twelve months.
PB: And I was living in the college building and even got, for some silly reason a friend & I decided we would sleep out in the quadrangle one night and we were, some students were also in the college, they carted us off into a far corner of the quadrangle where we couldn’t easily get back into our quarters and the rain came and the [unclear – could be “sirens”] went all at the same time.
JM: I imagine there were plenty of examinations, weren’t there, as you were being trained?
PB: Oh yes, they were.
JM: And how did you do with those examinations?
PB: Probably still got the books if the truth be known.
JM: Really? Yes?
PB: I’ve certainly got my brother’s books.
JM: Did you pass the examinations well?
PB: Oh yes, I had to do that.
JM: And what happened to you when that course of training was complete? Where did you go next?
PB: Uh, got to think about that. I can’t remember.
JM: Do you remember if you went for flying training?
PB: Not till I got to Cambridge.
JM: Right.
PB: That was my first flying where I went to Marshalls Airport, Cambridge.
JM: Yes, it’s still there.
PB: And eventually, much later still, I became the Manager of the Marshalls Airport.
JM: Right. How did you get on?
PB: [unclear]
JM: Do you remember what you flew first of all?
PB: Tiger Moths.
JM: Tiger Moths. How did you get on flying with Tiger Moths?
PB: I loved them, beautiful little plane. And I was not taught to look out behind me and look for trouble and I was criticised for that but that was the teacher’s fault, he hadn’t taught me to look round.
JM: Do you remember?
PB: There is a chimney there called Joe’s something or other, it a brickwork
JM: Yes.
PB: On the other edge of Cambridge Airport, do you know it?
JM: I don’t know.
PB: Cambridge Airport, Smokey Joe it was called
JM: Right.
PB: And we used that to tell the direction of the wind.
JM: And do you remember how many hours before you went solo?
PB: I didn’t actually succeed in going solo until I got to Canada.
JM: Right.
PB: In a plane very similar to a Chipmunk, it was a Canadian built two seater, [pauses] just like a Chipmunk to look at
JM: Yes.
PB: You wouldn’t even tell the difference but it was in fact a six cylinder engine, whereas the Tiger Moth and the Chipmunk had just four cylinder engines.
JM: So you were sent from Cambridge by sea to Canada to complete your training.
PB: That’s right.
JM: And that was in 1941, was it?
PB: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. And what was it like? What were your impressions of Canada, a young man arriving in Canada?
PB: Terribly impressed, was a big thing cause I’d crossed the Atlantic by sea in the submarine chase.
JM: Do you remember the ship that you travelled on?
PB: Yes, the Aquitania.
JM: Right.
PB: Let me think about this, yes. That’s it.
JM: Yes.
PB: I was hoping for the Queen Mary.
JM: [laughs]
PB: Cause it was in use in those days but I didn’t have the luck to go in the Queen Mary, I went in the Aquitania.
JM: Well that was a big ship, was it?
PB: Was a huge liner, built in 1914.
JM: And do you remember whereabouts in Canada you went to?
PB: Yes. First of all, De Winton near, what’s the big city in the far west?
JM: Vancouver?
PB: No, not as far as that.
JM: Calgary?
PB: Calgary.
JM: Right.
PB: De Winton is the airport for Calgary.
JM: So you went to Calgary.
PB: It’s straining my memory trying to remember these answers for you.
JM: Well, you’re doing very well but I mean, I think people will be interested in what it was like to be living in Canada and flying there
PB: Oh.
JM: So, anything you can remember,
PB: I can remember all that.
JM: Please tell us a bit.
PB: We had a first posting was the eastern part of Canada, a place I can’t remember the name of, where my cousin has just gone to live now to look for work in the building industry. I have not told you about that, have I? He’s gone to live there, looking for work as a builder.
JM: But what was it like for you in 1941 being in Canada? What was the food like?
PB: Oh, everything was perfect. It was very cold, I remember that, we had to be careful not to get frozen. And when we eventually got out to the prairies. And then we went from eastern Canada and I’m sorry I can’t name the exact spot, we were there for say a week or ten days and we went by rail right across Canada. And if you want a silly joke, the attendant in the steam train said that “you want to hurry up, if you hurry enough you’ll see Lake Winnipeg”. And we did, we hurried down for breakfast to make sure to being ready to see Lake Winnipeg and we were passing it for a day and a half.
JM: [laughs]
PB: That is a fact.
JM: So, that’s a big lake.
PB: A day and a half by a slow steam train, which was very dirty and dusty. And they had to come round with a brush all day long sweeping up the soot. And we eventually got via intermediate cities across Canada to Vancouver, no, sorry, not Vancouver, Calgary. And there I was for six months learning to fly a little plane, very similar to a Chipmunk.
JM: Yes. So, you were flying single engine aircraft at that stage.
PB: Yes.
JM: And did you want to continue as a fighter pilot on single engine aircraft or?
PB: Yes.
JM: You did.
PB: I did.
JM: And how come you were selected then to fly bombers?
PB: Well, I think they were short of bomber pilots and they had to convert me to a four engine pilot.
JM: Do you remember what, what large airplanes you flew first of all? Once you’d qualified.
PB: Just those. We flew Chipmunks of course, for 190 hours on Chipmunks learning to fly to get our wings.
JM: Yes. You must have been very proud when you got your wings.
PB: Oh, I was. Still got one.
JM: [laughs] Good for you.
PB: I’ve never worn them for [unclear] have I?
JM: No.
PB: I got a pair of Air Force wings which is my pride and joy. Best thing I’ve ever done in my life. And we were graduated in the middle of the Canadian desert, as it were, it was a wild and windy place with cold weather.
JM: I was wondering.
PB: It was the 21st of April, I can remember that too. I always remember the graduation date.
JM: I was wondering if you ever flew the Oxford out there.
PB: Only as a navigation exercise.
JM: Right.
PB: Just once or twice.
JM: Yes.
PB: Navigation with about three of us on board, taking turns to navigate it.
JM: Yeah.
PB: Yes.
JM: And how did you find navigation? Was that a skill you could master?
PB: Oh yeah. I was qualified as a navigator.
JM: Right.
PB: I got a certificate to say so.
JM: Did you do observation of the stars as part of your navigation?
PB: Yes, all that lot. And I frightened one of my instructors by doing a violent evasive action when what I was avoiding was Saturn.
JM: [laughs]
PB: This is a fact, it frightened me to death. I still dived out of the route I was supposed to be taking, when doing some low flying over the Bow River in Calgary area.
JM: Did you meet the Canadian people very much? Did you go to their homes?
PB: Yes, one or two were very good to us and kind and we got friends with the family, doctors and such like. And we even were allowed to drive their cars and we got petrol for them. They had English cars with American tyres on them that were below standard, they were some wartime grade of tyres they were allowed to use in wartime. And we had a “meatless Tuesday”, I’ve never forgotten, “meatless Tuesday”, as a feature of Canadian life.
