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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46779/AMorrisH17XXXX-01.2.mp3
003cbb1405631b2ca19e9da3b6833e83
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Title
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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ASR-MCS
Description
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15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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My five and a half years in the Royal Airforce from 1941 to 1946.
My name is Henry Stanley Morris, I was born on the 26th July 1924 at Plaistow East London. Later my parents moved to Barnet in Hertfordshire. I left school aged 14 in 1938, went to Walworth and Pending. War was declared shortly after in 1939 although 1940 was quiet until the Germans overran Belgium and the British and the French army were forced to retreat to Dunkirk. Where they were rescued from the beaches. The Government in their wisdom formed the Home Guard and the Air Defence Cadet Corps. Later renamed the Air Training Corps which in 1940 I enlisted in 189 Sqn High Barnet. We were taught theory of flight, Morse code, basic navigation, physical training. In the Air Training Corps I spent a week away under canvas at the RAF School of Engineering at Holton in Buckinghamshire.
Together with several other squadrons we were told some VIPs were coming to inspect the camp and school. We then had to whitewash the road kerbs to the resentment of most of us and (our introduction to RAF bullshit). The great day arrived; the cortege was led by RAF Military Police car, driven by a very attractive WAAF. Lining both sides of the road we were told to cheer when the VIPs came by. The WAAF driver received a resounding cheer but we remained a little subdued when the VIPS came abreast. To our astonishment we later realised it was His Majesty and Her Majesty King George V and Queen Mary.
On my 17th birthday in the afternoon, without informing my parents, I got a bus to RAF Recruiting Office in Deanfoot Road, Edgeware. I told them my age was 18, born in 1923, not 1924 and I was accepted. Several weeks later, together with several other young men, we had to swear the Oath of Allegiance and received the King’s Shilling. I was now officially in the Royal Air Force and I was sent home on deferred service.
In January 1941, I received a railway warrant to report to Warrington and then I was taken to RAF Padgate where I was kitted out with a uniform and given a very short haircut at our own expense. In due course we boarded a train to Blackpool where I spent 4 months doing my basic training which involved many hours of drilling, route marches, physical training (PT), Morse code, rifle and bayonet training, rifle shooting. Being directed into a room where we were subjected to, after removing our gasmasks momentarily, various lethal poisonous gases i.e. mustard, chorine, throwing mills bombs and lots of this took place at Lytham St Anne’s. Once a week during this time we marched to Burton’s where they had us take part in a weekly Morse code speed test. Hence the phrase, going for a Burton.
My sister has enlisted in the WAAF a while before me and, having finished her basic training at Morecombe, was posted as a typist to a maintenance unit in Cheshire living in a Civvy billet. Her landlady agreed to put me up for a weekend to visit my sister. I obtained a weekend pass to Bramhall in Cheshire. Public transport was very limited so I decided to hitchhike, although road traffic was sparse. Eventually a large 8 wheeled lorry pulled up and a heavily built lady driver with arms like tree trunks, remember no power steering then, offered me a lift to Manchester, my luck was in. I had an enjoyable reunion with my sister.
After 4 months we boarded a train which took us to RAF Yatesbury No 1 RAF Signals School. Some of us were trained for ground duties and the rest for aircrew. To my dismay I was rejected for aircrew due to defective colour vision in red and green. Later driving did not present a problem, or I say later driving a car did not present a problem. There was an airfield adjoining the camp where there were twin engined De Havilland Rapids’ for the training of aircrew wireless operators.
I obtained permission to go home one weekend and bring back my bicycle; on Sunday evening left the train at Swindon and set off for camp on the bike knowing that it would be impossible now to return in the normal way by 11:00 hours. So knowing of a hole in wire perimeter fence, I broke into camp only to be caught by an SP patrol for which I was put on charge and awarded 14 jankers, which meant reporting to the guardroom in full kit at 06:00 hours and then sent to cookhouse to wash dishes in soda water for around 2000 men. My hands were raw after 14 days.
After another 4 months I passed out as a fully-fledged wireless operator AC2. Being young and stupid I then volunteered to transfer to the army, answering General Montgomery’s call for wireless operators for his tanks for the breakout at El Alamein, thankfully I wasn’t accepted. Shortly afterwards I was put on embarkation leave which happened twice. On the second occasion I was given a railway warrant to report to RAF Padgate where I was told to report to a hut, allocated a bed and realised my fellow RAF colleagues were talking about boats. At this stage of my RAF service I had no idea that the RAF had boats; I was greatly intrigued even though I couldn’t swim. The following morning I realised I was part of a contingent of 30 MBCs (that stands for Motor Boat Crew) and 1 Officer on overseas draft. We were fitted out with Icelandic kit and our kitbags were marked accordingly. We spent a few days under canvass, in tents and then we boarded a train for Gourock, North of Glasgow where convoys were assembled to cross the Atlantic. In the event we boarded the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Queen Elizabeth which, at that time, was the largest passenger ship in the world. Before we departed the RMS Queen Mary arrived having a massive gash in the bow filled with concrete having, we later discovered, collided with a Royal Navy cruiser, slicing it in half with a loss of over 600 crew members.
Returning to our situation we were told not to undress as we were going to enter a U-boat infested area which, as you can imagine, to an 18 year old was quite frightening. I awoke at 6 in the morning to hear heavy gunfire and machine gun fire to be later told that they were just testing the guns. As the troopship was capable of some 35 knots she sailed unescorted. It was January 1942 and the seas were horrific, I was dreadfully seasick. After six days we entered the Hudson River, New York in dense fog, the New York tugboats were on strike at the time so our Captain did a fantastic job of seamanship with help of fellow officers by docking this huge ship alongside Pier 52 unaided.
We had several thousand Italian POWs on board as well as several thousand Norwegian trainee aircrew. In the adjoining berth the massive France liner Normandy lay on her side, having been set on fire by German saboteurs. In an effort to extinguish the fire excessive water forced her to capsize. Our contingent was the last to disembark and eventually we boarded a bus to take us to Pennsylvania Railway Station where we boarded a civilian train for a two day journey to Miami, Florida. Being a bunch of young virile young men from all walks of life, our Officer requested that dining car attendant to add bromide to our tea, so we were later told.
I encountered American apartheid as I was sitting next to a black lady on the train having a pleasant conversation when the train entered South Carolina and crossed the Mason/Dixon line where upon a beefy American policeman came on board and a sign went up saying ‘White’s Only’ and the black lady had to move. Part way on our journey we were finally told by our Officer, Flying Officer Wilford that we were heading for Nassau in the Bahamas. On arrival in Miami Beach, which incidentally had been taken over by the United States Airforce, we were allocated to a hotel and were told to report to their mess where the food was excellent. Five days later we boarded a small American ship and sailed through the night, arriving in Nassau around 6 a.m. Nassau, at this time, was a British Colony, nothing like the tourist attraction it is today.
After disembarking we boarded a bus which took us to RAF 211 OTU (Coastal Command) Oaks Field, which was a very large RAF airfield run by Coastal Command for training aircrew in Mitchell B25 twin engined bombers and Liberator 4 engined bombers for attacking U-boats in the Atlantic. It was extremely hot, bearing in mind we were still wearing our RAF blue, after a day or so we were issued with a United States Airforce KD (that’s khaki drill) and we were taken by bus to the Montague Beach hotel which was situated a mile or so south of Nassau and had been requisitioned by the RAF to accommodate the RAF Marine Section, Canadian Army and Combined Special Forces. We were then introduced to our Commanding Officer, Flight Lieutenant Wilkinson, his deputy, Flt Sergeant Lockwood (Coxswain), Flt Sgt, Rogers (Fitter Marine – Engines), assisted by other ranks, several sergeant and corporal coxswains, motor boat crewmen (known as MBCs), orderly room clerk, a chippy boat builder, several medical orderlies, a corporal wireless operator mechanic in charge of six or seven wireless operators and one armourer and a cook. From memory the total complement of 250 ASR / Marine Craft Section Unit was around 80 personnel distributed around the three bases; Montague Hotel, Harbour Island on Eleuthera and Lyford Cay at the northern tip of New Providence Island.
Our diesel and high octane aviation fuel storage facility was on Hogg Island, now known as Paradise Island; a present day tourist venue accessed via a toll bridge from the mainland. Admittedly we had a motley collection of boats at the Montague were 2 US crash boats P190 and P191. I was allocated to P191 as wireless operator. From memory they were about 52 ft. long with Norscot engines which were not suppressed so to use the radio it was hopeless unless engines were stopped. We also had a requisitioned Chris-Craft J656. At Lyford Cay at the northern tip of New Providence Island, another requisitioned boat J803 was on stand-by. She had been a civilian motor cabin cruiser, again from memory about 50 ft. in length.
At Dunmore Town Harbour Island, a 102 ft. ex US Coast Guard cutter P89 was stationed there, her armament had been retained which consisted of .5 Browning machine guns and the crews’ quarters were very comfortable having an ironing board and electric iron as well as a nice galley. My dear old friend and fellow wireless operator, Roy Smith, was a member of the crew.
It is interesting to know that the principal islands had a Commissioner, answerable to the High Commissioner in Nassau (the Duke of Windsor). My friend Roy fell in love with the Commissioner’s 16 year old daughter Barbara Mulhern; having got special permission from his parents and his Commanding Officer, they got married on the island. Later, P803 was de-requisitioned and replaced with a Miami Chaser P712, later renumbered to HSL 2779 which was an American designed rescue launch.
At this time the Royal Navy had a flotilla of 12 MTBs stationed at Port of Spain, Trinidad, they were disbanded and the RAF were allocated MTB 339 for use as an Air Sea Rescue Long Range Rescue Launch to which I was allocated as wireless operator. We turned to harbour, the crew had a confrontation which the local white lads over who should dance with the five local white girls and a punch up ensued when one was knocked out cold by one of the crew members who was an RAF champion boxer. Subsequently 339 was sent to relieve P89, the crew of which were brought home in disgrace.
At that time there was no means of communication with Nassau other than sending a telegram in Morse code by the Government wireless operator who maintained a 2 hour watch every morning. For the remaining 2 at 22:00 hours the remaining 3 operators on 339 maintained a 24 hours watch with Oaks field, Nassau. So, if an aircraft ditched in the sea, we would put to sea and hopefully rescue them, but sadly this didn’t happen very often. On one occasion we did have a very successful pick up when the crew of a Mitchel B25 bomber were located in their dinghy and we took them on board. The skipper, Flt Lt Wilkinson, told me to contact Oaks Field and arrange for an ambulance to be at Princess Wharf, Nassau as some of the crew were injured. I tried to contact Oaks Field to no avail so I retuned my transmitter to a local Bahamas telegraph, who were transmitting between the islands. Eventually they responded to my request to contact Oaks Field to listen out on my frequency. Thankfully there was an ambulance waiting when we docked. For this I was complimented for my initiative.
We had to spend 3 months at each of our bases so on returning from Harbour Island, together with other members I was posted to Lyford Cay where the crew of Miami Chaser HSL 2779 resided. There wasn’t a lot of activity at this end of the island. I should say there was not a lot of aerial activity at this end of the island but on one occasion we were called out to search for a 4 engined Liberator that had ditched somewhere off Grand Bahama, which is one of the largest islands in the Bahama Group. Sadly all we found was a nose wheel of the aircraft and a leather flying jacket whose owner we were able to identify. On return to Lyford Cay, which was in the dark, we ran over a reef and damaged one of the propellers and we subsequently had to return to Nassau for repairs.
On the trip back we ran into a storm and we saw a water spout, a phenomenon indeed. We gave assistance to a banana boat that had complete engine failure so we were able to offer a tow back to Nassau. In gratitude bananas were on our menu for some time after.
Apart from rescue duties we had 2 trawler type boats T170 and T70, these boats were fitted with 2 power winches on the stern so that we could tow a massive steel target which, with the aid of the power winches, we could assimilate a U boat-surfacing or submerging. When the target submerged it released a green dye so that when the Liberators came out from Oaks Field they could practice bombing. I was in radio contact with the pilot and gave him his results. We would also go out into the Atlantic at night so that these Liberators could locate us with their lead light activated by their radar. The purpose of which was to catch unsuspecting U-boats on the surface at night recharging their main batteries.
Meals were cooked on these boats surprisingly on a coal fired range. My first Christmas overseas in 1942 and away from home I felt very homesick. Our chef prepared a traditional Christmas dinner served by our officers and senior NCOs. I received an autographed book as a Christmas present from Peggy Evans, my WAAF fiancé back in England and in it she had composed and written the following program:
There’s no need to hang a lantern in a tree to light the sky
There’s no need to tell my wishes to the folks a passing by
For the stars will light the heavens in a way they always do
And my wishes for your Christmas are especially for you.
A month or so later I received a letter saying that she had met someone else, was devastated to the extreme (laughing).
Vera Lynn was another cause of homesickness, on occasions I would tune my receiver to the BBC Overseas service and, if she was singing ‘there’ll be bluebells growing on the white cliffs of Dover’, there would be some wet eyes among the younger crew members.
HSL (MTB 339) and crew, having finished their 3 month stay at Harbour Island, were ordered back to Nassau and to be relieved by P89. On the appointed day we cast off and headed out of harbour for the ninety mile trip to Montague, our Nassau base. Midway we encountered P89 and pleasantries were exchanged with an Aldis hand held signal lamp. On arrival 339 was secured to our mooring in Montague Bay, both Packard 1050 horsepower engines were shut down and I signalled Oaks Field that we had returned to base, although before doing so we had refuelled at Hogg Island. The crew then boarded tender J252, had a meal and went to bed only to be awoken at around 1 a.m. by Flt Sgt Lockwood and told to dress immediately and get down to the dock and board the tender to take us out to 339. A marine fitter was already aboard warming up the twin Packards which, being marineised aero engines, were noisy. We were quickly under way, I signalled Oaks Field our estimated time of departure (ETD.), apparently I was told by an MBC that we were going to the assistance of the US Navy sub chaser 1059 on exercise that was stuck on a reef. Fenders were placed along our port side 339, by our MBC crew members and our skipper, Flt Lt. Wilkinson brought 339 alongside the US Navy stricken boat allowing, so I was told, several US sailors to jump on to our foredeck. We left the sailors at Princess Wharf, Nassau, back to our moorings, formalities dealt with, a good job accomplished.
There were no street lamps outside Montague so it was very dark when one evening I was sitting on a beach, being bitten by sand flies, feeling lonely and miserable when a young girl approached me and we struck up a conversion. Initially I thought she was a white girl with a good sun tan, I invited her to come with me to the cinema in Nassau the following evening and she accepted. I Met her the following evening and we started walking into town, no buses at that time, as we entered the area of street lighting I realised she was a coloured girl, commonly referred to as ‘Conky Joes’. It must be said that like all British Colonies at that time, there was no apartheid but it was frowned on to consort with black members of the population and coloureds were classed as black. Nevertheless lower ranks did associate with black girlfriends over the hill. However, bought 2 cinema tickets and was shown to our seats in the darkened cinema and, oh dear, during the interval when the lights turned up the contemptuous looks I received from local white people. Later felt very saddened when I had to tell her that I could not see her again as I was infringing RAF instructions.
I feel that when we first arrived here we were told that VD was rife among the local population, horrific films were shown to us mostly young lads of the effects of contracting the various forms of VD. Once a week we were paraded and issued with complementary condoms.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor resided at Government House, the Duke being High Commissioner and heavily guarded by a contingent of the Canadian Army for fear of him being abducted by U-boat members and taken to Germany. The Duchess was well liked as she had no side and was regularly to be seen at the Bahamian Forces Club outside Nassau where dances were held and she would dance with the lads. As for the Duke if he drove by we had to stand at the kerbside and salute, frequently he was intoxicated. I was led to believe that he was a man of the people but on the frequent times he came aboard our launch he confined himself to the skipper or the coxswain at the helm, not a word to crew members.
On one occasion at Montague we were given an opportunity to have a dental check-up if a filling was required the dentist sat astride a bicycle on a stand peddling very quickly to drive a drill very painful. I developed a large wart on the side of my second finger of my right hand which made it difficult being a wireless telegraphist to hold a pen or pencil, so was taken to hospital at Oaks Field, given a general anaesthetic to have root removed, I was not totally under for the whole operation and I recall hearing something which sounded like scrapping on concrete and also asking for water and a hand coming under the sheet with a wet swab and then passing out again.
After about two years we were given the opportunity to go on leave for two weeks either to Havana Cuba or the States, you were granted fifty dollars only and my American uncle, my dad’s brother, generously sent me 100 dollars. So then with my two pals Stan Matlock and Frank McPhail we all hitched a lift to RAF Windsor Field, calling at the flight office; Frank having the gift of the gab persuaded the pilot of a United States Airforce C47 transport plane to take us to Miami US Airforce base. I don’t remember any mention of parachutes; on arrival got a taxi to Miami railway station our ticket included a bunkbed as we would be spending one night on the train arriving in New York late the next day as I recall, forgotten exact location but found the Salvation Army Red Shield Club which provided a clean overnight bed for servicemen for the night. The accommodation and food were excellent and also the basement showers and swimming pool were clean too. Having cleaned and refreshed ourselves we found the nearest USO (that’s United Services Organisation) where coffee and sugar coated doughnuts were freely available, and free tickets were given to servicemen and women to theatres, roller-skating, restaurants and many other forms of entertainment. Wherever we went, recognising us for Britons, the reception we got was wonderful; tickets were obtained for a television show and I was called to the stage to participate in a quiz show and I won Twenty Six Dollars which enabled me to treat my two pals and also buy myself a ‘Bulova’ wristwatch which I still have in working order.
I left my pals for a few days to make contact with my uncle Charles, we arranged to meet at Grand Central Station and as soon as I saw him from behind I knew it was him he was so like my father. He treated me to a wonderful day out taking me to several interesting places and all the time asking me questions about conditions back home. Unbeknown to the family at home he had married a Russian born eccentric lady, so we boarded an electric train to Bridgeport Connecticut to meet his in-laws who had a seventeen year old daughter called Helen. We were going to play cards so several dollars were put in my hand and Helen and I boarded a local bus into town to enjoy ourselves and we did; she was a nice girl still at teacher training college and we vowed to keep in touch. Later on arriving at her home my uncle wanted to take me home in his car way out in the sticks to meet his strange wife. During the drive I inquired from my uncle why he drove so slowly apparently at that time third party insurance was not a legal requirement so he drove very carefully. His wife whose name I cannot recall now made me very comfortable as best she could but oh dear the house was so isolated cold and draughty. I let my uncle introduce me to his nearest neighbour who was half a mile away and took me to Ansonia where he worked for a Birmingham engineering firm and found that he was highly respected designing huge machinery for moulding tyres all sizes. The canteen manager had lived in the states over thirty-five years and still retained a Scots accent.
So it was back to join my two pals in New York; one night we met up with three girls for a fun night out and at one o’clock in the morning we all linked arms and walked along fifth Avenue singing ‘Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey and a kiddley divey too’. We were far from intoxicated but for a moment a burly policeman swinging his long batten truncheon approached us with a look as if we were drunk and disorderly.
Public toilets at that time came as a shock to me as toilet compartments had no doors possibly to combat homosexuality. Now our time at New York almost at its end, Stan decided to sort out the time of our train back to Miami, returning he said it left at 09-30pm but to our dismay on arrival at Pen Station the one train a day had left at 09-30am. We quickly realised that the possibility we would be AWOL (absent without leave) which is a serious offence. Booking on a train going south via Washington, where on arrival all passengers had to get off due to some fault on the track, we were advised to find somewhere to park our tired souls for a few hours. We finished up sleeping on the floor in the reception area of a large hotel. Later we re-boarded the train and continued on the long haul to Miami arriving at US Customs and Emigration. We responded to a request over the public address system to report to the British Embassy where I was entrusted with responsibility for delivering two sealed embassy bags to Nassau. This meant we sailed through the formalities and arrived by air back at Nassau, where I was relieved of the official bags and we returned to our unit Absent Without Leave I alone was told to report to our commanding officer expecting a severe dressing down and was handed a cablegram from my eldest sister informing me my sister serving in the WAAF had died, he expressed a lot of sympathy as I was pretty devastated so no further mention was made of being AWOL and my two pals were absolved too.
A small draft of MBCs and Wireless operators arrived from UK via Canada and were distributed among the boat crews, so I was brought ashore to assist Corporal Johnny Aram in our maintenance and repair workshop. He resolved minor repairs to American built radios and transmitters from the boats, also bringing the large twenty-four volt batteries ashore for re charging. Several times in a choppy sea transferring battery from boat into tender we would accidentally drop it into the sea. I learned to do properly metal filing and soldering, which I became quite adept at. During this time Helen from Newhaven and I had been exchanging romantic letters; Christmas 1944 came along with the usual festivities, before dinner a large group photo was taken of the compliment of 250 ASR/ MC Unit except those on duty at Lyford Cay and Harbour Island, it was rumoured that a large number of men at Oak Field and ourselves were going to be returned to UK via Canada, naturally we were overjoyed. So in January 1945 we were all conveyed by trucks to Prince Georges Wharf to board a United States transport ship for Miami where we boarded a troop train bound for Monkton Nova Scotia Canada. Leaving Miami at 85 degrees Fahrenheit and after a very long train journey up the eastern seaboard of the United States, through New York to the United States/Canada border and customs we eventually arrived at Monkton to a temperature of minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit, oh god it was cold. On the train we had discarded our KD for our warmer Airforce blue, nevertheless a lot of men went off sick with cold etc. I recall there was thick snow everywhere but the Royal Canadian Airforce three storey wooden barracks were warm and comfortable, should there be a fire a slide was fixed on the outside to evacuate the building quickly. Apparently we had just missed a troop ship sailing from Halifax to UK, so the Canadian Airforce didn’t know what to with such a large body of men so it was suggested we could either unofficially get a local job or visit relatives for three weeks in the United States; free railway travel warrants were available. I very joyfully elected to get the train down to Newhaven Connecticut to stay with Helen’s family. Our relationship had seriously progressed and she met me at Newhaven station we had a wonderful time together and permission was granted by her parents and we became engaged. Sadly I received order to return to Monkton it had to be recorded the English are not liked by French Canadians as they have not forgiven us for taking Quebec by force in 17 something, I transgress for in due course we boarded a troop train for Halifax docks where we embarked on the 35,000 ton ex Dutch liner MV New Amsterdam. Interestingly there was a lot of sexual activity, with many hundreds of American WAC’ars equivalent to our ATS girls aboard at one point; the captain of the ship had to make an announcement to those responsible to refrain from releasing inflated condoms for fear of disclosing our position to enemy U-boats.
After an uneventful Atlantic crossing, during which time I acted as a batman to some ungrateful jumped up Wing Commander, we docked at Liverpool. Customs came on board and demanded duty on all the cigarettes we had and any other items that were subject to duty. After all these formalities we eventually disembarked to be put on a train for West Kirby the following morning, given railway warrants to our home town.
After two and a half years away I was given a wonderful welcome home by my parents, elder sister and neighbours. Two weeks later I received a railway warrant to report to RAF Chicksands Priory, a wireless enemy and allied interception station, in Bedfordshire. Coded messages received were sent to Bletchley Park for deciphering; it had been established that information received had helped to shorten the war. Chicksands was home to around 2000 RAF and WAAF wireless operators who had been screened for overseas duty. In order to get home on a weekend pass I bought myself a second hand Coventry Eagle 250cc two stroke motor bike. When I managed to obtain petrol with the help of my dad, I would bring home on my pillion Annette, also a wireless operator from Scotland. As soon as the European war ended in June 1945 all the RAF lads, including me, having been back in the UK for six months, were put on overseas draft, I was bitterly upset as I thought I had done my stint overseas, however I had to go. After a period of leave, at which time I celebrated my 21st birthday at home, bearing in mind Japan was still fighting fanatically and at the time nobody knew for how long, I decided that, as Helen did not want to live in England and at that time I did not want to live in the States it was time to break off our engagement as my parents had lost both of their daughters and to have their only son leave the country would have been a great loss to them. I was due to be condemned for some time for this decision.
Churchill was determined to retain India, the jewel in the crown, and also wanted to make a big presence in Burma and I think to impress the Americans. So I was sent to RAF Northwield in Essex to be kitted out for India. Subsequently, with other Chicksand bods, entrained for Oxford station and by RAF Lorries to RAF Broadwell, a satellite airfield to RAF Brize Norton. I spent the night at Broadwell meeting George Lefay, a wireless Op from 250 ASR Marine Craft Unit Nassau, small world The following morning twenty two of us boarded a twin engined DC3 transport plane enroute to India and the first staging post was Sardinia to re fuel; very turbulent over the Mediterranean. We were next scheduled to land at El Adem in Libya but at about 01:00am we made a forced landing on one engine at Benina airfield near Benghazi where there was still much evidence of bitter fighting during the Eighth Army Desert Campaign. We were made comfortable in ex Italian Airforce barrack huts; in the morning, engine repaired, we set off for Lydda (Aqir) airfield in what is now Israel but then Palestine, two days under canvas and sampling the luscious Jaffa oranges, continued in same aircraft but with a new aircrew to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf. We arrived in the early hours of the morning exceedingly hot to very primitive toilet latrines, many crates of grapefruit were put aboard our DC3 so when we re-boarded there was little room to move about, However we started moving and, with both engines at maximum rev’s, our pilot got the aircraft into the air and we set course for Karachi in India our final stop.
Seven hours later I recall we landed and when the main door opened I was delighted to see my old dear mate Jack Westing from Signal School Yatesbury standing there holding a clip board with a passenger list, I was able to get away from my fellow passengers and meet up with Jack. Apparently he was now grounded from flying although was last to leave by parachute from a stricken Wellington bomber over Japanese positions over Burma having just bombed them. He was rescued by friendly Burma natives and restored to allied lines. He showed me some of the local sights and, getting very tipsy, we vowed to stay in touch, made our goodbyes and I returned to our billet to re-join my other mates only to find they were all packed to proceed to railway station to board an Indian troop train bound for Lahore. It should be noted that we had all been issued with a Sten gun which could be dismantled and stored in kitbag. The Sten gun was a close quarter automatic machine gun and not very accurate. The carriages were very uncomfortable with wooden seats no windows and a hole in the floor for a toilet. Whenever Indians stopped we would rush along to the driver for hot water to make tea. Milk and tea were sold by the wayside by young Indians dispensing everything.
The crossing of the Sind desert was very hot and we saw first-hand the primitive living conditions of the inhabitants and small mongooses galore. Some two or more days later we reached Lahore, a bustling city of Muslims and then taken to the RAF cantonment beside a massive maintenance unit. I was shown to the signals cabin where a 24 hr watch was kept with the rest of India and United Kingdom. I am not proud of what I am about to relay but first must emphasise some of the men had been away from home and stationed in India for over five long years. Remember no skype or cell phones. So the RAF in India and Singapore at the appointed hour at ten o’clock formed up in an orderly fashion and marched out of camp to the cantonment. Later the camp Commander called us to the camp cinema; we were warned of dire consequences we subsequently, reluctantly returned to our duties. At some camps the army moved in with rifles and fixed bayonets and the ring leader in Singapore was arrested and imprisoned for seven years, however it did speed up demobilisation for some. India was becoming a hot bed of unrest between Hindu and Muslims with mass slaughter taking place; myself and an IOR (India Other Ranks) wireless Op would be taken out by truck to an isolated radio hut in the jungle to receive a weather report at specific times from somewhere in Russia, forgotten name, it was a little unnerving on my own to hear noisy illegal political meetings taking place in the jungle very near to us. Later I was posted to a very large signals centre in the New Government building in New Delhi. When construction and drainage was completed it was attached to Old Delhi and became known as just Delhi, Capital of India. The signals centre handled vast amounts of Morse plain language traffic so I introduced the use of a typewriter to record messages instead of handwriting for this I was made up to a Corporal, more money. I did not enjoy good health in India; first I had a very bad dose of tonsillitis, in hospital they were going to remove them but because of the high risk in such hot climate of infection they decided to leave it in abeyance.
My demob number came up and I was sent with others to Bombay transit camp; in due course embarked on the SS Georgic to sail home via the Suez Canal, Mediterranean, Gibraltar and Liverpool and then West Kirby to collect my civilian suit, shoes, overcoat, hat and two months leave for my five and a half years. I was awarded three medals; the Atlantic Star was my prized one and India gave me Pulmonary TB which in those days was often fatal but in my case a complete recovery after several years. Hope you have found this narrative of some interest THE END
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Interview with Henry Morris
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eng
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00:53:15 audio recording
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AMorrisH17XXXX-01
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46778/AStokerK15XXXX-01.1.mp3
e9469ab0ef455194e5084f37e73fe717
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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2017-01-10
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ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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I was born in Dover on 2nd of July 1926. When war started in September 1939, I was thirteen, I went to River school. George Blackman, the well-known Youth Leader in Dover ran the Army cadets and decided to form a cadet branch for the Air Training Corps which was a good help for us lads who wanted to join the RAF. I was very good at aircraft recognition and was soon made up to Corporal Cadet. Which was a good help when I volunteered for the RAF Marine Branch in 1943 as I always liked the sea and was called up when I was 17 3/4 in March 1944. I went first to Bedford and we were there kitted out and then sent on to Skegness and then after basic training I was sent to Stranraer the Marine Craft training school. For nine weeks I put in for ASR postings to either Dover or Ramsgate but the powers that be thought different and I was sent to OBAN Flying boat base which was 520 miles from my home but this was typical. I was put on crew of a Seaplane Tender the Corporal Cox’n was Fred Stiles who had been awarded the BEM for going overboard in a very cold sea and rescuing two airmen who had crashed in a Catalina flying boat, Fred died a few years ago. After two or three months I was posted to the Far East and went to Ceylon, India, and Burma, I joined 230 Air Sea Rescue Unit at acciab in Burma and was put on to Hant’s & Dorset launch 2686. We had three launches in our unit one day we would be on duty and would go to a section given to us where there was action going on and then if any of our aircraft were damaged we were in the area to go and pick them up if they had crashed , we used to often stay in an area called Foul Island and we sometimes would be there five days waiting for another callout and one day when we were South of Acciab off of Ranlee island a call went out to search for a Liberator that had crashed and our two launches that were back at base went off and eventually found them and among the crew was Flt Lt Nicholson who was the only pilot who got the VC in the Battle of Britain . we often went down and stayed a few miles South of Jutubia I am sorry to say that all the time I was with 2686 about eight months, we did not get a pick up but we were in the areas where we might be needed if anything had happened, it does seem a bit of a disappointment but I picked up more people on the Marine Craft Section back in Britain than I did out in Burma. I was with 230ASR until just before VJ Day then I went into hospital in Rangoon where they found that I had a tropical disease of the kidneys and was to be sent home I arrived in Calcutta on August 15thVJ Day when the war had finished I carried on to Bombay waiting about five weeks there and eventually got on board the troopship Georjic for the journey home to Liverpool which took about 3 ½ weeks I was then put into hospital at RAF Hereford for about two months and then posted to Gosport. On torpedo recovery we used to check where the torpedoes were dropped and then recover them with a derrick on a GP Pinnace interesting work sometimes we would have our break over on the isle of Wight one time the Queen Mary came out of Southampton going to the United States of America, after about six months |I was posted to Felixstowe 1103 MCU most time running about in a marine Tender plenty of work as it was a repair base and a test place also for flying boats and sea planes, the Shetland Flying boat which was larger than a Sunderland was there and one Sunday night it caught fire on the moorings two chaps were on board on boat watch and the heat from the cooker caused an explosion there was always a smell of petrol when you went alongside but luckily the chaps were able to swim ashore so no loss of life. 1946 I was picked to be one of the crew a pinnace 1416 to go to London to stand by two Sunderland’s that were landing at Greenwich and they were to be open to the public to go aboard, I was to ferry them in an Marine Tender which we had picked up at Woolwich Arsenal The Sunderland’s Landed around 6am and I and my deckhand were sent up to Tower Bridge at 5 o’clock to make sure that there was no large logs etc. these floating and likely to be in the area when the aircraft landed, everything went off OK. I had to take the crews ashore as they were going to be billeted in the Royal Naval College. Later on two HSL’s arrived and on Saturday and Sunday the launches were also open for the public to view. I also had the MT to do the job I and my deckhand worked right through the day from 8am till 6pm carrying ten people a time and they had about eight to ten minutes aboard the Sunderland’s and then returned to Greenwich Pier for another lot it was very popular the crews of the Sunderland’s put a forage cap inside the door and when the visitors came out they left a tip which the crews on the aircraft shared with us two lads and we got about £4 each which was a lot of money in those days our pay rate in Group 3 was three shillings to thirteen and six a day. Back at Felixstowe one day three German “Junkers Fifty Two float planes” landed they had been taken over by the Dutch Airforce I had to take the crews ashore to see our CO and they had lunch with him and then after being re fuelled by us they then took off about four hours later. Another day two Beaufighters flew over Felixstowe one touched the other one’s wing and it crashed in the sea and shocked me as CO Flt Lt Garwood came down the pier on his bike and told me to wait for him and take him out to the scene of the accident, whilst going around we found an aircraft seat with one of the crew strapped to it, and the pinnace picked it up and the other chap after a few days they found him when the brought the aircraft out of the water. One weekend the RAF sailing Club held a regatta at Felixstowe and I was detached to stand by in case of any mishaps it so happened that a sailing dinghy turned over about two miles off shore and I went to their aid and we righted it up and towed it back to base, I believe if I can remember right the mast had broken however on the Monday after they had left the pier master called me into his hut and said those officers that you picked up yesterday left you this envelope and inside it was two £1 notes which I thought was very nice and helpful in those days. Another time in Felixstowe I took the crew of a Sunderland out and they were going on a test flight and went down towards Southend and the next thing we heard was that they had crashed and it hit me rather because quite a number of those chaps I used to take out to the boats cause I never saw them any more they salvaged the aircraft and I have photos of it here at home sorry. for going back but things come to my mind now that when we were in acciab and as I have said we used to go down off of an island called flat Island and we used to go ashore and the natives used to give us chickens which they soon killed off and gave us the remains and we took them on board plucked them and one of our crew was a butcher and he used to butcher them and we often had chicken stuffed with soya link sausages and whatever else was going. But there was so many things went on some come back to mind but with my age now it is a bit of a difficulty. I enjoyed my service in the RAF and all told I was in just on Four years I think it was. I Just remembered that when I had Flt Lt Garwood in the Marine Tender and we were pulling gits of the aircraft which had crashed off Felixstowe I gave it one good pull on something and it turned out to be an oil tank and all the oil came over the edge of the boat all the oil came floating out and went all over the CO. and he was not Amused but that was just one of the things that happened, also we had a bad winter there and the sea water had frozen all around the flying boats and we couldn’t get to it with any boats at all we had to wait for the ice to eventually break up, as the river broke up farther towards Ipswich we were able to get out but it seemed strange walking out to a flying boat instead of taking a boat, while at Felixstowe it has just downed on me there was a lady there who was working with the designs of aircraft and she would sometimes come down to the jetty to get me to take her out to certain aircraft and once she was on board the pilot had to do what she told him. about what she wanted the aircraft to try or not and sometimes they would take off about thirty feet off the water and they would have to cut the engines and the aircraft would bang down onto the sea and it was on the landing area of course but it seemed strange for the aircraft to come in and cut the engines and then with a dirty great bang, but she knew what she was doing and used to have special bars along in the aircraft for stress and strain where they used to measure all the power that was necessarily coming through from hitting the water at dangerous heights . I would just add it’s sad to say that there were around Fifty or Sixty of us chaps on 230 ASR and I kept in touch with three or four of them after the war but I am sorry to say that they have now all passed away and it is really sad when you have got nobody to chat with about the old times …….. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Interview with Kenneth Stoker
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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AStokerK15XXXX-01
Format
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00:18:39 audio recording
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Pending OH summary
Pending review
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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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46777/AStandenFC16XXXX-01.2.mp3
75e41d538175218a2c0db59d63a050b9
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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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
My name is Frank Charles Standen, I was born at Forrest Hill south east London on the 24th of October 1921. Like most of boys of my age I was keen to join the RAF mainly because they were people like, Sir Kingsford Smith, Sir Alan Cobham and they were blazing trails in the airways around the world. Unfortunately my parents would not let me join the RAF before the war, but coming of the war I was now 18 and I therefore decided myself that I would leave my job as a railway clerk and join the RAF, for aircrew training. After being accepted for aircrew training I on March the 6th I was at RAF Uxbridge for my swearing in, from there they said there’s a delay in training but you can go home now, you’ve got your number and we will be in touch later when we will recall you to the RAF, so I was now in ready for aircrew training. Sadly I was called up to Babbacombe in early july 1941, where I was injected, medically tested, gas masks tried on, various things and then we were actually based at Babbacombe in the Trecarn Hotel, but after about a week or so the aircrew receiving centre was transferred to north west London, in the area of Regents Park and I was with my colleagues transferred to Regents Park where we continued our training, square bashing and various things, but later they told me that I had a Lazy Eye muscle and whilst they gave you a card to let you put a goldfish into a bowl they said since we have now got a backlog of Trainees and you are a volunteer while we no longer want you for aircrew , but you can of course remuster’. So therefore I remustered to Motor Boat Crew. So from Regents Park, about three or four of us, went down to the west country; spent one night in an RAF field and then from there we went down to Ilfracombe and were boarded into civilian houses. That’s when I came across the Motor Boat Crew.
We were based at an isolated entrance to Ilfracombe Harbour and there was a little Chapel on the hill, and that was the Marine Craft Section under a Chiefy Sgt called ‘Snakey’ Harris; it was the name he was known by in the RAF but it was, I think, a little bit wrong because he had a good judgement of people and kept discipline and he understood the way people felt. Anyhow, we did our training on knots and we had a couple of motor dinghies, a Sea Plane Tender and also a Pinnace and we had our time at sea. We were also doing signalling both Morse code and Flags until we could move onto the next step which was the school which was still then at Calshot. Later it turned out that it was used for Combined Operations so the school was moved up to Scotland just outside Stranraer.
Anyway after passing out I did quite well I was promoted to AC1 and had the option of going to various places but I chose Dover, which was near and easy to get to from London. So about ten of us moved down to Dover and when we were sorted out I finished up at Ramsgate, which was a sub depot to Dover, 27 ASR. There were three launches there and after a spell on a Dumb Refueller I was pleased to be on HSL 127’s crew, which was a very successful one, under a 1st Coxswain whose name was Eddie Edwards. He was again a regular and a former mercantile ship’s crew, and again a very good leader of men. Later we had a Skipper come aboard who was called David Jones; he was a Flight Lieutenant and it was a very successful crew, in fact we picked up on two occasions, that’s separate ones, crews from 149 Sqn which was using Sterling Bombers out of Lakenheath. I think why we were busy, apart from there was a lot of air activity over the Channel between the Luftwaffe and the RAF, but in addition of course we had an airfield behind us which was fitted out with ‘FIDO’ the fog dispersal system or arrangement and therefore any aircraft, and certainly any bombers, coming back would prefer to come across the narrow sea rather than the whole of the North Sea, and also FIDO would be an airfield to locate. So the next thing was we had various pickups; there was one occasion when we were liaising with an aircrew on board to show how efficient ewe were and on that particular occasion there was an attack by the Luftwaffe over Deal and you could see the Dog Fights going on. Then, suddenly there was one aircraft that pulled up and we saw a parachute bail out so, with the crew on board, the skipper came running down because we were on a Two Hour Notice. As soon as he was aboard we were underway and the aircrew on board were quite impressed, not only was the parachute coming down just off the coast, just as he went into the water and just as he bounced up ‘bingo’ we were alongside and hauled him out of the water, parachute and all. As I say it was beautiful and almost a staged arrangement; fortunately he was unhurt but very wet. We brought him back ashore and all were happy.
There were several pickups, in fact 127 had quite a record at that stage, as the months went by I then went on my 2nd Coxswains course up at Corsewall because it had moved from Calshot and Corsewall is outside Stranraer. So that was going quite well and I then was told that I had got an overseas posting, but the school overruled it and said, now you are posted to us, although temporarily, we have to continue your training. Sadly though the crew of 127 were actually all going overseas. So when I finished successfully my training and had become a 2nd Coxswain, I went back to Ramsgate but there was already a new crew on 127 and our people, I learned later, were actually on their way to Tunis. In preparation of course for the invasion of the soft underbelly of Europe.
While I was kicking my heals a little bit at Ramsgate, a Dover boat came around that was HSL 178 and was located for a while in Ramsgate. The 2nd Cox’n on board 178 was due for leave because he was a married man so I volunteered and said that I could take over his position till he comes back from leave. In the meantime of course I didn’t know, and he didn’t know, that 178 was going back to Dover with me on board. I wasn’t on her for long but I then was on HSL 2547 and was the 2nd Cox’n on her which was a bit successful because, after about a month or so, the 1st Coxswain was on leave so I was acting 1st Cox’n on 2547. And, low and behold, whilst I am acting 1st Cox’n we had a pick-up of a Belgian pilot who was in the RAF who bailed out very nicely onto a minefield. Well it was more for deep shipping, so the skipper after having a chat with me said we might as well go in and pick him up. When we did pick him up he was a Typhoon pilot, I don’t recall his Sqn number but it was an RAF Sqn with Belgian airmen and his name was Charles Demoulin and in later years I found out that he had written a book after the war and that’s another story. I have double checked the pick-up of Demoulin was not 2547 it was 2549.
Anyhow to continue, in January 1944 I was selected for training as a 1st Class Coxswain and was temporarily away from Dover back to Corsewall for six weeks. I was successful and on returning to Dover fully qualified, I was allocated to HSL 186 which was under the command of my old skipper Flt. Lt. D A Jones DSO who was my skipper on HSL 127 but he didn’t go abroad with the crew way back in 1943. His Cox’n on 186 was a Canadian Warrant Officer on loan from the Royal Canadian Air Force and I was led to believe that I would take over as 1st Cox’n as and when the Canadian was recalled to the RCAF. I remained on HSL 186 acting basically as a 2nd Cox’n and was still with 186 when the invasion commenced and we actually operated more towards the west so that we were protecting the western area just beyond the invasion beaches. Whilst I was still on HSL 186 I got a ‘Records posting’ to a newly formed Mobile Unit which was Unit 33 which was, at that stage, operating from Calshot until a likely place came for operating nearer the French Coast. I had no specific launch but was used as a relief 1st Class Cox’n for the Unit 33 ASR. Of course, once the invasion was on, we used to tie up behind the merchant ships and then of course, when Mulberry Harbour was formed, we could actually operate from the Mulberry harbour itself and then subsequently of course, as the invasion was successful and mopping up was going on, we had a base at Ostend. We operated from Ostend on various HSLs; these were Hant’s and Dorset’s of course now, no longer the 63 footers. We operated there not much traffic because it was getting more inland obviously but once May 8th came almost the next day we pulled out of Ostend beck to Felixstowe. Whilst we were at Felixstowe we were reformed because we heard that there was the possibility of being into Norway or possibly the Far East, which, as I was newly married, I wasn’t that keen on.
As luck would have it there were six boats on our Unit that were going to Norway; two for Oslo; two at Stavanger and two further north, I think Trondheim. I was lucky to be on one of the HSLs that went to Stavanger so wasn’t a lot of air activity, if there was it was Sunderlands but I suppose we were there just in case there was a lot more flying in that area. I was then removed from Stavanger to Tananger which was a little Island as there was obviously not the work for us. The skipper volunteered to take over a German launch, it was a Flieger Schnellboaten No 534, the 19-mtr job with two big MAN diesel engines not quite like our launches, but a very sturdy one, so sturdy that we could and did get a Jeep onto the foredeck because the role taking a Flt Lt RAF, who was an expert in radar and they were very interested to see what the Germans had got which could be of interest to us. So our role then with a jeep, manned by three sometimes four SAS soldiers, we would go to German units either on the Islands or on high points on the coast. We would moor as near as we could, get the jeep off the foredeck and as many of us that could, would then zoom around looking for these former Radar stations German ones of course, some of them were still manned but they had obviously been advised to await the Allies coming but to list all of the things that they had and certainly the arms so it was quite pleasant, exciting and I suppose it was the lack of general responsibility.
We collected, in the jeep or a trailer behind the jeep, armaments and various things for dumping and then would come back load it onto our German boat, take all of the ammunition in and drop them over the side in the deepest fjords that we could find. That was quite exciting certainly; when it came to explosives there were sticks of more or less dynamite all wrapped up in waterproof paper but regrettably they wouldn’t sink they floated. So we opened these packages, which had about a dozen sticks of dynamite, and threw them over singly, they still floated so the skipper, after we had got them all back in again, said ‘well we’ll have to do something else’ and since we had also allocated to us an RAF armourer he said ‘well we will have to dispose of them on the land’. So looking at me he said ‘you go to the armourer and see if you can help him out’. Well that was a problem because this bloke said ‘I believe you can burn these’ so he said ‘if you put them on the fire they would just burn and fizz’. I said ‘have you ever done it’ and he said ‘well, no’, so we then lit a bonfire and hiding behind a rock, that seemed to be regular things in fjords in Norway, we tossed a stick of this dynamite which, of course, did just fizz. It seems it has got to be within something that resists so therefore that’s when the explosion takes place where, as in the open air, it just fizzed and we gradually got more and more nerve and were bunging them onto the bonfire madly like November 5th. That more or less was the story because soon after the Atom Bomb was dropped and we were then due to come back to the UK.
