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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/317/3474/APorteousB161102.1.mp3
80867f55350bb6d512266a1b71d81dc6
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Title
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Porteous, Bob
Bryson Porteous
B Porteous
Description
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One oral history interview with Bryson "Bob" Porteous (441356 Royal Australian Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-02
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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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Porteous, B
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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BG: OK, so I’ll introduce us just the way they suggest. Which is, this Interview is, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Bob Porteous and the interviewer, interviewee is myself Barry Green and its taking place at Bob’s home, Meadow Springs Estate in Mandurah. So, first of all Bob, um, you, you’ve signed the agreement?
BP: Yep.
BG: And so the mainly the focus of this is your experience in Bomber Command but if, to set the background, [clock chime] where did you grow up?
BP: Born in Kalgoorlie, grew up in, er, William Street in Perth, Customs House in William Street in Perth. Then, er, my mother divorced the old man because he was infe— infidelity and then she married a Lawrence Povey of Povey’s Furniture Manufacturers and we lived in North Perth. And I did all my schooling in North Perth School, state school, and then Perth Boys’ School and, because the old man was an abusive drunk, I went bush. Did a few things in the, er, bush, came back and he — first thing that Seth [?] asked me what was I doing after a couple of years in the bush? And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll go and enlist or something or other on Monday.’ Of course that was on the Thursday and I said, he said to me, ‘What about tomorrow?’ Being a Friday. So, I said, ‘OK.’ And Friday morning I went into the A and A [?] House I think it was then and enlisted, and I was the last person on my course, and we went to England.
BG: What, what year was that?
BP: It was 1942 and, er, luckily he unknowingly gave me a good, good thing, because everyone who enlisted on the Monday they went to Rhodesia to train and then they went up to the desert and they are either still in the desert or they became POWs in France, in Italy. So, his words about when I should enlist actually served a good purpose.
BG: Right. So, what happened from there?
BP: Trained at Cloncar [?]. I have a friend here. He’s in the next room. He’s an ex-padre and we always have fun and games over the fact that he’s a padre and I tell him that I spent more time in chapel than he did. And he wanted to know why. And I said we were billeted in, in a chapel. So I sent three months in a chapel. [laugh]
BG: So, this is when you were training as a navigator?
BP: As a navi— no, I was just training as an airman then and we were then sent to Mount Gambier. That was a navigation school and, er, gave, given the choice of going Point — to other places, Evans Head and all the rest of it, and we had a lot of air cadets fresh, fresh out of school, who all wanted to go to Port Pirie because it was nearer to Perth, but we being a few old heads we said, ‘No. We’ll go to Evans Head.’ So, according to the Air Services and all the rest of it, we, well I, went to Port Pirie and all the other boys went to Evans Head. They went up to the islands and they’re still up there.
BG: So, from there you were — at what stage did you first get into an aircraft?
BP: A trainer or a real one?
BG: Well, the trainer, yep.
BP: The trainer was, oh, about three or four months after I enlisted and we had great fun and games because three of us were training as navigators and we had three, er, navs and a pilot to train in an old Anson and they drew straws as to who was going into the first leg of this triangular course and I lost, and consequently I drew the nav table, and I opened the nav drawer to put my charts in it and found that the chap who had it before had been sick in it [laugh] so consequently the pilot, when we returned, he complained to — and the chap they found out who had been the person who had been sick and he had the job for the next couple of weeks of examining all aircraft every morning before they took off to find out that they were fit, besides his ordinary work. [laugh]
BG: So, how long did you spend there before getting into, er, operations?