JM: A number of airmen who trained there and came back to Britain remarked as how they’d grown when they were living in America and Canada and eating all the steaks and the fine food that wasn’t available in Britain. Do you have that sort of?
PB: No, I don’t recall that at all. Just had good food I know
JM: And exercise.
PB: Very satisfactory.
JM: Yeah. Where did you go when you were off duty?
PB: To the local cinema [laughs]. That’s all.
JM: Did you have dances or it was just the cinema?
PB: Oh yes, we had dances and invited the local villagers from another, yeah, the next aerodrome I went to after De Winton was another one which I have forgotten the name of, if you could switch off for a minute I could.
JM: Now, Phillip, I gather you have a story about a motorbike tyre.
PB: Well, I was running an Ariel Square Four motorbike by then and I’d graduated from the 1929 Raleigh 250 to a 1939 Ariel Square Four and it needed a tyre and I bought a tyre in Stockport, my local town. But it proved to have a fault, it was a crack in the side of the tyre or something undesirable, so I took it out to Italy because I knew they put up with any tyres they were short of anything at all that goes on their cars and motorbikes. They didn’t realise it was a tyre of an undesirable size, unsuitable for a Fiat or any other sort of small car. But they gladly gave me quite a lot of money for it and put it under the seat of the Lancaster [laughs], carried it to Italy and disposed of it there for a good price.
JM: [laughs]
PB: Was quite amazed. And what’s the other story?
JM: The other story is about the picture at the reunion at North Killingholme for Operation Manna and.
PB: Well, I can’t remember a reunion, there’s something that-
US: Each year the reunion that the Dutch come to [unclear]
PB: They come and join in our parties and the prayers at the memorial, there is a beautiful memorial being built at North Killingholme [sighs] probably before the end of this talk we shall remember where I was trained for the Lancaster, I’m sorry I can’t think of it.
JM: It’ll come to you. I’m interested to hear about the reunion and the story of the painting of the Lancaster. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
PB: I’ve got a print of it, that’s all, just a print of the Lancaster with a title on it, forgotten what the title is, it’s gone, I’m sorry.
JM: Now, Phillip, we are looking at a lovely copy of a painting of Lancasters flying over Holland dropping food. Can you tell us a little bit more about the story of this painting?
PB: Not of this painting, I’m sorry. Because I don’t remember ever seeing a windmill in Holland.
JM: That might be a bit of artist license, mind you.
PB: I think they substituted that. But it’s a lovely painting, isn’t it? These are the bankings around the water, I think. Here, drainage areas, but I can’t add anything to that except there are three, five Lancasters, I don’t remember seeing it, can I look at the other side of it for a minute? I don’t know why I wasn’t aware of this. There’s the Phantom of the Ruhr.
JM: Yes, there is another painting here showing the Phantom, the Lancaster PA474.
PB: I got a print of this.
JM: Yes. Wearing the colours of the Phantom of the Ruhr 550 Squadron aircraft.
PB: I’ve got a print of that one but that one is new to me.
JM: Philip, at the top of this print of the Lancaster there are a number of signatures. Do you see these here?
PB: Can I look? Cause I may have signed this, Jack Harris, who is a well-known organiser of the meetings.
US: He’s the other pilot.
PB: Can you see any other names? Can I bring it nearer to you? There I am. [unclear]
JM: [unclear].
PB: It’s very indistinct. Yes, I’m there. How did you get this? Cause I haven’t got one with my signature on it. Do you notice we have aerials spreading from the cockpit to the tops of the rudders?
JM: Yes.
PB: Spitfires had a rather similar arrangement with aerials trailing to the top of the rudder.
US: I think a couple of these chaps are now dead.
PB: I wouldn’t be surprised, Jack Harris was the organiser of our meetings at North Killingholme.
JM: Who is that, Philip, can you read that one?
PB: Let me try and see that. It’s not clear in my sight at all.
JM: Ok.
PB: He’s the navigator.
JM: It doesn’t matter-
PB: Chaz somebody. I might be able to recognise his name if time comes. By the way, I continued flying right up to the Squadron being closed down in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
JM: I was going to ask you about that.
PB: I will come to that later if you like.
JM: Well, please tell us now while it’s in your mind.
PB: Alright, well, I went and joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force while I was earning my living in Manchester and working as an engineer and representative and I [pauses] what did I do?
JM: What was it like in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force?
PB: Wonderful, a real life and the CO used to organise motor rallies.
JM: Did you fly with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force?
PB: Oh yes.
JM: What did you fly?
PB: Meteor jets.
JM: Did you?
PB: Phew
JM: So you were a jet pilot as well as a Lancaster pilot.
PB: Yes, that was the big thing in my life. Every weekend I was zooming about in Meteor jets twin engine, at all levels and in all kinds of formation aerobatic and I survived it, two, three of my friends were killed.
JM: Very sad.
PB: Three of them,
JM: Yes.
PB: For various reasons. One who I’d just taken home on leave and he was killed the next weekend.
JM: And I believe you also had time with the Air Training Corps, I believe you were an officer with the Air Training Corps, will you tell us about that?
PB: Yes, I’ve been a civilian and
JM: Civilian.
PB: Everything in the committee that you can be,
JM: Yeah.
PB: All the small positions right, leading right up to the top position as the manager, civilian manager of the Air Training Corps.
JM: So I expect you flew with them.
PB: Two or three different squadrons in Manchester and Stockport area, so.
JM: I expect you must have flown an aircraft in the ATC.
PB: Yes, to this day I am still the Superintendent of an Air Training Corps squadron.
JM: Right.
PB: Still active although I’m immobilised as you will have noticed, I still do that work.
JM: When you look back now from where you are in your life now to your wartime experiences, what feelings do you have? What did it do for you?
PB: Well, it’s a long distant past now, it’s just the past and it’s gone by, that’s how I feel about it. The happiest days were at Cambridge, there’s no doubt about that, but I also continued in Cambridge as Manager of Marshalls Airport, on another job for the Air Force.
JM: Yes, yes. So when you left the Air Force, what year was it you left, do you remember?
PB: No, I couldn’t recall
JM: No, no. But you
PB: I’m sorry.
JM: Your life after leaving the airport was very much involved with engineering?
PB: I was a chief sales manager of the Marine Division of Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day and National Gas & Oil Engine Company which were associated with each other, they were related, two factories eight miles apart.
JM: And you were telling me that you had a job as a journalist working on a magazine to do with steam trains.
PB: Yeah. That’s right.
JM: Tell us about that, would you?
PB: Well, I, the publisher was, the name of the publisher, has just escaped me, who was right near the, [pauses] there was a famous cathedral.
JM: Here in Manchester or? No, in London?
PB: No, in London. Can you name a cathedral?