When we started our journey home the weather was extremely rough and we were heading south before tackling the North Sea and one of our outer engines went for a burton, sorry was US, and the Skipper requested to put in Gothenburg in Sweden and as we were a nation at war they were a neutral country we were limited and could only go in on their agreement, but the request was granted. We spent a couple of days there until the weather eased then we headed to Copenhagen to await a new engine to be flown out to us. This took some time and, as Christmas was nearing and I had received a radio message while I was at sea on the wheel that my son had been born, I wanted obviously to see him. Of course about six months had passed then so I asked the Skipper for compassionate leave and he granted this and indeed he drove me to Kastrup airport where I got a flight on an RAF Dakota coming back to the UK. This was done (we were to land at Hendon but because of fog we were diverted to Croydon which is south London but closer to my mother’s home, on landing and passing through the admin buildings I was asked if I had any weapons on or with me or anything that should not be brought into the country, I said ‘no’ so was allowed through. I then caught a bus to the end of my mother’s road) and had my leave and saw my new son and spent my final days at Corsewall on standby, flying because at that time there were dozens of Flying boats coming in from all over the world. They were landing on the loch where the school was and I thought that is the job to see me through to my demob and it did. It was and it was interesting, we did 24 hrs on and 24 hrs off and we had our office on the pier and as I say it was quite interesting. We would make sure that the flight had landed properly then the maintenance staff would come out and look after the moorings and we would come back and tie up at the pier. While I was on that job my demob came along so in August 1946 I packed my bags, went down to Uxbridge, was dealt with as being demobilised, given a suit of my choice and that was it, that was the end of my service.
I must admit that I have omitted saying that I gave a very short run at Ramsgate in 1941 and ‘42 and at the beginning of ‘43 because we had several pick-ups and it was a very busy time indeed. We picked up two German Matelots who were floating around on a four foot long and about two foot deep inflated rescue effort. The poor devils had been sitting there since their convoy had been shot up by the navy off the French coast and they had drifted within a couple of miles of our coast. They were so cold we had to cut them free where they were holding on to cod line to make sure that they didn’t get washed off their floating bed. As I said we also picked up Lancasters; we picked a fellow we saw shot down he was actually a German, when we fished him out well indeed before he went in, but it was a bit horrific because as I was pulling the shrouds of his parachute as he was under the water and I saw the back of his head the hair and as I pulled the last bit he didn’t have anything but his scalp left. He must have had some explosive in his ear that got rid of things, it was a bit of a mess but I had a shock but then again we often found floating bits and pieces. Anyhow I think that’s about it, let’s hope that it‘s enough.
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Interview with Frank Standen
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eng
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00:37:03 audio recording
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46776/AOlneyPJ20160227.2.mp3
de4cbb88be432880fa6951213017081c
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-01-10
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15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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These are the memoirs of Peter John Olney now aged 93 years and recorded on the 27th February 2016 I served in the Royal Air Force from October 1942 to November 1946. In pre-war years 1930 to 39. I spent many school holidays in company with and offices of a professional Sailor and Fisherman on the Thames estuary, and I gained experience in handling and general management of relative small sea going craft. In the early war years I served in old school flight of my school ATC No 726 Squadron. I was called for pre service registration in Sept 1941 and there interviewed by an Army officer who accepted my wish to serve in the Air Sea Rescue service. A month or so later I received a questionnaire requesting details of my nautical experience and knowledge of navigation gained from the ATC. Having joined the RAF in the Autumn of 1942 at RAF Cardington a pre-war home of airships R100 & R101 after kitting out posted to Blackpool a recruit training centre there I discovered as a result of my replies to my questionnaire mentioned previously I had been accepted as an AC2 in the trade of MBC and then been allotted trade pay since the first day of my enlistment my pay was therefore higher than that of my fellow recruits at a pay parade one of the officers suggested quite firmly that I went to a Post Office prior to returning to our billet and deposit some of the cash. In December I was posted to RAF Corsewall a Marine Craft training centre situated on a large country estate on the south shore of Loch Earn in the south west of Scotland. After completing training there I was posted to RAF Calshot near Southampton the pre-war centre of marine craft and from there sent with an officer and other crew members to Dartmouth where we took over from the boat builders a new Air Sea Rescue 60ft Pinnace No 1309 after sea trials we sailed around the coast of south west England then the coast of wales and the isle of man to the Air Sea Rescue base at Larne Northern Ireland and I believe the number of that Air Sea Rescue base was No 58 I served at that base for twelve months during which time I was detached with a crew to Portree isle of Skye which was subsequently opened as an air sea rescue base and whilst at Portree we were directed to the islands of Colonsay and Oronsay. As we were making fast at one of these islands we received a crash call it had said that a light house officer had seen a plane crash just short of the island of Tiree we went there but just before we arrived we were told that no aircraft was missing, we wondered if it was just an exercise. That evening we returned direct to Portree. In the darkness I could see the moon and the lights from Northern Ireland when we returned to Larne in Northern Ireland. When we returned to Larne. I was detached once more for a Cox’ns course at RAF Corsewall, Larne was a quite place but in the spring of 1944 we were posted to a Mobile ASR unit No 32 & 33 ASR which at the time was attached to 27 ASR at Dover, we went there with Flying Officer Storey and crew and after our arrival engaged on patrols in the English Channel. On one of those patrols we undertook our first rescue we were directed to an American crew who were on the water between Dover and Calais. Calais then being held by the Germans, Spitfires were circling overhead to protect us a Walrus aircraft came down and took four of the crew and we returned six, on our journey back to Dover one of the American crew commented to me that he wou8ld no longer be frightened of coming down in the Channel for he had not even got his feet wet. Subsequently in June 44 probably the 1st of June we were directed to our base at Poole in \Dorset. Unfortunately when of the Isle of Wight we developed steering failure and after some difficulty in steering with two of us in the steerage locker and the use of the engines a marine craft was sent out to us from Calshot and towed us back to that station, on the way we passed through a crowded anchorage of assault vessels which were there for the assault in Normandy , our boat was slipped almost immediately we still slept aboard and the following morning we awoke to find that all of the vessels in the crowded waterway had left…it was D Day. Our craft having been repaired was then sent with us to Poole in Dorset which was to be our base for a while. The following Morning D Plus ONE we rendezvoused with an aircraft control vessel in mid-Atlantic and were there dispatched to a crew that were on the water near the Cherbourg peninsula on the way and very near to the French coast a water spout appeared in our wake we were under attack further waterspouts appeared but as a target we were extremely small and were a considerable distance away from the French coast and the danger was only slight. However we were withdrawn and a craft approaching from a different direction made the rescue. We subsequently made patrols based from Poole and Calshot and as our allied armies took over the coast of Normandy and advanced eastwards we patrolled the coast and naturally any damaged aircraft the crews were disinclined to cross the channel but put down in Northern France. Often then we operated from the harbour at Cherbourg and from the Mulberry harbour that was created at Arromanches in France. As the allied armies advanced eastwards and liberated Belgium we then were dispatched to Ostend with other crews of 32 & 33 ASR and berthed at what had been the E Boat pens reinforced concrete structures built by the Germans to protect their E Boats from attacks and damage from RAF Bombers. On one occasion we were directed to amphibian Walrus aircraft which was on the sea a few miles north of Ostend it one American airman aboard we were told the American aircraft had disintegrated presumably from damage sustained over Germany and broke up in the air a number of parachutes were seen but after surveillance only one parachute was seen on the water and the Walrus aircraft rescued the airman concerned we transferred that airman to our launch and escorted the Walrus which had lost power and was unable to take off to a beach near Ostend. I subsequently contacted that American airman sent him a photograph this was many years after the war ended and he told me that he had been down in the channel for some time, following this action all of the crew were saved. Shortly before the end of the war when I was on a junior NCO’s course my boat was called to a damaged after being Mined craft that was on fire when I made a perilous rescue of a single sailor who was that boat this was witnessed by the Navy who gave Three Cheers for the RAF and subsequently three members of my crew were decorated for their Bravery. Our HSL had been slightly damaged during that rescue and we were directed back to Felixstowe for repairs whilst there Hostilities Ceased and we witnessed the surrender of a flotilla of E Boats their bows were vastly different to our HSL’s they were more like the bow of a submarine. And whilst there we were directed to Norway we travelled up the East Coast of England and parts of Scotland and crossed the North Sea from there, we finally berthed in Oslo at the very top of Oslo Fjord and berthed amongst Oslo airport ferry pool subsequently were berthed by the island of Gressholmen the island was two or three kilometres into the Fjord from Oslo centre and I took over control of a German pinnace with initially a German crew to ferry members of our staff to Oslo when required. It was strange that ocean going boats were sent to Oslo because it took us at least half a day to reach them at sea, and only on one occasion were directed to the open sea when German transport aircraft I believe Junkers were being ferried from Norway back to Germany but we enjoyed Oslo and were there until November 1945 when were directed back again to the UK, I was then posted as an individual to Scotland and was employed with a Sea Plane Tender servicing and towing etc. Flying Boats that returned from the Far East for Maintenance and for mothballing. I was discharged from the Royal Air Force in November 1946 and did subsequently enrolled in the University of London and a London Hospital and qualified as a Doctor in 1953 as an Addendum of the above record I have to add that on our return from Norway we passed along the west coast of Sweden and unfortunately or perhaps fortunately we developed minor engine trouble and put into Gothenburg Sweden had not be in the war and it was a delight full surprize to find all of the shops fully lit and fully stocked there only shortage was of western cigarettes I being a non-smoker had Hoarded my ration to pass to my father but I could not resist the temptation to trade them for some Swedish currency with which I purchased a rather voluminous Handbag for my mother which she treasured for many years and I purchased some elegant fishing equipment for my father and purchased a watch a Swiss made watch which I still have in my possession…..Thank you I should also make note of one incident which occurred when we were in Ostend which is both amusing and ….. we were patrolling along the north coast of France when we approached too close to Dunkirk which was still held for a short while by the Germans as the allies had by passed the Dunkirk area as the priority was to capture ground of far greater value for supply purposes we were channelled again off Dunkirk when a shell exploded close to the beam of us, I was on the wheel and opened the throttles both faster than our fitter liked he was coming through the engine room hatch to complain to me when another shell exploded he rapidly returned below to make certain our engines were going at full speed unfortunately this fitter Joe Newton was subsequently Drowned in a boating accident in Norway.
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 Peter Olney
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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AOlneyPJ20160227
Format
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00:23:22 audio recording
Date
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2016-02-27
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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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46774/AMooreA16XXXX-01.2.mp3
83383cc1c696064ab72cdc6d769bf7e1
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
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
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
I came into this world in 1923 and I was born on a small farm called The Furze in the village of Roos East Yorkshire. I was christened Alec Moore, Alec with a C as a lot of people put X on the end, and I stayed on this farm for six years, and then in 1929 we up’d sticks and went to live at Holmpton, now Holmpton is in the RAF annuals now but that comes later, I left school in august 1937 at the age of 14 and went to work at a the grocers shop which was four miles away from the village at a place called Patrington and I had to ride back and forth with a cycle which was normal in them days, I left there to start work back in the village joiners shop on my fifteenth birthday, 21st February. Now because of the war work, the village joiners shop slowed down so I left and went to work for Sangwin’s of Hull who were doing war work for the military at Spurn Point mainly shuttering for concrete, now seeing what the Army did with their full packs etc. running up and down these sand dunes which is mainly Spurn Point. I decided to volunteer for the RAF, during March I had to go to Hull for the usual medical, I passed that OK, and then I had to go to Padgate for a couple of days which was attestation etc. then in May I left the firm I was working for because I was called to Padgate for my training which was the 7th of May, now the 7th and 8th May were the TWO nights that Hull was really and truly Blitzed. So I did my Basic training at Padgate after passing out I went to Bassingbourne where I was for a few days, then I was posted to White Waltham for training as a Ground Observer, now we ground observers we did the same duty as the civilian ground observers who covered England, Scotland and Wales but we had our own ideas of why the RAF did it in Northern Ireland, now once I had passed out as a ground observer I was recommended for an NCO’s course now that started on the 1st September and I was tested on the 11th and I passed it, after five days leave I was posted to Edlinton Northern Ireland. Ground Observers were used all over Northern Ireland, the observer posts were seven miles apart with different places where we had to relay our information which was aircraft height where it was going and what it was. The post consisted of four observers, three wireless operators, accommodation was a Nissen hut containing all the required equipment, beds, cooking utensils and the wireless post where they operated. The lookout post was nearby and it had all the necessary plotting equipment on it, I was reclassified to LAC back dated to 1st of September and on the 31st I received my LAC pay. During November 41 to April 21st 42 I was moved around to quite a number of these observer posts in fact I was posted to eleven different ones not very long at each one, on the 2nd of April I was made acting Corporal, then I was home for some leave 14 days April to May 1942. Whilst on these posts we had to look after ourselves so needless to say we made sure we wouldn’t go hungry one day I decided to do a Rice Pudding after writing home and asking for instructions I duly started with a dish with rice and milk but not realising how rice swells I ended up with a two gallon galvanised bucket, Happy Times. One of the chaps when he came off duty would sit on the end of his bed and within a couple of minutes he was hard fast asleep, we always said he would go to sleep on a clothes line. Another one only smoked “Craven A” cigarettes never anything different he wouldn’t offer one and he would not accept anybody else’s. In June 42 I decided on a change of job where I was working more, I applied to be a concreter in the work service it was July before I had to go to Belfast for an interview with the assistant engineer, I also had a medical, I passed both OK but received notification in July that our CO had refused the application. One good thing was during July 42, I received my Corporals pay, still being moved around to different posts. On the 30th October 1943 I decided to re-muster to Motor Boat Crew, I had my medical and my interview and passed both of them OK. January 20th I was posted to Corsewall in Scotland for my Motor boat course, half term test in February and in March I had a trade test and passed that AC1 67%. Then home for 14 days. On the 7th April 1944 I reported to 5 BC Blackpool whilst waiting for a posting you go on parade in the morning and you’re given all kinds of duties, another chap and myself we were main escorting AWOL Airmen who had to go for interviews etc. in May I was posted to Ilfracombe there were sixteen of us in the detachment the billet was in the pub on the corner of the harbour, the launch was an ST 1400 Seaplane Tender our job was Target Towing in the Bristol Channel for the Liberators from Chivenor to practice bombing, they rarely had a Hit. On the 3rd of August I had an LAC test and I passed that 81%. September I went to West Kirby to await a posting so I volunteered for Cookhouse duties now whilst on cookhouse duties one job was to ensure the trough for washing your fighting irons knife, fork and spoon that the water was kept hot because of the grease etc. many a time there were dropped in because of splashing fingers. Some airmen came and claimed them otherwise they went into a spare box for anybody who wanted them. Now in November we left West Kirby for Greenock and we sailed on the 9th , Now we arrived at Naples on the 17th November then we left Naples and we went across to Bari and then from Bari across on the “Otranto” to Port Said then from Port Said we went down to Kasfareet and then in January 1945 we returned to Port Said and were allocated to Pinnace 1353 now from January to March we were sailing backwards and forward, we eventually arrived at Haifa from Port Said and there we were stuck in Haifa all of February because we had an engine failure , now then, a new engine came through for us but the Officer in charge at Haifa said it was theirs , eventually after numerous communications hear there and everywhere we had the engine fitted then we left for Beirut and then from Beirut to Famagusta now we really had a rough crossing we were all in the wheelhouse and in the Fo’csle where all our gear was ,When we went below it was anywhere but on its shelves. So we arrived in Famagusta on May 10th we then left for Larnaca, now our job at Larnaca was towing Targets for Beaufighters to practice Rockets concrete headed ones but we rarely had a hit. Now, whilst I was there I had to go down into Larnaca to get some provisions , when I came back up the jetty …No Launch… it had to go out because one of the Beaufighters had come down a bit low, wingtip hit the water, that was it, into the drink. So we later rescued the engine. During July 45 I had to go back to Port Said so I left Larnaca for Famagusta then from Famagusta on the “Fooerdick” arrived at Port Said in August I started my 2nd class Cox’ns course whilst I was on one of the launches moving about in the harbour I came up For’ard and the front stay caught my Cap which I had had with me all those years it went into the Harbour, so it is now at the bottom of Port Said Harbour. We Had a Trade Test Board and I passed at 88% during this course there was a callout the “Empire Patrol Disaster” when the ship caught fire so all launches that were available with volunteer crews went to assist. Now October I got posted to Alexandria then I was sent to Suez and the reason for that was three or four of us we were on board this tanker because the tanker “DROMUS” was taking two HSL’s that had been hoisted aboard and we were there to scrape and clean the hull’s, these were to be taken to Basrah but they were off loaded at Abadan, they were towed by tug to Basra, after them leaving the tanker it was going on to Australia so I asked the CO in charge “Any Chance of staying on the tanker” obviously the answer was Negative, After five days at Basrah I went by BOAC Sunderland to Bahrain and there we were billeted at the BOAC Seaplane post , this was quite a large detachment as I just said our accommodation was the BOAC staging post that had been taken over by the RAF in 1946 whilst there I had a spell in hospital in Muharraq with Yellow Fever then along comes June the 5th I had a release medical July 16th I left Bahrain by Dakota for Shaibah then went up to Basrah for a week then back to Shaibah for three days then we went by Lancaster they had taken all of the innards out and we were all sat in there for Kasfareet I stayed there for twelve days. And got to know my release gen on the 7th and then we left Kasfareet for Port Said and I boarded HMS OTRANTO we sailed at 1800 hrs we docked at Southampton at 0800 on the 16th we left by train for Hednesford, I went through the procedure of being kitted out in Civvies etc. then was taken to Stafford station. I then finally arrived home on the 19th of August at 0715hrs in the morning with a total of 77 days leave which expired on the 3rd of November and on the 11th of November I started on my joiners rehabilitation course in Cottingham Rd, Hull. So my life in the RAF was two halves as you might say 11 different places in Northern Ireland and about 14 different places in my RAF Motor Boat career. You will have probably worked out that I am now 93 years old coming up 94 but I don’t feel it by a long way I hope this is interesting for you, A bit that I missed out was the fact that when we were at Bahrain we used to use tank landing craft and these were used for conveying vehicles etc. when they were offloaded because there was no deep water for RAF Muharraq we had to take them under the causeway when the bridge opened so that we could off load for Muharraq RAF Station. I mentioned Holmpton at the beginning now it is known as RAF Holmpton because of the Cold War an underground Bunker there which is well and truly hidden but is open during the summer months to the public to see what the working life was down underground, so I know it is nothing to do with Motor Boats crews etc., but is just a piece of RAF Information . 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
A name given to the resource
Interview with Alec Moore
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
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00:21:50 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMooreA16XXXX-01
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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46773/AMeacockC[Date]-01.mp3
8713b2a74e096290d302b623ca794afe
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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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Charles Meacock
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eng
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Sound
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Pending OH transcription
Pending OH transcription. Allocated
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AMeacockC[Date]-01
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02:42:15 audio recording
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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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46771/ALloydT[Date]-01.mp3
d44adf77bbf06fd4be97b21fecd74692
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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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 Terry Lloyd
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
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ALloydT[Date]-01
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02:04:39 audio recording
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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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46770/AJonesCE[Date]-01.mp3
1846e297d57b422fc9d83e53d4f088de
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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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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Cyril Ernest Jones aged 94
Joined the RAF Marine Craft Unit March 1941. Initial training RAF Wilmslow. Posted RAF Molesworth after training then posted overseas Jan 1942. After 4 months sailing at high seas posted to RAF Habbaniyah set to work in Command Marine Officer’s office. Remustered to motor boat crew a few months later. Posted to RAF Basra Iraq. Whilst stationed at Basra sent to Port Said Egypt for 2nd and 3rd class coxswain’s course.
I was still at Basra promoted to corporal and sergeant. As sergeant posted to 219 SAR Basra. Posted to RAF Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. After a month posted home end of tour.
Stationed at RAF Mount Batten spent 4 years there then posted back to Basra but stopped at Verbania as the officers did not think it fair to do 2 years in the Persian Gulf. Went to RAF Fanara Egypt. After a short stay at Fanara posted 1153 MCU Fanara. After which posted RAF Cyros Cyprus. At Cyros I was joined by my wife and daughter. After 4 years I returned to the UK and posted to RAF Mount Matten again. Posted to Malta after 3 or 4 years again with my wife and daughter. After 4 years I returned to the UK to RAF Immingham. On close of the unit posted back to RAF Mount Batten. Whilst there I spent 3 years instructing. From there I went to Tobruck North Africa. I returned again to RAF Mount Batten at end of tour and was posted from Mount Batten to Falmouth where I finished my service.
I joined in 1941 and left in 1975.
Launches served on
60ft Pinnaces
41 ft. Sea Plane Tenders
Z Craft
Rank Cargo Lighters
63 ft. HSLs
Army Search and Rescue Boats
Promotions were
RAF Basra LAC Corporal and Sergeant
RAF Malta Flight Sergeant
RAF Tobruck Warrant Officer
I had an interesting journey from Basra to Port Said; no-one seemed to know how to get there. I contacted the Sergeant in the Orderly Room. Information received go from Habbaniyah to Baghdad by RAF bus, Baghdad to Syria Damascus by local bus. From Syria to Haifa by train and by train from Haifa to Cairo and from Cairo to Port Said by train. This trip took 3 months, it was a hell of a journey when I completed the course he said return the same way you came to Basra. After six months returned to Port Said for 1st Class Coxswain’s course. Then returned to Basra by flying boat from Cairo to Basra, the whole trip took 6 hours instead of 3 months.
The other trip of note was a trip from 1153 MCU to Limassol to work with the Royal Navy recovering mines. Job completed set off on return trip, half way along the north coast of Cyprus the boat started taking on water seriously which we could not contain with the pumps. In conjunction with the skipper, Flt Lt Stone, we decided the only option was to send a mayday. Having sent a mayday was to strand the boat on the nearest beach. Having put the boat on the beach I jumped over the side with the blow line which I made fast to a palm tree. After about 10 minutes the starboard side of the boat fell in to the water. We all managed to get ashore safely where we were met by a party from 1153 MCU from where we returned to the base by boat.
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 Cyril Jones
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Identifier
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AJonesCE[Date]-01
Format
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00:05:56 audio recording
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46769/AHuntleyR[Date]-01.mp3
1e3094f1b0a8b982863edcea56e7adeb
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
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
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
My name is Ron Huntley and I am 93 years old; my Air Force number was 1436327. Prior to joining the Air Force in July 1941 I had taken a Government Training Centre course, in Whaddon near Croydon, for five months in general engineering and they had sent me down to Fairoaks aerodrome in Chobham where I was working as a sort of apprentice improver learning engines and so forth and basically they were repairing Blenheims and Tiger Moths and that sort of thing. I was in digs, of course I was away from home but I enjoyed it for about three months when we were working days, and then all of a sudden I was told I was on permanent nights. Well I stuck on nights, which was pretty rough, 7 till 7 five nights a week and very little time to do too much else and after some time, about May I would reckon in 41, I said to the supervisor that I was going to get myself another job. I wasn’t going to work nights anymore and I learned a lesson then when I was told I was in a reserved occupation and that if I went anywhere else it would be where they sent me as I had a Government’s Training Centre course and it could be further away from home, it could be nights again but it would certainly be something to do with aircraft and with a side remark he said the only way out of this is the Services.
Now that triggered something in my mind and the following morning I went to my digs, had breakfast, changed and put a suit on, got the train and went back to Croydon, went into George Street where the RAF Recruiting office was and I asked to join the Air Force. I had a few small maths tests to do and they asked me some questions. I wanted to be a Flight Mechanic and I passed that apparently quite easily and they said right we will take you as a Flight Mechanic, sign this form you are now in the Air Force and we will let you know when we are going to call you up.
On the 11th of July 1941 I was due at Cardington in Bedfordshire to be kitted out and get the usual short back and sides haircut and so forth. We were kitted out, it was quite reasonable where they were making things fit and you were changing with others; this doesn’t fit me does it fit you kind of thing. Anyway we all got fitted and after four days we were put on a train, about I suppose a couple of hundred of us or so were taken to Skegness and I remember walking up Skegness railway station platform, which was open and wooden at the time, and seeing the PTIs at the top in their white roll neck sweaters, all looking fresh as daisies. They were taking the men in sections of about thirty per squad, I looked at one of them and he looked like a handsome fella really in a way but he looked like a real tough cookie, about six foot one, and short back and sides really short back and sides and I remember thinking I hope I don’t get him. Sods law being what it is, who should I get, him. He turned out to be a very nice man; he was a Corporal and PTI. His name was Tommy Reddington and in fact he was a professional boxer and while I was there he boxed Freddie Mills who later won the World Light Heavyweight Championship. He won the fight while I was there he had lost one previously to Mills before I arrived, and after I left I read in the paper that they had fought again and Mills had knocked him out. But he was a nice chap and I thoroughly enjoyed being there although six weeks of up and down and round and about and being left right, left right, constant marching was quite a bit boring by the finish, but I learned to fire a rifle and throw a mills bomb.
At the end of that stage I was posted to Cosford near Wolverhampton on a flight mechanics course; it was a sixteen weeks course that was an interesting course where half of us were airframes and half of us were flight mechanics and it really was a learning curve for me as I learned very much about an engine and propellers and hydraulics and so forth and I enjoyed it very much there.
My first posting was to a station in Northern Ireland, Edlington just north of Londonderry; it was a Spitfire Squadron. I can’t tell you the number of the Sqn I have no idea, I can’t remember now anyway but they were doing patrols over the Western Approaches, but the main thing there was scrambling. The Wing Commander was very anxious that the flights, both A and B, should get off very, very quickly. They used to do four or five scrambles a day; it also meant that we were doing guard duty in the night and for a couple of hours as a section and it strikes me that walking around the aircraft in the middle of the night with a rifle, which of course had no bullets in it at all, was a funny sort of experience as to why one had a rifle and what the hell one could do if anything happened anyway.
I didn’t last long there, it was about two months or three months perhaps, and the whole Sqn was moved lock, stock and barrel to Coventry, we went across from Larne to Stranraer and took fourteen hours in the train to get down to Coventry with the Sqn. Then the aircraft arrived and that’s when we learned why of course he was doing the scrambling so much because it became, after a short while obvious, that the Sqn was due for overseas because everybody was going to get embarkation leave. About eight or nine of us were surplus to requirements so while everybody was getting Pith hats and all the rest of it, I was told that I was surplus to requirements and that I wouldn’t be going and that my next posting was to Lark Hill on Salisbury Plain, to an Army cooperation unit which was flying Tiger Moths, Piper Cubs and Taylor craft. They had a couple of Lysanders there, and the idea of this was that every ten weeks they had about twelve officers, Second Lieutenants, coming in they were to learn to fly because the final analysis was for them to go and spot for the artillery to make sure that the shells were landing in the right place. The limit of their flying, when they were in operation, was 400 ft. which didn’t make the job for a cynic because at 400ft in a Tiger Moth at a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour with any wind, never mind against it, was a pretty vulnerable position to be in, I would have thought. We used to get a three ton lorry or something like that and put a couple of us, a rigger and a fitter, we would get in the van we’d have a driver of course and we’d have petrol, oil and tools and we would go to various fields already designated and these planes would come in and land on these fields. The idea was of course that when they went to France they could land on any convenient spot and we ran around Salisbury plain doing this for quite a few months. Then they moved the whole Sqn, the whole lot, to Old Sarum near Salisbury. That was the first time I had been on a camp, other than at Cosford, that was a permanent base with brick buildings and so forth. Also I played quite a bit of football there which was very good.
An incident there that they also had a Fleet Air Arm Sqn, about thirty of them with two Fairy Battles and they mapped out the grass to the length of what was considered to be the deck of an aircraft carrier and they were trying to land them in this space to see if they could land on an aircraft carrier. One evening a rigger and I had to stay with one Tiger Moth because the pilot had been killed and his ashes were going to be scattered over Old Sarum itself and this was after tea of course so we were late. They came back and most of the ashes seemed to have gone over the plane, sad really. Anyway we went into tea late, half past six towards seven o’clock but that’s the time also when this Fleet Air Arm Sqn went in and of course the meals are listed beforehand so they knew, and that meal that night was Sheppard’s pie, which I always considered was the best meal that you ever got in the RAF. Anyway when we got there the corporal in charge said we haven’t got any more it’s all gone, Egg and Chips for everybody. Now the rigger and I of course being the RAF would have just said OK we’ll have egg and chips but the officer in charge of the Fleet Air Arm would have none of it. He said ‘my men are due this meal, where is the meal’. Well the long and the short of it was that they called the orderly officer and the next thing I know the Group Captain’s come back in. The Group Captain, who was in charge of the Station, usually left about four o’clock and came back in at about nine o’clock. Anyway he came back and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing going on and the following morning. We had brought four cooks with us down from Lark Hill but they were not used as cooks because Old Sarum already had its own cooks, but the following morning our four cooks were in charge. A new staff was put in and, to his credit, the Group Captain was there behind the servery and seeing that everybody was clean and their nails were right, the girls hair was up and all this, and that the amount of food that was being put on everybody’s plate was adequate. And to his credit that Group Captain was there breakfast, dinner and tea for a week every day, so the food at that station got better than ever.
I can’t remember dates places and times particularly well but sometime in 1942 I was told I was posted again into Duxford in Cambridgeshire which was, if you remember, the Big Wing Station of the Battle of Britain fame. When I got there I found they had Typhoons, there was only about eight or ten flight mechanics went there with me at the time I went, and I realised why because the modifications that were needed to be done on the Typhoons was quite a thick book and the Sqn was operational at that moment so these machines were having to be done. But the trouble was it was towards the winter and they got cold and the one thing you couldn’t have on a Sqn that was on international duty or operational duty, they would have to be able and ready to go, so these things were run up every four hours. They were all kept in sandbag bays but you had to run them up through the night as well and it was quite an exercise to go around at night stripping off the top covers starting them up and getting the oil temperature up, right and level getting out putting it all back and putting the covers back then going to the next dispersal point to do the next one and hoping that you could do it in time to leave yourself twenty minutes to run to the flight site and get yourself a cup of tea before you started all over again.
I came in one morning with a pal of mine, Pitts his name was, and he came from Dover. I never saw him again after we left but I said to him let’s have a look at DROs this morning as we walked in. I don’t know why I did it because it wasn’t a normal procedure that I did. We were on our way to breakfast, I looked at DROs and on it had ‘Wanted Urgent engine fitters for Air Sea Rescue Launches’ and I remember saying to him I’m going to have a go at that and he looked at it and said ‘yes, so will I’. So we went into the Cheifies office and said would you put us down for this, we’d like to volunteer for this and he looked at us rather sideways almost in disbelief that we would want to leave a station like Duxford and go in for something like that. Anyway we said yes we would and he said OK I will put you in for it and we went to breakfast and to be honest we wondered if we would ever hear anything more about it at all. But the urgency of the situation was evident when four days later when the Chiefy called us in and said you are both going down, you’re both posted, you’re going to Locking in Western Super Mare on a fitter marine course. So we were both sent on a ten week course there on marine diesel engines. Diesels, of course, in them days were fearsome, people were afraid of them, not like they are today, nobody knew much about them. Actually they turned out to be fairly easy and it’s a good job I learned because when I had finished the course my first posting took me to Padstow in Cornwall on 44 ASR unit. The first boat I went on was a 60ft Pinnace No 1234 and it had three P6 Perkins diesels as its motivation.
I am not all that conversant now with the actual dates that things happened at Padstow, I remember we did give some assistance on some dinghy sailing trials we also picked up a body of an Air Training Corp’s fella. I also remember 50 Americans arriving to look at how the British ASR system worked and paid us the compliment of building their own crash boats very much like ours. In fact I also understand that they used Scott Paine designed High Speed Launches. I also remember searching for a Flying Fortress crew. We were assisted by quite a few aircraft on that occasion as I remember but the sea was extremely rough and we hove-to there off Trevose Head for quite a while before we could even think of getting in. We also picked up three empty dinghies as well as one with seven survivors in it. I’m not certain if it was the crash but something had happened there, I don’t know for sure where they went but we took them back to Padstow anyway to be looked after.
One of the ones I remember most was on the 15th of February 1944, by this time we had got the Thorneycroft launches there, my launch No was 2641. We were out looking for a Liberator that had gone down, she had been over the Bay of Biscay and shot up about fifty miles out of Brest I think and it had been forced to ditch, it had been attacked by two JU 88s. A number of search aircraft were out looking for it and about mid-day we finally got there and found them but the aircraft were the biggest assistance to us to get there. When we got there we found nine people, one was dead and eight were survivors in three dinghies which had been dropped from the two search aircraft. They had tied them all the dinghies together, we brought them back to Padstow and peculiarly enough, despite being in the water for about twenty-two hours, most of them walked off the boat when we got back to Padstow. I was quite surprised; one or two of them of course had to be assisted but it’s amazing how quickly they recover given warm clothing in the warm and food while coming back and rubbed by the medic.
The end result of that of course was that some years later and, when I say some years later, I mean in the late Nineties I was talking to a detective inspector who was interested in another incident of ours and he told me, I said I had a photograph of this incident and I said I couldn’t remember who they were. He found out exactly who they were and sent me a brochure with them in and I rang a fellow in America and it turned out to be Carlton Lilley who was a bombardier who flew on that plane that we picked up and in the year 2002, at their total expense, I was invited over to America to their reunion in Pensacola and I met four of the survivors and their families. It was a most really heart rending thing, because to see people that you had picked up some forty years or so before was quite an event and the families were over the moon that they could see someone who had picked up their fathers or whatever. It struck me how much the people over there look up to their veterans as against the general attitude that exists in this country; they certainly are honoured over there as people who have fought for their country they looked after. I was very impressed with the way they did it unfortunately they are all by now dead, I have written to them but I have found each one has died in turn so that’s no longer there.
We also, on 2641, had a rescue with the Destroyer, Warwick, which was torpedoed by Padstow. We brought a lot of survivors in then and a lot came in on the pinnace, about 50 odd, and the pinnace had to beach itself, it couldn’t get them all off by just coming into the buoy. There were two or three trips to get them, we picked up a few ourselves on 2641 and brought them in and also out there about the same time, about mid ‘44, there was a Liberty ship went down and that was torpedoed and that was only about six miles out. Obviously we were going around for Normandy and there again the Navy was out as well and were picking up survivors and various things that were floating about. Of course the Liberty ship was carrying a lot of quite good stuff, in fact we managed to get aboard some large sealed cartons that contained 10,000 Lucky Strike. We got a couple of those aboard as well as other things but the navy, of course, were very quick, they were picking up anything that was going. I think the Navy did very well out of that Liberty ship.
On the 18th of April 1944 we were taking 2641 on a stand by and we were asked to take out the Harbour Master and one of his Petty Officers, there were not many Navy at Padstow, to a radar Buoy nine miles out that was not working properly. There were only five on board that day as a minimum crew so seven aboard all together. We went out to this radar buoy when we got there we dropped the rope ladder over the side so that they could go and have a look. No sooner had we got them over the side than we had a crash call; we were to go to Watergate Bay where an aircraft had gone down. Immediately the buoy was finished with all together, obviously the boat turned around straight away and returned to Watergate Bay. It took something like half an hour to forty minutes I think to get down there.
The lifeboat was already there and the lifeboat had picked up something like nine, ten or eleven people. It looked like an abattoir almost because this was all covered in blood and muck and stuff. In the Bay the water is very clear and we saw what we thought was a body of some sort but it turned out it was a undercarriage wheel but attached to it about six foot down was a body and the skipper Flt Lt Morelli dived in to try and release it but he couldn’t and eventually that body and the wheel was towed by the lifeboat into Newquay. We were in touch with an aircraft because it had come out from Chivenor and it was circling around and told us to go further out so we went a couple of miles further out looked around and we found two bodies which we obviously took aboard with a couple of officer jackets of some sort, two underarm briefcases and a suitcase.
The suitcase was sealed and I think there was something else but I don’t know what it was but that was about all we could find. It took about an hour and the aircraft couldn’t find any more so the skipper decided we would return to base but before we did he said let’s have a look at what we’ve got and the suitcase he said one was obviously a Yugoslav officer going to Yugoslavia for some reason, probably to do with the mafia or something, and he said the other one was a medical officer. He was going to Alexandria by the look of the papers that was the two jackets we got and of course from the information in the underarm briefcases. We opened the main sealed suitcase and it contained white five pound notes in bundles of fifty, we couldn’t believe it we had never seen so much money in our life but it was counted and somebody said there was £45,000 in it. This was a terrific find, anyway we gave our ETA and rushed back to Padstow and we were met by the Senior Medical Officer from St Mawgan where the plane that had crashed had gone out from. Originally he came and he took everything we had on board, the ambulance took the bodies obviously but he took everything else that we had and, although it became the talk of the base for a day or two because of the money and so forth, it was really forgotten and other than knowing that the lifeboat had also picked up some £18,000 in dollars in a body belt. It was on one of their chaps nobody knew much about it but there was just rumours running around that also on the plane was gold but that was coming from the fishermen at Newquay not from any authentic source. And as far as I was concerned that event finished then totally until after I had left the RAF when I heard other things obviously, I will talk about this at the finish.
The Padstow experience finished, I left Padstow some time towards the end of the year Sept/October something like that because, with the war being in that position where we thought it would be over, the need for two or three boats at Padstow was unnecessary. There was a life boat there but there was no activity going on much there that couldn’t be handled by the lifeboat and I was posted from there to Castle Archdale in Northern Ireland which was a Marine Craft Unit looking after the boats that took the crews out to the Sunderlands and so forth that were out there doing their job and we took the crews and the fitters to do their operations.
My experience there was very limited really but one incident comes to mind; one evening there had been fog and a boat had gone down in the morning to Killadeas which was about seven miles down the loch at the other end. Also an RAF station and because of the fog the boat had been left there and towards the evening we were duty crew that night and one chap says ‘I think I will go down and pick up that boat and we will come back with it’ and I offered to go. I said ‘I will come with you if you like’ and, as a fitter, it really wasn’t my job to go there. Anyway but what I didn’t know was that he really didn’t know the real system. There were a lot of rocks in that lake and he just went at it, we went down there and after a little while all of a sudden such a bang and we hit a rock and it pushed the props through the bottom of the boat which of course started to take water not very quickly but never the less taking water. Luckily there are a lot of islands around there and I said in the mist ‘look there’s an island there let’s make for that’ and I was using the floorboard as a rudder to try and get the thing going the right direction. He steered it and we got close to the shore and hit another rock and we lay in about six foot of water with the nose out of the water and the rest of it in the water clear. We had a torch so we could see but we sat all night in there because nobody came out at all. So we sat all night in the front of that we were afraid to get into the water; if that was just an island that’s all it was. We were soaking wet, we would have been in worse trouble than where we were so we stayed put. 6.30 am the following morning the Tannoy went and we realised that what we were looking at wasn’t an island, it was the mainland and from there I could have walked to billet in about six minutes, with no problems at all and we spent all night there. Anyway it so happened that at that moment when the Tannoy went, the duty crew woke up and the fellow that I was with that was taking the boat down was the one that was supposed to make the breakfast and the tea. Somebody turned and looked and saw that he wasn’t there and said ‘where is he’ then looked and said ‘where’s t’other fella that went with him, Huntley’ and they said ‘oh’ and so he took a marine tender straight out came careering across to see us, turned and saw us, also forgot the rocks and finished bang straight on top of two rocks so we stood there looking at our so called rescuer about 500 yards away, or less than that, stuck on the top of the rocks. A third boat had to come out to pick up the crews of both of us. I don’t know what happened at the finish because I backed away from it because it was nothing to do with me when the start doing that caper but it was quite an incident in peculiar as had we not been in an island like that so easily would have drowned.
I certainly enjoyed my stay in Ireland because I did a lot with motor bikes and we were there with a pal. I had a fellow called Stan Brand, he was a motor cyclist and we were dealing with quite a few of the professional motor cyclists. On the odd occasion, we went to Belfast and spent the weekend up there; I enjoyed it immensely and to the finish and the 30th of July 1946 I arrived at Uxbridge for my demob; picked up my demob suit and then went back into Civvy Street.
The incident where we picked all the money up and everything else of course has been in the magazine and it’s called the ‘Gold Plane’, I think the edition is the 209. Anyway, in the late nineties I was in touch with Derek Faulks who was a Detective Inspector and I was talking about the crew and this photograph that I have of the American crew. He spoke of his interest in the ‘Gold Plane’ as he called it and I said ‘the Gold Plane’ and he said ‘well it was the one that crashed’. So I said well I was on the launch that went there to that incident and he actually said ‘there is a film made called the ‘Gold Plane’ by the BBC and it’s been shown twice on BBC2 and I have a copy of it’. But the thing is he spent 16 years of his life chasing it and he had the satisfaction of, he knew there were sixteen picked up but the pilot was never one they had got and they buried somebody and they called him an unknown seaman of WWII. He was quite sure that that was the pilot and he wanted him exhumed and he had great difficulty from the Home Office in getting it done. Eventually they agreed on the basis that if he was right they would pay and if he was wrong he would have to pay. Two Group Captains came down that were in the business of checking bones and things and freely gave their time to do it and they checked and it turned out that it was the pilot of the aircraft and he was lucky because his brother was able to come over from Canada and see him officially buried with Honours because, after all, he was a hero in his own country for being it and the argument had always been was it sabotage. This is why they spent so much time on it. Most of the people don’t believe it was sabotage but there are incidents in this that just don’t add up. For example, if you listen to the tape of Derek Faulks, he was told by the officer in charge at St Mawgan, he told his wife that it was sabotage but not by the enemy. Of the two people that were French there, one was in La Cagoule, which is a fascist-leaning union, and the other one had been through MI6. So they all say, of course, as it happened six weeks before D Day, it was all a very hush hush. Most people just didn’t believe that it was anything, but because of the money there was a thought and said ‘who by?’ I can’t tell you but it was said there was gold on the plane as well and of course half of the fishermen in Newquay went out on their boats looking for gold and to this day I think they still do it at times.
Anyway, unfortunately Derek Faulks died without knowing, but later on in life, I asked my son in law ‘just check and see if you can find anything at all about it other than what we already know’. In the ordinary way, anybody would have gone straight to the RAF detail but he went to the BBC records, remember they were asking people whether they knew of any incidents and, if so, they would put them on tape and so forth. One of these things he picked up was a letter from a woman called Marianne Haseldean and I have a copy of it which stated that her father had taken gold down to Cornwall and gone out and the plane had gone without him and that that plane had crashed and the pilot or in effect was an army officer. My son got the details of the army officer and his records and there is four pages of that and I have that also. He also states that he went down to Cornwall taking this down he was actually Polish and he was at Baker Street with MI6 at the finish. He went down from there to Cornwall and the gold was put on board the plane. He went to get on the plane and, at that moment he was told ‘No, you don’t, you’re not going tonight’; the gold was taken off, that plane took off and that’s the plane that exploded over Watergate Bay. The following day he got on another plane and the plane trip was Lyneham, St Mawgan and then down and round to Alexandria or Farsi Island, Italy or whatever but that was a regular nightly trip that squadron 545 Sqn did. It was a Canadian Sqn and they were using Warwick aircraft and that was the run they did that plane exploded the following day. Another plane a Warwick did the same trip and took the gold and it was landed at Fazio to an American unit where he left it and finally came home, but unfortunately Derek Faulks or other people don’t believe it they never knew that there was gold on that plane and putting gold on the plane actually alters the stories somewhat whether one believes that it was sabotage is another matter. I can’t make up my own mind, there is a lot of discrepancies in it but it does seem that one would have to agree that there was someone that was prepared to kill sixteen people to stop one thing happening and that takes a bit of believing at times although one knows that people are expendable. Anyway that’s my story so far I hope it’s of interest to you and thank you very much for listening.
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Interview with Ronald Huntley
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eng
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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AHuntleyR[Date]-01
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00:38:43 audio recording
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46768/AHaynesE[Date]-01.mp3
378dfd5ac1dcf503251b9d1ca2e77ab9
Dublin Core
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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-01-10
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ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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Title
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Interview with Eric Haynes
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eng
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
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AHaynesE[Date]-01
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01:07:35 audio recording
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46767/AGriffithsG[Date]-01.mp3
1f35795aa7657b739ae7c90e4ddd7307
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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Air Sea Rescue Collection
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-10
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with George Griffiths
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AGriffithsG[Date]-01
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eng
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Sound
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00:13:42 audio recording
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/805/46766/ADoneK[Date]-01.mp3
b28689655142fae0be0a0c8359e339b7
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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Done, Ken
K Done
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Ken Done (Royal Air Force). He served in Air Sea Rescue.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-08
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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.