BP: It took three, five, six months of actual training before we were graduated as navigators and got a weeks’ leave and then we went to Melbourne and we were billeted in the embassy. Gee, a cold bloody hole that was [laugh] and then came the day we were issued with our, um, woolly flying gear, which was no indication we were going to England but that was no indication in the Services of the gear that they issued you, er, meant that you went there because I have known people being sent to the tropics with their woolly flying gear. Any rate, we were on this boat and we were told we were going to Vancouver because we had some EA air cadets, EATS cadets, who were to be trained in Calgary. So, after twenty-odd days on the ship we pulled into Panama. The next thing we know we go through the canal and we land in Boston. And, er the OC troops on the ship says, ‘We want volunteers to take these air cadets to Calgary.’ So they numbered us all off and he said, ‘Alright, everyone on — with a two in their number is a volunteer.’ So, I had a free trip according to the CPR railways to Calgary with these four hundred-odd cadets. Consequently when I got back to Fort Hamilton in New York all the rest of the chaps who’d travelled on the boat from Melbourne they, had been shipped to England. Unfortunately that ship was torpedoed and they were lost in the North Atlantic. So twenty-two of us had an extra couple of weeks in New York where I was fortunate enough to be billeted with a millionaire. [cough] His name was Mendenhall which was a — not an excuse — was a bit of a blow because the final drome that we had in England was Mildenhall so I had to think to whom I was talking and what about I was talking as to what was the name of the place, whether it was Mendenhall or Mildenhall. [laugh] Any rate, we, er, oh —
BG: So, how did you find New York? How long were you there for?
BP: A couple of weeks. They knew absolutely nothing. They were dead bloody hopeless. My opinion of the Yanks and their learning ability is zero from what they knew. Lofty and I were walking down Fifth Avenue dressed in our RAAF uniforms and a couple of cops pulled us up, thought that we were Austrians [emphasis]. They couldn’t bloody well read.
BG: Yep.
BP: ‘You come from Australia?’ They had said, ‘I thought, oh, that’s a little island in San Francisco Bay?’ Alcatraz. And things like that they were bloody hopeless [emphasis] as far as geography and things like that were concerned and the more I learned about them during the war the, the less I thought about them. [clears throat]
BG: Right, so from New York ship across the —
BP: Ah, as there were only twenty-two of us we were put on the Queen Mary, QM1. We had seventeen thousand Yankees, a regiment of them, on the boat going over and they — everyone had to do a job. So they said, ‘Twenty-two Australians. What on earth will we to do with you?’ So they gave us submarine watch on the bridge. It took — we were two hours on, one hour off. It — where we were billeted down on the boat I was Blue C4. It took twenty minutes to — from there up to the bridge, you spent two hours on bridge watch, then twenty minutes back, which gave you twenty minutes time to go to the toilet and that and you had twenty minutes to come back again so we told the first officer, ‘What’s the use of giving us an hour off to go and do that? We might as well stay up on the bridge.’ So, he agreed the thing. So the first officer and Captain Bisset (he was the captain of the Mary at the time) — so we used to do navigation exercises so I’ve navigated the Queen Mary. [laugh]
BG: Right. You’d more time to think about that.
BP: Yeah. Well, so, er, navigation exercises for five days. The twenty-two of us we navigated the Mary across to Greenock in Scotland.
BG: Right. Go on.
BP: Got, got to Scotland and we were then sent down to, mm, Padgate. That was a PDRC outside Warrington, and of course mum had always told us if you go anywhere do see as much as you can of the place. So, one thing and another, the first thing we did was when we put our gear down and all the rest of it, ‘What’s the time? Let’s go into town.’ We wanted to see town so during every spare moment my friend and I we visited whatever we could. So, over the whole of my tour in England, I visited most of England in one time and another. Any rate, we went to Warrington. We used to go in there and come down to the coffee shop, which was opposite the railway station, have our tea in there. Actually it wasn’t coffee. It was a bun, sticky bun and tea, and so when the train pulled up we hopped, raced across the road and hopped into the train because we didn’t have to pay for it, being servicemen, Australian ex-servicemen, Australian servicemen. Only this happened to be — we did that on the Wednesday and the Thursday. On the Friday we did the same thing only the train happened to be special train going to Manchester. So, the first time I went to Manchester was by mistake. [laugh]
BG: So your first operational unit when you got to the UK —
BP: [cough] It all depends what you call operations because when we were on, um, at Bruntingthorpe we were on Wellingtons at the time and we were given the job of annoying, under Operation Annoy, and annoy the German air flak gunners on the Friesian Islands and all up and down the coast. It was our job to fly up and down just out of range, toss window out the chute and all the rest of it, and annoy the German gunners. So, they didn’t call that operational but we were two crews still hut [?] we flew H-Howard and another crew flew, Bert’s flew M-Mike and we, er, did the first twelve trips alright and came the thirteenth one and we got down to the briefing room and found out that the silly looking operations officer there had made a balls up of the things and we were listed to fly M-Mike and Bert and his boys flew H-Howard. So when we came back after the raid they told us that it was OK to land but beware of the burning plane in the funnels. That was Bert and his crew in our plane. So that was my first experience of Bomber Command and their misdeeds.