JM: St [unclear]
PB: A famous cathedral?
JM: Saint Paul’s Cathedral?
PB: No, no, further south than that.
JM: Uhm, Southwark Cathedral?
PB: No.
JM: Westminster?
PB: Westminster Cathedral.
JM: Right.
PB: We were just outside the doors of that.
JM: Were you? Yeah. And you were producing.
PB: I was writing and checking and working with them and I learnt the art of editing a railway gazette and writing nearly the whole of the articles sometimes, the whole of the magazine was my responsibility. I even went to the publishers, which was Odhams Press, to put it to bed as they call it.
JM: So, your whole life really had a theme of engineering in it from when you left school, through the flying and in your life after that, your working life after that was, engineering was a common thread, wasn’t it?
PB: Yes, absolutely. And I, huge engines in, were as tall as this room, massive marine engines
JM: yeah.
PB: And I’m very proud of one or two jobs I had to do. One was this City of Victoria, a huge passenger liner with four engines sailing from Vancouver to Victoria Island across the water
JM: Yes.
PB: Do you know that area at all?
JM: I’ve been there once, yeah. But I wanted to ask you about your, you told me that you had kept in touch with your crew members.
PB: Yeah.
JM: I gather you were quite involved with the veterans, the members of 550 Squadron.
PB: Oh yes, yes. Still go.
JM: Are there many left now?
PB: There’s dozens, but only a few go.
JM: Right.
PB: Cause a lot of ground staff go.
JM: Did you have much to do with the ground engineers when you were on the squadron?
PB: No, nothing.
JM: You just kept yourselves as a crew flying.
PB: We were flyers.
JM: Yeah.
PB: And we had, one of the nicest thing was one Sunday, I was minding my own business with my Ariel Square Four tucked away in safekeeping while I was overhauling the cylinder head, I was always working on these motorbikes, as well as using them to come to Stockport at the weekends and the Flight Commander arrived in my hut right across the fields from church parade where he had been. You know the church we go to? Well, I found myself sitting close to the Wing Commanders and people in charge of the squadron and one of them suddenly turned up at my, in my Nissen hut, and asked to see my Ariel Square Four, well, I think, get out of bed and take him out to the Gents toilet where I kept it [laughs] across a muddy field and he was in his best outfit, cause the church parade was medals, in all his fancy regalia in uniform and his flat hat on, a top man in the squadron, not the Commanding Officer but one of the very, very senior flight commanders. I used to fly in the RAFVR. RAFVR
JM: Yes.
PB: After the war, after my full-time service. Oh, I stayed on with the Air Force because I loved it and it meant everything to me. So what, did I say I’d done?
JM: In the African desert.
PB: I had a job of repairing the engine of a York, which is identical to the engine of a Lancaster by the way, but the wings are higher up the body, they’re down here in a Lancaster and they’re up there on a York and I had to be on the scaffolding doing the repairs myself cause I was qualified to do that sort of thing and repair the fuel feed pump, something that had to be changed and everyone else was having the afternoon in bed on a very, very hot sunny afternoon and I was working on the scaffolding on the aircraft, which was a terrific, terrific privilege to me to be allowed to tinker with the engine on a York aircraft. I’d never tinkered with one before by the way.
JM: And you were successful.
PB: Oh yes, it flew away to Singapore. And I should have been going with it but this delayed my departure so that I wouldn’t have been back in England in time to report back to work. So therefore I had to get off this York and then get me baggage and rubbish and go back with another plane back to England and guess what I came back in? A Sunderland flying boat.
JM: Tell us about that.
PB: That was a wonderful experience to me. This beautiful Sunderland flying boat was gently resting on the waves at Valletta harbour and they took me on board to give me a lift home and said, would I like to fly it? And apart from the act of take-off and the landing, I did all the flying all the way back to England.
JM: Was it an easy aeroplane to fly?
PB: Beautiful, amazing experience and something I’ve always remembered. And the crew went to bed in the back of the plane. Honestly.
JM: Oh yes, a big aeroplane.
PB: With little round windows all way along the side. And I’ve since met an Air Training Corps officer, very senior one called Cross, who was in charge of the whole of the Air Training Corps, and he said, his father was an Imperial Airways pilot that what set him up as a pilot in the first place. So he knew what I was talking about with regards to flying a Sunderland, huge plane but beautiful.
JM: And this would have been presumably in the late 1940s?
PB: They did the take off and the landing by the way, I didn’t do that but we found out where we were, we got lost over France cause we weren’t expecting to be very precise with our navigation over France. I’d done numerous jet’s trooping between England and Italy, England, Italy, England, Italy, Italy, England, from Milano to this aerodrome that I couldn’t name in Southampton area, I’m sorry I can’t remember the name of it, it’s a very well known, it’s where they fly American transport planes to this day.
JM: Well, we’ll come back to that. Are there any other stories that are in your mind from your RAF time either during the war or after that you’d like to tell us?
PB: Certain funny ones. One in particular was when I was driving back from Grimsby on a motorbike and only a 350 and we found an Australian crew of a Morris Minor, now I don’t mean the modern Morris Minor, I mean the wartime Morris Minor which is a very square [unclear] sort of, very sluggish sort of aeroplane, eh, car I mean sorry, and they’d broken down by the roadside so I offered to tow them back to the aerodrome, they were members of my crew. And we got going you know, slowly gathering speed up a very gradual incline up to the aerodrome about five miles and they had about five people in this tiny little car and they had to get out on the running boards to accommodate them all, including my crew member as well, my navigator in this case or my, uhm, not the bomb aimer, yes, it was the bomb aimer, a man whose name I could tell you later on, he may still be alive too. Uhm, he was an expert on Robbie Burns, and that was, he was, he loved reciting to me, taught me all about Robbie Burns, he was my bomb aimer and we carried on until I felt the back of the motor bike was squirming like this, and I looked round and it was going from curb to curb [laughs] we got up such speed and although it was only a 350 motorbike with all these Australian crew plus my bomb aimer hanging on the running boards not in it but on it, we got out of control so I had to slow down and I got them back to the aerodrome.
JM: It’s a story of young men enjoying themselves for the moment.
PB: Well, they’ve been out enjoying themselves in Grimsby and, or some pub on the way to Grimsby. I had the great joy of escorting them back on the end of a rope from a motorbike. It must have been their rope by the way.
JM: You wouldn’t have one of those on your bike, would you?
PB: I wouldn’t have had a rope on it, no. But this was only a little 350 Triumph. A powerful one by the way. Before I graduated onto an Ariel Square Four.
JM: Are there any other stories that you’d like to tell us? About your wartime service, your flying time?
PB: Well, only that we were chased by Spitfires for practice for them, that was quite an interesting experience.
JM: Tell us about that, please.
PB: Well, I just took photographs of the Spitfires that were honing in on us, homing in on us, to take photos I suppose.