Identifier
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Done, K
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Ken Done
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
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eng
Type
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Sound
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ADoneK[Date]-01
Format
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01:19:31 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
Publisher
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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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46765/ABoutcherFL[Date]-01.mp3
ce6668d55240181c36ef026513e1efa6
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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Air Sea Rescue Collection
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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My service No 1438838 and I am nearly 95 years old, I joined the RAF in early spring 1941, aged 19 and Marine Craft in early autumn 1944, I trained for Flight Mechanic in Morecombe in 1941, as Fitter in Blackpool in 1943, and Marine Fitter at Corsewall in 1944. I was posted to Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Holland. I served on Whaleback 158, then a Hant’s & Dorset 187, and lastly Long Range Ex Naval MTB 019, I served at the following, Cardington where I joined in 1941, kitting out at Blackpool 1941, Morecombe in 1941 square-bashing and flight mechanics course, Longtown near Gretna Green on single engined trainers, then Fighter Command at Castle Town near Thurso with Hurricanes and Spitfires on 167 Gold Coast squadron with Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the whole squadron moved to 12 Group at Ludham Norfolk for six months then to 11 Group at Hornchurch for only two days filling in bomb craters the whole squadron then moved to Westhampnett satellite of Tangmere in Sussex and re equipped with cannon for shooting up German tanks etc. on the French roads. As half the squadron was shot down it was removed to Woodvale in Lancashire and Dutch crews replaced us making it a completely Dutch squadron, we were paraded before Prince Bernhard and dismissed. Posted back to Blackpool Squires Gate on a Fitter 2E course and after passing I was posted to Chedburgh in Suffolk on Short Sterling’s, which funnily enough also have Rolls Royce Merlin engines, four in number. After six months I spotted a notice requiring volunteers for ASR I applied and was promptly posted to Marston Moor Yorkshire on Halifax’s these were radial engines which were new to me but after a few days I was posted to Corsewall near Stranraer on the fitter marine course and after passing that I was posted to Gorleston in Norfolk and spent the next nine months on the North Sea day and night on square search The boats I was on were Whaleback 158 Hant’s & Dorset 187 when the European war ended we were sent to Den Helder Holland on the same duties whilst there I was posted to Calshot for long range duties in the Pacific war but fortunately when that ended our two boats were sent to the Western Isles we set out up the channel into the North Sea stopping at Blyth and Aberdeen going through the Caledonian Canal stopping at Fort William and Oban and arriving at Bowmore Isle of Islay spending the autumn and winter shooting up mines but really meant to be saving any Americans if they were downed in Liberators taking them back to the States. Finally in the spring of 1946 we returned the boat to Calshot stopping at Londonderry, Larne, Douglas, Holyhead, Fishguard, Bideford, Newlyn, Torquay, Calshot and were finally demobbed in May 1946, I was lucky to meet some great characters such as Fortune Fowler skipper of 017 which like us was posted to the isle of Islay he was an Ex tramp steamer skipper and a real old sea dog, our skipper was Geoff Budden on 019 a young Ex pilot and fearless, I remember us rowing him up to a mine washed up on the beach which he climbed on top of and disarmed, I had good friends Knocker Knock on the whaleback and Andy Coleman on one of the Hant’s & Dorset’s Knocker was a very experienced fitter and helped me a lot working on the Napier Sea Lion’s which I knew nothing about. Andy Coleman was a friend of mine from the marine fitters course and we met up again in the middle of the North Sea on our way to and from Den Helder in separate boats, food in the service was generally poor but one meal I remember was a feast of Herrings we caught at Den Helder in the mouth of the Zuiderzee and cooked fresh. As I was in the engine room I did not sea rescues happening only the aftermaths of live or dead being transferred ashore at Gorleston. On our fitters course it was drilled into us to use our caps in case of an engine fire and this happened to me, I was up in the under cart priming a Halifax when it occurred and I beat out the flames with my cap until the rest of the ground crew were able to get the extinguishers working and the aircrew out of the aircraft, I was told I would be awarded a mention in dispatches by the Flight Seargeant but instead I was posted the following day to Corsewall on Fitter Marine Course ……….That’s Life.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Frank Boutcher
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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ABoutcherFL[Date]-01
Format
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00:09:21 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
Publisher
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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.
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1774/46764/ABiltonW[Date]-01.mp3
438590a0794989d045149a6d5535d031
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
Air Sea Rescue Collection
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
2017-01-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASR-MCS
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns RAF Air Sea Rescue and contains 14 oral history interviews and a memoir. <br />Interview with Henry Morris <br />Interview with Kenneth Stoker <br />Interview with Frank Standen <br />Interview with Peter Olney <br />Interview with Alec Moore <br />Interview with Charles Meacock <br />Interview with Terry Lloyd <br />Interview with Cyril Jones <br />Interview with Ronald Huntley <br />Interview with Eric Haynes <br />Interview with George Griffiths <br />Interview with Frank Boutcher <br />Interview with Bill Bilton <br />The interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46766">Ken Done</a> has been moved to the relevant collection.<br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Markham Jones and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
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Interview with Bill Bilton
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eng
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ABiltonW[Date]-01
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02:27:04 audio recording
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated T Hardcastle
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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.
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46474/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v670002.mp3
dc330a19486127faee58285311c26dbe
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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-06-19
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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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
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Interviewer: I’m with Bertie Salvage in his home in Stamford.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And Bertie served a good long time in the Air Force.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And so, to start. I understand Bertie that your first encounter with the RAF was when you joined up. Was it 1939?
BS: 1939. On October the 6th 1939. And —
Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, you know, did you that was at the beginning of the Second World War.
BS: Well, it was. The war had broken out early September and it was a Sunday afternoon and we were home and the air raid siren went off for the first time. We were all sitting down to Sunday dinner in Southend on Sea where I —
Interviewer: This is the famous first day of the war.
BS: Yes, it was. The first day of the war. Then of course we all rushed outside. Of course nothing happened, you know. It was, it was just a false alarm. But anyway, I had received notification that I had passed the RAF exam as an aircraft apprentice to go to Cranwell and so I then received information in early September that I was to report to Cranwell on the 6th of October 1939. So this was, this duly happened. I went to Cranwell. I was inducted as an aircraft apprentice at RAF Cranwell. The instrument maker apprentices and the wires and electrical mechanic apprentices were being trained at Cranwell at the time. The other trades were being trained at RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire. So they were the two schools really and also some at Cosford. They were boy entrants. Anway, so it was quite a fierce trades really from the comforts of home to the, to the spartan conditions of the RAF as it then was in 1939. We were in huge barrack blocks at Cranwell where they had forty to a room you know. Iron bedsteads left over from the Great War I think [laughs] and very very far, very strong discipline you know. Very firm discipline which it had to be for young boys I suppose just joining the Air Force but I settled down and we did basic training on the square. Just for a few weeks you know. Two or three weeks basic training and drill and all that sort of thing. Learned to keep ourselves neat and tidy, our uniforms. To keep the barrack rooms clean and everything else. And of course, it was very very tough the discipline but you know some, in some respects you appreciated it. I enjoyed it really. Well, then we settled in on our technical training. We used to march down to the workshops every day at Cranwell and this went on and on and the, the one thing I do remember is that going over into 1940 just about the time of just before Dunkirk when the Germans had invaded the low countries we used to march to the workshops every day and during that early period when the Germans were still invading France they used to play patriotic music over the tannoy system as we were marching to work. Such things as, “We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.” [laughs] And of course that didn’t ever happen. Things like that you know. It was quite an amazing time to go through really at that period leading up to Dunkirk. Anyway, so the training went on. I found it very interesting. The technical training. All the aircraft. The aircraft electrical instrument systems and all that you know and also quite a lot of electrical information. Electrical instruction as well because a lot of instruments were, you know operated by electricity or electrical systems and you know so that went on sort of quite happily. And then in 1940 around about August time the instrument maker schools was moved out to Halton with the apprentices of the other trades. RAF Halton. It was a wonderful change because Halton is a lovely part of the country you know in Buckinghamshire whereas Cranwell was —
Interviewer: Flat.
BS: We didn’t like it very much up there. Dismal sort of area there. So we got to Halton and but, but in the interim period sort of you know we had a month’s leave actually. Four weeks leave in the changeover between going from Cranwell to Halton and I went home to Southend on Sea and I watched lots of the Battle of Britain going on with all the aerodrome above us coming up the Thames Estuary and we had a grandstand view really, Southend unfortunately.
Interviewer: And what was the feeling like in the country at that time?
BS: Very patriotic. Very patriotic. Yeah.
Interviewer: And was there a, you know a real fear of invasion at that stage?
BS: Well, there was a fear of, well there was but somehow we used to have the feeling it can’t happen to us. You know that sort of British feeling that —
Interviewer: Stiff upper lip and all that.
BS: Stiff upper lip and all that. Oh yes. There was the fear but it was, it was a defiance really. No one is bloody going to invade us sort of thing, you know. But of course, we were right on the, down at Southend where my old home was that was right on the sort of, you know if they had invaded it would be one of the first places that they would come in through I would have thought.
Interviewer: What was the news reporting? Was it, was, did you hear what was going on?
BS: Oh yes. Oh, the news reporting was very good. We, we knew all the time what was going on. I saw quite a few battles when I was, that month I was home. I saw quite a few aerial dogfights you know but one minute they were there and then they were gone you know. It was that —
Interviewer: Very fleeting.
BS: Very fleeting you know. Basically your question. I went through. I went and got in to the autumn of 1940 when they started the bombing on London. We used to get home occasionally on a forty eight hour pass. I went through London, through a couple of Blitzes you know and quite often I had to take shelter in the deep air raid, deep underground stations that they’d allocated to be air raids sort of shelters for people. So I experienced that and there were terrible scenes I saw you know before going on to Halton. So, that was, that was something to remember really, you know. So anyway, we, we continued our training at Halton which was, you know, very good. And then I actually because of the war they forced short the apprentice —
Interviewer: Training.
BS: Training from three years to well, less than two years.
Interviewer: Yes, I was going to say I was surprised.
BS: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: That you were —
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: That you spend time in training.
BS: Yes. So, I passed, I passed out actually in July 1941 and I wasn’t eighteen. I was still only seventeen. I passed out and our training wasn’t complete but they considered we had been trained sufficiently to be able to take part. We’d learn more as we went along.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Having joined a squadron.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: You see.
Interviewer: Learning on the job.
BS: That’s right. Yes. So, nineteen, I was in the, when I was left Halton I was posted to RAF Marham in Norfolk to 218 Squadron. There were two squadrons there. The Wellington squadron. Wellingtons. 115 and 218 but Wellingtons. Basically, Wellington bombers and I always remember in the train going from, up from Halton to, to Marham it was a lovely sunny day in July we heard for the first time the subject about the Russians. The Germans invading Russia. That was the first time we had heard that Russia had come into the war you see. And so we got to, got to Marham and of course straightway I was pitchforked on to the squadron and it was very interesting you know being inducted into servicing the Wellingtons. We used to have to also apart from looking after all the instrument systems, instrument repairs and replacement we had also responsibility for the navigation system as well you know because it was astral navigation in those days you know and also the oxygen system. So we had to, in those days you had to physically change the oxygen bottles after every trip, you know. Quite a lot of bottles too. That was quite a job. So that’s one of my little jobs I had to do. But one of the funny things was that the aircraft apart from dropping bombs they used to drop leaflets over Germany. I still have a sample. And also fake ration cards so the Germans would probably pick up these fake ration cards to help deplete the German rations you see. I’ve still got one of those somewhere. Anyway, so that was that but the basic thing I’ll always remember is that of course in those days bombing was, at the time we thought it was very effective but it was not very effective. There was an awful lot of missed targets.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: An awful lot of mixed targets.
Interviewer: Area bombing. Yeah.
BS: That’s right, and but the sad thing was you know the aircrew used to come out and used to get the captains of a bomber was only about nineteen or twenty you know. The responsibility that the lads took on then in those days was quite, it really was quite [pause] but I thinking back on it now I hardly ever saw any sign of fear. They were laughing and joking. They used to wee on the wheels for good luck and things like that you know. And the old air gunners would let off the guns into the night sky just to check on them you know in the turrets. You know and, but they always seemed to set off in a very good mood. But of course, when they didn’t come back or came back badly damaged you know often with blood. On one occasion I remember the, one came back and the rear turret was just a mass of blood and gore.
Interviewer: Yes, I heard somebody else says that.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And the damage that the, that the Wellington could take with geodetic construction was quite amazing really. Old Barnes Wallis had designed them very well indeed you know. And then once, I’d been there a few weeks when the film people came to take a, they made a film called, “One of Our Aircraft is missing.” And they came to shoot at the early stages of the aircraft taking off from our, they came around to our dispersal and they took photos of us ground crew waving to the aircraft as they took off in to the night sky on their bombing missions.
Interviewer: Did they? So that was just done for the camera was it?
BS: that was done for the camera really you know. And I did see and I did have a copy afterwards that I actually saw the back of me and three others just waving like mad to the aircraft that took off into the night sky. But it was a very very very poignant really. They take off into the dusk you know. Disappear. Of course, all grass airfields then. There was no runways. No runways. They were all grass airfields. And so which was quite an embarrassment really later on because in the Autumn of 1941 we converted to Stirlings. We were the second squadron to be, I’ll just get this for you [pause] to be converted to, sorry to be converted to Stirlings.
Interviewer: Oh, I think I’ve seen this photograph before. Yes.
BS: Yes. It’s a special. There was only a few copies made.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: That’s one of the few.
Interviewer: A nice looking aeroplane.
BS: Yes. But very heavy. Very big. Much bigger than the Lanc you know. They carried a bigger bomb load. But of course, the trouble with the Stirling was that the Hercules engines didn’t have the power really to get them over the Alps and they had to struggle like hell to get over to bomb Northern Italy as they used to go and bomb Turin quite a lot. But they used to struggle to get over the Alps and I think they realised that they were built like a tank. Like a fortress inside. But they just didn’t have the power really and I think actually when it came into about 1943 they were actually taken off full line bombing and became towers for the gliders and things like that.
Interviewer: It's a shame because everybody now looks back and thinks —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: The Lancaster was the only bomber.
BS: Oh no. No. The Stirling was she was ever she was very good in every respect bar the fact she was underpowered. But I’ve flown in a Stirling and I’ve flown, I had to get every chance I could. Air testing, you know. Those I used to fly. I’ve flown I a Stirling. I’ve flown quite a few times in Wellingtons. You know, on the air tests. I used to like to sit in the rear turrets. Quite fun. And you know so I got one for experience really and the, and another snag with the Stirling was that it was the first aircraft that ever had the electrical undercarriage. And old DC motors they requires three thick cables to really get the power through and it was quite a thing to see a Stirling with one wheel collapsed and like this on the airfield. Like you know and had to jack them up to —
Interviewer: I wonder why they went for electric motors rather than —
BS: I don’t know.
Interviewer: Metal damage to cope with if the hydraulics had been —
BS: I think so. I think it was an experiment really you know. They were coming in to a new era and you know so, you know I think they—
Interviewer: A bit embarrassing if you have a generator failure.
BS: Oh yes. And of course, they realised being as these were such big heavy aircraft that the grass airfield was not very good at all. You know, they used to —
Interviewer: They used to get waterlogged, didn’t they?
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Some of these old grassed airfields.
BS: Yeah. So soon after that that, I left the country by then that they decided to build runways you see. So, you know I, people say to me oh there’s the lady who I’m very good friends with at the moment. She’s quite a bit younger than me but if I talk about the olden days she doesn’t want to know. ‘Oh, don’t talk about the past.’ The past. But you get to my age you think about it. It’s life to you, you know what I mean?
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: My memory is still so fantastically good really, you know. Way back to those days it’s as clear as a bell really.
Interviewer: And didn’t you tell me that you remember Trenchard coming?
BS: Oh sorry. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: He lived up to his Boom Trenchard.
BS: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Trenchard. Big man.
BS: When the, I hadn’t been at Marham very long, perhaps, are we still oh dear. I hadn’t been at Marham very long when it was a bit of a miserable sort of day and of course we were working in the hangars and they used to say, ‘Come on. Get outside.’ You know. Assembled on the tarmac outside the hangars because there’s going to be someone giving a talk. So we went outside and stood in a big sort of circle. And suddenly this figure appeared and he was introduced as to Lord Trenchard you see and there he was in his uniform and his rather flat sort of hat. It wasn’t, a bit of a squashed looking hat on his head and he gave us a pep talk you see about how, what a wonderful job we were doing. To keep up, lads, you know. You know, sort of you know and we’ve got the Germans on the run [laughs] you know [laughs] We bloody well hadn’t at that time.
Interviewer: So you took it with a pinch of salt.
BS: Oh yes. I stood quite close to him actually. He had a moustache if I remember rightly.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: But we weren’t told of course at the time it hadn’t really perhaps got around to me by then but we were told that he was the father of the Royal Air Force.
Interviewer: Absolutely.
BS: So it was a privilege to remember that, you see.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And the thing that they say about Trenchard was that when forming the Air Force one of the things he really concentrated on was very good training.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: To make sure not just the air crew but —
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: To make sure that the ground crew had got all the skills.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Which is what, which is quite interesting that you —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did spend quite a good time in training even though it was in the Second World War.
BS: Oh absolutely. Oh yes. And something else I was going to say. I’ve forgotten. Oh, dear its gone from me.
Interviewer: And when the Air Force —
BS: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He was, was the founder of the Aircraft Apprentice Scheme in 1923. He started it all up at Halton and it’s a wonderful training you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: As a boy of sixteen, just sixteen to be pitchforked from home into that, you know. The sheer discipline and we learned to look after ourselves. Do our own —
Interviewer: Sewing.
BS: Sewing and —
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And keeping our barrack rooms clean. Kit inspection once a week. Everything had to be absolutely spot on, you know. The officer used to come around with the —
Interviewer: And the aircraft apprentices have got a very good reunion and —
BS: Oh well, yes. The Halton Apprentices Association. In fact, I’ve got a book there written by an air vice marshall. Ex-aircraft apprentice who used to, we used to see him actually in our reunions down at Halton and it’s about the life of an aircraft apprentice. I’ll get it out some time and show you.
Interviewer: And the good thing is —
BS: I’ll look it up.
Interviewer: And the interesting thing is how many formal aircraft apprentices made air rank —
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Very senior ranks.
BS: They did. They did. Apart from the technical training which you of course enlarged. I mean, by the time I finished at the RAF I was very highly qualified. Instruments, electronically and everything else. You know, all the courses I went on and all that work on the V bombers. So, you know, it was, it was the sheer sort of discipline that that regulated your life and you know —
Interviewer: A good start.
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: A good start. And did you say you’d, I think you just said you were just saying that you were moving on from Marham. How long did you spend there?
BS: So I was at Marham from July ‘til March ’41.
Interviewer: And then what was next?
BS: Then what happened then was I’ll tell you a funny little story. Can I just recap a bit but when, when I passed out from Halton and I went to Marham and when I went home of course we used to get forty eight passes at any time. Not just at weekends. In the middle of the week or any time. Forty eight hour pass.
Interviewer: When you could be spared.
BS: When you could be spared.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And my father who was a very very patriotic man. My father served right through the first war in the Royal Artillery, through all the modern hell of Passchendaele. You couldn’t meet a more patriotic man. King and country man everything. The fact I went in the the Air Force absolutely wonderful to him you know. Anyway, I went home on my first leave you see. And , ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Where’s your propellers on your arms?’ He thought I was going to be a leading aircraftsman straight away. Of course, I passed out as AC1 not AC2 [laughs] you see. I didn’t get quite the response then, you know. So, so that was that. So that was a funny story really going back. Yes, so what happened then was in March, early March ’42 I was posted overseas. You never knew where you were going abroad in the wartime. You never knew where you were going but overseas. So I went home on embarkation leave for a fortnight. When I got home my mother said, Southend on Sea, my mother said, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Dad’s in hospital, ill. Oh, he’s got congestion of the lungs.’ So I went down to see him. He was very poorly in hospital at Rochford in Essex and anyway within a couple of days he had died.
Interviewer: Oh, that’s —
BS: While I was on embarkation leave. Of course, I had two sisters at home and so that was a blow. So I got a weeks extension you know for his funeral. We buried him down in, we got him buried. And so I I left home, my mother and sisters and went back to Marham to clear and went to [pause] first of all we went, I was sent up to Blackpool. Blackpool was what you called a personnel distribution centre for people going over. PDC they called it. And —
Interviewer: Was that Squire’s Gate?
BS: No. No.
Interviewer: Actually at Blackpool.
BS: That was, we were in civvy billets in Bloomfield Road opposite the football ground. Well they were all civvy billets in those days you see.
Interviewer: Right.
BS: And the nice house, a very nice house we were in. Anyway, we were there for a fortnight and in that time we were all kitted out for overseas. You had an idea perhaps where you were going in those days the sort of kit you got really and we were kitted out at Marks and Spencer’s and Woolworths were military kitting out places you see.
Interviewer: Fantastic.
BS: So we had to barter around Blackpool from one to the other being kitted out and straightaway we knew we weren’t going to India because we didn’t get a pith helmet. The pith helmet. They had the pith helmets to go into India you see. We had the old fashioned [taupes?] that they used in the sort of semi-tropical countries you know like Africa and places like that. So I had a [taupe?] I had all the rest of the khaki drill issued and then we set off. After a fortnight we were what they called drafts in those days. Then we set off by train. Took us all day in the train. Of course, no sort, they had no sort of corridor trains. They were all bloody single compartments.
Interviewer: Separate compartments. Yeah.
BS: And we finished up. Where the hell are we going to? We finished up it turned out in Avonmouth in Bristol.
Interviewer: And you still don’t know where you’re going.
BS: No. Not a clue. Not a clue. No. No. They wouldn’t tell you. So we’d not a clue. We got to Avonmouth. We offloaded from the train at the dockside and there was this big old grey steamer there for troops. She had been called the Island Princess. She had been a Argentine meat boat apparently which had been converted to a trooper. Troop carrier. So we staggered up the gangplank. Don’t know how I staggered up with kit bags. Full blooming kitted on. Your [taupe] Great coat. All the rest of our equipment. We staggered up the gangplank on to the, and straight down the gangways right down to a lower deck. One of the holds had been converted into a troop deck you see. Got down there and we were the last line of portholes going down. The Army were underneath. They didn’t have any portholes. We had the Army on board as well. And there were two hundred of us on the troop deck and we were all sleeping on hammocks and we had sort of mess tables going from the centre out to the sides of the ship you see where we allocated so many to a mess table each you see. About I don’t know about ten or twelve. Something like that. And hammocks had to be stowed in special stowage and your ordinary kit was on racks above you. So, so that was something getting used to and when we came had to sleep at night we we hung our hammocks up you know and when we all slung our hammocks we were sort of more or less touching one another you know. You always had to sleep head to toe for obvious reasons and if anybody was seasick in the night God it was hell.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Bloody awful.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: You can imagine.
Interviewer: I don’t want to contemplate it. I did I did three years in the Navy and —
BS: Oh, did you?
Interviewer: I don’t want to contemplate what it could have been like.
BS: So, so anyway so that was the old troopship and, but I got used it. Actually, I enjoyed it. Anyway, we sailed out in the and we sailed out to Greenock, picked up the rest of the convoy at Greenock and we stayed there overnight and —
Interviewer: But when the ship sailed did you still not know where the ship was going?
BS: No. Not a clue. We hadn’t got a clue. No.
Interviewer: That’s incredible.
BS: Well, I hadn’t got a clue and we sailed up the Irish Sea to Greenock and there we picked up the rest of the convoy. We sailed next day. There was ships from horizon to horizon.
Interviewer: So also and when was this?
BS: This was the end of March ’42. The height of the U-boat war.
Interviewer: Wow.
BS: The height of the U-boat war and, and there were sort of Naval vessels sort of you know going around all the time but of course the convoy had to go to the speed of the slowest ship. Eight knots. That was, that was the and we were kept one in front and one behind, you know, liners. Troopers. All grey and horizon to horizon and it was just ships everywhere. And of course, I never even gave a thought to blooming U-boats. I can remember standing on the bloody bow in the heaving North Atlantic enjoying it. Isn’t this wonderful. I never gave a thought we could bloody well be torpedoed at any time, you know. Its youth you see. Nothing can happen to me.
Interviewer: No.
BS: So anyway, so we kept going day after day after day and getting colder and colder. We were going, we thought we were going a bit north. Anyway, eventually we, we changed course and fortunately you know we saw a couple of Condors came over but, but no we didn’t, nobody was attacked at that time. Or at least after we changed direction of course I knew we were going south and eventually after about a couple of weeks or more, two and a half weeks we landed up in Freetown in Sierra Leone and we anchored there for a couple of days. And I can remember the old [unclear] coming alongside with the natives in them wanting to sell —
Interviewer: Sell things. Yeah.
BS: Including their sister ships [laughs] but rain. I’ve never known rain like it in my life. Anyway, we, we set sail again. By this time the convoy was somewhat spoiled. The faster ships they let go ahead at this point you see. But anyway, we kept, we sailed on and on and on. Eventually we must have, well I still had no idea where we were going. No idea at all, you know what was happening. Where we were going. So we got down to the South of Africa. We’re going around the Cape and suddenly we were sitting down to an evening meal down on the mess decks and suddenly bang and the whole ship shuddered like hell. So the boat sirens, alarms went so we, there wasn’t panic but we went up several ladders to the upper, to the boat decks and we stood at our boat stations. There was the Acali raft station on the bloody boat. We had an Acali raft station. And the ship just, just over there was going down. You know, she was the Naval vessel had turned back and was going towards it. So we stayed, we stayed at boat stations for what must have been well over an hour. We went down again and just sat down again when another bang went up and another ship had been hit. You know sort of further away. So, and then we were told over the tannoy that we’d actually arrived into an enemy minefield laid by the Japanese ocean going submarines and not to say anything about it. Right. Well, the next day we had these little leaflets handed out to us about conditions sort of in South Africa and we were told, our draft were told that we were going to be staying in South Africa you see. Well, you know I was absolutely over the moon about this because my eldest sister in ’39, had emigrated to South Africa and so I thought at least there. Only at the last moment two days after that we docked in Durban. And the wonderful thing is I don’t know if you’ve been told about this but all the convoys used to dock in Durban in those days. They were met by a lady on the end of the moles singing and she used, as the troop ships moved in towards the harbour she’d stand on the end of the mole, this lady in a long white dress and she was singing beautifully to all the ships as they came in. She did this every time a convoy came in to Durban during the war. Singing. Beautiful singing. And we docked and we were offloaded and we were taken to a transit camp. You see what happened was that the, it was a rest camp really and all the troops going up to North Africa you know RAF and Army used to —
Interviewer: Stop there.
BS: Have a week or a fortnights rest in Durban. At Clairwood before going out to North Africa you see. The campaign there. But we were only there for about a week because we were staying in South Africa and I was told my post would be to a place called Port Alfred down in the Cape, Eastern Cape, near Port Elizabeth. And what had happened was the Empire Training Scheme. They trained all the aircrew in South Africa, Rhodesia, America.
Interviewer: Canada.
BS: And Canada. Right. So I was posted there and of course the aircraft were Ansons and Oxfords and Old Fairey Battles.
[pause]
BS: So of course, I was over the moon because I mean and the first the thing is to go back when we were in Durban. The residents of Durban were so patriotic they used to talk about home as England not South Africa.
Interviewer: Really?
BS: All English speaking and English-speaking South Africans and every evening outside Clairwood camp there would be lines and lines of cars of Durban residents lining to take the troops to their homes to give them a —
Interviewer: Dinner.
BS: Meal.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And look after them and give them a good time. I remember the first night or second night we were there I was, went out with my friend intending to go in to Durban just to see things and a car pulled up just as we and we were, ‘Come on lads.’ You know. ‘Would you like to come home with us?’ So we said, ‘Yes, please.’ He turned out to be the chief education officer for Durban and we went to his beautiful house. They had three lovely daughters and of course it was, and after war torn England it was a paradise coming there. It was. It was. It was peacetime. It was beautiful living conditions you know.
Interviewer: So life was beginning to look up.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: At this stage.
BS: And because a lot of the chaps had perhaps come from poor homes. It must have been quite an eye opener going to some of these houses you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Being looked after like that. You know it really must have been quite fantastic. So anyway, so and of course all the time I was in South Africa I kept on very good friendly terms with the family and I used to go up there sometimes on leave. Anyway, I got to Port Alfred and with the, I was with the Instrument Section and we had, you know the, the Ansons and Oxfords were used for navigator training and bomb aimer training you know. And air gunner training also and the Fairey Battles were used for target towing. And could you [laughs] I don’t really know much about the old Fairey Battle but they lost —
Interviewer: I’ve seen, I’ve seen photographs.
BS: They’d lost an awful lot in France.
Interviewer: And they were retired from active service pretty quickly weren’t they?
BS: Oh, they lost a lot in France. Anyways, you know how you take your life in your hands as a young boy I would fly in anything because I loved flying you see and I remember having a couple of flights in Fairey Battles and oh God, spewing glycol and petrol over the ruddy place you know. It was [laughs].
Interviewer: And was the flying school run by Airwork’s?
BS: No.
Interviewer: Or was it run —
BS: No. No.
Interviewer: By the RAF?
BS: No, it was run by the either the South African Air Force and the RAF between them. So on, on the camps you see there were quite a few camps out there they were, we were a mixture of South African Air Force and RAF. But the RAF were the main trainers. Do you know what I mean? They were the main experienced people. The South African Air Force were there as sort of because this was South Africa and our CO was a colonel, South African colonel you see. So that was fine. Ok. And so it, it was a lovely mixture really but the Air Force were the main operators as you might say. The RAF. Port Alfred and 43 Air School and —
Interviewer: And as you say their duty —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Was to push out all the air crews.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: To go back to Europe.
BS: Oh yes. That’s they used to come over and they would be there for quite a few weeks and of course it’s a wonderful atmosphere to train them in in peacetime.
Interviewer: Well, that’s why they set these schools up.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: A — get them away from the war and B —
BS: Yes, that’s right.
Interviewer: In good weather conditions.
BS: That’s right. I mean the flying or navigating was perfect really and of course it was all astra navigation in those days. I mean you think back to life over here during the bombing period of those years. I mean that’s why the Americans didn’t do it up because they weren’t trained in astra navigation like our chaps were you see. You know night navigation. That’s why they took on all the —
Interviewer: That was the day raids.
BS: Day. Day bombing you see. So and I often used to go up you know on these trips with them. You know, I used to love to fly as much as I could.
Interviewer: And was there a lot of work to be done repairing the aircraft?
BS: Oh lord, yes. I mean you know it’s all the time. I mean and the wonderful thing is despite the fact that there was a war on and losses in shipping through U-boat activity and that sort of thing we never went short of spares. You know, it’s marvellous really.
Interviewer: So somebody back in England must have been doing their job to get all the spares sent out.
BS: Oh, the production in this country was absolutely wonderful when you think of it during the war. All firms like, you know like little engineering firms, workshops used to have contracts for for making spares and things like that you see. The, the organisation was absolutely fantastic, you know.
Interviewer: So and going back to Trenchard again.
BS: Oh, that’s right.
Interviewer: He set the, he set the Air Force up and made sure everybody was trained.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: So when it needed to work it could.
BS: Well, when you come back to it in 1934 they set up the five year plan. They built all those airfields like Cottesmore, Luffenham, Wittering, eventually Scampton all built on the same plan. You go to any station and they were all exactly the same virtually.
Interviewer: Similar. Similar layouts.
BS: Oh yes. H blocks and the officer’s mess. Sergeant’s Messes. Pretty well pretty much the same. This is and if it hadn’t been for that five year plan we’d have been the hell’s way in ‘39 when the war broke out.
Interviewer: How long did you get to stay in South Africa then?
BS: So anyway, so I stayed in South Africa until July ’45.
Interviewer: Oh, so you —
BS: I was there for over three years.
Interviewer: You were there for three years.
BS: Yeah. So —
Interviewer: Was that normal for for people to spend that much time there?
BS: Yes. Well, you couldn’t get home. There was no, there was no time limit to a tour in those days.
Interviewer: And presumably they wanted to cut down on the amount of troop transports.
BS: That’s right. That’s right.
Interviewer: And so it made sense to keep you there for a good long time.
BS: That’s right. I came back when the European war was over. So all the time I was out there I was very fortunate because my sister was living in Johannesburg and so the first leave I got I went up and stayed with her. Wonderful for me really. And of course, the other fellas didn’t have that. And I had some wonderful leaves and went all over the country and my sister’s husband he was working in the gold mines of Johannesburg. He joined the South African Air Force and he went up to North Africa. To a campaign up there against Rommel you see. The South African Air Force and my sister she, because her husband had gone up there she took the chance. She came down to Port Alfred and lived in the local hotel there. So —
Interviewer: Your sister on [unclear] —
BS: Yes [laughs] it was a most unusual situation really but it just so happened. It was luck.
Interviewer: You’ve got to make these things work for you haven’t you?
BS: But that’s right. Just luck. So that was that. Then in, as I say in —
Interviewer: Then again when you were serving there in the, in the sort of towards the end of the Second World War was it obvious that you heard about D-Day presumably.
BS: Oh, oh yes.
Interviewer: You heard about how the war was going.
BS: Yes. Yes. Oh yes. About [pause] what was it? In July? About January ’45 I was posted up to Pretoria to Robert’s Heights, Voortrekkerhoogte because that was Afrikaner speaking. Have you been to South Africa?
Interviewer: No. Not yet.
BS: Oh, you’ll have to go.
Interviewer: It’s on my list of places to go.
BS: Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to go back again on this scheme that they’re running for veterans to go back.
Interviewer: Oh brilliant.
BS: And visit. Visit where with a grant from the lottery.
Interviewer: Great.
BS: So if I had somebody who would go with me I’d love to go back. Anyway, so I was posted up to Pretoria to a big air depot there. We were, we were sort of a big where they used to service all the aircraft instruments. They’d come in that were US you know, unserviceable. So by this time I’d been promoted to corporal.
Interviewer: Was that a big jump up to corporal?
BS: Yeah, well —
Interviewer: As in responsibility?
BS: Oh yes. Oh yes. I mean you know you know I thought it was anyway. You know.
Interviewer: Well, they always say corporal, the two ranks in the Air Force that are most important are the corporal and the warrant officer.
BS: Oh yes. Well, corporal because you, yes, oh yes. Yes. It was fine. Yes. And so, and then as I say in July ’45 or when, when yes we did know the war was coming to an end of course and then because it was so down, I always remember VE Day out there. We all paraded on the parade ground and were given a formal talk by the station commander there. He was another South African of course and immediately of course we were given the day off you see. So my friend and I we decided to go into Johannesburg. No. Into, into, that’s right into Pretoria itself and we were picked up by a South African colonel going in his car. Of course, we used to hitch hike all over. He took us to his house. I had a lovely time. We got as drunk as hell you know [laughs] We didn’t bloody well bother. Had a wonderful time. So that was how I spent VE Day really. I got back to Pretoria and then of course we were hanging about really for a week or two still doing our jobs of course because aircraft things still had to be serviced and looked after. And then we were posted. So July, at the end of June we were told, you know we were due to go home so we, we were taken down to Cape Town. Went down by train from Johannesburg on the, on the what do they call the wonderful train? The Blue Train they call it.
Interviewer: Blue Train. Yeah.
BS: Which went right down through Kimberley and the beautiful South African landscape down to Cape Town and we were there for about ten days or so in transit to Cape Town and of course it was lovely because Cape Town is a lovely area you know altogether. A beautiful place. And then we embarked on the Alcantara. A ship. A troop ship. Still the same conditions as the one I went out on really.
Interviewer: But this time no U-boats shooting at you.
BS: No. No. No U-boats but I’ll tell you what as soon as we sailed out from Cape Town they operated the gassing system which kept, gave you warnings of submarines. Oh, magnetic mines. That’s what they —
Interviewer: Magnetic, gassing for magnetic mines.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And then Aztec obviously —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: For detecting submarines.
BS: And I always remember that because we had it on the way out there. They have these what do they call the machine guns? The Oerlikons. They used to practice those every day and oh the noise they made.
Interviewer: This is after VE Day.
BS: Oh yeah. Well, of course I mean you know I mean things were still the same. I mean things hadn’t altered. It took time to. Of course, we sailed back in just over two and a half weeks. Nearly three weeks. So it was a much quicker easier time than —
Interviewer: And when you left South Africa did you know your time in the Air Force was coming to an end or was it?
BS: No. No. Because I was a regular.
Interviewer: You joined up as a regular.
BS: Oh, I was in for twelve years.
Interviewer: Ok. So, so when you signed up in 1939 you knew you were in for twelve years.
BS: [unclear] Oh that’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: So presumably a lot of people that were with you were conscripted.
BS: Well, obviously, yes. You had conscripted, you had a release, demob number they called it. And the lower the demob number the older you were you know.
Interviewer: The quicker they were posted to —
BS: The quicker you were out. But they never started demobbing until about August really. I mean this is what I gather the film on TV, one of these Foyles War things a guy came back from North Africa. He was out. Well, he wouldn’t have been out just like that. He’d have waited weeks you know. Things like that you notice.
Interviewer: Well looking at it the demob procedure was very well done.
BS: It was very well done. Everything was so organised believe me and I mean even the demob suits. I mean the lovely beautiful material. They were wonderful material. Shirts, all the ties.
Interviewer: A pair of shoes.
BS: Coat, hat, shoes. Everything.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: I mean —
Interviewer: And a suitcase was it?
BS: And a suitcase.
Interviewer: And a suitcase.
BS: That’s right. Yes. So anyway, so we got, oh yeah it was a very very pleasurable voyage. Actually, I enjoyed troopship life because you know funnily enough just to go back a bit going out to South Africa was where I learned to play chess and bridge on the deck for days on end. In the afternoon you were quite free and you’d sit about on deck you know and play cards or [pause] so I know quite a few games like that and you know so, oh I thought it was tough, spartan conditions. You know the food was very spartan and and once you got over the morning with boat drill and all that sort of thing. Of course, you know it’s, it was [pause] anyway so we got back through to Liverpool and, oh yes I’m sure it was Liverpool we docked at. And then of course we were sent our demob disembarkation leave and I went back down to Southend to my home.
Interviewer: And you’d been away —
BS: To my mum.
Interviewer: And you’d been away for a good long time then.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: When you —
BS: Yeah. Can I go back a little bit?
Interviewer: Of course you can.
BS: My two sisters at home who had left home the younger one she joined the Wrens and she was actually stationed down in the tunnels at Dover. They had tunnels under the castle which they had and she was a wireless operator there and she was involved in all that recording all the traffic on the Channel. Which they did you know with the German traffic and everything else. She was involved in that. My other sister who’d been a dressmaker joined the RAF and became a radio operator. Wonderful things they trained girls to do.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: She hadn’t a clue what electricity was almost and here she was just an ordinary dressmaker joined the Air Force and they trained her to be a wireless op down at Yatesbury. Is it Yatesbury? Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Yes, that’s right. Yatesbury.
Interviewer: Near Bristol.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes. Down there. And you know she qualified and eventually she was posted to Chichsands Priory which was an out station of —
Interviewer: Bentley Priory. Bletchley Park.
BS: Bletchley Park.
Interviewer: Bletchley Park.
BS: And she used to listen to all the German aircraft recording messages and pass it on to Bletchley Park. So an ordinary dressmaker. You see the people see they trained people up to do in the war you know.
Interviewer: And the responsibilities that they had.
BS: And the responsibility.
Interviewer: At a very young age.
BS: I know. Yes.
Interviewer: So much so that certainly after the, when the war came to an end a lot of women who had been trained wanted to keep, use that training.
BS: Well exactly. Oh yes. And she found it useful my, this other sister because when I got back from South Africa she was still in, still in the WAAF and about the following year she wanted to go out and join my sister in South Africa. But you couldn’t get passage anywhere at that time on the ships or anywhere and so she got together another group of like minded people and they bought an ex-Naval air sea rescue launch. Only about sixty seventy feet long. These twenty thirty people and they equipped it and they had these petrol engines with huge fifty gallon drums of, of fuel latched on the deck and they set off for South Africa. Took them three months to get there and she eventually did get there and of course it was in all the papers at the time. This wonderful trip made by these people.
Interviewer: That must have been an experience.
BS: And then when they got there they sold their boat and my sister went up to join my other sister up in Johannesburg. Well, that’s another story but so, you know those sorts of things people did you know in those days. Anyway, so, so that so I got home and when I got back I was home for a month and then I wondered where I was going to get posted to and of all places I was posted to RAF Westwood at Peterborough. There was an RAF station there training, training Free French Air Force pilots.
Interviewer: Is that just north of Peterborough?
BS: No. It’s on the edge of Peterborough. Right on the edge. Do you know Peterborough?
Interviewer: I do but I, I —
BS: If you go out to Westwood area it was you know the bit that was the Baker Perkins factory there. It was just at the back of Baker Perkins. In fact, the airfield stretched right up to Baker Perkins fence and that was all RAF Westwood. It’s all housing now and factories.
Interviewer: Yes, I knew there was an airfield around but I wasn’t sure where it was.
BS: So I was stationed there. I was stationed there for a short while and then after a few months, I wasn’t there all that long really I was posted to Japan.
Interviewer: Right. And we’ll talk about that in the next recording.
BS: Yes. Ok.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: I’m with Bertie Salvage and we’re talking about his experiences in the RAF and after your time in the Second World War Bertie I understand you ended up in Japan.
BS: Yes. It must have been sometime in early ’46 I was posted to Japan. Of course, this came as quite a surprise to me. Of all places to go to. To the occupation force in Japan because at that time Honshu, the main island was divided into half. The Americans occupied the upper part and the British Commonwealth Occupation Force as it was called occupied the lower half of Honshu, you know which was between Army and RAF. And what, what they’d done is when the occupation forces moved in they’d taken over old Japanese military establishments including airfields and when I got there I was posted to a place called Miho which had been another Japanese airfield where they trained the Kamikaze pilots. And the south, the south of Japan, or the south west southwest corner of Japan. But anyway going back to to going we set off from Tilbury in an old boat called the SS Ranchi and this had been an old P&O boat you know. Quite an old boat and it had been fitted out as a troop ship and it took us six weeks to get to Japan believe it or not. We think these days they are there in about sixteen hours. Almost. Not quite. A bit more than that but it took us six weeks to get there. All through the Med and down through stopping off at, in Port Said, Aden, Columbo, Singapore. It was quite, Shanghai, Hong Kong then into a place called Kure in Japan which had been a big Japanese naval base. And it had been fantastic, you know the thought of going to Japan. You know this place that we’d all heard of as you know created such, you know treated, given our boys such a bad time in the war in the Far East and it was quite a fascinating thought of going there. Anyway, arrived at Kure and going through the Japanese inland sea was quite an experience. All the little volcanic islands which were quite picturesque. Eventually landed at Kure. Anyway, we were entrained across to Miho, this ex-Japanese base and of course it’s quite interesting to see the Japanese landscape. It was very hilly and mountainous. Very forested all over. Of course it’s a volcanic, volcanic origin Japan so it is, you know it is very hilly. So we landed at Miho and I was posted on to, well basically 17 Squadron Spitfires but 11 Squadron was there as well and basically I was really working on both squadrons but administratively I was sort of on the strength of 17 Squadron. And the object of the, was although we were an occupation force the main job really was to patrol the sea around Japan off the, across the Yellow Sea and you know as far on the way across towards China and all over that area for some reason or other. But anyway, so that was very interesting being there.
Interviewer: Did you get to see much of the country at all?
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: Whilst you were there.
BS: Yes. I got, I just to go back a bit it was interesting because all these, all the domestic staff on the camp were Japanese. Ex-Japanese Army and lots and lots of Japanese, and lots and lots of Japanese girls used to come on the camp every day doing all the menial tasks. In fact, the funny thing was that the, I was a corporal when I went there still and whilst had been there nearly a year I was promoted to sergeant. After I was promoted to sergeant I was moved to the Sergeant’s Mess. I was given my own sort of room and I was issued with a room girl who used to attend to all my domestic requirements. She used to clean my room and keep doing my washing and ironing and everything else. So that was quite an experience in itself and whilst I was there we had a NAAFI canteen of course which we, which we used to use and this was staffed by English girls in the WRVS who had been sent in to to run the canteens for the troops you see. And I happened to meet the manageress of the local NAAFI canteen and get to know her quite well. Gladys. And she, like the other girls were living in the Officer’s Mess. They were given the honorary rank of flight lieutenant because there was no other sort of way we could accommodate them really.
Interviewer: The equivalent. Yeah.
BS: You see. Because the Japanese were really off limits in the sense, in the sense that when you went out in Japan we were pretty well limited to we’d go in the shops and things. We weren’t really supposed to go in their houses and that sort of thing you know. You know, we were and all our provisions were you know were provided by either America, Australia or New Zealand or Australia. They used to come from all over the, the western world one might say. Of course, the Japanese had nothing. They had only rice and fish to eat you see. Of course, they weren’t ever proper meat eaters before that. They’d sort of produced dairy herds and that sort of thing. They lived on rice and fish. Anyway, so that was the situation there. So I got to know Gladys very very well and we eventually at the time I was there we, we courted as one might say and eventually I married her in Japan. And by this time she had been sent down to Iwakuni which was the main RAF base headquarters down, down near Kure. The RAF airfield at Iwakuni and it was the Communication Flight there. They had Dakotas there which they used to supply the, communicate with the RAF other establishments in Honshu and she got posted there to the WRVS canteen there and I wangled, by this time I’d been promoted to sergeant, by this time I wangled a posting down there myself you see. I think they took pity on me at Miho. Anyway, so I was posted down to Iwakuni as well. It was at Iwakuni that Gladys and I had as service wedding. And of course the funny thing was that of course I was working on the Dakotas there and the funny thing was that she was living in the Officer’s Mess there and I I was living in the Sergeant’s Mess. So after we got married we had to go back to the same situation. The only time I could see her was in the Officer’s Mess at Iwakuni. The WRVS had a separate sort of living room you see and I could visit her in this living room, you know. The only time I could see her inside anywhere. This went on for about nearly two months after which time we came home. But it was very interesting and when we did get married there we, we had a honeymoon up at a place called Koana just outside Tokyo. This was a beautiful hotel on the shores of the Pacific. It had been built by the Japanese to house the 1940 Olympic games which never took place. To house the contestants and everybody. So this was taken over as one of the leave hostels. Of course, what happened was that when the occupation force moved into Japan they sorted out all different sort of different sort of posh places around the country for troops to have a break.