BG: So, you, you were up in the, you went up in the wrong plane basically but as it turned out the best plane to be in?
BP: Yes.
BG: And this — what squadron was that?
BP: That was on Heavy Conversion Unit, HCU, before we even got on the squadron so we thought to ourselves if we can do things like that before we got on the squadron what do we do when we get on the squadron and we went to — I was posted — actually, I went to the ablutions hut one morning and had a shower and a shave and all the rest of it and someone stole my navigation watch. So the crew was delayed a couple of days while we faced a court of enquiry as to how and why and where I’d lost my watch. When we got on the squadron we found out that the crew that had taken our place were, um, had been in this particular hall and we were delayed on entering because they were cleaning the, their gear out. They had, er, taken off the previous night and hadn’t come back. So, could have been us.
BG: Yep.
BP: Any rate I was on 622 up at Mildenhall and being a base drome, three other aerodromes around the place, and a couple of [unclear] squadrons on the drome we got the dirty work. Why should they go out to one of the satellite dromes and give their information and all their rest of it to someone else. So, being new chums on the drome we got the, er dirty work of doing things around the place. So as far as operations work my work on operations was very limited and — [cough]
BG: So, getting back to your — this was your first operations and your, your log books. Tell us more about that.
BP: The things that we did with the odd jobs around the place and my six [unclear] for instance, they got us on a special trip. We supposedly flew an admiral and a commodore with their aides. In actual fact was all they wanted was a Lancaster to fly to Gibraltar because the officer, secret service officer down there said, ‘Alright, we’ll do a trip over to Tangier.’ And when we went to Tangier we had a chappie there who was another, er, secret officer, who gave us a tour of the town whilst they left, whilst we had left the plane on the drome, which we were not supposed to do but he, being a wing commander — alright, he says, ‘Leave the plane there and go into town.’ You don’t disobey the wing commander so we did. When we came to take off we found out the plane was heavy. We had flown from England to Gib, taken off and flown into Tangier. By then we should have only had, oh, probably a half a petrol load. But that plane was fully loaded. We found out of course when we landed at Gib we were heavy in the landing and of course you don’t land a heavy Lancaster the same way as you do one that’s half empty, so they had to tell us we had a full load on board, but they didn’t tell us what the load was. Turned out to be seven tons of gold [clears throat] so in actual fact it had been a gold smuggle. They wanted the gold that had accumulated from Africa into Fez and Tangier and then taken to Gibraltar to pay for he lend lease of the British war effort so it’s one of those little things and yet it’s not in my log book. When I have been to Canberra to talk to my old veterans over there I found out that their log books do not agree actually with what they did. One chap has had twenty trips written into his log book that he never did. I mean, he said twenty-five trips, you know, he actually did but he’s listed as forty-five trips. The other twenty-five, where did they come from? The same as my log book. I do not have it to be able to verify it, but I have seen a copy of the records and the records that, that have been obtained from the — Canberra and all the rest of it do not agree with my memory of the log books. So, knowing a few things that have happened during the war and that, the log, the record keeping of the Air Force or Air Ministry and that is up the balls up.
BG: So were you mostly flying as the one crew or was the crew —
BP: We — a chap Quinn and crew, the same crew all the time and, er, luckily we kept it al— always. They were mainly things that, um, other crews around the place — we were very disappointed over the fact that we didn’t do more trips, operations, than the, that the others but we were listed as the “bunnies” round the place doing the odd jobs. So, they put us on things like, um, gardening and Operation Manna, Operation Exodus bringing back ex- ex-POWs from France, from Juvencourt and that and we had the job of Operation Python, bringing back, taking people out to Italy and bringing them back from there. So, shall we say I was not a fully operational man. I did my work with 622 but the thing was after the VE Day they wanted people to fly with Operation — what was it? Out to Australia, out to Okinawa — I can’t think of it.
BG: The, the nuclear thing or —
BP: Yeah. They wanted us to go out to, um, Okina— join up with a crew, not that crew, but to join up with 460 Squadron to go to Okinawa and fly and bomb Japan and — what’s the hell name of that?
BG: Do you mind if I keep going because, you know this will be edited? So, I’m trying to think the name of the place.