JM: I think that was called fighter affiliation.
PB: That’s right, that’s exactly what it was called.
JM: And that was giving them a chance to practice intercepting and you a chance to practice evading.
PB: That’s right. And they were probably from an aerodrome which I subsequently flew at myself on Spitfires and the name’s escaped me just at the moment, uhm, [pauses] sorry, the name’s gone, it’ll come back, cause I used to be there for months after my demob, well, towards my demob and they were a nice crowd till the Flight Commander was killed while I was there.
JM: In a flying accident?
PB: Yes, he made a mistake doing a roll over the runway and just dived straight into the ground and he had just given me leave, was very sad about that. The name of the aerodrome I shall easily find in my memory because of having difficulty with remembering it in the past. I’m sorry it’s gone. You want to switch off while I’m thinking that name? I will do in a minute. I want to tell to them ‘cos it’s so funny.
JM: Tell us the story then.
PB: Well, I’ll tell you about Lyneham being a landing point back in the United Kingdom near Southampton and they now have American transport planes landing there.
JM: And this was when you were bringing the prisoners of war home.
PB: Troops, not prisoners.
JM: Well, ex-prisoners of war.
PB: Yes. Or servicemen who couldn’t wait for a boat.
JM: Ok. Oh, I see, so they were any servicemen.
PB: Not just prisoners.
JM: Right.
PB: A story about life on North Killingholme aerodrome, was near Grimsby, we had a Warrant Officer called Warrant Officer Yardley and he stopped my navigator and said to him, Warrant Officer, well, forgotten his surname at the minute, “what are you doing out on your motorbike without your hat on”? Which is how he expressed himself, he was a very brusque Warrant Officer in charge of the discipline on the Air Force bomber station, “what are you doing without, your, riding your motorbike without your hat on”? And “Warrant Officer” the man at fault said, “but Sir”, very polite to this Warrant Officer cause he was very firm, “you can’t ride a motorbike in a strong wind”. Forget exactly how he expressed it, “you can’t” and the Warrant Officer looked round at the sky and said, “but there ain’t no wind today” [laughs]. It was a calm day that particular day.
JM: Was a calm day.
PB: But he still had to wear his hat and of course he’d generated a certain amount of that wind himself.
JM: yeah.
PB: I had a nasty smash on that same motorbike and finished up in hospital for a week.
JM: Oh dear.
PB: When I should have been doing some bombing runs.
JM: Philip, you’ve told us many lovely stories, you’ve really described the life of a young man here in England and in Canada and on operations at the end of the war. Thank you very much for your interview. It’s very important, thank you.
PB: It’s been a pleasure- And I’ll tell you the name of.
JM: Just as an afterthought, you’ve told us that you were commissioned as a Flight Lieutenant and I’m going to conclude this interview by thanking Flight Lieutenant Blackham for his interview. Thank you very much.
PB: Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ABlackhamCP161023
Title
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Interview with Charles Philip Blackham
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
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:46:52 audio recording
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Date
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2016-10-23
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Blackham became an apprentice engineer at Diesel engine company Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day, of which he became a sales manager post war. He served in the Home Guard becoming a driver, then he enrolled in summer 1940 with initial training at Cambridge University, St John’s College, for engineering. After that he went to Marshalls Airport, Cambridge for flying training. Eventually he became a flight engineer at Barry, South Wales.
In 1941 Charles was posted to Canada to complete training at RAF De Winton, learning to fly a Chipmunk and then converted to four engine aircraft: 'I got a pair of Air Force wings which is my pride and joy. Best thing I’ve ever done in my life'. Canada was described as being nice, vast, and cold, inhabited by friendly people, with plenty of fine food that wasn’t available in Britain. Very few details are given about wartime service. After the end of war, he went on to serve in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force as an engineer and representative of Meteor jets, which he also flown. Charles also became an Air Training Corps superintendent. Describes his involvement in one of the 550 Squadron reunions at RAF North Killingholme where they discussed Operation Manna. Talks about PA474 Phantom, a 550 Squadron aircraft.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cambridge
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
Alberta--De Winton
Alberta
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jean Massie
550 Squadron
aircrew
civil defence
flight engineer
Home Guard
Lancaster
memorial
Meteor
military ethos
military living conditions
navigator
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
pilot
RAF North Killingholme
recruitment
Sunderland
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/199/3334/AAyreJE-Fam170403.2.mp3
c724b060a8aeafd4fba156d258d5ef20
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
Ayres, John Edward
John Ayres
John Edward Ayres
John E Ayres
J Ayres
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with the family of John Edward Ayres.
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
2017-04-03
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
Ayres, JE
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Julian Maslin, the interviewees are members of the family of Mr John Edward Ayres, ex flight engineer with Bomber Command. I have asked Mr Ayres family members to give their names when they make a contribution. The interview is taking place at Mr Ayres home in Hazel Grove, Stockport on the third of April two thousand and seventeen. Judy would you like to start us please
JW: Okay, my name is Judith Elizabeth Wood, I was born Ayres, and erm, my father was born in Westcliff-on-Sea. His mother came from a well to do family and his father was a bricklayer, and they met and fell in love and married within two weeks. They didn’t have any children for a long time, they weren’t sure if they would be able to have any, erm, and then Dad came along in nineteen twenty-five and followed five years later with a sister. And Dad grew up in Westcliffe, but his mother had three houses, she also had one in London and she had one in Folkestone, and also, his mother’s sister had a house in Shoeburyness near Westcliffe, and he used to spend his summers there. Now, his mother lost a younger brother at the end of the first World War at just nineteen, so when the second World War broke out, she had Dad go and work for his uncle who had a market garden, to keep him safe as you can imagine. Her mother had lost three sons in her life, so she didn’t want the same to happen to her. So, he went and worked for his uncle and he was treated just the same as anybody else who worked there, he lived in lodgings. He joined the ATC, very interested in aircraft, when they were working, he used to see, once the war had started, he used to see the aircraft flying, fly out on a mission and fly back again, and they used to count them out and count them in, er, he was very interested in it, aircraft, he knew what they all were, each make and you know, it was something he really enjoyed. While he was working for his uncle he became, eight, no seventeen, he got a letter from Bomber Command, and they said, would you like to volunteer for Bomber Command?
JA: They said what?
JW: Would you like to volunteer for Bomber Command?
JA: Oh, yes
JW: And, he went to his uncle and showed him the letter and said, ‘what do you think’, and his uncle said, ‘well you’re going, aren’t you?’ [laughter] so, that was it, off he went, off to the war. [pause] While he was working for Uncle Bert he was sent to pin out lines for fishing and he was with another lad and they saw a downed Dornier in a field, so they went rushing over to have a look, very excited, and went in the aircraft, sat in it and messed about like boys do, and as they were walking away, a RAF fighter flew over and strafed the Dornier with bullets
JA: Yes
JW: They were using it as target practice, and had it been a couple of minutes earlier they would have been killed
JA: Yes, that’s right
[inaudible]
JW: So, can you take over from where you met Dad, to talk about from when you met Dad, and how old he was, and about him coming home for leave, and also your wedding? Do you want the wedding?