Interviewer: R&R. Yeah.
BS: And one of them was at [Kyrenia?]. At Kyoto. Beautiful old famous beauty spot in Japan and going back a bit before I was married to Gladys I had a weeks leave up at Kyoto which was very fine indeed. It was up in the American sector actually near Tokyo. Anyway, so Gladys and I went to Koana. This was an absolutely wonderful fortnight and we actually had a week at Koana and a week down in Kobi at a beautiful Japanese house which had been the residence of the Baron Simotomo who had been executed as a war criminal and they’d taken over his old house as one of the leave hostels as it were. So we had the second week of our honeymoon there and it was absolutely fantastic. But the one of the things that you could see was in the distance to the top of Mount Fuji sticking up. You know with this white top. So that was that. Anyway, when it came time to come home I, we came home on a the old Dilwara which was a properly built troop ship and they used to call it the kit badge because they painted the big blue band around. And of course, Gladys came home first class as officer status.
Interviewer: Oh very nice.
BS: Whereas I of course was on the troop deck with the senior NCOs. Second class. So she came home first class and I came home second class and the only time I could see her was on the second class promenade deck. I wasn’t allowed through to the bloody first class either [laughs] Oh dear.
Interviewer: Only the Air Force could do that.
BS: And the thing is we had of course like all ships had OC troops on board. Like all troops had a usually a colonel who sort of late on in years.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: You might say.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: And at one stage she was, poor old Gladys got seasick. She wasn’t a good sailor and I got special treatment from the OC troops to go down to her cabin to give her first aid [laughs] Oh, it was, anyway we stopped off at Singapore and Columbo and we managed to get to shore and spend a bit of time together. BS: Not much though. So the only sort of married life I had was when we got back home to England really. So, but going back to but as 17 and 11 Squadrons on American Independence Day, the 4th of July, isn’t it?
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: We were invited, the whole, both squadrons were invited up to a place called [pause] called [pause] Oh dear. The name’s gone from me for the moment but a big airfield near Tokyo which the Americans had taken over. Kizarizu. Kizarizu. That’s the name of the place. And we were invited up there to help take part in their celebrations you see. As I’ve got pictures of the two squadrons all lined up at Kizarizu. Which I, which I took when I was there. And we had a nice two or three days there really at the Americans are very —
Interviewer: Very hospitable and all that.
BS: Very very hospitable.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: And they had [pause] yes what the hell, oh yes the famous American fighter. Lightnings I think they called them.
Interviewer: P38 was the twin engine.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: With the tail booms.
BS: That’s right. But before that going back to when I was at Miho the, the New Zealand air force they had corsairs used to land on —
Interviewer: They’re air craft carrier Corsairs yeah.
BS: And I’ve actually worked to service Corsairs as well.
Interviewer: Well, the Royal Navy had them as well of course.
BS: Yeah. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Yes. So a corsair. They were nice aircraft. And so anyway so after six weeks we got back to England and of course when we got back to England Gladys the WVS, she had been in the Far East you see and of course when the, when the war ended she was moved up with the occupation forces so she was there before me you see. So anyway got back to England she was, and of course she went across to her home which was at Withernsea, East Yorkshire and I went for debriefing as it were to that place up on the Wirral. An old RAF station there. What was it? I’ve forgotten the name of it now but it was it was a sort of like a distribution place you know where you used to go for debriefing after being overseas and what not.
Interviewer: Before my time.
BS: [unclear] and all that and, yes. And of course, I and then of course I went on disembarkation leave and of course I went across to Gladys’ home in Withernsea on the East Yorkshire coast and for the first time I met her parents. It was ever so funny that. And, but I must say I did enjoy my time in Japan. It was eighteen months or so. It was quite an experience. Oh yes. Another thing I forgot to mention is that when I was at Iwakuni we were very near Hiroshima and I went to Hiroshima several times and I saw it in its devastated stated and all that and going back to that time unfortunately I lost my first wife to cancer. Breast cancer. She contracted it in 1954. ’54, and she died in 1960 and at the time they did wonder if she had picked up radio activity.
Interviewer: Out in Japan.
BS: Yes. Because we went to Hiroshima several times and you know saw it and also saw Nagasaki too at one time. So, anyway but Tokyo also Tokyo was an absolute mess as well. That was bombed to hell.
Interviewer: And did you get any feeling for what the Japanese thought about the war?
BS: The Japanese. Well, typical of the Oriental mind as soon as the Emperor said stop, finished and it was all bowing and cowing. Every time you spoke to the Japanese it was always like this. Even the military. And in fact, I don’t know whether you know it but after the war was finished when we, when we sort of took back Sumatra and Java like that we used the Japanese forces to control all the blooming rebels. They came under our control and we were, we were organising all their troops that were still there and they were as obedient as anything.
Interviewer: They had a very strong sense of leadership.
BS: This was their nature. Very very strong.
Interviewer: Very hierarchical —
BS: Yes. Of course.
Interviewer: Society.
BS: The Japanese on a parade if the officer was just for you to turn around and hit the sergeant, hit a corporal the corporal would pick a private out and give him a thrashing. That’s why we used to hand the can back as I say.
Interviewer: Hand the can back. I haven’t heard that before.
BS: Oh yeah. Hand the can back. Oh yeah. Yeah. Pass the can back yes. Hand the can back. Yeah.
Interviewer: But you enjoyed your time there.
BS: Oh, I enjoyed all my Air Force career. Every bit of it. I had, I didn’t want to leave. The only reason why I left I was over fifty five, late forties when I came out it’s because we were at Wittering and we’d bought a house in Stamford. My son was at Stamford School and of course it’s a very good school.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Stamford School. And my daughter was coming up for there and so I was due to be posted to Aden or due to be posted abroad And we didn’t want any. I didn’t think Gwen wanted to move, my second wife that is so we decided and I’d had this very good job offered me with PERA at Melton Mowbray so —
Interviewer: As we say it’s a no brainer at that stage probably to—
BS: Well, yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: It was Production Engineering and Research Association and I was offered a job as a senior author there. Of course, with of my technical experience in the RAF.
Interviewer: It was time to leave.
Interviewer: Yeah. The wonderful technical training I had in the Air Force was second to none.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And all the way through. You had your basic training but you keep on going on course after course after course.
BS: Again, back to —
Interviewer: I mean courses had six months.
BS: Back to that old training again.
Interviewer: Yes. I mean my electronic training and technical training was second to none when I came out.
BS: Ok. Well, we’ll talk about that in the next session.
Interviewer: Yes.
[recording paused]
BS: Do a quick sort of lead into that really.
Interviewer: Ok. Well, I’m with, I’m still with Bertie Salvage and we’ve gone through the Second World War. We’ve talked a little bit about time after the Second World War and now we’re starting to talk about his —
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Memories of the V Force and you know —
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: 1954 onwards.
BS: That’s right. Well, just to go back to 1951. I was posted out to Egypt. The Canal Zone. For three years on Deversoir on the Canal. On the Canal, you know.
Interviewer: Did that posting come out of the blue or did you ask for that?
BS: Oh no. That came out the blue because I can always remember when we came back from Japan going through the bloody Suez Canal I looked across at the bleak desert area and all the different military camps and I thought oh God I hope I never get posted here.
Interviewer: Yes. I hear that’s what most people say their first —
BS: I know I was posted out to Deversoir in Egypt. Of course, it was a bit of, a bit of a hammer blow to take but I actually it was quite nice there really. It was right on the edge of the Great Bitter Lake. I was on 249 Squadron. 213, on Vampires. And of course it was my first real, I had worked on Meteors before but it was my first real experience to be working on jet aircraft. They were lovely aircraft, the Vampire.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Have you ever flown one?
Interviewer: No. No.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: No.
BS: It took us, anyway so I worked on that and so in 1954 I got posted back to England and after my month’s disembarkation leave I was posted to RAF Gaydon. Never even heard of it before. But Gaydon had been a wartime station which they were re-starting again you know sort of —
Interviewer: They started to put some money into some of the —
BS: It had been held in like a sort of mothball condition.
Interviewer: Care and maintenance.
BS: Care and maintenance. Mothballed. And so they decided to start that off and start that off as as the initial V bomber training station you know. Of course, there would just be the V bombers. What happened was that the Victor, the Vulcan and the Victor were the first ones to be designed but they were going to take a long time to get into, into operations so they decided to as a stop gap to build the Valiant which Vickers had said they could build far quicker for them as a, as a stop gap and really until the Victors and the Vulcans were available. So I was posted to RAF Gaydon as an instructor on the Technical Training School. Of course it was going to be the OCU.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: The aircrew were going to be trained there and also the ground crew people servicing the aircraft you see. So I was posted on to be the instructor on instruments on the, on the Valiant first of all. So of course, when I got there I think the very first Valiant was there. Anyway, I was straightaway sent away on long courses. I had quite a few weeks down at Vickers at Weybridge where they were being made, built there. I went to different other manufacturers of different instruments and things. GPI and Mark 4s, these all sorts.
Interviewer: The navigation equipment on the aeroplane.
BS: Yeah. Yes. And also the NBS bombing system which they used. And so I went on these long courses and I got back to Gaydon eventually and by that time of course I think another sort of couple of others were there or something and we set up the school. And I was in instruments, we had all the other trades, instruments, air frames, armaments you know and so of course I had to straight away set about creating all my instruction notes, my instruction techniques and programmes. All the, when you go in to instructing you have that all to do.
Interviewer: Yes. I remember that. Yes.
BS: Because, [unclear] because you really start to learn other things you know. You really start to realise how much do I know about my job and that sort of thing. And when it came to start teaching of course it was, it was a bit tough at first but I really got into it you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: And I got so used to writing up the authorship, authoring my own notes that it I found it very interesting indeed.
Interviewer: And working with the manufacturers is normally quite —
BS: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: You get a lot of job satisfaction if you —
BS: Yeah. I went to Coventry to HSD, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and everywhere and also to [pause] no that was later on I went to Ferranti when I was on the Blue Steel. So, you know. So, yes you got used to it. I spent quite a month or two I suppose going around different manufacturers. Cheltenham down to —
Interviewer: Smiths.
BS: To Smiths. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: You know, all sorts of different places. Anyway, of course you collate all this knowledge, put it all together and you know and, and the first day I had to instruct, you know the chaps are sitting there. I thought it was, you know it was quite an experience really.
Interviewer: And what rank are you by now?
BS: I was still a sergeant.
Interviewer: Still a sergeant. Yeah.
BS: Yes. Promotion was a bit slow and anyway I was going to go for the chief tech which I got a bit later on.
Interviewer: And what was living I mean England was still rationing going on in this period.
BS: Yeah, so what happened was when I first went to Gaydon of course there were no married quarters so they said to us go and find yourself a hiring somewhere and we’ll take it on. So I looked around South Warwickshire. I don’t know whether you know South Warwickshire. It’s a lovely county.
Interviewer: Not really. It’s a nice part of the world though, isn’t it?
BS: [unclear] and all down Stratford Upon Avon. All down that way because we were near Stratford you see and so I found myself a little —
Interviewer: This was before the M40 of course.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: I found myself a little village called, down near Moreton in the Marsh called called Brailes and I found a little tiny cottage there. A country cottage. And so I moved Gladys down there, my wife with, who had our first boy then, our son by then. She was also, no she had got the two boys by then. We had two sons. So she came and so I was living out. It was about twelve miles away from there so I used to go in and backwards and forwards to Gaydon every day. So we were living in married and they started to build married quarters but they weren’t going to be ready for another year you see. So, so that went on really and of course getting to know the aircraft better and the chaps coming through. It used to be a fortnight, two weeks course or two or three weeks and then would be about a week and then have another lot come in then.
Interviewer: And is National Service still going on at this stage?
BS: And I’m going to say this, oh yes, National Service run to 1960 ’61. So National Service but what impressed me was a lot of national service chaps coming through HN, Higher National Certificate. Well trained chaps.
Interviewer: Chaps that decided to join the Air Force rather than —
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: And they were a two year commitment were they?
BS: The two year commitment.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: But they were most interesting to teach because they were so receptive. I bet you could tell them something they’d know straightaway through their engineering background. They were a joy to teach really you know. They were so good. It’s like it was during the war of course where they had all these skilled people in from outside and —
Interviewer: The interesting thing to me if people joined on a two year National Service if they spent a year or eighteen months training they would be only be productive for six months.
BS: Oh, I know. That’s right. Well, they used to spend about six months training I suppose up to the basic mechanics but I’d get these chaps in and you know they were highly really highly qualified.
Interviewer: And of course, in the early 50s of course, there was a massive expansion of the Air Force because of Korea.
BS: Oh yes. That’s right.
Interviewer: And a lot of training schools were set up then.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: A lot of aircrew were pumped through.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: And obviously there would have been all the Meteor training outfits.
BS: That’s right. Yes. So I was at, I was at Leconfield when the Korean War was on and we sent aircraft. Oh yes, when I was at Gaydon the Suez Crisis erupted.
Interviewer: ’56.
BS: Well, because I’d just come back from Suez only the previous year.
Oh, of course. Yes.
BS: And I was, I got we went through quite a lot of trouble out there with it before it fully broke out really. You know had a lot of trouble really. Anyway, but the Suez Crisis broke out and of course we had to get involved in that and we sent two or three Valiants out there with bombed up and ready to go and you know.
Interviewer: They went to Malta, didn’t they?
BS: They went to Malta.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: Yes. The service sort of evolved in that. So after, oh about 1957 or thereabouts we had the first Victors and so yes I also went then. I went on. I was taken off and went on the quite a few [unclear] of course to Handley Page at Radlett and did the Victor. On the Victor. So when I came back I was trained up on the Victor but what happened was that because it was a bit of a struggle to teach on two aircraft like that because we still had the Valiants there. A few Valiants. They had another chap come in to supplement me to, you know on the Victor so I did a bit of teaching on the Victor but this other guy sort of did more and more of that really on the actual instrumentation side. So I still sort of really concentrated on the Valiant. But I did, when he was away I used to do the Victor as well you know. So but very similar the systems really you know. Particularly the NBS system and the navigation equipment and everything else and basically the flying was pretty much it was just the layouts and things. But general principles were the same. So it was all very interesting though while I was there. So I suppose do you want me to go on from there?
Interviewer: Yeah, I just wondered, you know —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: So how long did you stay on at Gaydon?
BS: Sorry?
Interviewer: How long did you spend at Gaydon then?
BS: At Gaydon, I was, what happened was when I was at Gaydon unfortunately while I was there my first wife contracted cancer and she was given basically first of all two years to live then she actually lived for five so although I was really screened on this instructing job. It was how shall I put it? More heavily emphasised that I was screened because of Gladys’ illnesses.
Interviewer: Yeah. Domestic situation. Yeah.
BS: And through that time I was put up for a branch commission in the engineering branch but I had to turn it down because I couldn’t leave my wife, you see.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BS: So that, so that was that but anyway that didn’t matter. So that was that so, and then, so she died in 1960 and eventually I left in 1962. I was posted to RAF Newton. Not got posted but I was despatched there on the Skybolt course because I was designated. Because of my experience of technical you know side of thing they decreed that I should go on the Skybolt.
Interviewer: They needed someone to bring Skybolt into service.
BS: So I went to Newton for six months. I’d all the instrumentation electronic side of control and guidance of the Skybolt missile.
Interviewer: And did you get out to America?
BS: No.
Interviewer: During that time.
BS: Unfortunately, I got back to Gaydon and we were given a couple of weeks to pack up and we’d packed up almost with a few, well with a week I think of going to America. My wife was, well the whole family was going to go together to Denver in Colorado and then after that we were going to go down to Florida to Eginton or Eglington.
Interviewer: Eglin.
BS: Eglin.
Interviewer: Not Elgin. Eglin.
BS: We had to go to Eglin.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: Down on the Caribbean.
Interviewer: On the —
BS: Yes. Where we were —
Interviewer: The Florida coast.
BS: Two years and got fully Skybolt trained to come but a week or two before they decided to ditch Skybolt in favour of the Polaris for the submarine as a strategic missile.
Interviewer: Well, my understanding is Skybolt isn’t doing very well and —
BS: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: JFK met with Macmillan.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And —
BS: Yeah. That’s right.
Interviewer: JFK offered, the Americans offered to give the Brits the chance to develop it and, and Macmillan thought the best way out of that was to buy Polaris instead.
BS: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Which JFK agreed to.
BS: Yes. So that’s why I didn’t go. So that, so that was that finished. So of course I was then it was a few weeks in. I was a chief technician by this time well I had been for a flight sergeant. Anyway, so I think because of my Skybolt experience they decided that I should go to Blue Steel.
Interviewer: Quite logical. Yes.
BS: Yes, so because of my, so back I went to Newton and because I’d already done the Skybolt six months I was spared the initial training on Blue Steel because it was still the basic sort of training on electronics you see.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: So I went back to Newton for three months on the Blue Steel system itself. So I went back in, that was 1963 and I went back until March 1964 or March or April of ’64. So I learned all the, when I was involved on Blue Steel what was the control, the guidance system. The inertial navigation system, the control system which was the gyro control like auto pilot.
Interviewer: You had an inertia navigator didn’t it?
BS: Oh yes. Yeah, I did, I had to go to Ferrantis for that, you know. And also the flight rules computer. I was involved with all this, that [unclear] on that so I was really fully technically trained on the control and guidance system of the Blue System. I don’t think there’s many people left.
Interviewer: Just a handful I think probably that remember it.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: In any details.
BS: Anyway, so that was very interestingly and fantastically the courses I went on what you learned.
Interviewer: Who built the missile Blue Steel? Do you remember?
BS: It was HSD, Coventry.
Interviewer: Oh, Hawker Siddeley. Yeah.
BS: Yes. So, we went across there again as well. So, so I went back to Newton for that and eventually then I got posted to, well it was either Scampton or Wittering. We didn’t know. Anyway, I was, I was posted to Scampton, to Wittering. But of course, all the time I was at Wittering we had this strong liaison with Waddington with, with Scampton.
Interviewer: Scampton.
BS: Because I mean the systems on the two were, the Blue Steels were identical really. I mean —
Interviewer: A missile is identical it’s just —
BS: A missile. Yes.
Interviewer: It’s just a question of how it plugged in to the aeroplane.
BS: That’s right. Yes. But so when I went to Wittering they had built a huge new hangar there with all the servicing workshops and offices. Administrative parts and also the HTP as you called it.
Interviewer: High test peroxide.
BS: Yeah. The —
Interviewer: The Gin Palace.
BS: The Gin Palace. Yes. That was right next to the hangar and they were closely associated so I was straightway when I went to Wittering I was put in the, they had a, you know the laboratories and the calibration rooms of the workshops for the controls guidance systems. And so I was put in, I was put in charge of that really and you know obviously had staff who would be trained up like me but so for several, a year or two I was involved in the service and maintenance of the systems going on the missile.
Interviewer: And can you remember any test firings and things like that?
BS: Well, yes. I didn’t actually. I think they took off from the Welsh coast didn’t they?
Interviewer: They would have fired probably some in the Aberporth range.
BS: Yeah. The Aberporth ranges. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah but —
BS: But I never went over there. Some people did but I never got in because I was involved in the, in the servicing.
Interviewer: Servicing.
BS: Testing and calibration of the systems really, you know.
Interviewer: And it was quite a complicated piece of kit, was it? My understanding was that you had to align the inertial and fly [unclear] and then —
BS: Oh lord. Oh yes. Yes. You did. Yes. You did all that and of course we had in the iron department as we called it we had a higher complex system of calibration instruments to land the [tryoscopic] the brake hold, brake control charge had to be absolutely perfectly set up and [unclear] you know you set that with the oscilloscopes and that sort of thing and the Flight Rules Computer, the FRC, what happened was that the, the Blue Steel would be dropped from about forty thousand feet. The motor would kick in, climb up to about sixty thousand, fly for about two hundred miles, then freefall on the target. That was the [pause] Now as soon as it was launched they got up to altitude then the control system would fit in, it would click in to the control and guide the thing directed by the Flight Rules Computer which was the FRC. So the computer would take it to target with the controls being functioned by the control system provided.
Interviewer: And Ferranti I presume did all the, did that part of the —
BS: That’s right. Yes. Yes, it’s from the [INC] to the FRC to the control system and they did. Everything would lock off at a certain point and it would just freefall on to target. That’s the, that was the theory. But so all three were closely combined really. [INC[ IN, THE FRC, the control system.
Interviewer: And how did they get on regarding the aeroplane and guiding the missile when it was loaded with its, with the weapon?
BS: Well, I’ve been, well let’s put it this way I never actually went out to the, out of the QRA system. What happened was that there used to be at least one, perhaps sometimes two at the end of the runway. Quick Retaliation Aircraft they called it. The QRA. And there was always an aircraft, one or two out there all the time.
Interviewer: Loaded up and ready to go.
BS: And the crew on board as well. Ready to go within minutes you know. To take off and there would have been a guard out there I assume. I never actually went out there.
Interviewer: So if you had to service the missile —
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: The warhead would be taken off.
BS: Oh lord, yes. Well, I was all the time you never did any servicing unless the missile was actually in the hangar. Not to the point of its control system. Oh yes. They’d take the pod out and then they’d bring the missile in. The pod was put in, you know —
Interviewer: So the warhead was called the pod, was it?
BS: The pod.
Interviewer: Ok.
BS: The pod, yeah. I saw several. Well, I saw. I never had anything to do with them but I mean they used to keep we had the bomb dump at Wittering. It’s still there I think.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
BS: The Navy used to, the Navy used it.
Interviewer: Well, the bomb dump at Wittering was used, you know.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: It was the first bomb dump for the first nuclear weapons.
BS: I think it’s still functioning is it? They, I think they were —
Interviewer: I’m not too sure what it’s used for now.
BS: I think I’ve seen Navy vehicles going in there. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Quite possibly being used as a storage area.
BS: Yes. Yeah. Oh yes. Yes. It was. I never actually went in it but I, you know, I know where it was [unclear] but I never actually went inside but yes they used to. There was a lot of, a lot of fuss when they used to be loading them up with the pod you know but that was quite, and then of course as I was saying what [pause] what was it? About 1967 or thereabouts they decided that they wanted more people to come into the system. Technicians you know. And they decided to set up the Blue Steel Training School. Technical Training School at Wittering. In the Blue Steel hangar. And I was appointed, because of my instructing experience, my vast experience they asked me to set it up and run it as as organiser and also to instruct myself as a flight sergeant at this time. Instruct. Instruct. Instruct on it you see as well as organise all the other trades. So we, we, we have this scheme running. We used to have them in for about a week or two and teach them the systems, you know. So I was running that, the Technical Training School there because of my experience.
Interviewer: And did that do that do, that did all the training for Blue Steel so chaps would come down from Scampton and to do the course with you.
BS: Well, I think Scampton had, I think they must have had their own scheme because I don’t remember people coming from Scampton. I think they had their own scheme running up there. I’m pretty sure because I was just really involved with those coming into Wittering really. But I’m sure they must have done. So I was heavily involved with that. So you see my experience is very deep on the technical side on the ring of steel.
Interviewer: The thing that appeals to me is the fact that you started on learning your trade back in 1939.
BS: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: And here we are thirty years on.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Still using the basics of electrics.
BS: Oh, that’s right.
Interviewer: But applying it into a much more modern system.
BS: Oh, [unclear] all, I mean I didn’t know a thing about electronics and a finite mechanism you know and the correlation between the two mechanics to electrics and backwards and forwards. You know what I mean.
Interviewer: The beginning of digital computing.
BS: The transfers, oh yes. Oh yes. That was a appealing. The FRC was. Of course, it was all sort of transistors then. You know, transistor technology. So, you know and, and of course, you know apart from being taught you learn a lot through reading too. You know, it’s all —
Interviewer: And you must have seen a terrific change in the Air Force to have gone from the Second World War.
BS: Oh, right through.
Interviewer: To the time of Korea.
BS: Oh yes.
Interviewer: And conscription still going on.
BS: Listen, this is about me. I think —
Interviewer: National Service.
BS: I went through the most fascinating period really right through to, you know from basic things like this blooming Valentia.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: To —
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: To, to V bombers, you know. And of course, at Cosford they have the, the Cold War hangar there.
Interviewer: They do, yes. Yeah.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: I’ve been just the once.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And I must go again.
BS: Yes, I, pardon?
Interviewer: I’ve just been the once and I must go again.
BS: Yeah, well you see my daughter lives at Lichfield so it’s only just a stone’s throw from there so when I go, I’ve been once or twice you know. She takes me there. Yes and of course they’ve got a Blue Steel there. And I’ll tell you where else I saw Blue Steel. Out at Newark. You know out at Newark.
Interviewer: At the Air Museum.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: I think there’s one.
BS: I found it a pretty tatty when I went down.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: [unclear]
Interviewer: That’s the problem with museums. They get things in quite bad condition sometimes.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: And they have to allocate them time.
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: To renovate them.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: And bring them up to —
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: Their former glory.
BS: And the amazing thing is, or the sad thing is that there’s only one Valiant and that’s at Cosford. That’s the only one. The only is one that is in existence now.
Interviewer: Well, the problem with you know the large aeroplanes is that if you leave them out in the open —
BS: Oh aye, well —
Interviewer: They rot very quickly.
BS: They do.
Interviewer: So I know the Irish museum —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Say they have a problem with big aeroplanes.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: They just don’t have the room for them all.
BS: No. No.
Interviewer: And they’re wondering when the TriStar retires.
BS: That’s right.
Interviewer: Where they’re going to have space to put one of those.
BS: Yes. Yes. So you know so when the Blue Steel they decided to start phasing about ’69 ’70. I just stayed on for a bit longer then I decided to retire from the Air Force.
Interviewer: Time for pastures new.
BS: Didn’t really want to go but I was really, circumstances made it. But fortunately, I went in to a very very good job at PERA and of course [pause] do you want me to go on?
Interviewer: Yes. Keep going.
BS: When I went to PERA at Melton Mowbray I don’t know whether you know or have heard of it.
Interviewer: No, I’ve not heard of them.
BS: Production Engineering and Research Association. They trouble shoot for the engineering industry. They’ve experts in every field.
Interviewer: And did, did they approach you or did you hear about it?
BS: No. I heard about them so I approached them and they wanted to interview me and I got the job before I left the Air Force.
Interviewer: Fabulous.
BS: Yeah. So that was it. So I, they have this, all these different departments for troubleshoot. Expert top engineers and you know —
Interviewer: Sounds a fantastic organisation.
BS: These particularly the machine tool industry would send people there on courses and they would have experts from PERA go to different factories to give them advice on production engineering.
Interviewer: Sounds fantastic.
BS: So they always had this large technical authorship department as well which they write up handbooks for different industries you know. So I applied but of course because of my RAF experience they had a contract. They had a contract with the Admiralty.
Interviewer: Right.
BS: To write up the manuals for the nuclear submarines at Barrow. So I was sent up to bloody Barrow in Furness on this contract. I was on HMS Churchill for months writing up the control systems on the nuclear submarines of the of the CO2 scrubber systems. You know the air is scrubbed clean and it’s ejected into the deep water to leave the oxygen to go back into the, into the hull. You know. And I wrote up all these you see because of my experience. But you know so that was a very fascinating really. So, so anyway after a couple of years I one of the member firms was a firm called Newall Engineering Group at Peterborough here. They wrote, they produced these, these very very sophisticated machine tools. Grinders and jig borers and things like that for the machine tool for the mainly for the automotive industry. You know, car factories. So they were a member firm of PERA and they were looking for a, and we used to write books for them. But they wanted their own chief author you see. So I applied and I got the job. I wanted to come nearer home.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: I was so fed up with —
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah, you get —
BS: Yeah.
Interviewer: Commuting gets a bit wearing.
BS: That’s right. It’s interesting but you know.
Interviewer: No I thought —
BS: So I thought I would come so it was a very very good job and I’d be my own boss there you know and [unclear] so I went to PERA. I went to —
Interviewer: Right.
BS: Newalls at Peterborough and I had to really convert my mind but using basic engineering knowledge to these highly sophisticated machine tools. Jig borers and high speed grinders which used to grind crank shafts and [cannon] shafts. And that was fascinating because you use your basic engineering knowledge. Although I didn’t know anything about them you still get through.
Interviewer: Yeah, its —
BS: You, you have to spend all the time in the drawing office with them and the designers. The people and really pick their brains really.
Interviewer: But if you’d been trained well in the first place it’s not difficult —
BS: Oh no.
Interviewer: To pick up something new is it?
BS: No. No. Not at all.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: And the idea being that you were, you could have this information, collate it write it in a presentable form you know people could read and understand, take it back and do you understand? Can you read it? And they would make, they would criticise.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BS: You know so you —
Interviewer: Critique.
BS: So that’s right so then you produce the complete manual. The interesting thing was that we supplied the machines all over the world to, to China, to, to Russia, to, to Sweden, to France to, you know all sorts of places we sold machines to, particularly Russia.
Interviewer: Did you get to travel there?
BS: Oh no. I didn’t unfortunately.
Interviewer: No.
BS: But my books of course had to be translated in to the —
Interviewer: The native language.
BS: Exactly. So as soon as I had produced a manual for machines that were going somewhere I had to get it and I had to go to the translator, we used to translate it in London. I used to go down to the translators, get the books translated, bring it back and then all us engineers used to come across you know to check the machines before going to the different countries. And they’d want to read the manual so you had to give them the manual in their language for to see if they understood you know and usually you know they went down pretty well really. And the thing is that trans, technical translation is not like ordinary translation it has to be done by A — a national of the country concerned which was just going plus the fact it has to be an engineer.
Interviewer: Yes. You’ve got it. Yes.
BS: So you’ve got to have the two. There’s no good getting a chap whose learned Russian or French to do it.
Interviewer: Yes.
BS: It’s got to be a national of the country concerned.
Interviewer: Have you ever read any books, manuals on Japanese hifi you’ll know.
BS: Oh, I know.
Interviewer: It says press button B to —
BS: In my experience I’m, oh I’m very critical of that. Very critical. So that was that really. So —
Interviewer: Well, very well. Thanks for telling me about your, a little bit of time about your time after you left the Air Force.
BS: Yes.
Interviewer: Thank you.
BS: Yeah.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Bertie Salvage
Salvage, Bertie-Cold War-World War II
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v67
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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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01:38:46 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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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
Bertie Salvage joined the RAF in 1939 as an apprentice and initially began his technical training at RAF Cranwell before training was transferred to RAF Halton and also shortened because of the start of the Second World War. Bertie was present when Lord Trenchard addressed the ground staff at the station. Bertie was sent to South Africa to work on aircraft there for the Empire Training Scheme. He was then posted to Japan in the post war years. He progressed in his career with post war aircraft including the V bombers and then on to missiles systems such as Skybolt and Blue Steel.
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1940
1941
1943
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
South Africa
Japan
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Southend-on-Sea
Contributor
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Julie Williams
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This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
218 Squadron
ground personnel
military living conditions
RAF Cranwell
RAF Halton
RAF Marham
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46473/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v610006.mp3
dd40ecc0585ff38d9e8794ebee668ae1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46473/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v610007.mp3
887d765e0db5b062b1290fb14be172c0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46473/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v610008.mp3
29c3dba85b32e53427be304bbd352b0a
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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-19
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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
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Transcription
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Part 1.
Interviewer: Interviewing Mr Doug Marsh of Cleethorpes about his experiences with 57 Squadron as a navigator. Right, Mr Marsh, where were you born?
DM: At East Halton here in Lincolnshire.
Interviewer: What year?
DM: 1922.
Interviewer: And what did your father do?
DM: He was in the Royal Navy.
Interviewer: And did that give you an inclination to join the Navy when the war came?
DM: Well, I did, I thought about it but I was sort of persuaded myself I was going to be a lot better off financially as aircrew.
Interviewer: Right. So where did you go to school?
DM: Well, I went initially at East Halton. Then this is all whilst I’m under ten. Well, up to ten, eleven and I had two periods when I went to school down in Gillingham because my father was at Chatham and he was on twenty two years service you see and we didn’t really see much of him during my early years because he was in New Zealand with the Navy there for two and a half years at one time and another two or so in Shanghai. However, the next schooling was when I came sort of eleven. I went to St James which is a church school here in Grimsby.
Interviewer: So was that because your father had been moved base or —
DM: Well, no it was just that we, my mother and I came back here to Lincolnshire because she owned the house here and my grandmother lived in it and also her aged brother. It was quite a big house you know, four bedroomed and they in fact looked after it when we were down at Chatham. Well, we lived in Gillingham actually but —
Interviewer: So you came back to Grimsby.
DM: No.
Interviewer: Sorry?
DM: We didn’t have any connection with Grimsby at that stage at all.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: The, when my father came out of the Navy at the end of his twenty two years service he had decided they wanted a business and they actually finished up, it was a toss up between the Post Office and a fish and chip shop and so being a, he was a cook, a chief petty officer cook and so they chose the fish shop at Immingham. And it was from there that I went to school in Grimsby.
Interviewer: Right. When did you leave school?
DM: Now then [pause] It would have been [pause] in 1938 I think.
Interviewer: And what did you, what did you do when you left school?
DM: Well, I initially helped with the fish and chip shop doing the spuds and whatnot [laughs] but that was only temporary because I had before leaving school I’d been lucky enough to get a place at the Grimsby Corporation Electricity Works which was owned by the council. The authority. They took on two boys each year but I couldn’t join, I couldn’t start I should say until the January. January 1940. The war broke out in about ’31 was it? September ’39.
Interviewer: 1939. Yeah. Yes.
DM: So then, so I was sort of killing time as it were for a year or so. However, of course the war came up and it wasn’t long before I got a letter just saying that due to the circumstances they were not continuing presently with this scheme, these two boys on a five year training course which was very nearly as good as a degree in that particular field. So the next thing was that the fish shop wasn’t doing really very well because it was firstly difficult to get fish which got gradually worse. Potatoes were plentiful but oil, my father always used ground nut oil not dripping and he couldn’t get it, you know. That was the thing that killed it off so, and then they agreed to close it down. And at that point I wanted something still to do and the Prudential man called one day and my mother said, ‘Have you got any jobs for lads like these?’ You see. He said, ‘Aye we have.’ Because all his agents were being called up and replaced by young people or women’ And so I went into that and enjoyed it quite a lot. I was with the Prudential for about probably eighteen months. Starting salary fifteen shillings but after only three months they increased it to twenty five shillings a week. And then —
[recording cuts]
DM: And then of course it came time to be called up anyway. Do you want to know about that?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes. So yeah, so you were facing call up. You then decided —
DM: Well, not really. I volunteered.
Interviewer: Volunteered.
DM: They were advertising.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: In every paper you picked up, for aircrew.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: But you couldn’t volunteer until you were nineteen and a quarter
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And that was in the June of [pause] the fourteenth.
Interviewer: So, June the 14th you volunteered.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And —
DM: Is that right? 1922.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It should be.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So what happened? Did you get, once you’d volunteered did you get called to an ITW straight away or —
DM: No. No. Oh no. I don’t think. We were, the first thing was to, I went to somewhere in town in Grimsby where they did a bit of a medical on you and they asked you a few questions but nothing very serious and then the next one were to report to the barracks in Lincoln. When I got there there was quite a few and they interviewed us and [pause] I don’t think that’s actually correct. I think we got the information. They said if you go to Lincoln and then a party of us would be taken down to — ’
Interviewer: Lord’s.
DM: No. No. No. Where they used to have the zeppelins.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Yes. Sorry. Yes.
DM: I think I told you.
Interviewer: Yeah. Near Bedford.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. I know where you are I general.
DM: You know. I told you last time. I’m sure I did.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes.
DM: I can’t think of its name now.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And had an overnight stay there. And the next morning we went and had various tests. A few written tests and then interviews were the main thing and they said at the end of it, ‘Right, you’re accepted as a navigator for training. Or navigator training.’
Interviewer: So how did they assess you to be a navigator? Did you [unclear]
DM: Well, I was coming to that.
Interviewer: Oh sorry.
DM: Well, everybody there wanted to be a pilot of course but it turned out that they were only recruiting navigators that day. I think it was true in all those spheres, you know. They just said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter who they are.’ And the next thing as you said about reporting to, well first of all they gave us a badge and said, ‘You are on three months deferred service.’ So that took us to December and then got a long foolscap sheet of telegram telling us what to do and how to do it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Travel passes and all the rest of it to report to Lord’s Cricket Ground.
Interviewer: The Aircrew Reception Centre.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: And we sat there in the seats, in the stands as it were. There was quite a few there of course. I should say maybe up to maybe two hundred and eventually a corporal came along and he said, ‘Right. From here to the end of the row you follow me.’ And if you’d sat somewhere else funnily enough [laughs] this is the gospel truth you would have been a pilot.
Interviewer: So this intro to ACRC was the posh end. Navigators, pilots, bomb aimers.
DM: Yeah. Well, it was just that.
Interviewer: Observers.
DM: Well, they weren’t bomb aimers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We were, I was an observer.
Interviewer: That’s right. Ok.
DM: That’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. So off you marched then.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: In your group.
DM: And it didn’t, it could have happened as simple as that. Other people missed out the other way around [laughs] probably.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway —
Interviewer: So what happened at ACRC then? I assume you were —
DM: This is at large?
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes. Well, we were taken to, I can’t remember the preliminaries but we were taken to a huge block of flats in St Johns Wood. They were sort of quite close to the park. What do you call it?
Interviewer: Regent’s Park.
DM: Regent’s Park. That’s right. And we used to use, like there had been a big restaurant in Regent’s Park itself to eat. So we went and we did a bit of square bashing on the streets. We got kitted out naturally. We had about three injections and the thing that leaves a mark, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: My memory is not so good on these things now.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But that all was done and then they said, that was in the morning, late morning and they said, ‘Right, well we’ll march you back to your billets.’ Because of course the flats were empty. All you got was three biscuits and a blanket or two and nothing else. That was how it, there was no furniture left in the place. Not even [unclear] chair. And then they had [prizes]. They said, ‘The best thing you can do is get into your pyjamas and go to bed and stay there until tomorrow morning.’ And you did feel a bit groggy. No doubt about it with these, all these drugs and but the next morning I felt as right as rain. I think one or two I remember had trouble but it didn’t bother me. Where are we?
Interviewer: How long did they put you at Lord’s for?
DM: Well, not more I wouldn’t think than about a month and I managed to wangle leave. My father put me up to this of course. He said, ‘You tell them I’m coming home on leave and you would like to see me.’ It worked.
Interviewer: Was your father back in the Navy by the end of the war?
DM: Oh, well, he was in before it even started.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Back in and he was at Shotley near Harwich and he stayed there right through as it happened. If you want to know a little bit more he was originally sent with some ratings to Butlins at Skegness to reorganise the catering. But he phoned them after a couple of days and said, ‘We’re doing nothing here because the Butlins staff insist on doing the catering.’ So they said, ‘Right. Back to Chatham then.’ And a fortnight or so later he was sent to Shotley and he stayed there as I say.
Interviewer: Now, when you first joined the RAF why did you join the RAF rather than the Navy?
DM: Well, I fancied joining the Navy but I think you know on the other hand was the fact that I didn’t fancy [pause] well I thought it was probably a better bet from the point of view of survival because I mean when you are sunk, well —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s what you are isn’t it?
Interviewer: Had you any interest in the, in the Air Force or flying before that?
DM: No. Not really.
Interviewer: So it was just the thought —
DM: I think my father was pleased in a way, you know that I had chosen not to go in the Navy. He was thinking I would probably me more at risk of something.
Interviewer: So you left Lord’s and where did you go to next? Did you come home for a while?
DM: No.
Interviewer: Oh, you were straight on to ITW were you?
DM: That’s right. At Hullavington.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: And what were you doing there?
DM: Well, the normal. Initial training. We did ordinary maths and English and bits and bobs.
Interviewer: So you started —
DM: And signals came into it. Aldis lamp and learning the Morse Code and that sort of thing.
Interviewer: It was like your preliminary navigational training.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: At that stage. Yeah.
DM: So we had a sort of connection with navigation but it was still pretty basic stuff you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Just to say that you had worked to it on the educational level because even at that stage I’m not sure how many of us there were, probably about twenty five to thirty in a class and three of them were thrown out at that stage.
Interviewer: And there would be exams to pass or tests to pass.
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes, you had to do tests at the end. I can’t remember really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: How many it was now but it couldn’t have been more than about maybe six weeks I would think.
Interviewer: Then from Hullavington you went to where? Where was next?
DM: Well, I think that was when I had the time at Brighton and Eastbourne.
Interviewer: Right. Yeah.
DM: Mainly.
Interviewer: What was that?
DM: Well, we were using the schools because all the children had been evacuated and again it was more navigation rather than the other stuff we’d done at ITW.
Interviewer: So you got through the initial RAF stuff at Hullavington.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And you now had proper navigational training.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Gradually advancing.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: What you, what you were doing.
DM: And I think you got your LAC didn’t you at the end of that?
Interviewer: When you were down there did you see any sort of air raids or any action by the German Luftwaffe?
DM: Well, I did. Yes. On one occasion because I can’t remember which day but one afternoon a week was sports afternoon and most people just went running but there was about six of us who played golf and so we went up on the Downs and it wasn’t necessarily the first time but one of the times somebody said, ‘Hey, there’s sirens are going down there and so we looked and then an aircraft appeared so we got in some bushes thinking you never know [laughs] However, they came in and they dropped one on the Railway Station which put it out of action for a few days.
Interviewer: Where was this? In Brighton?
DM: No, this was in, now which [pause] I’m not sure which.
Interviewer: Oh right. Yeah.
DM: But it was either Eastbourne or Brighton.
Interviewer: Yeah. So they dropped one bomb on the station, yeah and then —
DM: Yes. And then another in a gas holder. We were watching. It just folded and then a cloud went up the same shape as the —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: To —
Interviewer: The bomb.
DM: Gasometer. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Anyway, they did a couple of runs and a couple of bombs each probably was all they dropped. But nevertheless they were pretty good on the targets and, sorry the other one, another one was that they dropped one, well, we started playing golf again when they’d gone but within about half an hour somebody come running across the golf course saying, ‘You’ve got to report back. There’s been a bomb dropped on your hotel,’ which did I say Cavendish or something like that?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: I think it was probably. Yeah. And it had been dropped just on the side. There was a woman apparently got killed because the wall fell on her. She had a bike. She was just leaning her bike against a wall. But the bulk of the living area was not touched but of course, they wouldn’t let us go in straight away. So we were hanging about until later in the day, evening even and they said, ‘Oh we’re satisfied now.’ They thought there might be an unexploded bomb. But they said, ‘Well, you’ll be alright to go and get your stuff.’ And we did. And they moved us into one of the other hotels. I think I’m pretty sure whether that was Eastbourne I think.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Right. So you continued training at Eastbourne. Where was your next posting?
DM: I feel sure we went from there to the Wirral.
Interviewer: Which was to, was that to 10 AFU?
DM: Well, it was to go abroad, you know.
Interviewer: Oh right. Right. Right.
DM: What did they call those places?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yes.
DM: You see.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: I remembered the last time you were here but I can’t bring them to mind now. You know the port out in the —
Interviewer: Yes. Oh, the Mersey.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Do you know?
Interviewer: Yes, I know where you’re talking about. Yeah.
DM: You know what it is. Yeah. It was the collection point for us all RAF people anyway going abroad on boats.
Interviewer: So, you were held there for a short while and then —
DM: Yeah. Only a matter of days. I mean the only thing I can remember we got a kit bag with stuff in and you could also have a case and we had a pith helmet [laughs] and khaki shirt and shorts. So I think probably two sets.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: And we did wear them because —
[recording cuts]
DM: We were lucky enough to go to South Africa our lot. We went first into Liverpool and then I think we went on board the ship there but it didn’t set off like. A day or two later it went up to Gourock.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: On the Clyde. And we eventually set off from there.
Interviewer: Do you know what the ship was called?
DM: I did but I can’t remember now.
Interviewer: Right. So you get —
DM: But what I can tell you about it was a converted Australian meat boat [laughs] which with all the pipes for the refrigeration everywhere, weren’t on of course but nevertheless it was unfortunate in a way because it was like a cork on top of the water. It was. It was, I mean the few troops didn’t make any difference as regards to cargo as in comparison with cargo did it and so it was pretty bad for seasickness. However, I did manage, there was three options. You could sleep on the deck steel, you could sleep on the tables which were fixed or you could have a hammock if you were very lucky. And as soon as I heard the word hammock I thought right, that’s for me. And I did get one.
Interviewer: So you knew how to use it from your father did you?
DM: Well, yes. I had been in a hammock you know before. I don’t quite remember the circumstances but I know that’s what you wanted for a good nights sleep [laughs] Not sliding on the deck. However, I was very seasick for about fourteen days and did really nothing during the day and another chap sort of looked after me because he kept going and getting fruit and crisps and things and we spent the days outside on the deck despite the weather. But it was all rather unpleasant but as soon as I was able to get in the hammock I was fine and I had an excellent nights sleep. Well, I never woke at all you know. I just, it was just the fact that the hammock gives you so much more.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Stability.