BP: I’m trying to think of the name of the thing that we all joined. [clears throat]
BG: As in a —
BP: Well, it’s a well-known thing that all the Australians in England were given the opportunity of joining 460 Squadron to come out here and we trained for a couple of months, low level work, heavy loads and things like that to fly out to Okinawa and bomb Japan.
BG: Right. So this was after —
BP: After VE Day.
BG: After VE day, right.
BP: When VJ Day came along the — we had a Wing Commander Swan. We were being briefed to take off the next morning when the chappie came in with the wireless thing and showed him and said Japan had surrendered. He said [slight laugh] — he threw the message down on the table and he said, ‘I don’t know what you buggers are going to do but I’m going in the mess and get drunk.’ He said, ‘Anyone who wants to go into town go and see the adjutant.’ [laugh] So we all shot through to London for V, VJ Day.
BG: So how long were you in England?
BG: ’45.
BP: ’45. And we got on board this ship, the Orion, SS Orion, which set out to reclaim its record to Australia but had broke down in the Bay of Biscay and unfortunately the, er, one of the insurer’s representatives had found us at Southampton and as we had surplus Sterling money on us got us to insure our kit bags and that and, er, I said OK and I had a couple of pounds so I insured my kitbag. Any rate we went back to Southampton and they sent us on a train up to Millom [?] in Scotland. They reopened an old drome at Millom and instead of sending us on leave as they should have done. So we stayed at Millom for about a fortnight and they promptly found out that we were causing too much damage to their turkey flocks because, being Australian and that, we were very expert of killing sheep and skinning them and also ringing turkey necks so consequently they sent us on leave in London and we finally left England on the Durban Castle and then —
BG: This is after VE Day?
BP: After VJ Day.
BG: After VJ Day.
BP: And it was not until I arrived back in Australia that I learned that my flying kit bag had gone missing for which actually I had insured and got forty pound, yeah, Australia was still in the Sterling bracket, I got forty pounds insurance money for the kit bag, but the thing was I lost my log book.
BG: Ah, right back then.
BP: Yeah. So that’s where it is.
BG: So any, any particular missions that you went on? You’ve mentioned a few. Any others that sort of come to mind?
BP: Actually no because we just did — we dropped people over in France and things like that so we didn’t do actually bombing missions or mine a harbour or two or something like that but the war was nearly over by the time we had so all my actual war experience was on 622 but I still, we still had to fly.
BG: So you were flying over, over enemy territory in Europe?
BP: All the time, yeah. We, even though they had, the Air Force had a lot of planes and crews doing nothing they put on tourist trips where we had to fly people, ground crew and interested parties on the drome, we flew them to places like Normandy and the, um, the bomb sites and things like that, and also up and down the Rhine to see how the bridges that we, that had been bombed and things like that. So, er, I cannot claim to have done very much bombing experience.
BG: So, you said you did some mining, mine laying. What, what was involved in that?
BP: Oh, that was on Hamburg Harbour and, um, one place we did bomb was Hamburg but that was just a mass raid and everything like that because, er, later on the experience that the padre (he is an ex-serviceman padre) and when I told him when I was examining the window and told him, you know, it looks nice and bright this scene of a burning town and told him that it looked like Hamburg and that and he said, we bombed that and he said, ‘Yes. I had a job of clearing it up afterwards.’ They sent him over as a padre in that place so he and I don’t exactly get on well together. [laugh]
BG: Right.
BP: I’m trying to think of that name [beep sound] and I forget what the American, New Zealand squadron was to represent them.
BG: Yep. I’m just trying to get the name. I can’t help you there. I’ll put that in the back and it might pop out a bit later. So did you cop much — had any mechanical problems on your flights?
BP: I don’t know about mechanical problems, the only time we got shot at properly we were on supposedly on a safe [emphasis] trip dropping food to the Dutch. We were to fly in over a racecourse, I think it was this first time, and drop food. Lancasters had all the food up in the bomb bays in the open top coffins. And, er, sometimes the drop bars would come high up and the food would drop and sometimes the whole of the assembly would drop, and you could see a, an incendiary container hit a cow, or something like that and everyone had cow meat for lunch. And when we came back the ground crew they said we were very lucky. They counted we had ninety-seven bullet holes in our plane and luckily underneath the navigator’s seat was one of these incendiary containers that hadn’t fallen off, and in the bottom of it was half a dozen dents from bullets, where the bullets had struck. So the worst raid that we had was supposed to have been the safest because we had four of those. [clock starts chiming] We got shot up the first time. The second time I think we had a couple of bullet holes in the wings but nothing as near as bad as that so, um, that did count as one of our operations.