JM: Yes
JW: A little bit because their aircrew paid for their honeymoon [inaudible]
[unknown] State you name, state your name
EA: What now? I’m Edith Grace Ayres. [pause] Oh, I first met John Edward Ayres, when he was, I was sixteen and he was seventeen. I met him through his best friend because he was my previous boyfriend and er, I just took one look at him and thought, oh yes [laughs] so from then on, we became inseparable until he was called up, actually he wasn’t called up, he volunteered didn’t he
JA: yes
EA: And, erm so, he went into the RAF and on his first leave we decided to get engaged, that made me about seventeen and a quarter, John eighteen and a quarter. We were engaged for about two, two and a half years before we actually married and that was all during the war you see, and John said he wanted the war to be over before we got married. However, it was nine days before the end of the war that we were married, the twenty-eighth of April, and war ended on VE Day, it was the eighth of May. And, he’d just gone back off leave from our honeymoon, which incidentally, we spent in London, mainly, because you couldn’t go away to celebrate in seaside places because of the war. And, John was in a Canadian squad, so his Canadian officers, they took us to London and they belonged to a club and they signed us in, which was very nice because we had free drinks and everything, erm, and then John, ‘the wolf’, they called him, because he liked, he was a bit of a womaniser, [laughter] not my John, this John, and he got us tickets for Ingrid Bergman in, oh, what was that film called? Can’t remember the film, but it was very popular, so, we were lucky because he got tickets for us, and that was one of the days of our honeymoon. And then, er, another day we spent in Southall Park, where we lived, south of Middlesex, where they had a big fair going due to the celebrations which were marvellous, and we had a mayor living down our road
JA: That’s right
EA: So, he could get all the lights in the road and a big bonfire going, and then we had games and all sorts of things, enjoyment, but unfortunately, John had gone back off leave from our honeymoon, and then when war was finished, they sent him home for two or three days. Well, in the meantime, my, his sister Janet and I were in Southall Park enjoying all the festivities, so we missed him. We were on our way back down the road and people at their gate said, ‘have you seen your John?’ ‘no’, ‘he’s home you know’, ‘oh’, so we got back to Mums and she said, ‘well go and see if he’s in any of the pubs’, [laughter] because that’s what people were doing in the celebration
JA: I remember the pubs
EA: So, we went, Janet and I, we went to as many pubs that we could think of, and a lot of people were saying, oh you’ve just missed him, he’s just gone, so he’d just gone somewhere else. We never found him, but we had to go back and I was almost in tears by then, at this time. However, the festivities were still going on in the street, twelve o’clock, midnight came, no John, so everybody by then were going home, dispersed, so, I couldn’t settle, so I kept standing at the gate looking down the road for, if he was coming. Eventually, I saw these two figures coming up the road in the distance [laughter] got nearer, and one was John and one was his Dad, but the only thing was, his Dad had John’s hat on, RAF cap
JA: RAF cap
EA: And John had his Dad’s trilby on, and they were holding each other up, and my goodness me, it was such a sight. However, I wasn’t very pleased with him for a little while and he knelt down and he said, ‘please forgive me’, and I said, ‘all my friends had their boyfriends there, and you weren’t there’, however I forgave him, I forgave him in the end and erm, lots of hugs and kisses wasn’t it
JA: Yep, [laughs]
EA: And, that was like VE Day celebrations. But the day we got married, this was ten days prior, all the Canadian crew came to our wedding, and I had a photo taken amongst all these lovely men, you know, and I’ve shown people photos since then, and they say, ‘weren’t they lovely, weren’t you lucky, with all those men’, [laughter] and John was so handsome, ah, it was lovely, a lovely time, although we’d suffered a lot, with doodlebugs and everything, it was a lovely time, and people were polite, they got married earlier than they do these days and erm, it was a different world, completely but it was a lovely world. Everybody looked out for each other, we were on rationings so we learnt to do with food, so nobody was fat and er, it was a lovely time. And then, ooh, it was two years before John was demobbed after the war, and erm, [pause] oh, twenty-eighth of June it was, I can’t remember the year, but it was a couple of years after, must have been nineteen forty-seven, yeh, and they gave him this horrible demob suit [laughter] it was horrible [laughs] and they just sort of, you know like in prison you collect all these suits, in, everybody lines up, well they had to do that and they collected these, they just sort of looked at him and oh yeh you’ll be small, so they gave him a small outfit [inaudible] he didn’t wear it much
JA: No
EA: And it was a little while, it wasn’t, no it wasn’t too long before he got a job with Wall’s ice cream. He had an interview and with his past, and as he was an officer, that stood him in good stead, so he had a good job which he held for forty-two years, until he retired at sixty-three and a bit, wasn’t it, when you retired? Erm, and then he became a works manager in refrigeration, so he was quite important. He put a lot of his ideas on paper, like he designed a log cabin for ice cream er, with his work, he ran the whole work shop, erm
JM: Mrs Ayres, you’ve painted a lovely picture, particularly, particularly of the end of the war, but could I just take you back and ask you a couple of questions? First of all, can you tell me what was it like to be the fiancé of a man on operations, did you worry, did you know what was going on at all?
EA: That’s right, we only knew from the radio when they said some of our aircraft are missing, and when we heard that, John’s Mum said,’ John is not in that, he’s alright’, and it eased me a bit, but I felt sick, you know, how you do if you are going to the dentist or something, butterflies. Every time they announced it before they said so many of our aircraft, we didn’t know, we wouldn’t have known, you know, until a later date, if anything had happened to them, erm, so it was a very worrying time
JM: And, did John talk to you privately about his flying experiences, or did he just keep quiet about it?
EA: He didn’t tell me much, I don’t think he wanted to worry me, erm, he didn’t enforce on, any of the actions, what they did, the things that like he did say was, ‘ooh, I’ve been inoculated’
JA: [laughs]
EA: ‘Don’t touch my arm’, that sort of thing, and he introduced me to one or two of his officers at, he bought home with him at times, erm, which was very nice, I think we went to a hotel once with the, I can’t remember his name, but they were a lovely couple, he was a squadron leader eventually, he stayed in after the war but, John came, he retired, he wanted to come out because we were newly married, we’d only seen each other so many weeks, in that two years you see, and that was a very worrying time but, once he came when he was retired, it was so much easier
JM: Now that you know that the, the, er standing of the men of Bomber Command has changed over the years hasn’t it, because at one time they weren’t very popular for political reasons, now as you’ve done all the family research, has this changed your view of what it was like to be married to a Bomber Command airman?