Interviewer: So you went from Gourock. Where did you stop? Did you stop at Freetown on the way down?
DM: Yes. Well, we, they told us or somebody did that we’d been across almost to America and come back again to Freetown. It would have been, as I say fourteen days. That’s a long time to get to Freetown if you went directly wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Did you see any submarine activity or —
DM: No. No. No, there was one or two scares but we, no we didn’t see any action whatsoever fortunately.
Interviewer: When you got to Freetown were you allowed off the ship at all in Freetown?
DM: No. No. A few were but I wasn’t. The vast majority weren’t. But the natives came alongside. They called them, in their [unclear] boats I think it was. Something like that. Selling fruit and whatnot. A basket you know. Throw a rope up and you could haul it up and put the money in and then get your fruit. That was interesting but we didn’t see anything of the place.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: No.
Interviewer: So you then moved out from Freetown to where was your next port of call?
DM: Durban.
Interviewer: Durban.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. And you got off at Durban did you?
DM: Yes, Durban. We stayed on the ship overnight and then the next morning we were off and put on the train which was to go all the way to Queenstown. Well, Queenstown didn’t have a station but Johannesburg say, and that took us about three days if I remember rightly because you was travelling a long way. But the trains weren’t sort of going all the time express. So they took us down but they were very comfortable and that in itself was enjoyable. Saw all the scenery to be seen at different stages.
Interviewer: So you then get to Queenstown and that’s your, basically for your —
DM: Well, initially no. No, it was just a sort of, just a holding camp really. We did a little bit of work in lessons but very very little. Played tennis a lot and dug trenches but it was just, the trench wasn’t needed, you just did it for something to do.
Interviewer: Did you have a lot of contact with locals in Queenstown?
DM: Well, only shopkeepers.
Interviewer: Well, [unclear] so you were held at Queenstown. Then you moved to where? Where was your next posting?
DM: Well, Queenstown was the main one where you did navigation and bombing. It was ok because it was a good climate of course and there was a golf course right next to the field and also when you were on flying which was two or three mornings a week all aircraft had to be grounded by 1 o’clock because of the thermals and what not.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It was even dangerous because these were Ansons and —
Interviewer: I see, so this was after your training, proper training that was.
DM: That was. Oh yes.
Interviewer: In Queenstown.
DM: At Queenstown. Yes.
Interviewer: What aircraft were they using?
DM: Ansons and Oxfords. Yeah.
Interviewer: So you were doing some classwork were you?
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: And then —
DM: That’s right and then —
Interviewer: Flying work.
DM: Two or three days a week flying. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So you were navigating the aircraft.
DM: They were all South African pilots. Air Force pilots.
Interviewer: So did you all take a turn to navigate the aircraft?
DM: Oh, no. Mostly you went just the one navigator in the aircraft.
Interviewer: Oh right. So you were just observing.
DM: I think there were maybe odd times when two or three went up and did part, at least did part of it but mostly and the same for the bombing you know. It was just a matter of one aircraft one student.
Interviewer: You went up with your pilot and did —
DM: Well, it was a different pilot every time.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. But you were practicing something you’d learned in the classroom or whatever.
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: On your own.
DM: We’d done charts and just basic navigation.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Because you know all you’d got was the [pause] well you wouldn’t call them a computer thing did they?
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: There was nothing electrical about it
Yeah
It was just you did it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I can’t remember what the name —
Interviewer: The navigators. Yeah. Yeah
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: So you —
DM: And a chart.
Interviewer: Yeah.
[recording paused]
DM: We came and got back here.
Interviewer: Right. So you worked on your navigation at Queenstown.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: How long were you at Queenstown for?
DM: Oh, I don’t know. [pause] I should think it could have been something around two to three months.
Interviewer: Right. So by that time you were a sort of fundamentally qualified navigator.
DM: Well, yes.
Interviewer: Bomb aimer.
DM: We didn’t get stripes then.
Interviewer: No. No, but —
DM: We were moved down to a Gunnery School on the south coast. Where the heck did they [pause] Would that be in the —
Interviewer: Yes.
[recording paused]
DM: Still on Ansons. One block there. Ansons. It doesn’t say where it is.
Interviewer: Oh right. So you were at 43 Air School.
DM: Yes. Yes, that’s down on the south coast.
Interviewer: Yeah. Doing gunnery. Yeah.
DM: Yes. That’s right. In a turret. Flying at drogues. That’s all it was really and, and it looks as if there was a bit of bombing mixed up with that but I don’t remember. It was one of the photography and sim, simulated bombing I guess that would be.
Interviewer: So you left that station. Did you come back to the UK then?
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: I got the stripes there.
Interviewer: So you were passed out. You’re now a fully trained observer.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So back on the ship.
DM: Yes. Well, we went from this camp to Cape Town. We’d landed at Durban when we arrived and of course [that would be mine] of course. Then at, we were going back via Cape Town which was again sort of a long journey. We slept overnight I remember and we went across the Karoo Desert, I think, partly. Anyway, got down to Cape Town and that was quite a good set up and as it turned out we had to wait nearly a fortnight for the ship.
Interviewer: Was that in Cape Town [laughs] Nice.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: In the time that you were in South Africa perhaps at your holding camp at Queenstown did you have much contact with the locals at all?
DM: Well, not a lot. While we were at the first place near sort of between Jo’burg and Pretoria we used to go into Johannesburg. We weren’t too popular in Pretoria. A lot of the [unclear] as they called themselves they were very anti. Pro-German.
Interviewer: This was the Boers.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: The Dutch.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: So Johannesburg was the place to go and there was the Jewish group and, who I don’t know now but there was about four parties who were falling over themselves to give us hospitality [laughs] and they each had a floor of a big building and it was with single, full of single beds. Not too close together but they were, and they were only too pleased if you chose then to stay. And if I remember rightly it was sixpence a night. So there we are.
Interviewer: So you went into Johannesburg on your leaves with your friends.
DM: Well, weekends and that sort of thing
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Went in to Joburg and also through the [unclear] It was put around that you could actually have a holiday on a farm or something like that and a friend and I we went together. Oh dear [pause]. I can’t tell you that but it was a fair little journey on a, on the train of course and we were met by the people and you see I can’t even bring their name to mind now. But they were English and they had a couple of daughters. One was away permanently at the time. The other was at school and she came home the last day before we left. So we did just meet her and she was in her sort of mid-teens I suppose. And whilst we were there well they met us with a huge great Buick car and this sort of thing and it was very pleasant and they did us proud.
Interviewer: So it was a great contrast to get to South Africa where there was plenty of food.
DM: Oh yes. Absolutely.
Interviewer: There were no blackouts.
DM: No. No shortage of anything.
Interviewer: Life’s normal.
DM: Yes. Absolutely.
Interviewer: So you get back to Cape Town and you get, you’re held there for a couple of weeks, back on your ship.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Any problems on the way?
DM: Which was, no. It was the Orion which was a pleasure cruiser which I’d seen previously because it used to come into Immingham and go on midnight sailing trips [laughs] And also the, we had all the first class cabins because they had, as somebody said I think it was four thousand Italian POWs down below and they were taking them, bringing them here to England. And we had, there was a certain amount of guard duty to do, you know but they were very friendly. Didn’t want any trouble because we had a rifle you see but we didn’t have the ammunition in the gun but you did have it in a pocket. But it was all a bit of a joke but I don’t think, I mean all they wanted to do was get off the ship. I don’t think they wanted any other sort of trouble. Didn’t want to take over or anything like that. And so it was a very pleasant trip back. No sickness. Magnificent. It was a different type of ship. Built for that sort of thing where this other thing as I say a transport vessel. I mean it was just not the right thing to travel in.
Interviewer: Did you stop at Freetown again on the way back?
DM: No.
Interviewer: You went straight.
DM: All the way.
Interviewer: Straight home.
DM: Straight home. Yeah.
Interviewer: Cape Town.
DM: No convoy. No nothing.
Interviewer: On your own.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
[recording cut]
Interviewer: So you arrived back in England.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: I think the next place you go to is 10 AFU, is it?
DM: That’s right. Yes. Just a little thing. I arrived. We arrived back, I think at Gourock where we’d gone from and I got home the day before my twenty first birthday funnily enough. Anyway, yes then we went to [pause] Well, no. No. We had a spell at Harrogate. I think everybody did, didn’t they?
Interviewer: So to the holding. The holding camp at Harrogate.
DM: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Yes, during which —
Interviewer: Where did you stay in Harrogate?
DM: In the hotels. One of the best hotels. Yes, and, you know we used to march around the streets a bit but I mean there was, we weren’t, you didn’t. You walked around [laughs] We weren’t in the mood for a lot of flash marching. But then they said, well, you know you can’t just stay here and they sent us on leave twice. Just because there was, well literally I suppose thousands of —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: People had been trained in Canada and America. South Africa. Even Australia, I think. A few. And they were all coming to Harrogate and they couldn’t accommodate them you see. So anyway, they said, ‘Right, you’re going on an assault course.’ And this was up near Newcastle and gave you a khaki outfit and a gun and hard hat and all the rest of it we played at that you know for maybe a fortnight. It was interesting anyway.
Interviewer: Do you know whereabouts that camp was especially when you —
DM: No. All I remember it was in the vicinity of Newcastle but I’m not sure where.
Interviewer: Right. So they entertained you for a fortnight.
DM: We were on the seaside.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: At the seaside.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That was another thing and it was good weather because this by this time it would be about maybe May. April May certainly because my birthday in March.
Interviewer: So that’s May of 1943.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right. Right.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So after you’ve been playing at the seaside where did you next go?
DM: Is that right? [pause] I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it really.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I came back from south Africa and I was twenty one in the March. And well it, that would be obviously ’43. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: From ’40. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: So where did you go after your assault course?
DM: Back to Harrogate. Did the same thing.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Over again.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But only for a few weeks and then they sent us on leave or sent me on leave and got to go ‘cause it meant, they said you know the plan is that you would get a telegram telling you where to report. And the next thing I did was they sent up to Dumfries on another short course of bomb aiming and whatnot in a Botha would you believe because they were death traps apparently [laughs] However, survived that and then —
Interviewer: Was that a bombing and gunnery school was it? Dumfries.
DM: It was. Yes. That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes. And I think maybe back to Harrogate but I’m not sure about that. But in any case —
[recording cuts]
DM: The next stage was we got the telegram which said to report to Bruntingthorpe.
Interviewer: Which is 29 OTU.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. So you’re up there in what you’d call a proper career move really —
DM: Oh yes. We were getting into —
Interviewer: So when you arrived at Bruntingthorpe were you allocated a crew or did you pick a crew up when you —
DM: No. No. We were all mixed up together you know. Not sure how many but I would thought maybe something like twenty of each trade. Five trades.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Involved there. The pilot and I got together. I can’t remember exactly how —
Interviewer: So that’s —
DM: I liked him, he liked me and we sort of went from there to pick the other members of the crew.
Interviewer: So that’s, is that Tony Wright?
DM: Tony Wright. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right. So you two got together originally and then you picked the other three.
DM: We did. Yes.
Interviewer: To make the crew up.
DM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Which would be —
DM: I think the first chap we got was the wireless operator George Allen.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And we were attracted to him because of his whole demeanour and the fact that he was at least ten years older than us and we thought well he’d only come in late because he was in the building business. No. Not building but building materials. Imports and that sort of thing in London. So —
Interviewer: So that, that’s your wireless operator.
DM: Yes. And then next was the [pause] you see I don’t think they had —
Interviewer: You had a bomb aimer wouldn’t you?
DM: Oh yeah. Bomb aimer and rear gunner.
Interviewer: Right so —
DM: That was it.
Interviewer: Was your original bomb aimer a chap called Rennie?
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. Canadian.
Interviewer: Canadian.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. And who was your original air gunner?
DM: The Australian.
Interviewer: Oh, Cook.
DM: Cook. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Tony Cook.
Interviewer: Right. So that’s, that’s, your that’s the five who set off from the OTU.
DM: That’s right. Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: And is that crew formed very early on then at OTU?
DM: Well, it’s the first thing to do really.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Was to get crewed up. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. You arrived there, you formed into a crew.
DM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Now was that done in the apocryphal way in the hangar you had to find yourself five people?
DM: No.
Interviewer: Or did you just accumulate —
DM: No. It was more in the Mess I think then. We were all sergeants at the time and you know just talked to as many people as you could really and see what you thought to them and some of them were sort of possibles but others were sort of discarded thinking no, we don’t want that. I had one offer myself. There was a squadron leader who had only just himself qualified as a pilot or fairly recently. He’d obviously been in the Air Force and he asked me if I would be his navigator but I sort of mulled it over and thought I don’t know. I don’t think so.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I’ll stay with the boys.
Interviewer: Right. The fact that you’d get together.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: At Bruntingthorpe and what were you flying there? Wellingtons? Wellingtons?
DM: Wellingtons yes.
Interviewer: Wellingtons. So you start off.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Working as a crew.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: On Wellingtons.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And what sort of things do you do at OTU?
DM: Well
Interviewer: Cross country, night flying
That’s right. Yes. A whole range of things I suppose. Where are we? [pause pages turning] Is that? No, it’s South Africa isn’t it? AFU. That’s not much. [unclear] That was —
Interviewer: Yes. There we are.
DM: [unclear]
Interviewer: Here we are.
DM: Oh, from here. August. That’s right. Yes. Well, cross country’s there and again I think is the red for night time?
Interviewer: I think so.
DM: Yeah. But they weren’t with our own pilots. There’s sergeant right there, number thirteen but the others is Warrant Officer James, Flying Officer Heath, right, right, right, right, right. Flight Lieutenant Perry.
Interviewer: So occasionally you were taken by another pilot but generally speaking —
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: You were working as a crew.
DM: That’s right. Odd things you know you went even as a second navigator.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Without actually doing any desk work but sort of looking out and saying, because I went on one of those and they were completely lost and I was looking out of the dome and I’d been keeping following it map reading. So I came on the intercom. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you that’s — ’whatever it was, I can’t remember that now you see but I said, ‘That down there is —’ so and so. ‘So start from there.’
Interviewer: So the navigator got completely lost.
DM: Yeah. He hadn’t a clue and his pilot hadn’t either.
Interviewer: So your basic navigation skills at this stage are dead reckoning.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Which is —
DM: We did get Gee.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: We did get gee there but not H2S or whatever it was.
Interviewer: So at OTU you had trained on Gee.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: But your basic fundamentals are dead reckoning.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Which was trying to lay a track.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: According to the wind basically.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you go A to B at a certain speed.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Apart of the wind and that tells you hopefully where you are.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: You had done astro navigation.
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: But was it ever practical to use it?
DM: If it was it was probably only once. I really don’t remember.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: But —
Interviewer: And then on your calculation of wind drift how was that done? Was that done by flairs dropped from the aircraft by the gunner or —
DM: Well, I don’t know. It was [pause] I don’t know. I can’t remember. Sorry.
Interviewer: Yeah. Ok. So you get at OTU you are introduced to Gee.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: So you are getting more modern.
DM: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Was it easy to understand Gee and work?
DM: I didn’t find it difficult. No. Pretty easy.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Maths and that sort of thing was my strong subject. I wasn’t all that good at anything else [laughs] but algebra, geometry and arithmetic I was always from the age of probably fourteen I was always the top of the class.
Interviewer: Goodo. Did you get picked up by the RAF somewhere and that’s why you became a navigator? Or was it entirely —
DM: No. It may have been. It may have been the school certificate showed that. I was also good at religion funnily enough [laughs] I don’t know why. Go on. Anyway —
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. So when you went at OTU at Bruntingthorpe were there many accidents?
DM: Well, I don’t think so. I don’t. I can’t remember anything.
Interviewer: Ok. Life went, so you’re evolving as a crew.
DM: Yes
Interviewer: Getting used to the job.
DM: Used to it.
Interviewer: Getting on.
DM: Going on the intercom with other people or having them on board with us even. That sort of thing. But that was all but at the we then went to Winthorpe near Newark.
Interviewer: Yeah, which is —
DM: The heavy, the Conversion Unit
Interviewer: Unit. Yeah.
DM: And you got the other two members of the crew.
Interviewer: Right. So your new members of the crew would be then Richard Anderson was the air gunner. Is that right?
DM: Was he?
Interviewer: He was when you were lost it was that Anderson was it?
DM: Oh yes. Yeah. That’s right. It would be Andy. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. And your flight engineer.
DM: Yes. Of course. Yeah.
Interviewer: Who is?
DM: English.
Interviewer: English.
DM: He wasn’t our own engineer. That was —
Interviewer: Oh no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t. So who was your flight engineer? Can you remember?
DM: Oh, he was a Welsh lad [pause] No. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: I haven’t had much contact with him. Not even straight afterwards. Not like the others.
Interviewer: So at Heavy Conversion Unit you were flying —
DM: Yes. Excuse me he wasn’t with us at the time because he was shot down a week or so before we were.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: With another crew you know as a spare bod.
Interviewer: Oh right. So he’d gone as spare bod.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Ok.
DM: That’s why English came and joined us. Because he was the engineer for the ones who got lost.
Interviewer: Right [laughs] They swapped over.
DM: They, you know he was spare because the rest of his crew had —
Interviewer: Gone down. Yeah. At Heavy Conversion Unit what were you flying? Halifaxes?
DM: Well, we did fly once in a Halifax without any great enthusiasm.
Interviewer: Not on Stirlings
DM: Would it be just the two engines was it?
Interviewer: No. Halifax was four.
DM: I know the Halifax well we did have one going on the Halifax because there was also one where they only had two engines. Was that the forerunner of the Halifax.
Interviewer: Oh, Manchester. Manchester.
DM: Manchester.
Interviewer: Manchester. So, you flew Manchesters did you?
DM: Just once [laughs] yes.
Interviewer: And you weren’t too happy with it.
DM: Well, no. Well, you know we were alert.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That was about it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It hadn’t got the right sort of power.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And this sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yeah. So did you fly Lancs at all at Heavy Conversion Unit?
DM: Yeah. Oh yes. We did go onto Lancs mainly.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: I feel sure. Where wouldn’t that be in here. It doesn’t show me.
Interviewer: Yes, it will I think. Yeah, it’s the next —
DM: 29 OTU.
Interviewer: OTU. Here we are. Lancs. Manchester. That’s right.
DM: Oh, there we are. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. You were flying yeah in Manchesters.
DM: Right.
Interviewer: Oh actually. You did one trip in a Wellington.
DM: Oh Wellington. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: But you did two trips, three trips in a Manchester.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: And then you went on to Lancasters.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: How did you feel about flying in a Lancaster?
DM: Well, looked forward to it really thinking this is the aircraft of the day.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: So there was nothing there. But as I say, that, are we at Winthorpe now?
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes. Well, fortunately we came out top crew. And they sent us a bonus sort of thing. You can go to Scampton on a month course concentrating on H2S.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Because we’d not, we’d sort of seen it but we hadn’t really used it at OTU.
Interviewer: Who usually operated the H2S set? The navigator?
DM: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So was it by him.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: In your cubicle.
DM: That’s right. Yes. It was there like the Gee thing used to be.
Interviewer: Gee box. Yeah. Right so you’re sat in a Lancaster. You’ve got pilot in the left-hand seat. The flight engineer in the dickie seat and you’re behind.
DM: Behind the pilot. Sitting.
Interviewer: Facing the fuselage.
DM: Facing port. Right.
Interviewer: Right. So you’ve got your desk in front of you.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Where’s your Gee box?
DM: There.
Interviewer: On the right.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And where’s your H2S set?
DM: Same as far as I remember.
Interviewer: Right. So they’re both on the right.
DM: Oh no. We didn’t need, we didn’t have a Gee box when you’d got the H2S.
Interviewer: Oh, I see so you’d either have Gee —
DM: Yes. Oh yes.
Interviewer: Or H2S.
DM: We would say goodbye to that.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And H2S which was much more.
Interviewer: Now, what else did you have? Did you have an airspeed indicator in your —
DM: No.
Part 2.
DM: Every three minutes was obviously the plan which was good in a way because it kept you very busy and the time went quickly whereas for other members of the crew I imagine it seemed a long time.
Interviewer: Now, was that the fix you got from your H2S set?
DM: Yes. It was. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So before your flight then when you had the flight route —
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Marked on your map.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And then you worked out where you were on that preferred route.
DM: Yes. Yeah. So it was more or less a case of giving adjustments to see if we weren’t off tracked.
Interviewer: Off Route. Yeah. Ok. Right. So you got your Gee box or H2S set.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Your desk. And you’ve got your protractor, pencils, Phillips computer they called it.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah. And your maps.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right. And that’s [unclear] was going. And you’re in quite a good position I hear because isn’t that the warmest place in the aircraft. the navigator’s position.
DM: I suppose it was yes. We didn’t, but none of us wore anything except battledress.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: With, well we did have some long johns and vests with sleeves to wear on operations and then just your battle dress.
Interviewer: What about the gunners? Did they have anything? You can’t remember.
DM: Could have but I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Right. Ok. So you get to Scampton to do H2S. To do an H2S course.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And then you went. You had other duties.
DM: We were designated to ’57 Squadron before we started that course.
Interviewer: Oh right. Ok.
DM: You go into the room. They have you at Scampton for a month before you actually joined the squadron.
Interviewer: Now, that’s something —
DM: Officially, we —
Interviewer: At some point you lost your wireless operator didn’t you?
DM: Well, no. Not [pause] what happened there was that George Allen —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: This chap older than the rest of us he had a carbuncle came up on his hand. He couldn’t operate the key so he went into the sickbay. They wanted him in bed for a day or two.
Interviewer: Oh right.
DM: So they could take him.
Interviewer: So he missed the operation when you were lost.
DM: Absolutely. And —
Interviewer: So you’ve got a flight engineer who went with another crew and went missing.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And your wireless operator was away.
DM: He is.
Interviewer: Having an operation.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So the crew that went on the final operation was five of the originals plus —
DM: Two.
Interviewer: A strange wireless operator and a strange flight engineer.
DM: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. Ok. Right.
DM: Just you a bit about George Allen, he was such a nice bloke and when we were all friends we spent hours and hours, days, weeks to Spain. Spain with the caravans and all sorts with him. He’s dead of course now because he was that much older but he, he said that the corporal came to see him in the sick bay and he said, ‘I knew what he was coming for.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And you know he knew we had not come back.
Interviewer: So —
DM: However —
Interviewer: George Allen then was put with another crew and he survived.
DM: No. Oddly enough he did quite a bit more flying but he being older I think I don’t know maybe he talked to somebody or somebody took pity on him. I don’t know it if it was pity but they commissioned him and he became signals leader on the squadron and he did spare bod trips when required.
Interviewer: Oh right. So he, he became [pause] right. He became the [pause] right —
DM: So he actually got in more.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Proper trips than we ever did of course.
Interviewer: Now, your original flight engineer.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: What happened to him? The one that was lost with another crew? Was he captured or was it did he —
DM: No. No. He was a POW.
Interviewer: He was a POW.
DM: Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Not with, not in my, not the same camp as me.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Or we’d have made contact.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But no.
Interviewer: Right.
[recording cut]
Interviewer: Ok. So, you do your course. You arrive at 57 Squadron which is based at —
DM: East Kirkby.
Interviewer: East Kirkby. Right. Now, did your [pause] Oh yea. Yes. That’s right. The CO was Fisher. Did you ever meet the CO? [Little Knock?]
DM: I can’t remember. No.
Interviewer: Or your flight commander?
DM: Well, I expect so. Yes. Actually, I did have the first of the preliminary interviews for commissioning but that’s as far as it went. You had to survive [laughs] a bit longer.
Interviewer: Can you remember who your navigation leader was?
DM: I can’t.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: No.
Interviewer: Ok. Ok. Right, so presumably Tony Wright went on an operation on his own with another crew as second dickie.
DM: Yeah. I think you might be right.
Interviewer: You can’t remember.
DM: I’m not sure.
Interviewer: Right. So your first operation is Hagen.
DM: No. No. Frankfurt.
Interviewer: Frankfurt. Oh right. So on the, that’s, that’s the 4th and 5th of October 1943.
[pause]
DM: What day?
Interviewer: October ’43.
DM: October.
Interviewer: Oh no. No. That’s —
DM: November.
Interviewer: Here we are. 57 Squadron.
DM: Oh, I see.
Interviewer: A cross country. Cross country. Here we are. Frankfurt.
DM: Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: So that is the 20th of December, sorry.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So the 20th of December was your first operation.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: Right. To Frankfurt.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: And how did things go?
DM: Well, it was quite nothing to speak of really. It all went according to plan and we had no problems. And —
Interviewer: No aircraft —
DM: Took six hours, five minutes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: By the look of it.
Interviewer: So, you had no problems at all. Right.
DM: No. No. Nothing amiss there.
Interviewer: So your next operation is 2nd and the 3rd of January ’44.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: When you go to Berlin.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Presumably, had you done the, anything happen? Was the weather bad or something in 1943 or you just weren’t on the list.
DM: Well no. The only thing [pause] I’m not sure now regrettably whether it was Frankfurt or Berlin but on one of those there were two incidents. The bomb aimer came up from down below and what for I didn’t understand and so did the wireless operator and they’d both lost their oxygen by then. Anyway, I grabbed a couple of portable ones and fixed them both up with them and that was it. They came back to normal [laughs] but it was like they were semi drunk.
Interviewer: Yeah. [laughs] That’s oxygen narcosis.
DM: It’s something.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It’s shortage of oxygen.
Interviewer: Oxygen.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Quite. Now also I’m not sure. I think that’s probably the Berlin one where we came back and we were circling East Kirkby and I got my bag, all my stuff in my bag and I’D finished sort of thing. We’re here. And we landed and got out of the aircraft and into a truck driven by a girl which we weren’t used to. I mean we hadn’t been used to anything never mind the girls but anyway she stopped and two or three of them all said, ‘We don’t want to be here. We’re 57 Squadron.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: They said, well there’s or 630 Squadron also —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: At East Kirkby.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: She said, ‘There’s no 57 Squadron here.’ [laughs] And we’d landed at Strubby. So we were all for getting back in and going home like. Going.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: They wouldn’t wear that of course.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: So they took us in a lorry and we did our debriefing, went to bed and so on and then later the next day we went and got the aircraft.
Interviewer: And you went back to [pause] yes.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: East Kirkby.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. So —
[recording cuts]
Interviewer: Your next operation and the final operation is the 27th and the 28th of January.
DM: Yeah, which is —
Interviewer: When you go to Berlin.
DM: That’s right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. Ok.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Right. Now, on your, on your last operation just generally did your crew have any particular habits, mascots, things you did before you go to an operation?
DM: Not as far as I’m aware. No.
Interviewer: Right. So this was the final operation. You go to briefing.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Now, the navigators that were briefed independently to start with, weren’t they?
DM: Oh yes. We used to do. Complete the maps and things.
Interviewer: The navigation leader would show you whatever.
DM: Go through the route.
Interviewer: Go through the route.
DM: Absolutely. Yes.
Interviewer: Did they tell you about the flak positions or things like that to avoid?
DM: I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Right. So basically, you’re given —
DM: Possibly they did but I can’t remember.
Interviewer: They gave you the route to follow.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: You put it on your maps.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: You then go, the next thing is is the full crew briefing isn’t it?
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right and then they, everyone talks about the mets and —
DM: That’s a bit later in the day and then you go from that straight to the dispersal.
Interviewer: Right. So you had your aircrew breakfast hopefully. A meal.
DM: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. So you had your final briefing. You then put on your kit. Off to your aircraft.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right. Now, when you get to the aircraft what’s, what’s the navigator’s job? Just get in the aircraft. That’s it.
DM: Well, yes. Yes. It is. To go up the ladder and get the stuff out on the table ready to go. There wasn’t really anything else wants to do.
Interviewer: So, the pilot and the flight engineer have to check the aircraft externally.
DM: Yes, that’s right.
Interviewer: And sign for it.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Ok.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: So did anything particularly happen on this night that you’re —
DM: Well, as I said —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We went to dispersal from about 4:30 and took off at 5:40 apparently. Well, as we went on to the dispersal before we ever got a step on the ladder a corporal came up and he said, ‘Now, we don’t want it here when you come back because it’s due for a major overhaul. So we want it up there by the hangar.’ And anyway, he kept on about this. ‘Don’t bring it back here.’ And even when we started to taxi he was still shouting to the wind. ‘Don’t bring it back here.’ [laughs] So that [laughs] was a bit odd but nevertheless we, the bombing was ok. There were no incidents on the way out. Stuck to the route and —
Interviewer: Was there a lot of dog legs on the route to the meeting point?
DM: No, not really. We went south before we went over to the coast but then from then on it was not far from straight to Berlin. There were kinks maybe here and there.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Having dropped the bombs we went straight on again I would think for at least twenty thirty miles. Then we turned just west of south and it was before we got to the end of that leg about fifty or sixty miles along it that we started with the fire and so on.
Interviewer: What, what happened?
DM: Well, the thing was that in the, in the event it was a case of there was a bang. Not [unclear] but it was obviously some sort of explosion and somebody said, ‘Oh, the starboard inner is on fire.’
Interviewer: So, it was a mechanical problem.
DM: Possibly. Yes. Of course.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And so I just pulled the curtain back and had a look and it didn’t amount to much and the engineer feathered the propeller so that it stopped and the pilot said, ‘Right. You’d better find your parachutes. You never know.’ [laughs] And I entered, I was entering this up in the log and with that it must have been no more than about five minutes later from the first bang, ten at the most, the pilot said, ‘Christ, look at this.’ And the whole of the port wing was virtually opened up in flames.
Interviewer: But as far as you know you weren’t attacked by an aircraft.
DM: Nothing at all. Well, several of us had doubts about it. You know there was all sorts of possibilities. It could just be mechanical failure particularly as we were due for a major overhaul. Could even have been sabotage was one theory. Somebody could have. The aircraft was parked not far from the main road. Not a main road of course but it wasn’t out in the country. Somebody had somehow or other slipped something in there to go off at certain times. You just never know. The Irish for instance. But there was absolutely nothing and we had a first-class crew as I’ve said. I mean the rear gunner and the mid-upper they were very sharp and neither of them saw anything. The bomb aimer didn’t see anything not the pilot of course. But that’s just how it happened and it moved on swiftly to, the pilot said, ‘Right, you’d best get out.’ And that we did. The bomb aimer was down there anyway getting the hatch out. The engineer was watching him, you know [laughs] Hurry. I was then next.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. And behind me was the wireless operator thumping on my back.
Interviewer: You all went out the front. The front bit.
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We did. Yes. And I said, ‘Hang on, hang on, they haven’t got the thing out yet.’ You know. But anyway, we soon got down there and we went. Again, personally I remember going through sheets of flame but nothing else. I was unconscious almost immediately. I don’t even recollect pulling the rip cord but I probably had it in my hand. Must have had, I suppose, mustn’t I? Nothing else would pull it would it? [laughs] And that was it, you know. No sight of the aircraft or anything else. I was unconscious. Somewhere on the way down I regained consciousness and thought oh dear, here we are and the, it was swinging as they do and the drill was to get hold of the ropes and pull to stop this. But at that point before I’d even made one pull, out again unconscious. And the next thing that I knew was I was easing myself up into a sitting position in a forest with a parachute partly held up in the trees but I wasn’t on it sort of thing fortunately and about a foot of snow everywhere.
Interviewer: So do you think you hit your head on something getting out the aircraft?
DM: Well, yes. I found out, not for two or three days later I found that I had a cut straight across the top of my head. I had hair of course so [laughs] it wasn’t quite so evident. But and that’s all I knew and there was, there was a possibility as I say going through these flames and there were aerials at [unclear] weren’t there? It’s just a possibility but I really don’t know.
Interviewer: Right.
[recording cuts]
Interviewer: You land on the ground. Have you guys still got your boots on?
DM: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Because you were quite lucky because often they —
DM: Well, I had one of the new type but the Canadian he lost one of his boots and that put paid to his escape.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But I had the new black ones and the knife in the top where you cut off the top.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And I did. I went to all the trouble of doing that there and then I think. Maybe not even waited until the next morning.
Interviewer: So you had your escape boots on. You cut it down to a shoe.
DM: A shoe.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: What was your first thought when you landed? You woke up and —
DM: Well, that was a bit odd. I mean I was sort of sitting there and thinking, you know is this really happening? Virtually pinched myself to thinking well maybe I’m dreaming all this. But not so. Anyway, I first of all as I say I was on the ground and I sort of undid the parachute harness and sat up and then I got up on my feet and fell down. Again, tried it again and fell down. Now, my father had given me one of those tiny flak bottles of navy rum and his idea was if you come down in the drink this just might save your life. So I thought now is the time for the rum and so I had a half of it probably and I could stand up then [laughs] Foolishly I went and found, out of the forest and to a village and there was dogs barking and this that and the other. You know I was obviously not fully compos mentis you know because of what I was doing. But I did walk in there for a little bit. Nobody came out. This would be around 9 o’clock. Nine to 10 o’clock.
Interviewer: Do you know which village?
DM: In the evening.
Interviewer: Which village you were near?
DM: I have no idea because I didn’t see any more of it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But then I went back in to the forest and eventually laid down in the snow and went to sleep. Woke up. I don’t know quite how long I’d slept but I woke up and I was like a board myself because of the temperature.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And I’d got as I say the battledress. I even lost my helmet. And then, well shall we have a look at the date because I’ve got —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Yeah. [unclear] yeah.
DM: 28th of January. I hid in the forest all day and I found a railway line nearby and walked in an easterly direction on it at night. The following day I hid/slept at the foot of the stack. Rain all day. Walked to the station at Lübbenau. L U B B E N A U. Tried to board a train but unsuccessful. Slept on stack in the railway yard.
Interviewer: So your intention was try to get to Belgium or France.
DM: Well, yeah. Tried. The thing was that we’d had a lecture from a chap who came around. Not just that one but this particular chap he’d got back having been shot down in that sort of area and he got to Stettin and he got, was lucky enough to get on a ship to Sweden. I think it was Sweden rather than Norway and he was, they’d got him home of course and he was going around the stations telling us this tale.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Which he’d managed to do it. So, I thought well here I am. It’s an awful long way to make for France and go on that way which wouldn’t have been any better possibly anyway but —
Interviewer: So you were trying to get to Stettin.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And, you know it would be obviously a gamble but also maybe pretty unlikely. I don’t know whether he was the only one who ever did it but could have been so.
Interviewer: Yeah. That’s alright. So you tried to get on a train. Yeah. So, that was the 30th. Yes.
DM: The 30th. Yes. I woke at dawn and went into the fields. I checked the canal and found the canal which is comes up later and a small Dutch barn. In the evening I returned to the canal. I beg your pardon I returned to Lübbenau but no train stopped. I discovered a three inch cut on the top of my head and scratches on my face. Nothing to eat at this stage. Water from a field dyke in the rubber bag.
Interviewer: Yeah. So you had your escape kit with you.
DM: Oh yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah. Which had the water purifying —
DM: No. Just a bag.
Interviewer: Just a bag to carry the water in.
DM: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And —
Interviewer: Horlicks tablets and —
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yes. That sort of thing.
Interviewer: Get it quite —
DM: I’d had a few of those of course.
[recording cuts]
DM: Yes, well on the 31st I was in a Dutch barn. At daylight I saw workmen heading for a canal and I followed. I was seen by them and one man on a bicycle shouting to me to stop, in French and he turned out to be a French POW. So, you know it suddenly dawned on me he’s speaking French [laughs]. So, I stopped and he knew full well who I was and what I was about. That’s right. There was this group of French that I’d seen. They were all French prisoners of war working on the canal. They gave me food and beer and said to be in the same place the next morning. Oh, wait a minute. Have I done that right? [pause] Yeah. More or less. The thing was that I should have said that they came, the whole group of them came past near where —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I met the other Frenchman and two of them came to me and they gave me bread and a bottle of beer and that sort of thing straightaway from what they’d saved at lunchtime themselves.
Interviewer: Where was their camp? Was it at Lubenec?
DM: No, that was at Raddusch. Yes. Where are we? Saw the workmen [pause] Oh that’s right. That’s right. They came with this bread and stuff. Other things as well and a bottle of beer and they said to be in the same place the next morning. So of course, I went back to this Dutch barn to sleep and I was there in good time to see them come. On the 1st of February that should be, at 8 am they came and they brought more food and drink and a letter from Rene, which I call Rene [Danch] who was like a full, you know all these people of course had been in the Army full time, you know. They were conscripts. This was why they were prisoners of war. Rene [Danch] and he was like a sergeant major or a warrant officer, something like that and he had perfect English. But anyway, they came and they brought a letter from Rene. At 5pm two of them came in the forest with full French uniform to wear over my clothes and a beret. On train which was just a one coach thing [unclear] and we had to stand on the piece at the end which wasn’t enclosed, you know, rather than go and sit in the seats.
Interviewer: So what was, was this train just to take workmen?
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Backwards and forwards.
DM: They travelled on it daily.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: From Raddusch to this canal site.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And I had this khaki overcoat and trousers and beret and we just stood there. Then when we got off the train we went to Raddusch, R A D D U S C H. Rene came up beside me at the station, took my arm and started talking to me in English you see. I should say maybe at this stage that the reason he had this good English was that he’d escaped with our troops at Dunkirk and they’d been training and whatnot mainly up in Scotland although he didn’t have a Scottish accent [laughs] but nevertheless he’d learned the language very well and his German was fluent as well, and French. However, he was, you know he explained where they were and how things were there and helped me with whatever they could do.
Interviewer: So basically these chaps held camp.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: They’d get on a train each day to work. They’d come back on the train.
DM: That’s right. Well —
Interviewer: Unsupervised by the Germans.
DM: Well, slightly but only slightly.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It was a barn on a farm in the village of, or maybe it was a small town. I don’t know but they had it to themselves entirely. Ground floor and all blocked, you know paving but nothing going on in the way of farming. And they had all the downstairs and then they also had upstairs and they did their own thing. One of the number stayed at the camp all day and he had to cook a meal for them coming back in the evening. Then into the evening about 9 o’clock two German soldiers came just with rifles just to say, I don’t think they even bothered to count them but it was a routine sort of thing.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: And then that was it as far as they were concerned. But as far as the actual, on my first night there they talked to me for a while and then they said, ‘You’ll have to go upstairs,’ you know, ‘Because the Germans could turn up any time.’ Explained all this and then as soon as that was gone they, they had gone again. I could hear them walking on these cobbles of course. I knew they’d been and gone. And they said, you know they wanted to know this, that and the other but there was only him that had any real English. And then sort of had a party and they’d got a big board about so big and they’d done what you called, what you might call a glop. It was not cake. They’d made it up by mixing cake and chocolate and all that sort of thing and they had a cross of Lorraine and the big V like this and everybody was going to get a piece of this you see [laughs] And I said about the cross, you see ‘Oh the Cross of Loraine,’ I said. Oh, oh, you can imagine [laughs] Anyway, that was very good. They had beer, they had schnapps I think but I didn’t take part in much of that because I didn’t like the schnapps. But I had, I had a drink. I had a drink with them.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And then when that was over we didn’t go out that evening but after that most evenings was work ‘til the Germans had departed. They used to take me out for a walk around the village. A little. Just three or four of us sort of thing. Just a bit of exercise because I had to spend all day up in this loft thing either on the bed or walking about. They had a big huge pile of potatoes in one corner which was, they’d got for their own use and this, that and the other. The person who was doing the catering [laughs] he used to bring me [pause] where are we? [Pause] Oh, breakfast was toast and American coffee. Lunch was chips, bread and margarine. I’ve got it here. Which goes on to another day that there was an American POW camp not too far away apparently because apart from this group who were working on the canal the other people mainly were working on the railways and several of them were as firemen on the locomotive and of course they were coming back with all the stories of the damage that was being done by the bombing so they were cheered with that. And anyway, they had also along the railways there was Americans there too, you see. Well, they spread the word amongst the Americans that they’d got me and so when they came back the second night they came back with what? Oh, that’s right. They sent me food, chocolates, cigarettes, a razor, soap and a note to which I replied. One of the Frenchmen in the camp I was in he fixed a large parcel of food which was intended for me to take with me when I left them.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: And I’d still keep the uniform and all that.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: As a Frenchman. So that was good.
Interviewer: So how long did you stay with them?
DM: Well, the plan was as I say it again of course there were at another camp they claimed that they could probably get me in to a wagon which wouldn’t be open ‘til it got to Stettin and then it was up to me to get out of it and find a boat as best you can. And so —
Interviewer: So they were going to move you from their house, their farm to a camp.
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: And from there you were going to get to Stettin.
DM: That’s correct. Yes. Then I took this box with me. Rene [Danch] and a friend, another one of them took me on a train in my French coat, trousers and beret to Cottbus. They had to fix up a [[unclear] for that. I don’t know how they did it but as far as I didn’t talk that’s all it needed. And when we got off the train at Cottbus there were two men waiting for us you see so we all went, all five of us and they said, they were saying among themselves obviously we’ll have a drink. So they go in to this [pause] I know where we are. It’s [pause] oh dear. Well, it’s sort of, it was a bar and it was quite large, a lot of tables and full of Germans nearly. Anyway, they got a place on the table and we all sat there together and had the beers and obviously there’s something they were doing regularly, you know. The Germans didn’t mind. They knew who they were and they were all welcome in the buffet [laughs] And anyway, then after maybe twenty minutes or so we we’d had the drink and so we all went outside and all shook hands and parted company. I went with the two from the big camp and Rene and his friend would return on the train no doubt to Raddusch. I’ve got the waiting room above there.
[recording cuts]
DM: Said goodbye to Rene and went with the other POWs to their camp.
Interviewer: This was on the 5th of —
DM: The 5th of February, yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Now the next. Oh, no. No, this is still applicable to that day. It was we walked about one and a half miles and also whilst we were doing so it was evident that there was a raid. There was sirens going and a raid coming on. We thought it was British aircraft making a raid not far away but we didn’t know where. We got in to the camp and allocated a bed in two tiers. I was on the bottom and after all the guards had left because they had a similar thing. They didn’t have guards on the job, you know. It was a big camp.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But they didn’t bother to guard it day and night.
Interviewer: Did they just get up check they were there.
DM: That’s right. Yeah. From time to time. So, and then they ushered me into their sort of own little office where they, several of them could speak some English. There was a French man who I think was an officer and that was Saturday evening until the early hours and four or five other French people with this one particular one some with good English. Questions, questions, questions. ‘When are the Allies going to invade?’ And I said, ‘Well, soon.’ And assured them, you know that there were gliders everywhere waiting and various other obvious equipment that led you to believe that it couldn’t be long which cheered them up no end. Then eventually to bed about 2am and I stayed in the camp. Supposedly this is the next day [crank] ill in bed, no problem but I was bitten all over by fleas. In the evening they were tipped off about a possible search by the Gestapo so I was taken by two other people to an empty cottage near Cottbus. The plan to come back. Their plan was to come back the next evening and get me into this goods wagon to Stettin. The railway [pause] oh yeah, that was it. There was just one Frenchmen. One of the same Frenchmen came the next evening. I had to stay in this cottage. It was completely empty and there was nothing close by but I could see a lot of people on the roads and railway and so on because they were, you know nearby. After all you know they couldn’t do it. They made me feel better. I mean with the biggest [unclear] was getting out of the damned thing wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: You know if there’s nobody outside to help.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: So maybe it was a blessing. However, I stayed the night and the next day close to road and railway watching all day with several scares but nothing happened.
[recording cuts]
DM: I left the cottage and walked to the rail track. On the 8th of February I left the cottage at dusk on the rail track. No luck with trains. Too fast. Went into the fields in daylight. Snow and hail all day. Walked into Peitz, P E I T Z the village at [pause] I haven’t said where. But it was snowing. The train standing, oh yeah that’s right. There was a train standing in the station and I climbed into a box on the end of a goods wagon. They had those with the break wheels in didn’t they?