BG: Right. So how many was in the crew?
BP: Seven.
BG: Do you remember them all? Do you remember names? Do you want to mention names or not?
BP: Oh, Frank Quinn. He got married over there. A chap, Nobby Clarke, was the bomb aimer, and we had Bill Day as the tail gunner, Chick [?] Anderson as mid upper gunner and — I forget the name of the wireless operator. That was one of the things that as, er, Bert and his boys, before he bought it the — I was in the crew, I was in his crew and when they had a pretty good night in the mess his navigator got too, too well liquored up and he cycled across the paddock instead of going down the roadway and went, went over a creek, which was by then was frozen and the ice broke and he went into the water, and he went into the hut and other than getting dry or anything, he went to bed as he was and he got pneumonia and died. So the replacement chap was a friend of the other crew so we changed crews so the crew that had Bert and his crew, which I was originally on, was the crew that bought it. So the new crew was Frank. So, I outlived that one all right. [clears throat]
BG: A cat of nine lives.
BP: And a few more. [laugh] [clears throat]
BG: So, the mechanics of the aircraft. Pretty reliable? You didn’t have too many —
BP: They were very, very good. We lost, um, two motors one night on doing something or other and they gave us — they said they were no good, that they — we’d have to get another plane because they had no engines to fix it up so they sent us to, the duty crew, took us to Lindholme and Lindholme had a, a warehouse and alongside the warehouse had been a hut site for two dozen huts with their concrete floors and the air strip. And so went in and, er, signed for the new aircraft and the chap said, ‘Oh. That one there,’ he says, ‘You can have that one.’ So, okeydoke, and when we took it, when we looked at where we had to go to get to the strip, it was over these concrete bases, and he said — we complained or Frank complained that every time we went over a bump the wings, you know, fluttered and all the rest of it, and he rang up on the radio and said that it was a horrible bloody ride, and the chap said, ‘The wings stayed on,’ he said, ‘That’s part of the test.’ So, okeydoke, so we had a new aircraft we had to take up and test out so, um, apart from that, the loss of two motors things, otherwise things were OK. The only accident that we saw occur was one where we were doing low level flying around two hundred feet in Britain in dusk. That is not recognised as being very healthy and, er, this particular time I, being a pretty good navigator, I was in the lead and the others had to follow. We had our tail plane, er, painted so that they recognised who was the lead navigator. And so I was in front and the rest were following me and the chap at the rear, his, one of his motors caught alight and he said, ‘Bail out.’ And at two hundred feet bailing out at that height it’s a no-no and they couldn’t find out where he landed and it was a week later they found out that he had landed in a farmer’s silage pit, so he drowned in a load of shit.
BG: Not nice.
BP: Not nice. [clears throat]
BG: So, tell us more about the navigation. What, what you had to work with. So, were you good at maths at school is that why you went down that path or —
BP: Actually, I was colour blind and I did, when I was at ITS, I had to go into town once a week or twice a week and that, and see a Dr Rardon [?] and have my eyes tested, and all the other things that he did, and I found out when I got back to navigation school that all our maps were orange not red. So, consequently, being red colour blind didn’t affect me. So all the lines on our radar maps were either black or orange so as you — they were big, not semi-circles, eclipses [emphasis] with the radar stations that were bases in England so you had, er, diverging lines going out over the continent, so you had to do your cross, T-crosses, where they crossed and so it was the further you went from England the worse it got. There was no such thing as accurate map reading. The only thing it was that we had a new invention. They called in H2S. It was a radar dome in the bottom of the aircraft which gave you an excellent view of things like rivers or lakes or, um, coastlines and things like that. The only catch was that the Germans knew when you operated that they could trace the signal so if you turned your H2S on you were liable to be to be shot at. And of course they had just developed the German night fighter with up firing guns so consequently they lost a lot. So they did not like you using H2S too frequently. The only other time that we had trouble, one place we were at, that they had, um, war-time huts. They were ordinary, just about cardboard, you know, hard cardboard and that —
BG: Right.