EA: What do you mean, erm?
JM: Do you think more of them; do you admire them or do you wish that it had never happened? What are your views on the war that Bomber Command was waging on behalf of Britain?
EA: Erm, I didn’t have a lot of thoughts about that really, erm, [pause] as long as he was safe that’s the main thing that was, concerned me a lot, and I knew they were very, very young when they were called up mainly, unless they were in a reserved occupation, so, I didn’t, being young myself and not having, it was a new experience, having the war like, erm, I just took each day at a time and tried to, you know, and think positive like about things
JM: The way in which Bomber Command has been treated by the politicians
EA: What now?
JM: Well, over the years, over the years, particularly with no campaign medal, have you a view on that at all?
EA: Have I?
JM: A view, an opinion on that?
EA: Not really, I erm, I’m afraid I’m not too keen on learning about politics and that, in that respect I’m sort of live and let live, so I didn’t really have a lot of thoughts about it, not really
JM: Okay, thank you very much, that’s very, very helpful, very good thank you
[inaudible]
AO: Anthony Oldham and the grandson of John Ayres, and growing up erm, I think initially as a very young lad, you knew that Grandad had been in the war, and we knew that he’d been in the RAF, when you were very young you didn’t know what exactly he’d done. As you, Grandad was always very keen on aircraft and model making, of all things, and before the war started he told me he used to make and fly model aircraft, a sort of rubber band powered aircraft and there was, he told me occasions where they had gone over fences and disappeared into the distance [laughs] etcetera, etcetera. Now, that was before, that was while the war was on, and while he was, he was working in his reserved occupation, erm, [pause] After that, when I was growing up, you know, he used to make these models and very often they would be of the aircraft that he flew in, he built a Halifax bomber, he built a Lancaster bomber and that in turn made me very interested in making models etcetera, but I was by no means as good as Grandad [laughs] at making them or painting them etcetera. So, erm, I was fascinated sort of from an early age, in what he’d done, er, what have you, but the age of the internet, it’s become a lot easier to find out more, and over, let’s say the last five years or so, I’ve managed to track down the station records of when 427 Squadron was formed, the fact that it was named Lion Squadron, it was sponsored by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, which is MGM, and they got certain benefits by being sponsored by MGM, in that they got free cinema admittance during the war. Going on from that I, I always admired Gramps, in that he was always able to build and make things and what have you, and I think a lot of that came from his training in the RAF as an engineer. He could, he then retrained after the war as a refrigeration engineer and in his later life, designed fridges and all sorts of different things. As a child, he made models for us, I remember at a very early age he made a garage for me etcetera, and so that was, that was very nice to experience as a child. Going back to his war time experiences, Gramps didn’t really talk a lot about it, he’s a quiet person and would sort of, wouldn’t like to be boastful or, or glamorise what was done during the war, but he did tell me several stories along the way. One of which was when he first joined the squadron, 427 Squadron, and, very keen to help out when he first got there, do anything he could, and when the, he wasn’t on this particular op, but he returned, er, the other returning aircraft, where coming in, and one burst into flames on the runway, and my Grandad John went to help and saw a burning body, which, when a body burns, it pulls up into the foetal position and it made him very sick and he regretted ever going to help, which, you know, seeing that sort of thing you can imagine. So, that was one memory that he told us about. Another was actually flying on ops over Germany or France, I’m not sure which, and he was stood up in the astrodome of the Halifax bomber and there was very heavy flak coming in, and the aircraft in front of them exploded and broke up in air, mid-air, and the wing of the Halifax in front of them, flew very quickly, up and over, and was, he said, just feet above my head in the aircraft, and he said he didn’t have even the time to react and warn the skipper to dive or make any manoeuvre, because it literally took his breath away, it was like [intake of breath] you know, erm, so, that was another memory that he had that he passed on to me. Another was, but when they, when they had breakfast in the morning, they knew they were going on ops because they got, I don’t know whether it was an extra egg or an egg, in the morning before they went on ops, which is a bit, you can imagine, once you saw your egg and knew you were going on ops, perhaps you didn’t want to eat it [laughs] He also, er, in later life, I remember him sat in the chair, where he is today and reading a book on Bomber Command, and in turning a pretty pasty white colour, because there was a picture in the book, and the Canadian crews were quite well off, they had, all had cameras and what have you, and took photographs a lot, and, one of the photographs in the book was looking downwards from another Halifax bomber, down onto another Halifax bomber, and the bombs from one Halifax bomber dropping through the wings of the bomber below, and, I could see the shock in his face, and he wondered if it was one of his crew had taken the photograph, because he remembers that happening, so that was another story. Erm, [pause] for myself, personally, erm, I have done quite a lot of research as I mentioned before, and I managed to find the station records for 427 Squadron, its inception in November of nineteen forty-two at Croft. The station records make fascinating reading for anybody, they’re very light hearted when they initially start and there is quite a lot of humour in them, they even describe initiation ceremonies when people became officers, they used to turn the officer upside down, put coal on his boots and stick his feet on the ceiling of the officer’s mess [laughter]
JA: Until one day we turned them upside down and put their backside up on the roof [laughter] that was in the officer’s mess
AO: Yes, that’s right, and this is mentioned in the station records. So, they are quite amusing, but steadily as time passed, they become more and more serious, and I certainly felt while reading them, [pause] the sense of sadness, erm, at the loss of all the men [upset]
[interview paused]
AO: Anthony Oldham, grandson of John Edward Ayres. Another thing that occurred while we were looking into the history of 427 Squadron, er, was that my Mother was contacted by [phone rings]
[interview paused]
AO: Anthony Oldham, grandson of John Edward Ayres During, investigating about how 427 Squadron, I became a member of a number of Facebook groups that cover both 6 Group Bomber Command and 427 Squadron, and my Mother was contacted by a chap called Dennis McCauley, a Canadian who lives in America, in the United States, and er, Dennis, sorry, he contacted my Mother asking about 427 Squadron, if she knew anything about a John Ayres. As it appeared, in his Father’s, what’s the book called?
JM: Logbook?