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: A little sentry box —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: On the end and a seat. Two stops where they offloaded some of the trucks between me and the engine and they actually uncoupled me. So, you know I thought oh dear I’m going to be stuck somewhere. They might even want to come up and put the brake on. However, they didn’t. They backed up and reconnected having dropped off a wagon or two and off we went and apart from the two stops there we went all the way to Frankfurt on Oder. The train stopped in the sidings. That was evident because you know there was no hissing or anything like that any longer to do with the brakes. Then I walked on the tracks northwards where I was planning to go. Heavy snow. There was a signal box up on an embankment and it was quite high up and as I walked by two Germans opened a window and they were both yelling at me and it took a little while to dawn on me that they were probably telling me to get out of the track because I was walking in the middle, the easiest place because there was a train coming up. And there I was. I was, you know I’d [laughs] I naturally very soon forgot about their warning and I was back in the middle of the track and a very close shave with a train came behind me and he, you know literally it wasn’t coming. It was there. You know, it was o, it had no intention of stopping and there was a lot of goods wagons on behind it. But anyway, they were both looking out but as soon, I turned around and saw it I thought ooh. I threw myself on to the side and we were actually on a bridge and there was a railing to grab and I was clear. They were, as I looked up and they were looking out straight at me thinking that they’d got me probably. Fortunately. Well, from their point of view it didn’t matter maybe but that was how it worked out and dived off the track on to the bridge. That’s right. I was wet through and about exhausted. I ‘saw’ a person walking ahead of me. I don’t know whether there was anybody or it was just an hallucination.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: However, I went on and eventually it became it was coming light and I spotted this barn at Lebus. L E B U S. I slept on the straw and awake at 10am. A young Russian, it turned out to be a young Russian, a young lad anyway came up the ladder because in this barn I got under the door to get in and on the left hand side was machinery and some straw and stuff but on the right you went up a ladder and the whole thing was full of straw leading to the roof. To the level anyway and the tile roof was up above. That’s right. Well, his eyes nearly popped out of his head because I was in my white long johns. Well, everything else was wet through you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I’d got down in the straw. He saw me and went to fetch another Frenchman who worked on the farm. He obviously you know thought best tell him and see what happened. Well, he took me to his camp in Lebus. Not the first night, I think it was the second night and gave me a meal which was good and he dried my clothes. Back to the barn at night. And then he brought me a large bottle of milk and food and took my clothes to dry then. I stayed in the barn all day because I hadn’t got the clothes back for one thing. Went across the road to the farm where the Russian boy and a girl lived and they were only in their teens and they were living together and sort of slave labourers on the farm like the Frenchman was in a way. They dried my shoes and I had a shave, slept in the barn and stayed there all day because there was no point in going out in the daylight you know because the roads were impassable apart from on foot. You couldn’t ride a bike on them anyway. Vehicles were alright obviously but it was pretty grim. And I went to the railway station Saturday night but no train passed through. Back to the barn before daylight proper and I slept again. Stayed in the barn on Sunday night. Awake about 8.30 am. That means the following day I think. About 10am a car, oh I should say at the end of the barn because the barn was separate from the farm. It was one side of the road and the farm was over the other side of the road and there was a bridge, air bridge really. It weren’t a [unclear] bridge and I could see the road and the farm fields and as I awake about 8.30.
[recording cut]
DM: About 10am a car pulled up outside the barn and three Gestapo men because of their boots and uniform and one soldier with a rifle came in to the barn. I was in straw in the, down in the straw.
[telephone ringing]
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. Just a minute. Hang on. Hang on.
[recording paused]
Right. Came in to the barn. I was down in the straw but was soon found and believed given away by some other Frenchman in the camp where they took me for a meal. It must have been. They took me across to the farmhouse and somebody made some coffee and they tried to question me. Well, they were hopeless. They had no English and all I kept saying, writing down or speak it was number, rank and name.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: From there we went out again and the solder with the rifle and I had told me to take me into the village. Anyway, we’d only got about a hundred yards if that and they came up —
Part 3.
DM: They put me in a little snug with a door and then a few minutes later they opened the door and the Frenchman was there in his braces and that was it sort of thing. I sort of just looked and then attempted to sort of show no recognition at least and then looked away and that was it. But he nodded or whatever they’d asked him. It was me. I was the one and they shut the door again. Just a few minutes later they opened up the door and said, ‘Come on out,’ and there was a huge brown table. You couldn’t have got it in this room and they said, ‘Sit down and everybody gets a beer,’ including me [laughs] Extraordinary really. Anyway, we were back in the car quite soon and we left the farm. Left the village there to go to the Gestapo offices in Frankfurt on Oder in the car. While I was there, I’ve got notes about this but I remember that the first thing of significance was I got out of the car and there was this magnificent building for the Gestapo Headquarters of that area and it had a staircase which took you up to only, well twice the height of our stairs and we had to go up in to this higher part. Later on it curved around and it took us literally about twenty minutes at least to get to the next floor because every few steps somebody came along and they were explaining to them, ‘Well, why? What’s —’ They all wanted to know [laughs] and of course they hadn’t seen much war at Frankfurt on Oder.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And anyway, we eventually got in there and the chap in charge was turned out to be really quite a toff. He was, you know, he said, ‘You can keep your own stuff.’ And the only thing that went missing was my two pounds and three half crown coins.
Interviewer: Yeah. Right.
DM: And the stuff I had in this box. Still kept it. Razor and all this sort of thing. They didn’t mind and well that was it for that time but at night I had to stay in the, in that place and there was nowhere properly secure but there was a lift and there was a space in between it about as big as half this room and they, you know gates, metal gates that were expanding and he explained that somebody who, somebody in the building would come up every hour and hold the bucket to it so that I could relieve myself if necessary. And there was nothing to sleep on at all. Just concrete floor and anyway I did sleep and then the next morning the man who was in charge oh, by the way there was another little thing was he said, ‘Do you want to freshen up?’ You know because there was sort of a private little wash place, toilet immediately off the office without going out and I said, ‘Right. Thank you.’ So I got my gear out, shaved, washed and this, that and the other. But then I still had to hang about there and all through the day there was girls coming in with a sheaf of papers you know, came to see this, well I don’t know what they would refer to me as but anyway at that stage and so you know but all excuses obviously. I mean the paperwork I think [laughs] ridiculous. They hadn’t seen one like me before. Anyway, in the afternoon another fella turned up on, a younger fella in his ordinary everyday suit so the cells, those who were dressed, those who were dressed right they were the bosses sort of thing. No, no jackboots for them and he said the best he could that we were going down the road to the civvy prison and he showed me a pistol in his jacket pocket sort of thing so you’re not running off. I said [laughs] ‘Right. I won’t be doing that.’ So he took me, you know in the mid-afternoon he took me to this prison. Well, it was a place which was literally hundreds of years old. The walls were at least three foot thick and very old. Stove pipes running up to give some comfort and they put me in a cell with a boy. Well, he wasn’t much more than a boy. A youth. And he was in his best suit. I didn’t get out of him why he was in there but some misdemeanour and we, despite him having no English, me having no German we carried on a conversation and I found out, he told me things which I understood about the Hitler jugend and things of that sort. And I told him things you know that I thought he ought to know. Anyway, when it came dark there was no light so the only thing was to go to bed. It was a two tier bunk. I begged to grab the bottom one and a blanket. Whatever, and of course I was very soon fast asleep because, you know I was tired anyway. Then at some point, I don’t, didn’t check the time but it would probably be around nine, 10 o’clock in the evening he was shaking the bed and with that there was, oh he was pointing up to the window which was right up there and there’s a huge red glow. And I thought ah. Theres something going on. It’s markers. You know. Pathfinders.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: With that, boom and one really big bang which was close but I mean it was evident there weren’t, well after a few minutes they weren’t going to come and move us from the cell. Walls three foot thick.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: You stood a chance of surviving anything like that so I got back on the bed and went to sleep. And the odd thing about this was that the next morning you know he was up when I woke up and he never spoke a word. He just looked at me all the time. He was flabbergasted or something of the sort. Not, didn’t utter a word. They brought us a couple of bowls of sort of a soup stuff. Nothing much stronger than that. And then possibly around 10 o’clock it was [pause] yeah a soldier came on his own. Another soldier with a rifle. He came for me. I noted it was probably about 10am and we went to the station. Oh no, we went back to the office first and they gave me these things that they’d kept you know and even the food and odds and ends. Not your French uniform of course. However, we were to catch a train to Berlin.
Interviewer: Had they interrogated you at all really?
DM: Well no. They had no ability.
Interviewer: There was no —
DM: Two or three people came and had a go but I mean —
Interviewer: They couldn’t speak English.
DM: No.
Interviewer: Right. Ok. Fine.
DM: No. Nothing really at all.
Interviewer: So roughly what date was this by this stage?
DM: Well, we were back to, down here to the 16th February.
Interviewer: Oh right. Fine. Ok.
DM: Yeah. It started, it was the 15th I think when they came to the farm.
Interviewer: Yeah. 16th.
DM: 16th 17th.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, I decided as I said that there was just these markers. One bomb. sleuth attack to draw them off.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: From Berlin.
Interviewer: You got the train the following day.
DM: Yeah. Well, that’s right. He [pause] that’s right. A soldier came. That’s right. I’ve already said that haven’t I? On the train to Berlin. We got to the station but we’d missed the train that we should have caught and we went to call at the Gestapo offices first and get these bits and then we went. And the first thing was the fact that we had to wait about two hours. He was trying to take me into a refreshment room at the station. Well, they wouldn’t have that. Whoever was in charge said no. They weren’t having that. Anyway, then took me in the same area to a dormitory which was set up for German personnel to spend the night there you know. These were two tiered jobs again. Bathroom, showers and whatnot and there was only one other chap there. One German there. He said, you know, ‘Do you want to use the facilities?’ So I had a wash up, had a shave and then to top it all he was blacking his boots and said, ‘Do you want to do that?’ So I had this bloke put some blacking on my shoes [laughs] However, we, then they got to Berlin. Well, we went on to this the next train to Berlin. We had to stand in the side corridor and it was full of people being brought home from the Russian front because they had these frames holding their arms up and they had their heads bandaged up and all sorts. So I got talking, in inverted commas, to some of these and the same thing applied. No English. No German. But we nattered about it and it was evident the Russian Front was where they’d come from.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Pleased to be leaving no doubt and all that and —
Interviewer: Hang on.
[recording cuts]
DM: Oh, and then so we got in to Berlin and we went on a tramcar to Stackau, S T A C K A U Airfield. I don’t know quite where it was regarding Berlin centre. A couple of people interrogated me. They did have good English and they checked around for any hidden compasses and all that sort of thing and then took me down to a bunker which was like an air raid shelter on camp and when I walked in there was six, no seven other people there And the one I became very friendly with was the navigator. A chap called Don Hall who had been a semi-senior civil servant as it happened and they’d been shot down the night before over Berlin. Came down on, in Berlin which was very dicey and the reason was that there was only as far as I knew there was only one thing happened and that was that whoever shot this thing it killed the pilot. And that was it. They all had to get out and they all came down in the streets of Berlin. However, they all got to this stage.
Interviewer: So —
DM: Sorry.
Interviewer: So the interrogation up to this date had been pretty amateur so far.
DM: No. None at all.
Interviewer: No.
DM: To speak of, no. So anyway, we met up. There were, there was a little thing. They were suspicious of me and thought I was a plant because of my shoes being blacked and all washed and shaved. They couldn’t believe it. Anyway, they did eventually.
Interviewer: What squadron were they from?
DM: I think he was 100 was it? He was at Ludford Magna.
Interviewer: 101. Yeah.
DM: They were —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: This, they didn’t have bombs.
Interviewer: Yeah, special. Yeah. ABC.
DM: Yes, that was —
Interviewer: Airborne cigar.
DM: That’s right. Cigar.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And they were on their 30th trip.
Interviewer: Good God.
DM: Yeah. And the, well the pilot was dead of course and the rest of them managed to bale out. We went on a coach to catch the Paris Express at Juterbog to Frankfurt on Main. We didn’t go up to Paris obviously. Frankfurt on Main where the place —
Interviewer: Dulag Luft. Yeah.
DM: That’s right. Coolers, solitary confinement and that was what they did. Put everybody in a separate cell sort of thing. Mine was terribly terribly hot so the next day I did mention it and they turned it down so [laughs] whether it was not by design or not I couldn’t know. Excuse me. That was about 6pm when we got in there but I got very hot. Not allowed anything to read. Just think, in inverted commas about the situation. Walked up and down the cell seven hundred times the first day and up to one thousand four hundred times on the second day and so on. Proper interrogation was, you went in to, out of the cell and into a special room set up. On the wall there was a plan of our flight plan.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Precisely. And there was two of them but one of them did the talking and I adopted the same attitude as before. Number, rank and name and eventually he said, ‘Oh well, if you’re not willing to cooperate we’ll send you back to the Gestapo,’ because he knew about that episode. That’s what he threatened. That’s right. Being returned to the Gestapo means no talking. Back to the cell and nothing happened. No more interrogation as a large number of Brits and Americans were coming to the camp following raids with heavy losses.
Interviewer: What date was that approximately?
DM: That was I think the 24th of February.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And we left, well we had a night there. Did I? Yes. That’s right. The 23rd I’ve got here. All cells were emptied and we were pushed into a big room with everybody being cleared out for the reception of these Americans and Brits you know. We were scarcely room to stand let alone sit down but we had to spend the night there. And I happened to be nearby a squadron leader and I told him or he asked what I’d been doing you know. It had gotten to that. I explained some of this and he said, ‘Oh —’ you know. ‘Damned good show.’ Sort of thing [laughs] He’d been there for some weeks.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And they were taking him out but he said, ‘I’m not finished. I’ve got to come back here.’ So they obviously thought more interrogation would be fruitful with him. There was, that’s right no room to sit down. On the 24th of February we left and went to the Dulag Luft. While I was there I was sort of pointed out, one of about four to go on a little duty. Push a hand cart to another place in town and get some mattresses. Extra mattresses [laughs] Anyway, saw a little bit of Frankfurt.
[recording cut]
DM: And then the 25th or 26th we were on a train about at the Dulag Luft they gave you a thing, it looked like a suitcase with pyjamas in, a towel, soap and shaving kit, things like that. You know. Which set you up a bit. Very good really. And on a train, wagons of course to Stalag Luft 6 but it was, took days and a bit tortuous.
Interviewer: Which was, Stalag Luft 6 was which one? Was that — [unclear]
DM: No. Heydekrug.
Interviewer: Heydekrug. Sorry.
DM: Yes. I think it was 6, wasn’t it?
Interviewer: Yes. Yeah.
DM: I think it was 6.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. So that and oh and the journey up we went through Lebus and Raddusch [laughs] funnily enough. So I realised you know that we might so I was —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Looking out for it.
Interviewer: Yeah. And you got to Heydekrug.
DM: Yeah. Across Poland that was.
Interviewer: Yeah. Into Estonia.
DM: No. No. It was East Prussia.
Interviewer: East Prussia. Right.
DM: Right.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: You know, there was Latvia and Lithuania.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Were a bit higher.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: Very close to Lithuania the camp was.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I believe.
Interviewer: When you got there what was the camp like?
DM: Well, it was well occupied. The thing was that there were three lagers. There was one for British, one for Canadians and one for Americans and because of our arrival, maybe it was a bit unexpected or something they put us in with the Americans for a few days. And that was an eye opener too. I mean they weren’t like us at all [laughs] They got, we got parcels one day when we were in this situation and quite a number you know not just one or two but there was quite a percentage of them. They sat on a, you know a long seat with a table here with the parcel and they ate the lot. You know. It’s supposed to be for the week. Amazing.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, it was only three or four days and they moved us into the British part.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And as it happened I was sent with two or three others into a small hut rather than a brick building, much bigger and all the other chaps when I got to know them they’d all escaped in the past and they were kept in this one hut you know near the gate for security reasons. And, you know they said, ‘What have you done?’ I said, ‘Nothing really.’ I did tell them of course what it was but anyway I don’t think that ever really fussed them.
Interviewer: Do you remember who the other people in the hut were?
DM: Well, I got to know them quite well. Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Can you remember some of their names?
DM: Oh dear. No. Not now. There was one little fellow who was quite a card and I did know him quite well but I can’t remember [pause] Rupert. Rupert [Greenhalgh], yeah. Rupert [Greenhalgh]. Yes. And they all had a history of getting out of camps.
Interviewer: Who was in charge of Heydekrug from the British point of view?
DM: I don’t know. No. I can’t remember.
Interviewer: Richard [Green]
DM: Oh yes. He was. Of course. Yes. Richard [Green]that’s right.
Interviewer: A man of honour. Yes.
DM: That’s right.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: Well, was the camp well run?
DM: Yes. I think it was. I mean we got a parcel every week at the beginning and there was no hassle really you know so long as you just did what was required. Walked around the perimeter you know several times a day and there was things to do. It had been established quite some time. They had two full orchestras and they had people putting on shows, you know. Acting and so on and it was all free to go when it came around and showers were available [coughs] excuse me, once a week. And the food, you know they did, they didn’t provide much but we had the parcels so —
Interviewer: I presume the Red Cross got you through.
DM: Yes. We were not badly off at all at that stage.
Interviewer: Was there much attempt to escape whilst you were there?
DM: Well, they talked of it but I mean by the time we got there when the invasion was likely to come up and everybody knew that there wasn’t the same interest that there had been previously. I never got involved with any of it. [coughs] excuse me.
Interviewer: So life goes on in the camp.
DM: Yes.
Interviewer: But then the Russians start coming towards —
DM: Yes, precisely.
Interviewer: What happened then?
DM: We heard this gunfire and so on and the Russians because they sort of advanced didn’t they maybe I don’t know forty or fifty miles, stopped and then cleared up everything they’d come through and then did it again. Well, we were fortunate really in that they stopped not far short of us but you could hear all of the fighting and so on the day, one day and then it’s quiet after that.
Interviewer: Yes.
DM: There was another incident happened while we were at that camp and somebody, we were out enjoying the sunshine and somebody said, ‘Ay, look at this.’ And it was one of the big rockets you know that eventually dropped on London. Not the flying bombs thing.
Interviewer: The V-2s.
DM: V-2.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Going up into the stratosphere. So saw one of those but you know what if there was a target I don’t know but it was inside German territory before the Russians came. But —
[recording cut]
DM: Then they started, within a couple of days they’d moved us out. They said you know you were going out of here. Everybody and I was in virtually the last group to leave just by chance and we went into a camp in Poland at —
Interviewer: At dawn.
DM: Dawn. That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: So you marched from Heydekrug.
DM: No. No. No.
Interviewer: On a train.
DM: No, we didn’t have any marching really. We were very lucky in that respect.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And there was some stuff we picked up you know. One or two bits of clothing and things that were helpful but other people just left because they couldn’t carry it all because you could only take what you could carry.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: And then after about three or four weeks I would think at dawn the train again to Fallingbostel. Yeah. Fallingbostel.
Interviewer: When you got to Fallingbostel what state was that camp in?
DM: Well, word was that it had been empty for some time because they’d had Russians there and there had been typhus which they’d well obviously they’d got rid of it because we didn’t suffer with it. But there was a lot of Army people already in the camp and the Air Force contingent was relatively small. But they were well organized and they were, you know the first night or two we slept in a room which had forty bods. But we got one later where we just two tiers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And this Don Hall and myself we were together and I think it was there where they confiscated the palliases. They were straw filled.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, we, we were [unclear] board but again it wasn’t a full board all the way so one of us suggested well why don’t we put them together, sleep together on the bottom part which we did and which was a much better solution. But gradually the parcels, they’d have, one a week was the plan of course but it became one between two for the week and then you might get another one each but eventually it was just half a box each every week. And we obviously slipped into a certain amount of malnutrition. It was peculiar in that to walk around the perimeter you had to consciously think about putting one foot in front of the other and we were quite thin but not dangerously so obviously because we could still walk and, but much of that and it would have been like Belsen I suppose.
Interviewer: So where were you at Fallingbostel when the Americans arrived?
DM: No. No. No. We —
[recording cut]
DM: We were moved out. They said we were going to I think it was to, a place near Berlin. Anyway, we were walking east. We did get extra food by being out in the country, you know pulling up onions and various things. Anyway, it was only about three days the Germans in charge of us decided they weren’t going any further east. They would go west. Meet the Brits.
Interviewer: So you were heading east from Fallingbostel.
DM: Headed east first.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: But then as I say —
Interviewer: They changed their mind.
DM: Three days they thought no. No. Because by then the Russians were virtually at Berlin I think.
Interviewer: Right.
DM: And then we had the incident with the parcel. That’s right. We were diverted off the ordinary road to pick up a parcel.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Each. I think. Or one between two. I’m not sure. And we’d just left there, we were in this long column. Must have been half a mile long and on a road with dykes each side and then fields and then suddenly we had the fighter attack by our own people.
Interviewer: Do you know what sort of fighter they were? Was it —
DM: Typhoons.
Interviewer: Typhoons.
DM: I think, yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Yeah. I mean we’d seen them around all the time and they were dipping their wings to us recognising what we were but this particular party they did recognise us but too late according to what we heard later.
Interviewer: So they attacked you and several were killed.
DM: Yeah. They were. Yeah. There was one chap not far from me got hit in the head and he’d been a prisoner since the early 1940. But actually there was more Germans killed although there was only one them to probably what thirty or forty of us. They had more casualties than we did. I think maybe because they didn’t run.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I mean we, firstly we went in a dyke and then somebody came on top of me and I can remember thinking that’s good. Anyway, soon as the first attack we got up and ran in to the fields and again there was some firing and explosions from the road fortunately but I can remember diving into the ground you know to get in to it. To get underneath the surface.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I remember I scraped all my —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Forehead and nose in doing so. But anyway, that was it. Then he’d gone and then we of course it was disarray. The Germans didn’t know what to do any more than we did but they said that there is a farm up the road. We’re going to stay there and that we did. But unfortunately, this Don Hall who was sharing everything we were he was ill and it turned out to be pneumonia. So they put him in a hospital nearby and I sort of carried on with the stuff we’d got until it came to an end.
Interviewer: So where were you eventually released [unclear]?
DM: Oh, well we moved onto another farm. Just one day or two. Stayed the night and when we went on the farms of course all the stock of pigs and chickens anything like disappeared [laughs] within almost minutes. Anyway, we survived it and the —
[recording cut]
DM: After a couple of days the next morning there was no activity and there was no guards to be seen anyway. And anyway, word went around, you know the guards had gone and there was one officer stayed and there was two or three guards but that was it. Anyway, we still didn’t get to know anything and then we were down by the entrance into the yard. I happened to be anyway and there was a jeep coming. A chap with a red cap you know in it and he came you know fairly fast up to that point. I’m supposed to be recording this. He was sort of holding the wheel and up on his as he was putting the brake on came up like this, ‘No bloody souvenirs.’ [laughs] And you could see the jeep disappearing up the road. Maybe he’d had some experience.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, he said, well, ‘We can’t help you obviously. I can’t do much for you but there’s a place if you walk up the road. There’s a village. There’s an empty school where you can sleep if that’s what you want and nearby there’s a field full of vehicles and you’re welcome to go and see what you can do and make your own way to Luneburg.’ So we did stay in this place that night. The next morning four of us went together and we found a [pause] oh dear —
Interviewer: Kubelwagen, was it?
DM: It doesn’t really, eh?
Interviewer: Kubelwagen. Volkswagon.
DM: No. No. Well, possibly. Yeah. I think maybe it was. Or a French car. Anyway —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: It was four seater.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: We got a tank of petrol out of another vehicle so we had plenty of fuel and we also picked up a box. A wooden box filled with cans of meat, you know. Round cans two deep and they were, well we established that they were beef like. Cooked beef in these tins. You know, ridiculous really but we thought well that would be something we were allowed to eat. However, we went on as far as we could. I was the only driver as it happened. I passed my test in 1939 before the war started. And so off we went and “POW” on the front just above the windscreen we’d written so that any police or anything directing traffic they would know where we wanted to go and then set us on the right road. Anyway, it began to come dark so we thought we’re not going on in the dark and we stopped and close to a farm house as it happened by luck and with that a soldier who hadn’t been, not a POW he was a sergeant and we explained we were POWs, been POWs and we needed somewhere to stay. He said, ‘Oh, well why not here.’ And he goes thumping on the door and tells them in English you know, ‘I’ve got four men here want to sleep here.’ [laughs] Anyway, they didn’t mind. They let us in and we sort of selected one room. Well obviously, spare and we said that was, they didn’t understand but we said, ‘We don’t want to inconvenience you any more than we must. We’ll sleep two on the bed and one each side on straw.’ So they obliged. We went in their pantry and chose, the first thing I spotted was a jar of preserved gooseberries. I said, ‘We’ll have that and we’ll have a chicken.’ You know. So she did us a smashing meal for the evening. Anyway, then we went to bed. The next morning we got up and dressed, went out in the village and —
[recording cut]
DM: Quite close by we came across an Army vehicle with a trailer which was a signals unit and we talked to them and said we want to go to [pause] where did I say? Luneburg.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Oh, he said, ‘Well, we’re going to Luneburg this afternoon if you’d like to go with us.’ So, ‘Oh yeah. Rather.’ So we went back to the farm, put this box of meat in. There was all [unclear] and a bag of sugar. A big bag of sugar. And they said, you know, ‘There you are. Come and come have a look at the vehicle. It’s yours.’ So they were really pleased and anyway we went to with these other fellas and they took us to the big barracks at Luneburg. The first thing they as you walked in they gave you a round tin of fifty cigarettes I think it was wasn’t it? And anyway, obviously we had plenty of food and all that sort of thing. It was just I think three days probably there relaxing and then they said, ‘Right, there are some American lorries coming to take you to an airfield called Diepholz.’ And they did and they took us and we were in bell tents we were. That evening was when Churchill was speaking on the radio saying that it was all over and this, that and the other. So we listened to that, had a meal and a few drinks and that sort of thing. The next morning some other vehicles came and took us to this airfield, Diepholz. We went on board a Dakota and they flew us to Brussels. We had proper accommodation there and also the ladies of the city were putting on a banquet as it were in some official building and we were all invited. And they were really posh ladies you know sort of thing. You could tell by their jewellery and what not. Mostly, fairly mature, you know. They weren’t girls so we weren’t interested in them not that I would have been anyway I’m sure. I was only thinking about getting home.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: But we had a magnificent meal and then we had a bit of a stroll around the city and looked at this and that and the group I was with returned to where we’d been stationed then. The next morning more vehicles took us to the Brussels Airport and this time we joined a little crowd and they said, ‘Right. Well, you’re going in this Lancaster.’ I still had my old brevet on so the navigator he came for us, he said, ‘Oh, I see you’re a nav.’ He said, ‘You can come down the front with me.’ So that was nice. Flew over the Channel, see the white cliffs of Dover.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: To [pause] oh dear. In Sussex. Tangmere.
Interviewer: Tangmere was it? Yeah, you landed at Tangmere. Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And to move on a bit the sergeant came and he said, ‘Now you dump all your clothes. Everything.’ And got rid of them and there was a sort of the blue hospital garments and a towel and soap and so on, showers and then he said, ‘Well, you can, it’s up to you but we can, you can go to bed and sleep right through tomorrow if you want or you could get up again about three —’ No, 5 o’clock. Something like that, ‘And we guarantee to have you fully clothed in uniform, fed and all the rest of it. Money, medical and out of here on a train home.’ Oh, we’ll all do that. Get up early which we did.
[recording cut]
DM: So that’s how it worked out.
Interviewer: So you got back to, back home.
DM: Immingham.
Interviewer: Immingham.
DM: It was at the time. Yes. Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. Did you ever think of staying in the RAF?
DM: Well, a bit. Yes. There was one time and as a matter of fact I was hanging about at the airfield at Killingholme to get some petrol coupons because we were entitled. Father’s car was there you know so and I drove it more than he ever did because he hadn’t had it long before the war started. I’d passed my test so I did most of the driving until it was laid up. Excuse me. And I think it was a squadron leader came, looked at my brevet and whatnot. Medals, such as there were and they, he said, ‘Do you fancy a tour in —’ [pause] Now, would you say Persia? It was wasn’t it? Now Iraq or something?
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: That’s right. The Persian Gulf and what not. Training navigators. So I said I don’t know about that. Anyway, I gave it a few minutes thought and I thought no. I’ll not bother with that. Too quick to go away again really from the comforts of home.
Interviewer: So you got demobbed fairly quickly out of the RAF.
DM: Well, not actually by choice. The first thing was that I now what? How did it work out? [pause] There was certain things you could do but eventually they said you’ve got to remuster if you want to stay in. But I couldn’t get out straightaway mark you. I must say that because my release code was forty, and when they made the first announcement they said any prisoner of war release group forty four or higher could go now. No. No, the other way around wouldn’t it?
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: I was forty four. Forty was —
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Out. Because my father was out in days [laughs] He’d been there from the very beginning. I think your age had something to do with it as well. So what to do? So and then they say you’ve got to remuster if, you know you can’t just keep drawing your warrant officer’s pay [laughs] and doing virtually nothing. Did have a session of spud picking when I was in charge of a couple of [muggins] and shared it out at the end of the day. That was in Shropshire I think somewhere. Anyway, as regards to remustering we got together two or three of us, all warrant officers of course. They said, ‘Oh, look here a driving course.’ So I said, ‘Well, yeah, I can drive but — ’ I said, ‘Anyway, yeah if you want to do that.’ They couldn’t drive you see. So, I said I’ll go on that. So that’s what we did at Melksham. Anyway, I didn’t actually complete the course. We never got on the articulated vehicles because one of the same chaps he came running in sort of thing. He said, ‘There’s a notice on the board POWs up to group —’ whatever — ‘Can go.’ So we all said, ‘Right. Well, we’d better apply.’ That wasn’t the end of it either [laughs] because this was coming up December time.
Interviewer: Of ’45.
DM: Hmmn?
Interviewer: December ’45.
DM: Yeah. Yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: And, and they said, ‘Oh well, there’s some courses you can go on if you wish.’ And so I thought, ‘Well, I’ve been in insurance you see so I thought if I could do some swatting up and whatnot it might help and it would be better for me going in to Civvy Street in December January, February.’ And I went to Sunninghill Park near Sunningdale and Sunninghill Park, the house we were in was demolished for the Duke of York and his —
Interviewer: Oh yeah.
DM: To build on that site.
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: [unclear]
Interviewer: Yeah.
DM: Anyway, there was a chap and myself he was likewise a POW warrant officer and he had a motorbike. He used to go out on that. It was neither taxed nor insured [laughs] but there was one day he was doing something else and he said, ‘You can take the motorbike if you like.’ So I said, ‘Alright. I’ll try it.’ And I’d never ridden a motorbike. Anyway, I did go for a spin but nothing much more because I didn’t care for it a lot and I resolved there and then I wasn’t having a motorbike I would always have cars when I got out and I did precisely that. I had work within the month.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. So looking back on the war and your service in the RAF any reflections, any thoughts about it?
DM: Well, on the whole it was enjoyable I must admit you know. There were moments when it wasn’t but on the whole it was a good experience.
Interviewer: What was your view of the French people who had helped you?
DM: Oh well I —
Interviewer: Did you contact them again or did you —
DM: Well, only two and one didn’t last very long but the Rene [Danch] as I mentioned before probably was we kept in touch but not straightaway. It was later on. Actually, we took the caravan down there and went to his house without warning [laughs] and he was delighted. He had three or four daughters grown up and his wife and this, that and the other. It all sort of went on from there. They came and of course oh well yeah well that was it. They came and stayed with us. We went there, stayed with them although we had the caravan but they still insisted we slept in their house and so then later on their daughter she went to —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dougie Marsh
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v610006, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v610007, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v610008
Description
An account of the resource
Interview in three parts.
Part 1.
Doug Marsh was the son of a Royal Navy officer and moved around quite a bit as a child between Kent and Lincolnshire. When his father retired from the Navy his parents bought a fish and chip shop in Grimsby but shortages meant that the business could not succeed and Doug had to find other work. He had secured a place as a trainee with the local authority but the start of the war cancelled the scheme he would have joined. He worked for the Prudential Insurance Company until he volunteered for the RAF aircrew and began training as a navigator in the UK and then in South Africa. Following training in South Africa Doug returned to the UK to continue his training. During part of this training a German plane dropped a bomb on the local railway station and on the hotel where recruits were billeted. He was posted to RAF Bruntingthorpe for his OTU where he joined up with his crew and the trained together after training flights on Manchesters and on to the Lancaster.
Part 2.
Doug Marsh continued his training on H2S at RAF Scampton before being posted to 57 Squadron for operational flying. During that time the flight engineer on the crew had gone up on an operation and failed to return. On the day of their last operation the wireless operator was in hospital and so received the news there that his crew had crashed. On the morning of the last flight the ground crew told the pilot to remember not to land at their usual dispersal because the aircraft was due for an overhaul. In the air the crew heard a bang and the plane was soon on fire. The crew baled out. Doug was knocked unconscious and came to in a field with the parachute in a tree. He hid until he was discovered by French prisoners of war who hid him in the expectation of him finalising his escape plans. He was caught and assumes his capture was due to betrayal by one of the French.
Part 3.
Doug Marsh was was captured and taken to Frankfurt on Oder where he was treated well. One night his German cell mate alerted him to the red glow outside of the window which Doug recognised as Pathfinder flares followed by a single explosion as a bomb fell. Doug just went back to sleep much to the surprise of the youth with him. On his journey to Stalag Luft 6 he passed the towns where he had hidden before his capture. Doug remained a prisoner of war until the POWs were moved away from the Russian advance. On one occasion during the march they came under attack from Allied fighters. Dougie was a small distance from a POW who was killed outright who had been a prisoner from the beginning of the war.
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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00:47:14 audio recording
00:47:33 audio recording
00:47:35 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending OH transcription
Pending revision of OH transcription
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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.
Creator
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This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Lithuania
South Africa
England--Leicestershire
Lithuania--Šilutė
South Africa--Queenstown
South Africa--Cape Town
Contributor
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Julie Williams
57 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
crash
evading
H2S
Lancaster
Manchester
navigator
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Scampton
shot down
Stalag Luft 6
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46471/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v530002.mp3
2ac052dbdd90e145baf146bcb066a382
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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
interviewer: I’m with Terry Hodson who’s going to tell us some of his memories of the Royal Air Force. Terry, I understand your first exposure to the Air Force is when you were conscripted at the end of the Second World War. Can you tell me a little bit about, you know what that period of your employment with the Air Force was.
TH: Yes. I was conscripted into the Air Force as many people were in those days and I was in an Airfield Construction Squadron all over the country at various places and ended up at Royal Air Force Coningsby where I met my wife.
interviewer: But this was right at the end of the Second World War so —
TH: Yeah.
interviewer: There were airfields still being constructed at the end of the Second World War were there?
TH: We were mainly a couple of memories, a couple of real memories over this period was that I was in Green Park when we were doing things for the, the end of the war processions that went on. The Victory Parade.
interviewer: Green Park in London.
TH: Green Park in London.
interviewer: Right where the tube station is.
TH: Yeah.
interviewer: By Bushey. Yeah.
TH: Opposite, opposite Buckingham Palace and we put parking areas down and fencing around aircraft. I remember one particular thing. The Derby was won by a horse called Horsa and we had just put a Horsa glider in situ in Green Park.
interviewer: So this is the Green Park in Piccadilly. Right. The actual, right between Piccadilly and Buckingham Palace then.
TH: That’s it. Yeah.
interviewer: Right.
TH: And we were —
interviewer: So, so despite you being in airfield construction you ended up working sort of in, they misemployed you in looking after parks.
TH: Well, no. This was our job. To do jobs for the Air Force. We also took down blast walls in MOD as it is now. It was Air Ministry in my day and we moved all around the country.
interviewer: So putting right. Sort of, so everything to do with at the end of the Second World War, removing all the blast pens and preparations for the Second World War and getting things back to a semblance of normality.
TH: Plus building balloon bases for the parachute jumping in Oxfordshire. Converting buildings in in Coningsby that were WAAF quarters but they were then turned in to officer’s married quarters and that’s where I met my wife.
interviewer: So when you would do these jobs would you stay in these locations for a short period or longer period?
TH: Yeah. The longest period was at RAF Coningsby and the shortest period was three weeks in Piccadilly.
interviewer: And was Coningsby the last, getting towards the end of your conscripted time after you were conscripted?
TH: That was my demob number came up and I was happy to go up to [Waltham] and get my demob suit and go home on leave.
interviewer: But you told me earlier that they offered you the chance of staying in the Air Force at that stage.
TH: Yes, and I didn’t want to.
interviewer: You declined the offer.
TH: Yeah. Quite forcefully.
interviewer: Was there, was that what, why was that then? You’d had enough at that stage?
TH: I’d had enough of moving around. Three weeks here, two months there. A week there. A fortnight at another place. Another month. Maybe six weeks. And three months at Coningsby was the longest so I was happy to get out and do a regular job.
interviewer: Take back any other job. And you stayed in Coningsby at that time, did you?
TH: No. I went back to my job pre-war or during the wartime. I worked at Bart’s Hospital Sports Ground at Chislehurst in Kent and I was then with my mother at Sydenham. And they used to bus down to Chislehurst to work. I came up once or twice to Coningsby to see Evelyn at weekends and thought this is getting a bit rough. I will now move up there, find work in Coningsby area which I did with a building site building married quarters for RAF Coningsby.
interviewer: Again working for a construction firm.
TH: Yeah. Yeah.
interviewer: Yeah. And then, and then sort of a couple of years after that you decided to apply for the Civil Service. Is that right?
TH: Yeah, the jobs, the job on the building site was virtually ending and I heard that they were civilianising a lot of RAF jobs. I applied and was taken on as a labourer and we did all sorts of work emptying dustbins [pause] emptying dustbins and delivering coal to married quarters that I’d helped to build. Then there was a polio scare on the camp and several airmen had gone down to it. Gone down with polio.
interviewer: So this is the late ‘40s I guess.
TH: It’s the early 50s.
interviewer: Early 50s now. Ok.
TH: Early 50s. And I went then as a messenger and after that I helped to run the Registry while a lot of the servicemen were off ill and doing various tests. And when the opportunity arose I became a clerical assistant in the Registry on the mail out, mail in. The corporal who was in charge of Registry at that time was demobbed and they asked me if I’d like to take on the Registry on promotion which I did. I then went around the general offices and various, various jobs.
interviewer: So, so this would and what was, Coningsby at that stage had the B29, the Washington that that sort of era now are we talking about?
TH: No, just before that time.
interviewer: Just before.
TH: Yeah. Just before.
interviewer: So —
TH: Just before and during that time I was in the General Office on various things. As I said I did Registry. I also did Airmen’s Movements and Releases. And later on I then went on to P1 and P2. P1 is discipline and the P2 is on the officer’s side. All their records. Postings in, postings out, leave.
interviewer: So had the big National Service call up for Korea started at this stage?
TH: I wasn’t involved in that.
interviewer: Yeah, there was a massive increase in servicemen and flying training to get ready for Korea in the sort of early 50s and so you know, I would have thought —
TH: I probably wasn’t in on the policy at that time [laughs] being a lowly CO.
interviewer: But there were lots of camps started to, you know that were run down after the Second World War started to ramp up again to train everybody for potential —
TH: I don’t think Coningsby was ever run down to be perfectly honest. Only one. One I can remember is when the TSR2 was supposed to come in. They wanted care and maintenance during that time.
interviewer: Middle ‘60s we’re talking about now. Yes.
TH: Yes. Yeah.
interviewer: And then, and then the Phantom came in in what? About 1968 didn’t it?
TH: Yeah. Well, in between times I’d been posted to the County Courts at Boston on promotion.
interviewer: County courts.
TH: County courts. Yes.
interviewer: And —
TH: Divorce and bankruptcies.
interviewer: Oh [laughs] That must have kept you busy.
TH: Yeah. Even some of them were friends [laughs] were on the list and some of Evelyn’s relations. One of Evelyn’s relations I should say was on the list.
interviewer: It must have been difficult.
TH: It was. Especially difficult was when I said to the bailiff’s when they were coming around this area, ‘Well, call in and have a cup of tea with us.’ And I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t do it. Anyway, they did. Two of them turned up one night and we had, we went out for a beer and all the curtains down the road were twitching. ‘We go there.’ ‘We go there.’ ‘We go there.’ [laughs] And this is why they wouldn’t come to me. But Evelyn went in one car and I went in another which made the curtains twitch even a bit more I think.
interviewer: Have you got any particular memories of some of the personalities that you served with and, or that you worked with at the time?
TH: In the County Courts or in the Air Force?
interviewer: As in, well no —
TH: In the Air Force.
interviewer: On the, at Coningsby the sort of —
TH: Yes.
interviewer: What sort of tricks, what games people used to get up to in those times.
TH: Yeah. Well, we had in the General Office we had a bloke called Bob. I’ve forgotten his other name now but he wasn’t a bad bloke but he was a real joker and he was always pulling our legs over the telephone and it was a big open office. I was one corner on P1s and P2s, right on the other end he was on movements and I got a telephone call one day supposedly from a Wing Commander [unclear] who was a South African. A very nice bloke actually who went on further in the Air Force but supposedly asking me what leave he had to come. So, I saw Bob in the corner laughing away on the telephone and I said, ‘Oh bugger off, Bob.’ Anyway, the phone went down and he was putting it down at the same time. Two minutes later my boss came in and said, ‘In my office, Hodson.’ So I was red faced when I came out of his office because it was actually Wing Commander [unclear] ringing me. But it was an unusual request from an officer because they normally knew what leave they’d got to come.
interviewer: Any other memories of the people that you served with?
TH: Yes. We had a youngster direct from training, secretarial training, posted in and he came in one afternoon. He disappeared off to his billet and was told to report the next morning and he was coming on to the movements I think with Bob but he didn’t come in. So we enquired where he was and he was in the guardroom. He’d been caught underneath a Vulcan that was on QRA and that means it was ready to go off to whoever our enemy was at that time and his excuse was well it was all lights underneath it and he thought it was there just to view. He found out different. I forget what his punishment was but we didn’t see him for a week or two.
interviewer: So it was pretty serious what he’d done then obviously.
TH: Well, naturally but I don’t know how he actually got under it because the dogs were touring the area.
interviewer: Yes.
TH: With RAF police anyway.
interviewer: I dare say —
TH: It was a memory.
interviewer: I dare say as well as him getting in trouble was somebody else got in trouble to the fact that he managed to do what he did.
TH: He got near it. Yeah.
interviewer: Wow. And what sort of, you said you worked in P2 and that was looking after the officers was it?
TH: The officer’s records. Yes. Postings in and out. Their leave. Posting non-effective if they were off sick. All the rest of it.
interviewer: And that presumably was when the station was new aeroplanes and new people coming presumably that was a pretty busy job.
TH: It was fairly, fairly busy. Yeah. You can say that again.
interviewer: And presumably there were no computers around at this stage. It was all the records were all on paper.
TH: That’s it.
interviewer: And in filing cabinets.
TH: Ink. Yeah. Cardex cards all over the place.
interviewer: But the RAF were always known as having everything well sorted out. The systems were good in the, you know that period weren’t they?
TH: They were.
interviewer: Everything was well documented and things didn’t get lost particularly.
TH: And as Civil Servants we worked hard to keep it right.
interviewer: And were there, did you serve along national, with National Servicemen in the sort of 50s or —
TH: Oh yeah. They were in and out all the time. But they did two years and they knew when they were going out. They knew to the day when they were going to be as I call it demobbed but they were being released I think they called in those days.
interviewer: And have you got any particular memories of, of different National Servicemen? I mean it said that people when they served as National Servicemen would get plucked from quiet little villages and they would come out into the big Air Force and they’d have quite a lot of experiences.
TH: They were all sorts. All sorts. Some were called swede bashers because they came from Norfolk. Yellowbellies were from Lincolnshire. And we did get some great lads —
interviewer: But everybody got on. Everybody got on.
TH: Oh yeah. Of course.
interviewer: And it was a happy station from talking to your wife. That everybody mucked in together.
TH: They mucked in.
interviewer: And also, with it being, being a large camp and presumably a long way from Boston and Lincoln there were quite a few social events on the camp in that period.
TH: Yeah. At that time they opened what they called Castle Club and big events and they were, there was a corporal in Accounts, Corporal Murphy who used to do bookings for the events and bands for dances. Girls were bused in from Boston to Coningsby to the Castle Club for the men to dance with. And they also had, I remember one event was, I’m just trying to think of his name now. Ralph McTell who was a country singer. He used to always dress in black and played the guitar.
interviewer: So are we talking the 50s still. This is —
TH: This was during Vulcan times.
interviewer: Ok. So we’re now in the 60s I guess. Yeah.
TH: Yeah. And Evelyn and I were at that function as were many others from the village who worked on the camp and the station warrant officer came in and stopped the event and said, ‘There is a problem outside. I want volunteers.’ And with that a lot of the servicemen were disappearing out of different doors but it was to no avail because he’d got the RAF police all at the doors. And unfortunately, it was a Vulcan that had cartwheeled in potato fields on the runway.
interviewer: Ok.
TH: The entrance to the runway and they didn’t know where the bodies were.
interviewer: Well —
TH: And they were searching. That’s what they wanted the volunteers for. But he got what he wanted.
interviewer: And was that on one night during the week can you remember?
TH: Yeah.
interviewer: Or would that be —
TH: Yeah, I can’t remember the exact dates but no one survived that crash unfortunately.
interviewer: And that was just locally was it? In the local area.
TH: That was what they called Sam Haines Farm which is on the approach to the actual runway. Other, other things I can remember a pilot pulling a Vulcan up fairly steep. As I called it putting his backside to the ground and going up and we were in SHQ and he broke some windows. Other times, another one, a squadron leader clipped the ATC van on the end of the runway. He just clipped it. It didn’t do very much damage to other aircraft but we laughed a bit afterwards because he was posted within a fortnight on promotion as wing commander. So, if you wanted promotion clip the ATC van.
interviewer: Well, thank you very much. That’s, that sounds like your time at Coningsby was an interesting and memorable time.
TH: We had good times. We had bad times.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Terry Hodson
Hodson, Terry E-Cold War
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v53
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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00:18:24 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.
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This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Description
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Terry Hodson was conscripted to the RAF towards the end of the Second World War. He started in the airfield construction team doing work as and when needed. He was involved in preparing the area in London for the Victory Parade. He left the RAF but returned to RAF Coningsby as a civilian worker through the Vulcan era. He witnessed a number of events including one evening when the station warrant officer needed volunteers to find the bodies of crew of a crashed Vulcan. He also recalls an occasion when a Vulcan was put into a steep dive and broke the windows of the offices. On another occasion a pilot clipped the ATC van on the runway.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
Contributor
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Julie Williams
crash
ground personnel
RAF Coningsby
-
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
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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.