BP: [cough] And a couple of the chaps had been to the mess this night and they’d come in the rear door and they had left the, er, outside door open because they had a door, you know, a light lock on the two doors at each end and, er, they’d hear this plane buzzing round the place and this silly little chap went down and opened both doors and stood in the door way. ‘What’s going on?’ Of course, the chap came down and shot him. [slight laugh]So, we — there were twenty of us in the hut and we had to claim baggage insurance on the baggage insurance, go down to the warehouse and claim new baggage.
BG: So, in terms of your navigation, did you use D-Beam, inter-directional beacon? Did you track on VHF transmitters or anything like that?
BP: No. Dead reckoning all the way because they were just — you were so, so scarce on navigation aids it was dead reckoning. Unless you were good you’d had it. [clears throat]
BG: So, I mentioned I worked on the Becker navigation which I understand came out of Loran. Did you have any experience with that?
BP: No. We didn’t on that. The Pathfinder Force boys were the ones that got Loran. They wanted, everybody in Pathfinders wanted it, and they were busy making Pathfinder Force a regular thing, so we just did not get it because it wasn’t available.
BG: Right. Right. So, do you want to perhaps describe your, your job from — so prior to the, um, mission you’d be — tell, tell us what you’d be given and the process you’d go through. You’d have some time to plan your course before you went out or what?
BP: We didn’t have much time. They’d take you down to briefing around about 4 o’clock and you’d be given what, where you were going that night and they’d tell you what routes you had too and they would say what the expected winds were. And never rely on the Met men. They were bloody hopeless. They were worse, they were worse than the people we have at present. And they would tell you it would be a nice fine night and of course there’s be 10/10 dense bloody cloud and then you’d have the opposite. So, you know, you’re going to have a bumpy ride tonight and it would be a clear, clear fighter moon night. So you just didn’t know what was going.
BG: So, on the overcast nights, um, your dead reckoning’s pretty challenging I would think?
BP: Yes. Oh, you had to, you had to be on the ball, what you were, and of course the thing was that if it was a clear night you could actually see [emphasis] people. Of course the odd person didn’t switch their lights off and things like that. They were bloody hopeless. You were supposed to go with no navigation lights, nothing, and yet you could see half a dozen lights around the place. You knew, you knew that you were somewhere right because you had someone following you. Whether you were in the wrong place you had half a dozen people in the wrong place.
BG: So the missions that you were on were mostly not bombing missions so you were a lone aircraft. You weren’t part of —
BP: Part of three or four people, planes that went out.
BG: Right, so in most cases there would be, you wouldn’t be a single aircraft going out?
BP: No. Very rarely were we ever single.
BG: So you kept in visual contact with the other aircraft or —
BP: Tried not to. [laugh]
BG: Tried not to. Right.
BP: Because of the reason, the fact of the enemy could see the other aircraft and have a go at him and they could also, also see us so it was a case of beware, get out.
BG: Yep. Did you encounter German fighters much or
BP: No. We were lucky in that regard that we didn’t. We, once we had a few stray shells come. Where from, we hadn’t clue. We were flying, you know, I wouldn’t say it was dense cloud. It was very misty, foggy and things like that a couple of stray bullets came up through the — well, they weren’t bullets. They were blody fifty millimeter shells or something like that. Yeah, they tore holes in the fuselage sort of thing. But uneventful.
BG: Do you want to have your cuppa?
BP: Oh, yeah. You can shut it off for a while.
BG: At the end of the war, did you come back by ship?
BP: Yep. We came back by the Durban Castle. That was the ship that the, after the war, the steward murdered someone, some girl, and pushed her out the port hole.
BG: Life was cheap in those days. [laugh]
BP: Yeah. We had an ENSA party on board and, er, we were coming down the Red Sea. Nice clear night, nice and smooth, the moon was out and things like that, and the ENSA party was on the front deck. They were, um, doing Service songs and Service skits and things like that. The Dominion Monarch pulled up alongside of us. They had the, er, Maori Battalion on board. So there they are, the two ships, within ten yards of each other, doing twenty-odd knots down the Red Sea and the ENSA party having a whale of a time and come midnight [coughing]. You talk too much and you get a tickle in your throat.