AO: Logbook, the logbook, and Dennis and I have remained friends to this day. We’ve chatted about various aspects of 427 Squadron, erm, and also, the reasons as to why they were in the same aircraft, and it appears that Grandad was on a, just a test flight basically within that aircraft, but it’s been nice to sort of keep in touch with Dennis over the last, it must be over five years now, erm, and er, he still has a keen interest in RAF and RCAF, and that’s been quite special to me
[interview paused]
AO: Anthony Oldham, grandson of John Edward Ayres. The thing that struck me that Grandad mentioned as well, that even after he had finished ops, he was training other men, erm, when 427 Squadron especially when they’ve transferred to Lancasters, he was training other young men, he said, to die by flying in those aircraft. I think people don’t realise, what struck me during conversations with Grandad, was that, just the operation of the aircraft was so dangerous, you have to remember that they were cutting edge technology then and that things went wrong, and Grandad had a few close calls where he nearly died and he wasn’t even on a bombing raid. There was one occasion where they came into land and overshot the runway and they nearly hit the trees that were well beyond the end of the runway
JA: [laughs]
AO: Only just coming to a standstill just before the trees. On another occasion they was coming in to land, and what used to happen is, while the undercarriage in it up position, they used to put pins in to make sure they didn’t drop and they came into land and because he was with a different pilot, they did things in slightly different ways, and the pilot selected, undercarriage down, and it locked the pins effectively in position, so the aircraft undercarriage wasn’t coming down, so he had to quickly tell the pilot to select up, pull the pins out and then ask him to select down again, and they just came down into a locked position just before they touched the runway. So, again, so many, many accidents and deaths happened and when they weren’t flying ops. My Nan’s cousin died in exactly the same way, in Scotland, during the war, and I think that’s, we did some research into that and exactly where the aircraft went down in Scotland. So, I think just the business of flying bombers in a wartime scenario was dangerous enough without flying over foreign territory and being shot at as well. One thing I missed out during discussing flying over Germany, was that their biggest fear was from night fighters, Messerschmitt 110’s, coming up and underneath Halifax’s where the blind spot was, where they couldn’t see them, although what they said was, that you could just see the glow of the engines occasionally, so going out on those ops was frightening and, there were, there was, many things to be frightened of. The aircraft itself, would it perform? [pause] The flak, seeing the traces come up, the night fighters, and then, if they were damaged were they going to get home, and if they got home were they still going to survive after the crash landing. A very difficult thing, a very difficult thing. After the war, one thing that Grandad mentioned to me was, it was particularly poignant, that you go from being a very respected member of society, you go from being a flying officer, you know, a hero who saves the day, after being demobbed you go back to being just a member of the public, and I think there was a sense from many especially in Bomber Command that they, they’ve never been appreciated and, once they were back in society that everything had just been forgotten, their part and their role, and their sacrifice, and their struggle to survive was forgotten and everything just moved on
JA: Moved on
AO: And I think for a long, long time that was the case and I think still to a degree with Bomber Command that is the case, erm, the fact that there is only a clasp round the campaign medal, was something that they could have done and sorted very easily, but wasn’t, and I think there is much of a fear with politicians that after the campaign, especially the bombing of Dresden and places like that, that it was something to be brushed under the carpet, but what they’re brushing under the carpet is the memory of the people who died. Bomber Commands attrition rate is fifty-five percent
[background noise]
AO: Anthony Oldham, grandson of John Edward Ayres. For part of my Grandad’s ninetieth birthday celebrations we travelled up to Elvington Air museum in Yorkshire, to take Gramps to see the Halifax bomber there, as part of that, ten of the family travelled up to Yorkshire and spent the day at Elvington, visiting it, looking round, and the main part was that, as a family, we got to go on board the Halifax and, see what it was like, and for both myself and my brother, we were shocked at how small the aircraft was in comparison to modern day jets for example, which are very large, very wide bodied. The Halifax bomber was very narrow we thought, how uncomfortable it was and how even from getting from one end of the aircraft to another was difficult. Climbing over the main wing spars in the centre, even getting in the aircraft. My Mother, particularly, found that getting into the aircraft and going up to the front was particularly hair raising. [pause] It was nice to see Grandad in the position that he would have flown in, and I got to stand in the astrodome that he talked about on many missions, and the reason why he was chosen as a member of the crew was because he was shorter, and could stand up clearly in the astrodome to shoot the stars for the navigator if they ever needed to do so, it never apparently happened. The aircraft was [pause] tight, it felt claustrophobic and I can only imagine the hours and hours spent in it were not very pleasurable, just from the point of view of sitting in it, it wasn’t comfy, it was awkward and utilitarian, it was, there was no creature comforts, you know, bearing in mind these guys, spent long periods of time flying to Germany, flying over southern France and back in one hit, you know, we go on aircraft to Spain or the Costa del Sol, and we spend two or three hours in a very comfy aircraft in comparison, and we are only going one way and we moan about it, but these guys flew long distances over enemy territory, gunfire, flak, fighter aircraft and it wasn’t exactly a pleasurable journey, both mentally or physically. The aircraft was, erm, interesting inside, the long ammunition racks down to the rear turret were a particular surprise for me. I was amazed how they were fed into the rear turret, er, it was an interesting visit, it was, it was good to see my Grandad there [inaudible]
JM: How did he react to the?
EA: I think that was one of our reasons
JM: How did he react to being in the Halifax?
AO: As an old hand really, I suppose they spent that much time in it, that they knew it back to front. Even though he was ninety he, you know, he knew exactly where everything was and I suppose that comes with being trained and spending so much time init.
JM: And did the experience trigger any memories or emotions in your Grandad?
AO: Grandad’s always been, erm, not one to show his emotions very much, always very quiet and slightly introverted, so it’s difficult, and I don’t think for people of that time that’s it the thing to do, to show emotion, it was the keep calm and carry on scenario, er, very much so, even when he discussed what happened during the war, there wasn’t a lot of emotion behind it, it was just what you needed to do to carry on and survive, and this seeing it again was just the same really, I think it was just a very manner of fact way of dealing with life and I don’t think it was any different to when he visited it really, again, it’s just what we did, so
JA: [laughs]
JM: And, have these researches altered in any way your perception of your Grandfather, as a man, as a person?
AO: I think, I think, to know and experience how difficult [emphasis] it was probably on a day to day basis, you know, I joked for about having an egg in the morning, but you can imagine that when you got your egg you probably didn’t want to eat it because you thought, oh God, I’m going to have to fly off to Germany or where ever this evening, that pit of the stomach feeling that you get and the anticipation is almost worse than doing it, your there and having to do what you do, its, you know, a, you just have to get on with it and do it, whereas, I think the shock and the horror of it only comes back after. You know, seeing Grandad see a picture in a book and going white forty years later
JM: I get the impression that you admire the self-control that you Grandfather showed, at overcoming fear, the devotion to duty as they say, would you say that, that was something you knew about before the research which has increased, or were you always aware of it?