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Bell, JR-UK
Transcribed audio recording
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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
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Interview with John Bell
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v37
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46469/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v350002.mp3
719fca18eefa790da4f5e06a0c3bd86b
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Stan Waite at his home in Cherry Willingham talking about his life regarding his work at RAF Scampton in the 1930s. Ok, Stan.
SW: Well, Scampton was opened in 1916 as a First World War airfield which they used towards the end of the war, 1916 and they used it as a training ground for pilots and then it went into, back into farmland. And I left school at fourteen and went straight on the farm. And then in 1935 the MOD decided they were going to re-arm and they wanted to bring back Scampton as an airfield because in the First World War they called it Brattleby. They didn’t want to get confused with a place called Scampton near Scunthorpe so they called it Brattleby. When they reclaimed it in 1935/36 to build the airfield they decided it would be Scampton airfield although a part of it was, did carry on over into Aisthorpe. Well, when they started building, taking all the crops and the hedges out and grassing it down we had all that job. The farmer that was already on the farm he couldn’t find the capital to pay all the contractors and sub-contractors for clearing the crops and that so a local farmer decided he would take it over and it happened to be the farm where I was working. So we had two gangs of potato pickers taking potatoes up no bigger than marbles. We were taking sugar beet up no bigger, no thicker than your thumb. They opened the factories on purpose to process it to sugar. We got a gyro tillering which is a thing, a machine which people were astounded to see how it used to work. It grubbed all the hedges out and some of them was, was thorn trees and it made no bother with that. It just went along the hedgerow and knocked them down and then dropped his rotors at the back and grubbled them all out. There was rats and rabbits flying in all directions and, and then we had to burn all that. And, and then we got the two gangs of potato pickers, two gangs of Irish labourers taking the sugar beet and potatoes up and that of course threw extra work on us. We were working nearly all hours the Lord sent us and we got all that done and then we had to, we had to work the land down and level it and then sew it down with grass seed and roll it. And then I went back on the farm and it was taken over by the MOD and when the builders started moving in they wanted a lot of labourers up there and the wage I was getting on the farm was a pittance compared to what you were getting on working for the MOD and I was getting as much in a day as I was in a week on the farm.
Interviewer: Can you remember how much that was?
SW: Yes. I was getting, I was getting fifty pence a week which was ten shillings in today’s money and I was getting as much as that in a day. So my brother he had a job up there and he got me a job up there as well so I left the farm and went up there and worked up there digging the sewers, digging the footings out for buildings, the drains for the surface water. And I was still working up there when the first aircraft came in 1936 and it was a mixture of Hawkers, there was, I don’t know whether there was any Harts among them but they was Audax and Hinds and that type of aircraft and —
Interviewer: I think Heyfords were there as well. Did you see those?
SW: Well, a lot of the history books say they came first but they didn’t. The Hawkers came first from up north. And anyway, I was up there ‘til the aircraft came and then our jobs finished. They had one or two tidying up jobs to be done and I went back on to the farm.
Interviewer: Of course, there was no runways laid.
SW: No runways laid at all. It was just grass. A lot of people get the idea that the, later on that the Dambusters took off on runways but they didn’t. They didn’t take it until they put it in grace and favour and it was closed for about two year when they laid the runways and the peritracks and dispersal points. And I was working on the farm when the heavies came down from up north and they came down as Heyfords and Virginias and, and the history books still have it that they came first and it took them three days to come but it didn’t. They all came one afternoon and I distinctly remember that because I had a gang of potato picking girls from Lincoln picking potatoes and I was spinning out for them and one of the girls said to me, ‘Look up there. Look at what’s all that coming down.’ And the sky was black with these heavy bombers coming. And then later on of course they didn’t stop long. They had a disaster when one evening the gales got up and of course the planes weren’t anchored down and three of the Heyfords finished up in the middle of the airfield locked together and another one finished up in the bank at the side of the A15 that runs past Scampton airfield. So they didn’t last very long and they went and the Virginias went. And then after that we had a, we had a fairly rapid turnover of various aircraft. We had the Vickers long range Wellesley which was a bit of a disaster for Scampton because there was four squadrons at different airfields that got four ready for the long distance attack on the, long distance for a single engine aircraft. And of course, we had a haystack at the side of the old Polyplatt Lane and the one that Scampton had got ready he came in and he caught it with his wing and that writ that one off. So it’s just left the three that, they got one for spare you see. So they just had the three then and Scampton took no part in that. I think they flew from in Egypt down to Australia I think it was if my memory serves me right. And then we had the heavy bomber. The new, the new Harrow bomber came which was a high wing bomber plane fixed undercarriage. That didn’t stay at Scampton long before it was, before it was taken away and then after that there was a various mixture and of course I got called up and went into the Army and served with the Royal Engineers serving under three generals. Served under Montgomery of course with the 8th Army, and McCreery, and I can’t remember the name of the other one. Anyway, I served under three generals. We, we was pulled back from El Alamein. We were the first troops in Sicily with the first wave of commandos. I served with the Royal Engineers mine clearing and bridging and that. And then we were the first troops in the toe of Italy. And then we was, we cut the heel off and went straight across to the Adriatic side and we bridged almost every river up the Adriatic side right through. And then when the war came we was, we was in the mountains at L’Aquila which some two or three year back had that disastrous earthquake. We relieved that. Then we was pulled back to the coast and went through into Austria and that’s where I finished up.
Interviewer: So you weren’t here when the Lancasters came and the Dambusters moved in.
SW: No. No. I hadn’t got back home then.
Interviewer: No.
SW: They brought us back home in 1945 but we had to go back to Austria for a year to wait being —
Interviewer: Evacuated?
SW: Reverted to Civvy Street.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: From the Army.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: So that, so we went back into Italy in 1946. September by the time I got, got back home again. But while we was in Italy, while we was in Egypt, while we was in Italy we was three and a half years and our families never knew where we were. Everything was, was checked before when you wrote and everything like that and it was you couldn’t put anything in to give them a clue where you were.
Interviewer: No.
SW: You were either MEF Middle Eastern Forces, or MED Forces. That’s the only clue they knew then. They knew you were somewhere in the Middle East or you were somewhere in Europe.
Interviewer: Did you go back to working at Scampton when you came back?
SW: Yes. I went back but you see in them days if you was called up the person you worked for was legally bound to take you back to work but I didn’t want to go back to the same bloke as I’d been with because he didn’t have a cottage. I’d got married in 1941. So I went to see a friend of mine who was farming the other farm in Scampton, a Mr Anderson, asked him if I could have a cottage. He said, ‘You can have a cottage,’ he said, ‘And you can have a job as well.’ So I went on to that farm. Started on the first working Monday in 1947 and of course we had that terrific snow right through. One of the worst winters the country had seen. In Lincolnshire anyway. And I stayed on that farm for forty two years. I worked with that man for twenty one years and then he sold out and retired and the gentleman that took over put me in full charge. He was a gentleman from Worksop and I was with him twenty one year. So that was forty two years on one farm. And I stayed with him then until I retired when I was eighty four years old.
Interviewer: And did you see the Vulcans come over?
SW: Oh yes. I was stood at the side of the runway when the first Vulcan came because our land at that time the man I went to work for you see he was farming Scampton Cliff as well. So we saw the Vulcan circling and coming around to line up with the runway so we walked across because we were still farming all in and out the dispersal points.
Interviewer: None of that land was needed for the new runways and the diversion of the A15.
SW: Well, no. They put the diversion in before the Vulcans came.
Interviewer: Yes.
SW: The A15. And the runways had already been put down and everything.
Interviewer: Right.
SW: All the dispersals. But we were still working the land in between the dispersals and the runways and all that because there was very little security in them days. I mean a lad who was working with me we walked across and the jeep came around from the hangar and the communications weren’t like they are now. He just had a big board in the back of his van and it said, “Follow me,” and he when the Vulcan stopped he pulled in front of it and the Vulcan followed him into the hangar. And of course, once they’d got it into the hangar you didn’t see any more Vulcans for about four or five weeks because there was so much interior work to be done on them and instrument fittings and all that type of thing. And then of course I watched the build-up day after day and then they finally moved us off the camp altogether. But I got to know quite a few of the crew members and that with working at the side of the airfield then but not on it. And I’ve always been interested in aeroplanes right the way through to the present day.
Interviewer: When you knew that the spectacular dams raid had taken place and they’d flown from Scampton did you —
SW: We didn’t know anything about it where we were.
Interviewer: When you, when you did know.
SW: Yeah.
Interviewer: When you heard about this.
SW: Yeah.
Interviewer: Afterwards.
SW: We thought well it would soon be over now.
Interviewer: Did you, did you feel a sort of well I was involved with that?
SW: Well, that’s right. Yeah. Anyway, I helped to build that place I did. And my brother was the last, probably the last half a dozen people to work up there when the, he was a foreman concreter up concreting the walls on the hangars and that sort of work so he was used to flights like but I was up there when the Hawkers came. They had a disaster one day. We was, we was working on a surface drain between hangars 1 and 2 and they’d already started flying of course. But on the 1398 that run through Scampton now it used to run straight across to cliff top and about fifty yards inside the airfield boundary they’d put a twelve by twelve target up at an angle and these Hawkers used to come along, usually from the north along the line of the road, bank and turn and camera gun it. And this one was doing it one day when there was two taking off [unclear] to starboard. Then he went straight through them and it killed three pilots. The pilot and a passenger in one, probably another co-pilot and the single seater, came and went straight through and killed three of them.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
SW: And, and that was it. And for many years after that the hedge the opposite side of the road to the airfield a lady used to come out and put a, one of them little crosses in the hedge bottom. But of course, the hedges have all gone now so there’s none of that. So that was my contribution to the war effort before I went in the Army and a little bit after the Army.
Interviewer: That’s been absolutely fascinating, Stan. Thank you very much.
SW: Well, I hope it hasn’t wasted your time, Duck. I mean there’s a lot more I could tell you about my life but that’s, that’s gone.
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Interview with Stan Waite
1042-Waite, Stan
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v35
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Civilian
British Army
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eng
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00:15:27 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
North Africa
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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
Stan Waite worked on one of the farms in Scampton in the pre-war years. He stopped his farming job to help with airfield construction when he found out he could more in one day than he earned in a week farming. He watched the first planes arrive and the airfield become operational again. He then joined the Army and was posted overseas. When he returned he took up farming in Scampton again and watched the new era of aircraft arriving.
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Julie Williams
RAF Scampton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46468/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v340002.mp3
f2c1729c9aeb5bb3652ca91660760c09
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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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-19
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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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Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
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Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr John Langston at Thorpe Camp on the 12th of November 2011 discussing his wartime experiences from February ’44 to the end of the war and the three squadrons 630, 189 and 617 Squadrons that he toured in at that time. Mr Langston.
JL: Ah. Well, I joined the Air Force direct from school and I got a university short course at Oxford and did my initial training in the Air Squadron at Oxford and I was finally in the service at the end of 1942. And from there I went across to Canada for training as a navigator and, in Winnipeg and I’d been in Winnipeg in the school at Winnipeg, 5 Air Observer School for about a couple of months and this was in [pause] maybe four or five months. This was in 1943 and we were, this was a Canadian Observer’s School. We were called out of our classrooms one day and asked to form three sides of a hollow square and we waited there and up taxied a little twin engine aeroplane and out of it got Guy Gibson and he proceeded to talk to us and he was doing a, he’d been brought over to the states to see Mr Roosevelt by Churchill and then sent on this pep talk tour of the Canadian training stations.
Interviewer: Just after the dam raid obviously.
JL: Yeah. Immediately afterwards.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: And he’d been presented to Congress and every, everybody was very pleased with him. So anyway, he got up and he told us all about the dams. Well, talked to us briefly about the dams raid and then he gave us a pep talk saying obviously we were all going to Bomber Command and weren’t we lucky [laughs] And I remember the fellow that was stood beside me said, ‘I don’t like the sound of that at all.’ However, I got back to the UK in October and had a couple of weeks at home and I was then sent off to Scotland for a familiarisation course because then you had to learn to fly again in the blackout and with wartime codes and things in a war zone. And I’d been in West Freugh in Scotland for about I don’t know maybe three or four weeks and I was called into the office to see the chief instructor and I’d wondered what I’d done. And I hadn’t done anything. He said, ‘Langston,’ he said, ‘There’s a new scheme that 5 Group in Bomber Command are instituting and they need some spare navigators on tap and they’ve asked us to pick out a few and send them down to them and they’ll train you themselves. And so we’ve decided to send you.’ And all I’d done was these few trips around the islands. Anyway, so two months later I found myself on a Stirling Heavy Conversion Unit at Swinderby and then at Winthorpe where I was trained by the station navigation officer on a one to one basis and at the end of three or four months I was deemed to be ready for combat and so then I had to wait around for three or four weeks whilst I got a crew and in due course a crew that had lost a navigator got me. And so we did a, we did a couple of trips together and they liked me and I liked them and we were posted to 630 Squadron at East Kirkby where we arrived just after D-Day and we immediately went to war then. So that’s how I got into Bomber Command and we were immediately doing back up raids so that either in support of ground force troops landing on the beaches in Normandy or else at that time the buzz bomb targets had opened up in the Pas de Calais and we were diverted there. So we were our first seven or eight or nine trips were daylight raids in main force just bombing either the buzz bomb sites or alternatively troop emplacements behind the invasion forces.
Interviewer: Were you involved with the transport plane?
JL: What?
Interviewer: The transport.
JL: Well, no. We were bombing German troops in the front line.
Interviewer: Right.
JL: Tanks and wherever the targets appeared.
Interviewer: Right.
JL: And we were bombing on marked targets which had been marked with pyrotechnics by, by, well the various agencies for doing that as some by marker shells laid down by the ground forces themselves and others by the Pathfinders going in and singling out the targets. Anyway, that went by and after we’d done eight or nine trips like that, ten trips maybe we were then, being in 5 Group diverted back on to the main, main force targets in Germany itself and from there on it was almost exclusively night raids into Germany. We went to Nuremberg twice, we went to Munich twice, we went to Stuttgart twice. We went to Darmstadt two or three times. We went, we were doing back up raids in the far end of the Baltic, Koenigsberg in support of the Russian ground forces. It was all very busy.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: And, and my pilot, I’m a navigator and my pilot was a flying officer. He was a very keen young man. We were a good crew and, and all of a sudden after we’d done twenty odd trips he was told that from a flying officer he was going to be made an acting squadron leader and we went off and joined 189 Squadron in Fulbeck. And because of the loss rates of that time we were, we were rationed to one trip every three weeks and, but I used to fly with the squadron commander too so that gave me a bit more to do. And so we finished our tour just about the end of the year and we were doing long distance trips all the way. I mean our last trip was a place called Politz which was an oil refinery up on the Baltic. And so we finished our tour and the following morning my pilot who was really keen to keep his acting rank, I think he liked the pay [laughs] came out and found, found me and my bomb aimer. I was on the bomb aimer pillion of his, on my bomb aimer’s motorbike and he said, ‘Come here you two.’ And so we taxied over and he said, ‘Guess what?’ And my bomb aimer said, ‘What?’ And he said, he said, ‘I’ve just had a phone call from, from Wing Commander Willie Tait on 617 Squadron and he’d like us to come and join him.’ And my bomb aimer looked at him and he said, ‘F off.’ [laughs] So anyway, we got the crew together and we packed our bags and the next day having been in the squalor of Nissen huts at Fulbeck we found ourselves in the luxury of the Petwood Hotel in Woodhall Spa. And that’s how I got on 617.
Interviewer: Right.
JL: So then then 617 of course made its name, its reputation on its training so we immediately had to learn how to use this new automatic bomb site that 617 used and we were on the training bombing ranges in the Wash and up at Theddlethorpe and places up on the coast. After oh maybe a couple of weeks we were qualified combat ready on 617. And there we went off and we, in those days Barnes Wallis’ Tallboy bomb, the smaller streamlined bomb, the deep penetration weapon the Tallboy which was a twelve thousand pounder. We did several raids dropping those. Then all of a sudden to our surprise as the Grand Slam arrived, the twenty two thousand pounder and we dropped several of those.
Interviewer: It must have been —
JL: So that was my war.
Interviewer: The difference in the, the twenty two thousand, the Grand Slam and the Tallboy I believe when the, the Grand Slam was released the aircraft obviously used to shoot up.
JL: Well, the thing was that the bomb was very heavy and, and the wings actually used to actually bend up like a seagull’s wings you know as you flew. And the aeroplane itself wasn’t all that much heavier because they, to start with they, they strengthened, they had to take the bomb doors off because the bomb was wider than the fuselage. So the bomb was slung on a, in a cradle outside the aeroplane. Outside the fuselage. When the, as the plane lifted off, well I should explain that they took all the ammunition out of the aeroplane. We flew with a fighter escort. We, they took out the mid-upper turret. They took out the nose turret, they took out all the radar equipment and we had a very basic navigation fit inside and the rear turret had a man in it to have someone looking out the back really and I think his, they took out two of the guns and so there wasn’t much weight in the back either.
Interviewer: Didn’t they take the wireless operator out as well on some of them?
JL: No. We didn’t have a wireless operator.
Interviewer: No.
JL: Not in the, in the Grand Slam aeroplanes.
Interviewer: No.
JL: Because that was, that was all weight.
Interviewer: All that extra weight.
JL: What we did have was three little VHS sets. One for the bomber frequency, one for the fighter frequency which was our escort from on top and and a spare set I suppose for air traffic control, you see. And so we were very, we were pretty light and we only flew with two thirds full tanks and we, and our, all that weight on take-off was the Grand Slam bomb. It was only a five or six thousand pounds greater than the all out weight of a fully armed normal Lancaster on Main Force.
Interviewer: I see.
JL: So, but anyway, the extra weight was sufficient to—
Interviewer: Right.
JL: Lift up the tips of the wings by eight or ten inches and we could see the curve. Once the bomb had gone the wings went back into the normal position and the whole of the aeroplane did a little leap. But anyway, there was a new bombsight. The great thing about the Grand Slam was it was a development of the Tallboy. It developed, it penetrated deep into the ground on your targets. You didn’t really have to be precisely on the target but we had to have a bombing accuracy on the ranges of eighty yards from the, eighteen to twenty thousand feet which was quite achievable with this bombsight we had. And really it’s only, you only took one or two bombs on the target. It used to penetrate sixty to a hundred feet into the ground where it left a cavity and the target collapsed into the hole. That was Barnes Wallis’ great big secret. And so —
Interviewer: Where were the places that you were bombing?
JL: Well, by this time the war was developing and there was a front line that had gone up through Holland and very close to Germany but the Germans were desperate for fuel and so we were interdicting all the railway bridges that were bringing fuel up to the front line. And with the Grand Slam one bomb took out a bridge by and large and so we these were all on the Weser from leading up to the Brunswick. There were a whole series of —
Interviewer: Right.
JL: Not Brunswick. I can’t —
Interviewer: Bielefeld.
JL: No.
Interviewer: Viaduct.
JL: No. Well, Bielefeld viaduct.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: Was one of the series of targets.
Interviewer: Yes.
JL: But there were five bridges over the river there and we, we had attacked them all in time. One or two bombs at a time and and they were all dropped down and it was a major contribution to winning the final stages of the war.
Interviewer: Absolutely. Yes.
JL: The bombs were in very difficult to make and they were in very short supply and after the third bridge had been sunk we and another crew put on our best uniforms, got into a bus at Woodhall Spa and were driven over to Sheffield to the English Steel Corporation where they made these bombs and it was very illuminating. We, we were met by the board of directors and taken into the casting room and this was a huge room perhaps about thirty or forty feet high. It was dome shaped and the bomb was the cast of the sand mould for the bomb was on the end and the crucible full of molten steel was being poured in. So we watched this for a while and we were duly impressed but what was more impressive was that all around this casting room about, oh I don’t know twenty feet off the ground there was a whole series of Russian flags. Huge flags as big as double bed sheets with the red hammer and sickle and in the centre was a plain white sheet the same size with a great big sign saying, “God Bless Uncle Joe.” And this was my first introduction to the politics of South Yorkshire [laughs] And so anyway, so we were quite impressed and we went into the next room where there was one bomb had cooled and it was on its side and there were two little men there. Little men. I mean smaller than jockeys and they’d got a pneumatic hammer and a flashlight, a torch and they were fed into the back end of the cold bomb casing and they had to, with the torch hand it around to see if there were any imperfections in the cast and hammer it smooth so there was an even explosion. And so this first chap was inside hammering away and they could take it for about thirty seconds, no more and they’d pull them out by their heels from the back end of the bomb and this chap came out. He stood in front of me shaking and so I took out a pack of cigarettes and gave him a fag and lit it and he looked at me and he said, ‘What do you do?’ And I said, ‘I drop them.’ And he thought for a second, had another drag and he said, ‘What do they pay you?’ I said, ‘Fourteen shillings and six pence a day.’ He said, ‘You’re a fool.’ He said, ‘I get ten quid a week for this.’ Anyway, very good. Lots of people heard this and the squadron lived on that story for a, ever since really. So anyway, we then did a few other long range trips. We sank the Lützow. Not the Tirpitz but the Tirpitz had already been sunk. We sank the Lützow up in the Baltic. We took out a whole lot of U-boat pens and things and finally we took out the guns on Heligoland and opened up the whole of the Channel into the Hamburg and the, and the Elbe. There were a whole crowd of ships waiting to go in. And then came the end of the war so that was the end of my story.
Interviewer: Well, it’s been absolutely fascinating. Thank you very much Mr Langston.
JL: Ok.
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Title
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Interview with John Langston
1041-Langston, John
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v34
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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00:17:37 audio recording
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v340002
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
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2011-11-12
Publisher
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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
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John Langston flew operations as a navigator with 630, 189 and 617 Squadrons.
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
189 Squadron
617 Squadron
630 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Grand Slam
navigator
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tallboy
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/117/46467/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v330002.mp3
4ef11453b1a2f73ed4f05a602afc89ac
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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Cook, Kenneth
Kenneth Cook
Kenneth H Cook
Ken Cook
K H Cook
K Cook
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander Kenneth Howell Cook DFC (b. 1923, 151017 Royal Air Force). Kenneth Cook flew 45 operations with 97 Squadron, Pathfinders.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-04
2016-07-25
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Cook, KHH
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 Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC
1039-Cooke, Kenneth
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v33
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:15:10 audio recording
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Pending OH transcription. Allocated
Pending OH summary. Allocated C Campbell
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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.
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This item is being used for TOU9156 teaching. Do not publish transcription until June 2024.
Interviewer: Ok, Ken.
KC: Ok. Hello. This is Wing Commander Ken Cook DFC. I joined the Royal Air Force in October 1941, U/T air crew and after training in Canada I came, returned back to the UK, commissioned as a young pilot officer air bomber and went through various conversion training courses in the UK and eventually joined up with a crew. And our first squadron was Number 9 Squadron at Bardney in Lincolnshire flying Lancasters in Number 5 Group of Bomber Command. After about ten ops with 9 Squadron we were as a crew recruited by the Pathfinder Force which was based in Cambridgeshire and so we were as a crew posted to do additional specialised training as at that time new radar equipment was being brought in and introduced to Bomber Command and in my case it was my job to learn the gadgets known as H2S, Gee and Loran. So, my role changed from being a straightforward air bomber to becoming a radar navigator and air bomber and so it was my job particularly to work the H2S which had a capability for uses in airborne navigation device. And of course, also it’s main role with the Pathfinders was, was identifying German targets and it enabled the Pathfinder crews to find the German targets and to mark them with target indicators so that the main force crews of Bomber Command coming in behind us could identify where the target was and very often bombing on our markers. So we had to be very accurate how we dropped them and where we dropped them and I did this, I ended up doing a total of forty five ops, thirty five of those was as a member of a Pathfinder crew. We eventually having started out with the Pathfinders at Bourn in Cambridgeshire my squadron were then deployed in about April of ’44 to Coningsby in Lincolnshire to join with Number 83 Squadron that had been posted up there from Wyton. And our job was to work with the special force under Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire who was devising a system of finding the targets where the Germans where assembling V weapons on the French coast and in Belgium. And our job was to illuminate the target with parachute flares so that he trained a special force of Mosquito dive bombers that could lay the target markers in these tunnels so that our main force crews from 5 Group and other Groups could come over and do area or intensive accurate bombing as well on these targets. And I completed my forty fifth op in 1944 and was posted to RAF Fiskerton in Lincolnshire as the station radar nav officer. My job was to, we had two squadrons there, 49 and 189 and my job was to fly with these crews and check them out on their ability to use their radar equipment because now the main force were getting the same sort of radar gear that the Pathfinders had had for some time. And so it was my job to make sure the air crew when they, before they went on ops could operate their new radar equipment. And I stayed there for a year or two and eventually was posted to Headquarters, Number 1 Group at Bawtry as the Group radar navigation officer. My job was to oversee all the squadrons, all the Lancaster squadrons in 1 Group to ensure that the crews were properly trained in operating their radar equipment. Can I stop there? Right. Let’s carry on then.
[pause]
On some of the incidents that come to mind one in particular because the Lancaster bomber we all wear warm clothing because the, in the middle of winter the temperatures in the aircraft could become extremely low and in fact if you had to use the elsan at the back of the aircraft it would be extremely low and freezing. And on one occasion I was forced to go back there and use the elsan and I discovered the temperature was minus fifty three degrees Celsius and of course, in having to use the elsan and lower the clothing etcetera I found that my bottom was sticking to the seat to a little bit when I tried to stand up. But I had to stand up because at that time the skipper was calling me, ‘Come on, Ken. We’re only ten miles from the target.’ So I had to hurry up and get back. But in doing so I experienced a little a bit of pain [laughs] in certain lower regions. The other, some of the other aspects of my career was at having completed forty five ops I was then sent off to do jobs as I mentioned with other stations and other squadrons and taking me to the end of the war I applied for a Short Service Commission and this was granted. And after a couple of years the Air Ministry offered me a peacetime Permanent Commission which I accepted and I was down the rank of flight lieutenant and so I then was asked to move out from Bomber Command and become trained with peacetime navigation courses and I thought well, perhaps I’m going to shoot now into somewhere like Transport Command but none of it. Having completed my peacetime navigation course I was then asked by Air Ministry to go through the night fighter OCU at Leeming where I was then trained again to become a navigator radar operator with the AI equipment on night fighters. And so after the appropriate course at Leeming I was then posted to 23 Squadron at Coltishall on Mosquito Mark 36s and I flew with them for about two and a half years until one day I was told that I was to go back to Leeming as a squadron leader to set up the ground school for the introduction of the first jet night fighters. The Meteor NF11 was coming in and I was to head up the ground school with the expansion of the RAFs night fighter force both in the UK and Germany and also the odd squadron in Malta and Cyprus. And so I did that job for about two years and eventually was posted to RAF Newton which was then the headquarters of 12 Fighter Group as the Group navigation officer. And I did the staff duties there but also managed to keep on flying with some of the squadrons in 12 Group, night fighter squadrons until eventually one day the AOC asked me would I like to go back on a squadron as a flight commander. And so the AOC of 12 Group had me posted back to West Malling where I became a flight commander on number 85 Squadron as a navigator which was an unusual post which I enjoyed. And I did that for just over a year and one day the AOC of 11 Group sent for me and said, ‘Cook, do you think you could command a night fighter squadron?’ I said, 'Yes sir.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve got one tomorrow. ‘You’re going to become a wing commander.’ And so I did that and I became the CO of one of the other squadrons at West Malling called 153 and I was made an acting wing commander and only had that job for about a couple of months when they decided to close the airfield because our flights were getting involved with civil aircraft flying in from the continent, particularly at night. And so they closed the airfield at West Malling and I, and I took 153 Squadron up to Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire and stayed with them for a while and eventually we changed our number to become 25 Squadron. And I completed my two years with the 25 squadron, 153/25 squadron and then one day I was told, ‘You’re going to the staff college.’ And I thought oh I’m going to learn to read and write again. But I did a one year course at the Staff College at Bracknell and after that the Air Ministry in their wisdom said, ‘You’ve done enough flying you’ve got to do an admin job.’ So they posted me and my wife to Aden as a wing commander in the organization branch which was concerned with improving the airfields throughout the Aden Protectorate and then up in the Gulf. So I did that for about two years and then I came back. I’m not quite sure what to do after that but I eventually did a job as the staff officer to the Home Commander, Home Defence Forces which was an organisation which has now been set up to deal with what would happen if there was a nuclear attack on Britain and what would the Air Force be doing to help out. And one of my jobs was to get involved with working out plans on that. And things have gradually moved along until eventually I decided to take early retirement and I left the RAF after twenty six years service in 1947.
Interviewer: And to go back to your, your Bomber Command days it’s always very interesting how the crews got together I think. Now, were you, how did you? I know you go into a sort of a hangar sort of thing and you mill around. There’s no organisation. Were you expecting that or, and did you know somebody? How did your crew come together?
KC: Well, when you got in the early stages of training you started to think about crewing up when you were flying on Wellingtons. You went, in my case I went to Cottesmore which was number 14 OTU and there you meet up with pilots, the wireless operator, straight navigator, air gunners. They were all brought in there and you’d chat with them and eventually you agreed to form a crew. And that’s what we did.
Interviewer: And it proved satisfactory.
KC: Yeah.
Interviewer: Didn’t it?
KC: For instance my skipper was an Australian.
Interviewer: Ah.
KC: Yeah. I was a West Country Gloucestershire man. The other navigator was a Yorkshire man. The mid-upper gunner was a Canadian. The wireless operator was a Londoner and the tail gunner was a Scotsman. That was my crew.
Interviewer: League of Nations.
KC: Yeah.
Interviewer: And you obviously all got on and you all gelled.
KC: We gelled. Yes. Yes. We stayed together for forty five trips. Yeah.
Interviewer: And you’ve mentioned Leonard Cheshire. Did you have much to do with him?
KC: Well, now Leonard Cheshire was based at Woodhall Spa but once we started and once my squadron had come up from 8 Group and we were now at Coningsby with alongside 83, the Pathfinder Squadron when we had briefings on a pre-briefing on a raid Cheshire would come in to see, hear to the breifing. But he particularly once we’d done the raid he would come back because often he would go on the raid himself. He would come back and listen to the debriefing and if things were not coming out clear from the debriefing of the crews he would cut in to explain what was going on where he was concerned in the air. To sort out any, so the intelligence people doing the debriefing could get a more accurate story of what was happening over the other side.
Interviewer: Did you form any opinions of him as a —
KC: Oh, he was the top boy really. Yes. He was, he had tremendous respect from all the all the, all the aircrew like myself.
Interviewer: Yes, so —
KC: What he was and what he did and of course he did a hundred ops, didn’t he?
Interviewer: He did.
KC: Yeah. Can I stop now?
Interviewer: Yeah [laughs] That was Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC, retired RAF Bomber Command talking at Thorpe Camp on the 24th Of September about his wartime experiences. Thank you, Wing Commander.
Ken Cook joined the RAF in 1941 and trained as a bomb aimer. He was posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney. After approximately ten ops the crew were posted to the Pathfinder Force at RAF Bourn where he became radar navigator and air bomber. They were then posted to RAF Coningsby with 83 Squadron with the role of seeking V weapon launch sites. After forty five operations he was posted to RAF Fiskerton as station radar navigation officer. He then joined the HQ at RAF Bawtry as Group radar navigation officer. The 23 Squadron at Coltishall on Mosquitoes before being asked to form a ground school at RAF Leeming.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
23 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Pathfinders
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Bourn
RAF Coningsby
RAF Fiskerton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46466/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v320002.mp3
89516deefc0392745cfbc6759b1bedf6
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Nelson Nix at RAF Coningsby on the 19th of May 2011 concerning his experiences during the Second World War as a child and afterwards. Would you like to start Nelson with that little story?
NN: Yeah. Ok then. Well, right from the very start I would be about six, five six years old and my father who kept the village store he also was in the Special Constables and then later on became in the Observer Corps which In 1942 became The Royal Observer Corps. Now, there was a post, a Royal Observer Corps post on the Fossdyke, on the riverbank which he used to man at night and do his job in the daytime of course running the shop. And after that of course they were [pause] scrub that bit, I’ve forgotten [laughs] I’ve forgotten what I was saying. But anyway, yeah he, the post itself that was issued with what they called a Darkie set and the Darkie set was so that they could contact or the aircraft coming back that was probably been shot up and things and couldn’t get back to the base or lost and that sort of thing like they did occasionally do and consequently he could contact them. Either put them on the right heading or get them to ditch on the Black Buoy Sands in the Wash which was where they could be rescued from. There used to be two, as I remember two boats in the Boston Docks that could be launched to go and pick them up. Air sea rescue as it presumably would be called then. I don’t know. But anyway, that sort of thing happened and again as a boy I can remember standing outside the shop in the evenings watching all these hundreds of aircraft which over the Wash area, would be taking off from places throughout Lincolnshire to get the height and formations before they went off to Germany to bomb. I didn’t know that. It was all rather fun for a boy of six or seven. So from that I can still picture that in my mind, all those hundreds of aircraft. It could have been some of the thousand bomber raids which I didn’t know about then. But they would be getting the height and that ready to fly off and everything would go dead quiet after that. You know, it was just one big buzz. But, and then the next thing you probably heard was them coming back again later on, you know. But, yeah it was quite an experience and even today I can remember it as if it was yesterday. Things today I can’t remember what happened earlier on [laughs] It’s hard but from then I always had a keen interest in aircraft and no military record whatsoever. I failed my medical test for the Forces on the call up when it, so I didn’t go. What I did then I joined the Royal Observer Corps and I did thirty two years in the Royal Observer Corps as a voluntary, well I went through from basically an observer to instructor observer and then on to head observer and we were, our headquarters at Fiskerton in Lincoln and when I first joined it was at Derby. But that was a long while ago. I can’t remember too much about that but we did aircraft reporting for a start and then gradually we came on to the underground posts which was a post consisted of three post members at a time. Each post had about ten to twelve observers which we could go and change duties with and what have you. And that, we used to have exercises on aircraft reporting and you know that kind of thing. And I’ve got to think back. And anyway, things sort of progressed to the Cold War situation where we was underground in these underground bunkers and they, we would go on duty, do these exercises for reading the different instruments we had on board or in the post. We were a sealed unit at the time where we were fastened down and then it was all theatrics. Well, you couldn’t practice on the real bombs [laughs] but it was just in case we did. Through triangulation if you had two or three posts within say a bomb had fell, exploded, so you’d have a flash which was recorded on a pinhole camera and all the [unclear] would be around it at four cardinal points. So by reading those and putting them over the radio to Fiskerton if you had three posts you would get, you would find out whether the bomb had actually dropped or if it was an airburst or a ground burst. So that if you had a ground burst you get more fallout than you would from an airburst. But an airburst would probably flatten things more. So that’s how it worked and I was in that as I said for thirty two years. In that time unfortunately I did have cancer and that’s what twenty two years ago now and I came on to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. One of our lads on, which I was on Coningsby post at that time, I was head observer there and he said, ‘Well, you know, why don’t you?’ I’d lost, I’d had to sell my business and what have you through the cancer so I came down to Coningsby and I’ve been down here for twenty two years taking people around Lancasters, Spitfires, Hurricanes and the Dakota of course. But it’s part of your life but I often think what would I have done if I hadn’t have done this and I thought, yeah most of the guys here they really thoroughly enjoy doing it as a voluntary job. So there we are. That’s about it. I’m still kicking about after twenty two years of cancer so it’s fine.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Nelson. That was very interesting.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Nelson Nix
1032-Nix, Nelson
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v320002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:07:47 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Date
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2011-05-19
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
Nelson Nix grew up as a child during the war. His father kept the village shop and was also a special constable and member of the Observer Corps which later became the Royal Observer Corps. The post had access to the Darkie sets which were used to guide stricken or lost aircraft back to their base or directed them to ditch in the Wash where boats were on standby to collect the crews. Nelson went on to join the Royal Observer Corp himself and was with them for thirty two years. After his service he then went on to be a guide at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based at RAF Coningsby.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--The Wash
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
childhood in wartime
ditching
home front
RAF Coningsby
Royal Observer Corps
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46465/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v310002.mp3
dba55bcfd3288733e70c03b9fff85978
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46465/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v310004.mp3
af811d089815158df987ec0309af7ee5
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Part 1.
Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr Bob Panton in RAF Coningsby on the 19th of May 2011 talking about his post-war experiences in Lincolnshire. So what are your memories of the war, Bob?
BP: Well, all of it. All of it really. It was very fascinating with all the bits and pieces that went on. I can recall that after the 9 o’clock news every night apart from one there was a programme called, “Into Battle.” It lasted about ten minutes and you used to be absolutely glued to the radio listening to this every night which was part and parcel of what it was all about, you know. We saw very very strange things happen obviously. Only very recently was a report about someone finding an enemy aircraft which was downed in the sea. Yeah, and the powers that be were going to restore this aeroplane or get it out of the sea and it was a Dornier 17 and they did appeal for anyone that knew anything about Dornier 17s as I did. I didn’t do anything about it. Don’t get me wrong. And it was in August 1940, I was on holiday obviously, 12 o’clock father was coming down the garden path on his, pushing his bicycle and then from the south, west southwest of where we were I saw three Dornier 17s and of course as a young fellow who knew every aircraft inside out and backwards and I said to father, ‘There are three German aeroplanes.’ Father came out with some remark which I’ll not repeat and there appeared closer still three Dornier 17s. All of a sudden out of the sun appeared six Spitfires which we later understood came from Digby. Three of the Spitfires peeled away and the other three set about the Dornier 17s and I watched them shoot them down. That was a personal experience which I’ll never forget. One of them they actually sawed the wing off. It’s port wing. Just as if it had gone through a hacksaw. It just went like that and fell down to the ground. Almost immediately in our wisdom a good friend of mine who was equally mad about aeroplanes jumped on our bicycle to find the first one which came down which we knew wasn’t too far away. We got there before the Army did which the Army were not very pleased about because of course the prisoners, the aircrew had baled out and the fact that the blooming thing still carried a full load of bombs [laughs] If you look in the Visitor Centre you will see some of the remains of that Dornier 17. That was a very unusual thing to happen. They gathered all the crews together like eventually. What actually happened was not very nice. One of the poor souls was decapitated as he baled out. Got his head crushed and that was it. It parted company from the rest of his body. Another one was taken from Bilsby where this aircraft crashed to Alford Cottage Hospital by the village parson, Reverend Fletcher and when he was admitted to hospital he actually spat in the nurses face.
Interviewer: Oh dear.
BP: Which made him a very unpopular fella. But eventually three of them were killed and they were laid to rest in Bilsby Churchyard for a lot of years. And all of a sudden one day I showed somebody these graves and they weren’t there anymore.
Interviewer: Really.
BP: They’d taken the remains back home. ‘Well, that’s funny. I knew they were here.’ [laughs] Just one of the experiences, you know. You never forget. Amazing really. Joined the ATC as soon as ever I possibly could and eventually became a Senior Cadet NCO of 1073 Squadron. Won a scholarship which was mounted by the college at Manby and learned to fly with the University Air Squadrons on Tiger Moths of all things which was very nice. Open cockpit you see.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: A true plane. And then at seventeen and a half joined the Royal Air Force and went on to do flying training on Tiger Moths to start with. On to Harvards and then on to the four engine ones. The only problem with my flying was why I finished up on big things because I couldn’t have any idea at all of navigation. It never clicked. Most of the exam we had to we cheated like mad. Once outside the boundary of the airfield that was it. So I had to have a navigator behind me [laughs] as it were.
Interviewer: So, you flew Lancasters.
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And where would that have been?
BP: Mildenhall, Wyton.
Interviewer: Wow.
BP: Upwood for a little while. Variously saw an amount of service and then went on to eleven weeks with Operation Plane Fare which was what it was all about on Tuesday. The Berlin Airlift.
Interviewer: Right. You were in involved in the Berlin Airlift.
BP: Used to fly, flew Yorks on the Berlin Airlift.
Interviewer: Right.
BP: Yeah. Which was really quite something.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: It was pure and simply a cowboy outfit from the word go because that was the way it had to be. The Russians had blockaded the city. We couldn’t get anything in by road or rail and of course the surrounding territory was the Russians. They wanted us out. It wasn’t all their fault. We did things that they didn’t like and vice versa. We changed the currency without really telling them which wasn’t a very good thing to do. And I did forty nine trips from Wunstorf to Gatow with eight and a half short tons of coal in the back. So somebody trained me to fly aeroplanes and I finished up being a coalman [laughs] which was what this trip was all about. The York down at Duxford apparently when we got it sorted it all out it was apparently one of the aircraft that actually flew on the Berlin Airlift.
Interviewer: I’ve heard about the coal dust.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Still being in the Lancaster years later.
BP: Oh yeah. Well, this one was in the repair depot at Duxford many years ago. I remember seeing it and I did enquire if this thing had been found to have coal dust anywhere and somebody would come and have a look and they did. Nooks and crannies. The lot. And I learned on Tuesday when they took the floor up from the York it was absolutely covered in coal dust. But it solved a problem because they got the historical records of the aircraft and I got my historical records and it fitted. It was one of them. So it was a problem that solved after about twenty three years [laughs] Very nice. I don’t —
Interviewer: What was it like to fly the Lancaster?
BP: Physical.
Interviewer: Hard work.
BP: Yeah. If you like. It was physical. Not like today’s modern aircraft. There were no computers, no power control. It was pilot flying which was what pilots were supposed to do really [laughs] if you like. But it had a few little tricks which it liked to remind you of at times like pulling off the runway because all the props turned in the same direction but the pilots that were around were good at having to. Yeah. Lovely aeroplane. The Lincoln of course was another version. Bigger in every respect and obsolete before it really came out. Only built five hundred and three I think. The only operational service it did was with Mao Mao out in Africa. That was about it really. No way would it have even if we had gone to war they would never have launched them.
Interviewer: No.
BP: The ones that jacked it up. We were told that if we did go in to action then piston engine aeroplanes like that wouldn’t have lasted two minutes and they shot Gary Powers down didn’t they?
Interviewer: Yes, they did.
BP: From about five or six miles. I don’t think a Lancaster would have lasted very long. Thank goodness it never happened like that, you know.
Interviewer: Did you sort of see the demise of the Lancasters?
BP: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Less and less of them around.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. You’ll never ever see another one as good as this one because that one is better than brand new. They’ve been here in the wintertime and seeing what they do it every wintertime it’s amazing. They virtually take it to bits every year.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: And then every six years. Now, eight years. It goes away to British industry to do a complete service on it. Take it virtually to pieces every time. It only does about a hundred hours a year but it’s perfect.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Inside it’s exactly the same as it would have been many years ago. All the bits and pieces have all been found and put back where they should be but it’s dual control now of course which it wasn’t. Which it wouldn’t have been. The main reason being because we always for safety sake there was two pilots there. Bearing in mind they don’t fly it at twenty thousand feet anymore. It’s about a thousand feet over a lot of people.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: So they always have got to be in safety.
Interviewer: You’re not a small man and I know a few men in the war weren’t small pilots and like Gibson wasn’t —
BP: That’s right.
Interviewer: Over tall, and a few of the others. What difficulties would he, could you see him having?
BP: They always said he wanted to put wood blocks on the rudder pedals. I don’t think anybody dare tell Gibson that because he wasn’t a nice man to know in some respects. He was very very blunt and could be rude. Extremely rude. That’s what he had to be.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: He got the thing done did he not? Yeah. Amazing. But in this area of course this is where it all happened.
Interviewer: Indeed. Yes.
BP: The great shame I think is that the Bomber Command Memorial is going in Green Park in London. I think the Memorial should be outside of Lincoln Cathedral or somewhere adjacent because that was the pinpoint all the bombing lads looked for.
Interviewer: Circling Lincoln cathedral as they came back.
BP: That’s right. Absolutely. It was a leading landmark.
Interviewer: I suppose we should be grateful we’re having one at all.
BP: Oh, we shall. Yeah. One of the things that happened amongst several. Think about the Poles and the Czechs even left out of the Victory Parade in London.
Interviewer: That was —
BP: That was absolutely disgusting.
Interviewer: It was reprehensible.
BP: The bravest of the brave. They really were. Poor old Bomber Harris was treated like a piece of dirt when it was all over and before it was all over actually.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: The Dresden raid he took full responsibility. It wasn’t his orders at all. It was Churchill’s. It had been requested by Joseph Stalin to give him a little bit of support in the eastern part of Germany and that’s what happened.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Passed the buck.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: We’re still deal with it a bit sometimes don’t we? I don’t know about sometimes but anyway, yeah.
Interviewer: So how long did you stay in the RAF altogether?
BP: I stayed nearly six years and the problem I got was eye trouble. I got astigmatism in one of my eyes and virtually given the chance to say you can stay in the Royal Air Force as ground crew or you can leave. So I left. Today they can cure that problem in three seconds with laser treatment.
Interviewer: How did you feel when you left the Air Force?
BP: Oh devastated. Devastated. And then twenty five years ago I came back and joined up again [laughs] which was rather nice.
Interviewer: And you’ve been a guide here at Coningsby for twenty five years.
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Twenty five in ’86. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: You see the veterans come sometimes.