AO: No, I think, I think it grows as a bigger picture doesn’t it, you get a small part of the story and then you put yourself in those shoes and you think hang on, you know, but until you get a bigger part of the picture, you can’t put yourself in that situation, you, they’re models on a shelf or they’re pictures in a book and they don’t mean anything to you until you think about the day to dayness of it. They’re getting up in the morning and having an egg given to you and thinking, ‘err’, right, I’m off to, off to, where ever tonight and then thinking about how you would feel at that time and I think it’s only when you have the full, a fuller picture, that, that picture builds up and makes you think, that was, that must have just been terrible to think about each day. The fact that, as my Grandad said a long time ago, that was you didn’t get close to other crews, you only got close to your own crew because if you did, they might be gone tomorrow
JA: Yeh
AO: So, the admiration of having to deal with the day to day unpleasantness of it, I think some parts of it were probably very boring, the waiting to go, they’re sat on the airfield waiting for the all clear to go, the flying home, relieved that your flying home, but the boredom of it on the way home, I suppose there was tasks to do wasn’t it, flight engineers, gunner’s etcetera, but, it’s in the dullness, it’s the fear
JA: Yeh
AO: Its being aware of the fear, of doing it
JM: I think that’s a very good point, but I’d just like to just widen it a little bit. Have your researches in anyway affected your view of the air war, the role that Bomber Command played in defeating Nazi Germany?
AO: It was necessary, It was necessary and this is what modern society doesn’t seem to appreciate it, they see, camera guided missiles zooming in on targets with pinpoint accuracy and that just wasn’t the case during the war you know, it was area bombing, it was indiscriminate both, on both sides, but what people fail to remember and think about is the men who were sent to do it, it wasn’t their choice, they’d have rather been sat at home with their families. They did it because that was what was required of them, whereas the people who make decisions on the targeting, they’re, it was they’re responsibility, and that lies ultimately with the politicians, and that is a very, again a, it doesn’t matter if it is modern times or then, politicians make the decisions, and it’s the ordinary people who are left to suffer and not be appreciated, and I think that’s throughout the ages, you know, it’s very convenient for politicians to sweep things under the carpet and forget because it’s not affecting them personally
JM: Thank you. You’ve led this family research and this aspect of your Grandfather’s life, have you given any thoughts to what you would like to see happen to the material which you’ve collected and the information that you’ve garnered?
AO: It should always be there for people to access, for them to find out. Many people won’t because as time moves on people forget things, things become, you know, by the passage of time, people become less close to it, but for those who are interested and want to know, it should be there for them to find
JM: Thank you very much. Judy, could I come back to you for a moment? From a woman’s perspective, could you tell us a little about how these researches have influenced your life?
JW: Erm, its, when we were young it was just part of what we grew up with, the knowledge that Dad had been in the war and everything, but you didn’t think a lot about it because that was how it was, erm, but as I’ve got older and found out more, talking with Anthony over certain things, I can see the unfairness of how it has been sort of blamed on them, the men of Bomber Command and all the bombings and everything, and how the politicians have tried to sort of not talk about it or appreciate the men who took a chance with their lives and went out there, erm, but they weren’t appreciated. We sent off for the medal for Dad recently
AO: The clasp
JW: Yeh, the clasp, and I was shocked at how awful it was and, you know, it was just a horrible little piece of ribbon and it was nothing to show any appreciation of what they’d actually done. And, when Anthony and I went to the Green Park and saw the memorial, and some of the facts that people have attached to the memorial about how many people of Bomber Command have died, just under fifty percent I believe, you know
[unknown] Over
JW: The toss of the dice whether they lived or died and came out of the war, none of that seems to have been appreciated, to me, nobody really in the general public seems to know about it, and to my mind I think it, it would be a good idea if perhaps a little bit of this what happened, was taught in school. Too, youngsters now, say juniors, that kind of age, just to touch on it and make them realise that these men made a sacrifice, the fifty percent that never came back
JA: No
JW: They made the ultimate sacrifice, and then, maybe the youngsters today would know and appreciate just what they did. I’ve heard they’re calling them the golden generation and I think that’s what they were
JM: Thank you Judy. Could I come back finally to you please Mrs Ayres. I would just like to ask you one more, you must be very of the, of the work that your family have done to make sense of your father, er, of your husband’s war service?
EA: Oh, I am, I’ve sat here with my eyes glued to young Anthony here, with his knowledge, how he’s been interested in finding all these facts and knowledge about the past and what his Grandad, you know, had a part of it, erm, he’s always looked up and admired him and he’s always sat there and listened to all his stories. Both the boys, Richard as well, Judy’s other boy, they’ve sat there, opened mouths for hours listening to his stories, which amazed me with the memories that he had of them, he went from one thing to the other, he was such a wonderful brave and you realise how brave, how brave these airmen were. A lot of them, lack of moral fibre, could not take it, but the ones that did were very, very brave and I think this generation should be made aware of what they did for the future generations. Why they here today, how they here today, because of what the men did, in the war, not enough people, there’s not enough said about it I don’t think, I think it should come into school’s history especially, about the three services, not only the army, not only the navy but the aircraft as well, ‘cos I think sometimes the army takes precedence over a lot of the other services. The young services, the RAF is the young service, but, to make a boy interested and perhaps go into the RAF, they should make everything more clear to them of what the men suffered, what the future held for them in the RAF, because it’s amazing, it’s an amazing place because they teach you a lot. John said he learnt more in the RAF than he did at school. I know we were the wrong years, I was thirteen, John was fourteen when war broke out, we missed quite a few years of education, therefore we’re not quite as clever because we missed those years and you never get them back, but not our fault of course, John, he was in the RAF, whereas he could have been in education [unclear] become some professional person, but he couldn’t, but the RAF knowledge he got there did help towards his work and he became a very good engineer as well, he learnt a lot, he told me he learnt more there than at school
JM: On that note, can I on behalf of the International Bomber Command centre, thank you all, Judy, Anthony, Mrs Ayres, you’ve given a very useful and very interesting interview. Thank you very much.
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AAyreJE-Fam170403
Title
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Interview with the family of John Edward Ayres
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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
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:49:59 audio recording
Creator
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Julian Maslin
Date
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2017-04-03
Description
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The interview is with John’s wife, daughter and grandson.
John was a flight engineer with 427 Squadron. He was born at Westcliff-on-Sea and volunteered for the Royal Air Force when he received a letter from Bomber Command. He had joined the Air Training Corps and had an interest in aircraft. After finishing operations, he trained men when they transferred to Lancasters. He also flew Halifaxes. John demobilised in June 1947 and became a refrigeration engineer.
John’s wife describes how the Canadian crew attended their wedding and helped organise their honeymoon nine days before the war ended.
The family observe that John rarely discussed his wartime experiences; he did what had to be done.
John’s grandson recalls John’s love of model aircraft and shares his own research on 427 Squadron. He notes how the station records became more serious as the war progressed and losses grew. He recounts some of the stories John told him and how John was shocked by a photograph in a book, which recorded an incident he had experienced. He comments on the dangers they faced outside and during operations.
The family visited Yorkshire Air Museum for John’s 90th birthday and went in a Halifax, which is described as narrow and uncomfortable.
The family expresses their views about Bomber Command and the role it played.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Sally Coulter
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05-08
1947-06
427 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
fear
flight engineer
Halifax
Lancaster
love and romance
memorial
perception of bombing war