BP: Yeah. Quite, oh yeah quite often. We’ve had all sorts of people from all over the world. No doubt about that. Wonderful people that remember things. We were talking only last week to a party and we were talking about the Poles and the Czechs in front of the Mark Five Spitfire because it’s marked as one of their aircraft. And one of the gentlemen was listening very intently and when he came out with his driving licence and there was the funny name. And his grandfather was a fighter pilot on 303 Squadron. That very aircraft.
Interviewer: Goodness.
BP: Yeah. And he was, I just began to wonder whether I’d said anything wrong [laughs] but he was very interested in what happened and I said to him at the end of the day, ‘Remember the brave.’ Because he was one of them.
Interviewer: Dear.
BP: 303 Squadron. Fortunately, he lived to see the war over. Amazing.
Interviewer: Have you had any family in the war as it were?
BP: Oh, two. Two brothers.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Two elder brothers.
Interviewer: And they —
BP: One was a rear gunner on Wellingtons for quite a time until he got virtually shot to bits and the other one strangely enough was a trainee solicitor in Gloucester, called up to the Royal Air Force. Where do you think he got posted? Royal Air Force Records Office, Gloucester and stayed there the whole war. Absolutely [laughs] Anybody else you’d put preference down and say you wanted to stay in Coningsby they’d send you up to the north of Scotland.
Interviewer: Best not to let them know.
BP: He was there right through the war. Yes. Fascinating.
Interviewer: How did you feel about your brother being in Wellingtons? What age would he have been?
BP: Oh, he’d be twenty years, a bit more than that older than me. He’d be, today he would be well over a hundred but in those days he’d be something like twenty two or three. Something like that. But he actually got the canopy, his Perspex shot to bits all around him and he wasn’t touched. Amazing. Turned into a blithering idiot. He was shaking like this. It happened to him twice and he got discharged to, he was at least six years before he was ever any good again.
Interviewer: So the war took its toll on, on your brother.
BP: Yeah. Oh yeah. He was absolutely devastated. I can imagine it too. I mean the rear turret was not a very nice place at the best of times but—
Interviewer: No.
BP: Having it all shot to pieces. Yeah. Poor old Jack.
Interviewer: And he did his service in just Wellingtons?
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BP: But it, he wasn’t the only one of course. The aircrew like that.
Interviewer: No.
BP: The only possibly awkward thing was and not very nice at all was when someone got absolutely petrified they could be given a special title which was LMF. Lack of moral fibre.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: And they were treated just like that. Banished. Wherever they were based they never saw them again.
Interviewer: Yeah. They were sent away.
BP: Put away somewhere and discharged and that was it.
Interviewer: Different to, different commanders had different attitudes didn’t they?
BP: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Gibson who you’d think would be a real stickler for this didn’t really hold with anybody, sending anybody LMF did he?
BP: No. No.
Interviewer: He would get the doctor to sort of dismiss him and —
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And do it like that.
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Which is quite, you know contradictory to his —
BP: LMF is a terrible thing to do to anybody.
Interviewer: It is. Yes.
BP: Even if he was a coward it’s a horrible thing to do. I mean not necessarily be a coward because he was deadly frightened. He was petrified. But that’s what happened.
Interviewer: Indeed.
BP: Canadians and Australians. New Zealanders. You name it the lot was there. We even lost one Israeli pilot in the Battle of Britain which was unusual. Just one. I think there was only one plane. There we are. Amazing.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Bob.
BP: No problem. My pleasure.
Interviewer: That’s been very very interesting. Thank you.
Part 2.
Interviewer: This is an interview at RAF Coningsby with Mr Bob Panton discussing his experiences as a boy during the war and his RAF career afterwards.
BP: Yes. First interested in flying an awful long time ago when we had a barnstormer at the bottom of Miles Cross Hill near Alford with this old Avro 504k and he was a friend of my very eldest brother who was a lot older than me and I was, I was led to believe, I was three and I actually got a flight in this Avro 504k. The only problem is for a lot of years I thought I’d done it but we didn’t. Only did because I couldn’t see over the hedge. It was taxied a few yards and that was my flight [laughs] From then on the bug was there. Flying was the dream and eventually of course became senior NCO, Cadet NCO, 1073 Squadron ATC and went into the Royal Air Force and learned to fly on a scholarship with the University Air Squadron on Tiger Moths and eventually finished up as a four-engine aircraft pilot. The main reason being because I couldn’t do navigation very well which usually raises a bit of a titter but it was perfectly true. Never was any good. By then of course the wars were all over but another one was in the offing and that was a war, the Cold War. And I took part in eleven weeks on the Berlin Airlift when the Russians blockaded the city and we had to feed two million people and all the rest of their needs and did forty nine trips from Wunstorf in western Germany to Berlin with eight and a half short tons of coal in the back of a York.
Interviewer: Did you just take coal or anything else?
BP: Only coal. Yeah. Yeah. They gave all these mucky jobs to us sprog pilots and we were called actually on Wunstorf, sprog pilots. The five of us were all fairly young and we were all there to fill in the gaps. Anyone who went sick or anything like that we took his aeroplane and did it. And unbelievably now thinking about it quite often although we were not obliged to do it we actually went on trips as passengers [laughs] Just to say we’d been flying. That was really amazing. The memory was brought back to me on Tuesday. This last Tuesday at Duxford, the Imperial War Museum when I was actually reunited with a York that had actually flown on the Berlin Airlift which was rather nice. It had been in the offing for many years but it was proved it was one of the actual aircraft. I finished up flying Lancasters on their last few trips within the Royal Air Force and then of course went on to Yorks and then to the Lincoln. And I’ve been a guide at Coningsby now for twenty five years which gives us a lot of pleasure. To be reunited again with the Lancaster which was very nice. The best Lancaster ever. Looked after like a baby thank goodness and I’ve actually had the opportunity to fly in it a few times which is very nice. Can’t do that now because there isn’t time but it’s quite something.
Interviewer: You must have seen the devastation of Germany. You know, what did you think about that?
BP: Oh, it was awful. It was really awful. But it was war and that’s what it was all about. By then even in ’48 ’49 the city of Berlin was awful. Blown to bits. Hardly a building left standing.
Interviewer: As in Cologne or —
BP: Aye Cologne. The city of Cologne of course was and by divine judgement or bad bomb aiming we didn’t up the cathedral.
Interviewer: No.
BP: Chipped a few bits off it like but [pause] And then afterwards of course when that was all over we had a very strange experience. The Manna drop which was by kind permission of the enemy. We took Lancasters with not a bomb load but food to feed the starving people out in Holland.
Interviewer: They were always very grateful for it weren’t they?
BP: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: And still are.
BP: Yeah. They were. Oh yeah. We, odd times we get someone. I haven’t seen anybody for a long time now but odd times we still get one or two people like that who remember that experience. I didn’t do it but it was there. Somebody had written it into the annals of history of the Air Force. There we are.
Interviewer: But as a boy living in Lincolnshire you had an experience with the, as I say with three Dorniers.
BP: Oh. Yeah. That was quite [pleasant] yes.
Interviewer: Would you like to tell us about that please?
BP: 12 o’clock lunchtime at home in Alford and father was just coming down for his mid-day meal and looking to the west southwest where I was there was three ever growing larger specks in the sky. As a very very keen observer of aircraft I knew exactly what they were and I was right. They were Dornier 17s. Reports later on, a lot later on guessed at the fact that they were lost and they were, had been sent to bomb the airfield at Horsham St Faiths which was Norwich Airport now and all fully loaded with bombs. And eventually six Spitfires appeared. Three of them from out of the sun and set about these three aircraft. The first one they shot it down and virtually what looked like sawed its port wing off which was the blow was sufficient to make it just drop off plus the engine All three of them bit the dust and quite an experience really. Not very long after that gathered up a good friend and we went to explore the first crash site which we eventually found. Unfortunately, we got in to severe trouble by the Army because they were sent to gather up the prisoners and we weren’t supposed to be there. Plus the fact that all three aeroplanes still had still got a full bomb load onboard which was we didn’t know that either. A lot of stories around that. The local parson at Bilsby which was where the first one crashed, Reverend Fletcher carried one of the damaged crew to Alford Cottage Hospital and when he was admitted he actually spat in the nurse’s face. Nurse [Hundleby]. Amazing story. Three of them were killed outright. One of them was actually decapitated because he was trying to get out of his aircraft and they were buried in Bilsby Churchyard. Quite a few years ago now I had the opportunity of showing someone where these guys were buried and when I got there they weren’t there anymore. Obviously, their remains had been taken home which happened quite a lot.
Interviewer: I think a lot of the Germans were sort of disinterred and taken around —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. And vice versa.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: I think a lot of them found their way to Cannock Chase, didn’t they?
BP: Yeah. They did. Yeah.
Interviewer: And buried, reburied there.
BP: Oh yeah. Yeah. Maybe. It was, it was quite an experience that was.
Interviewer: Very exciting for a young boy.
BP: Yeah. It really was. Yeah.
Interviewer: At that time.
BP: And as I say there are some of the remains of the first Dornier shot down was in the Visitor Centre at Coningsby now. Gathered those up and gave some away like. A few. But there we are. Very nice too.
Interviewer: But very exciting and of course —
BP: Well, war was like that. It really was. Some of the memories are really it’s a job to believe them. Like the blackout. I mean that was quite something. I mean everything was in pitch darkness. You wanted to go anywhere you had to feel your way along.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: The streets, the footpaths, no lights as we walked past at all of any kind. Rationing was another one. One egg a week. Well, that was ridiculous in Lincolnshire. I mean for goodness sake there was millions of the jolly things. And every, everybody who knew anything about the job had a pig tucked away somewhere. So we were never short of anything really to be honest.
Interviewer: You came from a town, a rural, or a rural —
BP: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
BP: That’s right. Yeah. Amazing.
Interviewer: And your parents at this time they’d seen your elder brother go off and —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And his experiences.
BP: He was a rear gunner on Wellingtons and eventually having had the canopy, the Perspex on his turret shot to bits around him his nerve went. As simple as that and became a dithering idiot for quite some time.
Interviewer: Then went back in.
BP: No. No.
Interviewer: Right.
BP: He was discharged. Medical discharge.
Interviewer: Right.
BP: In case it reoccurred again of course.
Interviewer: Yes.
BP: But hardly surprisingly it must have been an awful experience for anybody.
Interviewer: Absolutely, I mean they say the rear gunner was the worse position.
BP: Yeah. The rear gunner. Rear gunner the rear position of a Lancaster. It was bad enough to look at its a terrible place to be. Even at peace. It really is. Claustrophobic beyond belief but somebody had to do it. That’s what it was all about.
Interviewer: But you’re a tallish man so you would find flying a Lancaster not that difficult.
BP: No. No. It was quite —
Interviewer: Some of the shorter men.
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: Like Gibson.
BP: Yeah. We had one at Coningsby. We called him Andy Tomlin. A smashing little chap but he was only about five foot four. We always chided him about his wooden blocks under the bench. They always, prior to actually taking command of Coningsby one of the basic needs was how to be able to fly the Lanc. Most of them had never done it. COs only lasted three years at Coningsby you see and they used to fly the Shackleton at Lossiemouth as a training aircraft. You can’t do that now of course. There isn’t one.
Interviewer: No.
BP: So they have to learn on our own Lancaster. That’s why, one of the reasons why it’s dual control. It’s on the job training if you like [laughs]
Interviewer: And where did you fly from?
BP: Mildenhall, Wyton, 15 Squadron. Upwood for a time.
Interviewer: And then the York which —
BP: Yeah. York. York. That was we joined the Berlin airlift at Northolt. That was the initiation if you like and became at Wunstorf one of a team of five of which we were christened sprog pilots because we were relatively young but our job was to fill in the gaps as and when they occurred. That was nice really. In fact, it was good. We got more flying than anybody else and that’s what it was all about.
Interviewer: And you saw the Lancs gradually disappear.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: And the end of an era.
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Interviewer: As far as —
BP: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: It must have been very sad to see them.
BP: Saw a lot of them removed and just junked. Scrapped. Now, we’ve got well about three I think in this country. One of them can fly and the other is in Canada that can fly. The strange thing is in Canada theirs is actually registered to can carry passengers.
Interviewer: Yes. I think they fly over Niagara Falls as well just to —
BP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what they charge but it must be nice.
Interviewer: I think a couple of years ago it was a thousand pounds.
BP: Were it? Well, why not? I can remember this thing very well just to fill you in on money. We were at, the flight itself was at Duxford on a Sunday, oh must be twenty years ago now and parked up. I was talking to the engineering officer, Warrant Officer Barry Sears who had gone with it [until he retired] and a chap came over the barrier, approached Barry Sears and said, ‘You’re doing a fly past over Cambridge.’ ‘Yeah, we are doing a flypast over.’ ‘I’ve got two thousand quid if either of you will take me.’ The trip was about ten minutes of course. Cambridge just up the road. We wouldn’t take his money. I said to him I’d have knocked his arm off, knocked his elbow for two thousand quid. He was serious too.
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. There’s something about the Lancaster.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: You just —
BP: I mean he would have only just had time to sit down [laughs] But oh dear. It couldn’t happen. There we are.
Interviewer: So you had six happy years in the RAF.
BP: Yes. Unfortunately had to do a discharge because of bad eyesight which today can be cured in three seconds with laser treatment but it wasn’t then. There we are.
Interviewer: But you’re back here at Coningsby.
BP: Yes.
Interviewer: With the, with the Lanc.
BP: Yeah absolutely.
Interviewer: And —
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Spreading the word to the public.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: That come around.
BP: Yeah. That’s right. Strange experiences quite often. We quite often see tears. That’s not in the slightest bit unusual.
Interviewer: No.
BP: Disbelief quite often which is understandable of course. We look at todays modern pieces of aviation well there’s no comparison whatsoever. Lots of people, if not everybody would give their absolute high teeth to fly in a Lanc and ninety nine percent of them would say never again because that’s what it was about. It’s a very good producer of blood and bad language. Sharp edges and bare metal. But it’s a beautiful aeroplane.
Interviewer: And you have the Poles and the Czechs come around.
BP: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: And have a look at the Spits and Hurris —
BP: Yeah. We did. Only as I said last week we were talking about the valiant gallant Poles and Czech pilots in the Battle of Britain who were not in the slightest bit interested in the frilly bits of the Royal Air Force or anybody else’s Air Force. All they wanted to do was get into battle. Stuffy Dowding was the head of Fighter Command refused to make them operational because once airborne they reverted to their own separate languages meaning that nobody had any idea where they were. They wouldn’t remain in formation. If they saw a little something that looked suspicious they went to sort it out. One of their pilots on 303 Squadron was Sergeant Pilot Josef Frantisek and he was actually turned loose. He wasn’t, no pilot was ever supposed to follow enemy aircraft back over the Channel. It was a trap. Frantisek did it every time and eventually they said oh well, carry on. And dear old Frantisek finished up being the highest scoring pilot in the actual Battle of Britain. He shot down seventeen and a half enemy aeroplanes himself. Half a one he shared with another pilot. An amazing chap.
Interviewer: And you’re full of admiration for the ones —
BP: Oh yeah.
Interviewer: Also, that come to —
BP: That’s right.
Interviewer: To see the flights.
BP: All sorts of stories you can tell about the Poles and the Czechs. This chappy last week was talking about these incidents and things and getting on about the Poles and the Czechs and he pulled his driving licence out and it was a Polish name. And his grandfather had actually been a pilot on 303 Squadron which was one of the reasons he came to look at that particular aircraft. It was really quite something. Amazing really.
Interviewer: So you hear all these wonderful stories.
BP: Oh yeah. And experiences. That’s right. We do.
Interviewer: Well, thank you very much, Bob.
BP: No problem at all. A great pleasure.
Interviewer: Very interesting indeed. 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
A name given to the resource
Two part interview with Bob Panton
1029,1030,1031-Panton, Bob
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v31-02, SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v31-04
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Description
An account of the resource
Two part interview with Bob Panton.
Part 1. Bob Panton was a child during the war. One day as his father was coming towards their house Bob saw three Dornier 17 come into view. Then out of the sun came six Spitfires and a battle started in front of him. Bob saw the Dorniers shot down and rushed to the crash site with his friend to see the site. Of the surviving German aircrew one was taken to the local cottage hospital where he spat in the face of the nurse. Bob’s brother was a rear gunner in a Wellington and was traumatised when the Perspex in his turret was shot away around him. Bob joined the ATC at the earliest opportunity before joining the RAF proper and training to be a pilot. He took part in the Berlin Airlift.
Part 2. Bob Panton was fascinated with aircraft ever since a friend of his brother gave him a taxi ride on his Avro 504k. After his wartime experiences in his childhood Bob joined the RAF and trained as a pilot. He took part in the Berlin Airlift. In later years Bob became a guide showing visitors around the aircraft of the museum and hearing their own stories and experiences.
Format
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00:18:14 audio recording
00:17:43 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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.
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Contributor
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Julie Williams
15 Squadron
aircrew
childhood in wartime
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
pilot
RAF Coningsby
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Upwood
RAF Wyton
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/964/46464/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v300002.mp3
5e59e5bf4d71c5f11d1ec0bf1d0caeac
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
Avey, Charles George
C G Avey
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Charles Avey. He flew operations as an air gunner with 617 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
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Avey, CG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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Interviewer 1: This is an interview with Mr Charles Avey at Thorpe Camp on the 14th of May 2011 about his experiences at the end of the Second World War as an air gunner with 617 Squadron.
CA: Well —
Interviewer 1: So, Charles —
CA: What particular question would you, you can think of the questions better than I can think of the answers I suppose.
Interviewer 1: So, you joined the RAF.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 1: In —
CA: Yeah. I volunteered to join when I was eighteen and got called up later in the year. 1943, of course. Yeah. But I, we were crewed up eventually with, but we lost, we lost our captain. We had a Flight lieutenant. We lost him because he got lumbago or something of that nature so he couldn’t carry on with us. So we ended up at Lanc Finishing School, picked up another Canadian, a Canadian captain. Flight Lieutenant Gordon Price who was going back on he’d done a tour and he was, and he was going back on main ops. But we got posted then directly to 617 Squadron.
Interviewer 1: How did you feel about that?
CA: Well —
Interviewer 1: Had you heard about it?
CA: Well, I knew of it. Particularly as it was getting near the Tirpitz business thing you know and while I was there that’s what, as we arrived the Tirpitz business was just over so we missed that of course. But I did it. I did about eleven ops after that to various places. Bielefeld and Hamburg, Bremen, Ijmuiden, [Porteshaven], Bergen. I can remember them anyway. And we lost a few crews. Four. Four crews I think in that time you know. Well, what I think about it mainly is that 1945 that early spring we were doing daylights of course. Frequently we’d go off like to Bielefeld having heard the Met man say it would be all clear. When we got there, no. It wasn’t all clear at all so you would come back. We did three trips there before [laughs] before they demolished the darned thing which the people, the local people must have been very pleased with because we kept going over threatening them and nothing happened. There you are. But I remember it. Particularly good weather you know. Apart from when we went to Bergen January the 12th and we lost a couple of crews there I think it was but coming back across the North Sea the combination of rain and sleet and snow the waves were coming up to the aircraft and the cloud was coming down to the waves. The most frightening thing I’d ever known. It really, it was more frightening than anything else I think. I couldn’t believe it. If anybody went down in that you’d never survive. And although I was born in Brighton I couldn’t swim. It wouldn’t have done me any good anyway. But oh, it was quite, it was quite an experience at Woodhall Spa living in spartan conditions. Springtime was nice but the winter was pretty, pretty grim like most airfields. I mean the ground staff had it even worse. They were wallowing about in mud a heck of a lot. I mean without them where would we be? We took everything for granted that when we went to the aircraft it would be spot on and they were, you know. Every admiration for the ground staff.
Interviewer 1: So you were an air gunner at this time.
CA: I was a gunner. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer 1: Did you choose that or is that what —
CA: Yes. Yes, when I went up I did attestation as they called it at St John’s Wood and they took various information from us and said, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘What do you want to do? Do you want to be a pilot?’ I’d joined up. A mate of mine, I worked in a factory which meant I could stay there through the war. It was a sheltered sort of thing. Making things for the Admiralty I was at the time and a mate of mine wanted to go in. He was fanatical about the RAF and he wanted to go in. He talked me into going as well. So we both joined up together. Went up together. He subsequently, he wanted to be a pilot. Nothing else. It was all Fighter Command and the glamour and so forth but I thought, I thought, well I know that if you do that it’s a very long course obviously. So, I thought no. I’ll take the short route. I’ll be a gunner. Subsequently, I came on holiday, on leave at the end of the war and he got on the train at Victoria Station and he said, ‘How have you been doing?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’ve done a few ops with 617 Squadron,’ and so forth. ‘What have you done?’ He said, ‘Well, I started my flying training. Then they said they didn’t want any more and now I’m making tea in the Air Ministry.’ [laughs] That cheered me up enormously that did. Yeah. He was the bloke that talked me in to going in. Yeah. Oh dear. And I went back to the factory where I worked and he was there. He was there. I had to keep ribbing him about that of course. Yeah.
Interviewer 1: Were you on the last operation to Berchtesgaden?
CA: No. I didn’t do that. No. I seem to have missed one or two good ones. We used to go on leave every six weeks you see. Had a week’s leave. Lord Nuffield would give us a few bob. Something like that. I suppose you’ve heard of that. That we always had this extra bit of cash and yeah, every six weeks we were on leave it seemed. And then you’d come back and find that somebody had done, they’d been out and that. Then the weather clamped down and you’d have a couple of weeks loafing about because that’s what most of war is isn’t it? You loaf about and then you get little bits of danger. Then, then it’s all a matter of hanging on and getting bored and flying training and so forth.
Interviewer 1: Did you get used to flying backwards?
CA: It never occurred to me. Oh yeah. It never occurred to me to be otherwise you know. No. But —
Interviewer 1: And you coped with the cold and all the other —
CA: Oh well. You had to cope with all the cold but, mind you when we, not like the earlier aircraft I mean we had electric socks which plugged into the suit and electric gloves. Like four pairs of gloves and I mean you know it’s, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all really except as the rear gunner I did the rear gunner now and again with my partner and we had a clear vision panel. So it could be a bit drafty right but no I didn’t feel any great any discomfort. I didn’t even feel any danger. I suppose I thought you know there was a chap up the front looking after me. I had my faith in him. Whoever I flew with. Yeah.
[another voice in the room]
Interviewer 2: Can I ask you where you did your training as an air gunner?
CA: Well, where was it? Bridgnorth was, I went up to Bridlington as an Initial Training Wing and then Bridgnorth was Elementary Air Gunnery School and Stormy Down at Pyle in Glamorgan was —
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: The Air Gunnery School where we did flying in Ansons and simulated attacks and so forth.
Interviewer 2: And did you use when you were in the initial stage I’ve seen pictures of air gunners training on the ground in turrets.
CA: Oh yes. We had —
Interviewer 2: You went up and down on the —
CA: And a railway thing went around.
Interviewer 2: That’s it.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Can you tell us about that please?
CA: Well, I only, we only went once. That was at Port, Port Talbot I think in South Wales but I can’t remember it very much. It didn’t seem too relevant somehow sitting there in, but we did do that. That was, it wasn’t a major feature of our training as such.
Interviewer 2: What about the skills of deflection shooting? How did, how did that work?
CA: Oh yes. We were trained on that. We had, when we had Ansons we flew in, we went up three or four in an Anson and, and marked aircraft would attack us and we had a cine camera thing which people presumably played later to see how we did. But nobody ever came back with any results about what we did, you know.
Interviewer 2: So you really just had to learn it yourself.
CA: Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Rather than be trained.
CA: Well, it was we were taught. A lot of classroom work but the same as dismantling the guns.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: And so forth. But everybody passed out as satisfactory, I think. That was the word that covered everything you know. Very few were exemplary. We didn’t quite know what exemplary would be.
Interviewer 2: We’ve read how when you were firing at the drogues —
CA: Oh yeah.
Interviewer 2: The bullets had paint on to see if you hit. Was that the case? Was that how it worked?
CA: Yes. Yes. We, I know we went out over the, coming down the North Sea coast and we were firing and we lost a drogue. It wasn’t very good that really but suddenly somebody said, ‘What’s all that in front of us? It’s all it looks like a big sandbank or something.’ Apparently, the navigator had got things a little bit wrong and we were approaching Texel.
Interviewer 1: Oh dear.
CA: Which was, which was [laughs] a German fighter base. So we had a quick turn to starboard and hared back into RAF Heyford, Upper Heyford.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: Yeah. That was our —
Interviewer 2: Yes.
Operational Training Unit, was it?
Interviewer 2: Yes, I think it was. Yes.
CA: Something like that.
Interviewer 2: Did you ever meet Tom McLean?
CA: Oh, I heard a great deal about Tom McLean. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: What can you tell us about him? Because —
CA: Well, no. I didn’t hear anything special and I subsequently read that he was quite, he was a gunner with some prowess. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean apart from one or two occasions during 1945 of course we were escorted. We didn’t even see the escort half the time unless they dropped their fuel tanks and they were all flashing being aluminium.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But so we were, we were in the main untroubled other than flak.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: Which was which was the worst thing really. That’s what took our losses but I think it was over Bremen we were attacked coming back from bridges over Bremen and they had the jet aircraft. German jet aircraft coming through.
Interviewer 2: You saw a 262, did you?
CA: Well, I saw them and then they were gone you know. We were at the front of a big main force.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: And I saw these ME262s I think.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But by the time you saw them they had gone like.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Did you make up your own loads?
CA: No. No. No. We always —
Interviewer 2: [unclear] the load were you?
CA: We were always told what ammunition.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: No. No. I never had to do that at all. No. The ground staff did it all.
Interviewer 2: We had heard that some gunners did choose their own loads and I didn’t know whether you knew about that at all.
CA: Well, I knew that, I think when we were training it was mentioned sort of thing but we were never called upon to do that.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: In fact, we were never called upon to do much at all. Apart from get in the aircraft quite frankly you know.
Interviewer 2: Gosh. When I came in you were talking about some of the raids and I know that some of those raids you were dropping Grand Slams.
CA: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: What was it like when the bomb left the aircraft?
CA: Oh well, I don’t know. It’s like getting a kick up the rear you might say. Yeah. It was quite noticeable. They reckoned the aircraft used to say thank God [laughs] and the wings would go up or something like that. You know, yeah, I think we, I think we dropped one. I mean it was very rare. Most of the people at the front, the CO and the two flight commanders they would have them while the rest of us had Tallboys.
Interviewer 2: Right.
CA: But, as I say we, while I was there we didn’t drop many bombs. We brought quite a few back because nobody wanted, they were so expensive we didn’t want, didn’t want to scatter them all over the fields of Germany and do no good with them. I know some chaps went to Sheffield I think where they made these things and they came back and they said these ten tonners there’s a man inside with earmuffs, masks and all that, goggles and everything with a wheel going [unclear] wheel.
Interviewer 2: Spinning it up.
CA: Yeah. Tidying it up I suppose when it was forged. Yeah. I thought what a job. We thought we had a bad job. I wonder what he’d get, I bet he got paid more than us mind you. He should have done. I felt good God what a thing to do.
Interviewer 2: Have you been back into, into a Lancaster since? Since those days have you been back into the turret at all?
CA: No. No. I’ve been, I’ve been to East Kirkby and that.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: And I’ve been to Coningsby but East Kirkby well we can’t get in there. It’s all a matter of insurance isn’t it, I think?
Interviewer 1: That’s at Coningsby I think. You have been in the one at East Kirkby. It’s Just Jane that taxis.
CA: Yeah, I haven’t. No. They wouldn’t let us in there. No. We saw the farmers. We met the two farming gents there but I know —
Interviewer 2: You should have been given a privileged tour.
CA: Well —
Interviewer 2: That’s another story.
CA: You can’t, you can’t trust people. I might go and pull something and bring the undercarriage up [laughs]
Interviewer 2: We heard a story about how some young RAF people were looking at the turret of a Lancaster. You know, fit young people couldn’t get into it and a gentleman such as yourself was standing there and said, ‘This is how we did it in 1943 and slipped into the rear turret as though it was yesterday.
CA: Oh yeah. Well, the rear turret you could slide down a padded thing and slid into it. The mid-upper was darned awkward.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: A leg came down like. You put one foot on it, hoist yourself up in there and, well then you were in. But that was it. I always thought that was if you were a rear gunner you could have a pilot type chute and sit on it and turn it ninety degrees, open the tin doors at the back and you hoped they’d open because they would slide. If you get a mechanic in there with massive great boots and he kicks it the chances are they’d jam but there you are. You had to think about that. But then you could roll out the back. Not the, I mean the alternative is, well we won’t talk about that bit but I thought getting out of a mid-upper could be really dodgy. You’d have to find your foot to get down and then you would have to go and open the back door, sit down and roll out. Yeah.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: We rehearsed it in our mind several times. Never had to do it.
Interviewer 2: Thank goodness.
CA: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have wanted to sit on this step and freeze.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: Really. Because, you know if you freeze well it might be too late.
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Yeah.
CA: And remember which side the grip, the release was. No good grabbing a hand over this, over this side.
Interviewer 2: Wearing your braces too —
CA: Yeah. These things go through your mind don’t they?
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
CA: But I never had occasion to worry about such things fortunately.
Interviewer 2: When you hear the Lancaster or see the Lancaster today —
CA: Unmistakable, isn’t it?
Interviewer 2: Yeah. Does it bring back all sorts of memories to you?
CA: Well, I always like to see it when it comes over here. When we, when I was up here a few years back when we had this, a wedding at the Petwood I was in the doorway with the bride and groom. As it happened I was standing at the doorway just before their wedding and the Lanc came over from Coningsby right down low. So I said, ‘We ordered that for you especially.’ Whether they believed it or not [laughs] but, oh that’s quite something when that comes over isn’t it? I’ve seen it on several places you know.
Interviewer 2: Well hopefully it will fly over, you know this weekend at some point.
CA: Well, I asked if our squadron was coming down for the flypast but I’m told that they’re probably in Afghanistan or something. Somebody sent them away. That’s what they told me.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
CA: But John Bell, ex-Wing Commander John Bell who is here with us here, he said, ‘I think 9 Squadron are going to do the flypast. If they can find us.’ There was always something like that.
Interviewer 2: The rivalry still exists.
CA: There’s always this dig you see. These people [laughs] us at 9 Squadron and they’re still arguing over the bit of bulkhead of the Tirpitz that passes from hand to hand when people can rescue it so to speak. Yeah. Theres been several occasions apparently on that.
Interviewer 2: Your spirit is absolutely remarkable. The same humour and the same spirit from those days. You still have that and its absolutely inspirational.
CA: I laugh. I’ve often laughed my way through life I suppose really. Done nothing special. Boring job. Sixty years of marriage. I lost my wife last July.
Interviewer 2: She’s just here I think.
Interviewer 1: No, his daughter.
Interviewer 2: Oh, daughter is it?
CA: Are they there? I’m on the radio, yeah and sixty years we were married and I lost the wife last year.
Interviewer 2: Oh, I’m sorry.
CA: But they kept me going. These two. I wasn’t allowed to become a recluse and cut myself off from the world. No. No.
Interviewer 2: Well, it’s been a privilege hasn’t it to meet you and to listen to what you’ve been saying. An absolute privilege.
CA: Well, I think nobody realises I’m eighty six. I laugh when the man in the fish shop said to her, ‘This old boy comes in here with a cap on.’
Other: ‘He’s come up from Brighton,’ he said.
CA: She said, ‘That’s my dad.’
Other: He said, ‘Have you seen him?’ I said, ‘He’s my dad.’
CA: A skinny little bloke with a cap on. About sixty.
Other: ‘He’s moved up here from Brighton.’ I said, ‘I know.’
CA: Sixty [laughs] I thought whoopee.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Charles Avey
1028-Avey, Charles
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v30
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:20:31 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
Charles Avey volunteered for the RAF with his friend who was fanatical about the RAF. Charles trained as a gunner. His friend was posted to the Air Ministry. On one training flight the crew were suddenly concerned at the sight ahead of what looked like a large sandbank. This turned out to be the island of Texel where German fighters were based. The first pilot Charles was crewed with became unable to fly on medical grounds and so Charles and his crew had to find a new pilot. They were posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa.
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1945
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
617 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Heavy Conversion Unit
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1875/46462/SHarriganD[Ser -DoB]v290002.mp3
5d0e7c3c9b4c625ba2a549896e9d0746
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-19
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
Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. Interviews with veterans recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.<br /><br />Interview with Bertie Salvage <br />Three part interview with Dougie Marsh <br />Interview with Terry Hodson <br />Interview with Stan Waite Interview with John Langston<br />Interview with Nelson Nix <br />Two part interview with Bob Panton <br />Interview with Basil Fish <br />Interview with Ernest Groeger <br />Interview with Wilf Keyte <br />Interview with Reginald John Herring <br />Interview with Kathleen Reid <br />Interview with Allan Holmes <br />Interview with John Tomlinson <br />Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith <br />Interview with Peter Scoley <br />Interview with Kenneth Ivan Duddell <br />Interview with Christopher Francis Allison <br />Interview with Bernard Bell <br />Interview with George Arthur Bell <br />Interview with George William Taplin <br />Interview with Richard Moore <br />Interview with Kenneth Edgar Neve <br />Interview with Annie Mary Blood <br />Interview with Dennis Brader <br />Interview with Les Stedman <br />Interview with Anthony Edward Mason <br />Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe<br />
<p>The following interviews have been moved to the relevant collections.<br /><span>Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46454">Kathleen Reid</a></span><br />Interview with Wing Commander <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46467">Kenneth Cook DFC</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46456">Colin Cole</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/46464">Charles Avey</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46470">John Bell</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46459">Les Rutherford</a><br />Interview with <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/46460">James Douglas Hudson</a></p>
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Interviewer 1: This is an interview given on the 14th of May 2011 with Mr Basil Fish at Thorpe Visitor Centre regarding his experiences in World War Two.
BF: Still alive is it?
Interviewer 1: Yes. Yes. It’s fine. So when did you join the RAF, Basil?
BF: Well, I was at University in Manchester and they formed an Air Squadron. This was 1941 and I preferred flying or the thought of flying to studying civil engineering so the answer to your question really is I volunteered in November 1941.
Interviewer 1: And where did you do your training?
BF: Well, we then, the initial training really was from Ringway in Manchester but this was the University Air Squadron and we then at the end of that term, the summer term I actually joined the Air Force proper with the princely rank of Leading Aircraftsman and we were, we went down to what was called arcy darcy [laughs] Aircrew Recruiting Centre down in London and from then onwards we were trained for whatever membership of the crew yweou were best suited for.
Interviewer 1: And you came to be navigator.
BF: In my particular case because I knew that two and two made four instead of five they made me a blinking navigator [laughs]
Interviewer 1: Did you have hopes of being a pilot or were you quite happy as a navigator?
BF: I, I resented if you like not being a pilot because since then of course I’ve gained my private pilot’s license and then had several hours in but at the time I was quite upset actually. But as I say I knew that two and two made four and not five. I should have said two and two make five and then I would have been a pilot you see [laughs]
Interviewer 1: And you did your, you crewed up at an OTU. Where would that have been?
BF: We did the ITW. That’s the Initial Training Wing.
Interviewer 1: Yes.
BF: At university. I was at Manchester University. So I joined with the princely rank of leading aircraftsman and then we were given what I call the real training, the flying training and we were sent out to South Africa. And believe it or not it took seven weeks to get there by boat. And then we qualified with our wing and we qualified as navigator. We thought we knew it all until we came back to England and then of course we had to, if you like re-educate ourselves to flying. Serious flying over here in Britain. Then it was what? 1942.
Interviewer 1: And you then went to —
BF: We then, we did [pause] let me just get my facts right. We did the initial training and then we went to what they called OTU, Operational Training Unit where the flying was becoming more serious and we were flying Wellingtons and that was at Swinderby and Syerston. And then after that we for reasons I just don’t know we went straight to 617 Squadron. Now, in those days people on 617 were very experienced airmen. They’d been on operational flying and that sort of thing. And as a crew when we went along never having seen a shot fired in anger I wasn’t quite sure how we were received. But after a few weeks you know it was we were part of the, part of the squadron and I stayed with them ever since. Well, for the rest of the war I should say. And then it was a toss of either going back to university and getting my degree or staying on in the Air Force. After a lot of if you like heart-searching I decided to go back to university and that then was in 1945 1946.
Interviewer 1: Where were you first stationed with 617?
BF: Well, do you mean operationally?
Interviewer 1: Yes.
BF: Here. We were the first if you like non-experienced crew or one of the first non-experienced crew to come to Woodhall Spa and that’s where I spent the rest of my Air Force career. At Woodhall Spa.
Interviewer 1: A happy time in spite of what you were doing?
BF: Yes, I adopted the attitude I really wasn’t going to come out, you know with ten fingers and ten toes. It just didn’t happen. But we were a very very close knit squadron and I stayed there and I did I think twenty four operations in in total until the end of the war. Then I applied for early release to go back to university and in those days they were jolly glad to get rid of air crew quite honestly.
Interviewer 1: Who was your commanding officer here?
BF: We had, first of all it was a chap called Tait. Willie Tait and then, Willie Tait who was a wing commander. It was then taken over by Group Captain Fauquier. Very unusual for a group captain to be in charge but he was a very, what shall I say? He seemed to be a fierce man but he had a heart of gold I found actually. So the answer to your question is William Tait, then Group Captain Fauquier.
Interviewer 1: Would you like to tell us about any of your operations or —
BF: Well, there’s one operation which I shall never ever forget and that was about our eighth and flying conditions were very very poor. Low cloud. Poor visibility and we were actually, take off was postponed on more than one occasion and we eventually took off. I forget what the target was quite honestly. And on the way back we pranged and we lost two of the crew. We were all injured one way or another but I managed to be able to walk which was an absolute blessing because I could then sort of walk and eventually we got the, the help that we needed. And I carried on flying after I’d been hospitalized for a while and unfortunately I was the only member of the crew who could actually fly. Who was fit enough to fly I should say.
Interviewer 1: So you then had to fit in with another crew.
BF: Correct. I became what was known as a spare bod. In other words, if they wanted a navigator I was the spare. Like having a spare tyre on a car I suppose. And I flew with some very interesting people actually [laughs]
Interviewer 1: Can you tell us about any of them? Or your experiences?
BF: Well, the one experience that sticks in my mind I’d better not mention names but the pilot was, he was a squadron leader chap and a very nice fellow and I knew it was a publicity stunt but we were actually going over, we were flying over Hitler’s hideout at the end of the war and the pilot did a demi run. It wasn’t satisfactory. Very hard to see the target where Hitler was and then we did another dummy run and still we couldn’t find the target and he said, ‘Well, what do you think, Guys?’ I said, ‘What do I think? I think we ought to get the hell out of here.’ [laughs] And do you know what he said? ‘You’re dead right.’ [laughs] And that was it. That was my very last. I think that was my last operational trip.
Interviewer 1: How did you feel when you came to the end of that period in your life and then a completely different —
BF: Very very relieved.
Interviewer 1: Yes. Did you miss the comradeship of the posting?
BF: Yes, I did actually. Being, being a member of a crew, particularly the first crew you’re one of the family. Rank doesn’t matter. It doesn't matter who you are or what you’re doing you’re part of a team. A team of seven. That I do, well I did miss because your first crew is, what was that saying? Your fondest crew.
Did you, how did you feel about when you were with the other crews? Did you —
BF: Well, I knew my stuff let’s put it that way and the people I flew with were very experienced, particularly the pilots were very experienced. It was, it was a job. A job of work really. That’s what —
Interviewer 1: Did, did you know at the time the prestige of being with 617?
BF: No is the answer. I was perhaps too junior. I mean Gibson was, you know the originator and then we had Cheshire and people like that who were extreme and Willie Tait was a wonderful commanding officer. I was very happy there. Let’s put it that way. Or not unhappy might be a better way of putting it.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? [pause]
Interviewer 2: Well, if I may I’d like to ask you about one or two other 617 people that you may have served with. Did you know Micky Martin at all? Was he at the squadron?
BF: No.
Interviewer 2: He’d gone by the time you had arrived.
BF: Yes, he’d —
Interviewer 2: And Shannon too had gone by that time?
BF: That is correct.
Interviewer 2: Yes. I see. That’s alright. We know that very often navigators remained in their, at their table during the bombing run. Very few of them actually looked away. Did you actually have a look at what was going on around you or did your duties keep you calculating all the time?
BF: Once my calculations had been done and I’d given the information to the, to the bomb aimer because he then was the, if you like, in charge. The bomb aimer.
Interviewer 2: Yeah.
BF: I would often actually leave my table, my navigation table just to see what was going on. And I can’t remember whether I did it every time. I doubt I did it every time because when you see what’s going on there you are just jolly glad to get back and not see it.
Interviewer 2: Yes. And were any of your operations in daylight?
BF: That’s a very difficult question to answer but I would say without fear of contradiction that all the operations I did probably eighty percent were during daylight.
Interviewer 2: Could you tell us what it was like to see a group of Lancasters flying close together? It must have been quite an experience and quite frightening in some respects.
BF: Comforting.
Interviewer 2: Was it? Yes. How close were they?
BF: Well, not close enough to collide. I mean that was the pilot’s job [laughs] and it was, it was pretty good in formation. Actually formation flying. Don’t forget I mean on that squadron the pilots in particular were very experienced indeed.
Interviewer 2: Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course. I mean we do read of collisions and and we know that Bomber Command normally flew at night. It must have taken a little bit of practice to fly in formation in daylight.
BF: Yes. But at least you could see what was happening.
Interviewer 2: Yes.
BF: As it were and I can’t remember any if you like encounters which, which were worrying.
Interviewer 2: No.
Interviewer 1: Were you on the Tirpitz missions?
BF: Yeah.
Interviewer 1: On all three or —
BF: No. The first one I don’t, the first one on the Tirpitz the squadron flew over to Russia and just being brief it was a disaster because the weather was bad and all that sort of thing. Then we came back and the very thought of doing that trip from Britain never really entered anyone’s head and somebody got the bright idea. So we flew up from Lincolnshire to Scotland and we actually could just about manage to go to Tromso and back from Scotland. So it was, and that we started out at night and of course we flew during the day and then we came back and it was it was the longest trip I can ever remember. And as a navigator you’re flying over water and we were at low level so you had very very few aids. It was hard work.
Interviewer 2: I’m sure.
Interviewer 1: When 617 were practicing for the dams raid a lot of them were frightened that it was for the Tirpitz. And yet when the Tirpitz raid came about they seemed to have relaxed themselves about it and just went for it. Did you feel like that or did you —
BF: Well, it’s when you’re in the Air Force and you’re asked to do a job you do it you know.
Interviewer 1: Right.
BF: Because you have no choice. It’s as simple as that. We didn’t actually know what the target was although we had a pretty good idea. We didn’t know what the target was. We didn’t officially know what the target was until we actually had briefing and we were briefed, a final briefing was at night but the pilots and the navigators always had a pre-breifing and when we learned what it was I wasn’t particularly surprised. And then the main briefing was late that night I think. Whatever the day it was and, I’m sorry what was your question?
Interviewer 1: Did you —
Interviewer 2: Were you nervous preparing for the Tirpitz raid as the originators had been for the dams raid when they thought it was going to be the Tirpitz?
BF: I [pause] you’re not worried. I mean quite, it sounds a bit dramatic but I never really expected to survive the war. It’s as simple as that you know. It was always going to be the other man who got killed and not you, you see. It sort of kept you going. Apprehensive would be the right, not frightened, apprehensive. You had a job to do, you’d been trained to do it and it was a question of getting out there and doing it.
Interviewer 1: When did you know that it had been successful and she had been sunk as it were?
BF: When we got back we had a forced landing. We’d been hit with flak but eventually when we got back to, we did a landing at, a forced landing at one of the Scottish aerodromes and we stayed overnight and we came down the following day and I knew then how successful it was because the Undersecretary of State for Air, I’ve forgotten his name now had come out to the squadron.
Interviewer 1: Sinclair.
BF: Archibald Sinclair. And we were given forty eight hours leave. Well, that’s all the mattered. Forty eight hours leave [laughs]. And that’s when we knew. Well, we knew actually. We knew that when we left the Tirpitz we knew it was a goner because we actually saw it.
Interviewer 1: Ah. Well, I think we ought to finish on that very successful note and thank you very much Mr Basil Fish.
BF: It has been my pleasure. I have been a little apprehensive about what we were going to do.
Interviewer 1: More worried about this then the Tirpitz. I know.
BF: Well, there you are.
Interviewer 2: We could listen to you call day. I think really we could. It’s just the pressure that you’re needed elsewhere and you’ve got other commitments but I found that absolutely fascinating and moving.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Basil Fish
1027-Fish, Basil
Identifier
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SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v29
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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00:16:28 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Claire Bennett
This Interview was recorded by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Basil Fish volunteered for the RAF in 1941 from Manchester University where he was a student and a member of the University Air Squadron. He was posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa. On one flight his aircraft crashed on return and although injured Basil was the only member of the crew who was able to carry on his flying career and became a spare bod in the squadron. He took part in the attack that sunk the Tirpitz.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1944-11-12
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Norway
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Norway--Tromsø
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
617 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crash
navigator
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
RAF Woodhall Spa
Tirpitz