BG: Right. [pause] So, do you want to call it quits with that? Have you had enough?
BP: No. I’m just going to finish off there. [pause] So, it was on New Year’s Eve, this New Year’s Eve party, and it came to the end of the party at midnight and there was a hoot on the hooter from both the ships and the Maori battalion gave us the haka. It’s a sound that you, a scene that, I’ll never forget. The two ships, the moonlight and where we were in the Red Sea and the haka being — one of those, one of those things that you would never ever forget. And that’s the thing that war always reminds me of, the finish of the war.
BG: Yep, yep. Then you came back to Perth?
BP: Yes. The old man was still alive. So, I told mum, ‘Alright. He’s alive.’ So I went and joined 37 Squadron, where we used to fly up and down to Japan and, er, we served BCOF in Japan where there was a few points to the Philippines and that and we used to fly up to New Guinea, New Britain, [unclear] round Australia. Even flew politicians around from bloody Canberra to Melbourne or Sydney and back. Don’t ask me about that.
BG: So, how long were you in the Air Force after the war?
BP: Three years. [clears throat] And one of those things, I met a girl. Her husband used to work for the manager. He was where they had a B and B up in Noarlunga and he used to be manager of CSR in Fiji and he had this B and B and they were looking for someone to make up a four for bridge. They used to hold a bridge night each Tuesday night. So they found Norma and her husband had been up in New Guinea during the war. He got killed. So, er, I finally met her. So the four, two of us lived for four years. She suddenly dropped [clears throat] dead one day. She was the second fiancée of mine to die. The first one was by a flying bomb in England. We used to — it’s a funny thing. I was on the, on the squadron and all the rest of it. Bomber squadron. We used to go on leave to Croydon which was the middle of flying bomb alley. Over the road from us on the thirteenth green from us was a flak battery. They used to fire across the roof of the house at the bombs as they came up the Thames valley and Faye and I used to go to the local pub two hundred yards down the road. Been to an English pub?
BG: No.
BP: Smoke, smoke and more bloody smoke and all the rest of it and of course one thing is I don’t smoke. So, I said, ‘Better get out of here. You know, too much smoke and all the rest of it. Come for a walk down the road.’ ‘I want to talk to the girls.’ ‘Talk to the girls, alright.’ So I went down the road and I only got a hundred yards down the road when a flying bomb flattened the pub. So instead of going on leave I went to a burial party.
BG: Bad lot.
BP: One of those things yeah.
BG: So you got back to Western Australia. So, you said you sent the rest of your life in Western Australia?
BP: Yeah. Oh, sent a few years in Sydney. Then, er, mum wanted me to come home and I said I wouldn’t come home until Seth [?] died. Of course he died on the operation table from something or other. So, I managed to get through uni and that ultimo and came over here and I joined the BP refinery and they were wanting people to manage the place so they sent a few of us over to Grangemouth to learn how to run a refinery. You should have heard mum, ‘You’re away for fifteen bloody years and all the rest of it. You come home for a fortnight and you go to London for six months.’ [laugh] She was not amused.
BG: So I guess your engineering experience through the Air Force would have been invaluable in your later life?
BP: [clears throat] Well, I was their emergency controller. By day I did nothing. All, all the time I did nothing but if the siren went and there was an emergency I was in charge of the place. So people had to do what I told them. I didn’t have to know names. All I knew was what people could do, so I said, ‘You do it.’ And of course they couldn’t argue about it because I could tell them what to do.
BG: Yep. So getting back to your time — so you were always RAF crews. They didn’t mix crews up of Air Forces?
BP: Well, we had a Scottish engineer. He was from Glasgow. His family were in, er, Coventry when it got bombed. That was the reason why he was a very good — he joined the Air, he joined the RAF. When we used to go to France on Operation Exodus and other such things, rather than wear the RAF uniform, we used to outfit him with the blue RAAF uniform. We were WOs at the time so we also gave him a WO badge. He was only a sergeant, flight sergeant, in the RAF but he was a WO in the RAAF. [laugh]
BG: Right. So in the week typically how many missions during the —
BP: Two, three but of course during the off times, in the summer time, they used to send all the spare bods out to the farmers to pick peas and dig potatoes and you name it and we were veg— I wouldn’t say we were vegetarians, we were gardeners. [laugh]
BG: Right. So that was part of the job.
BP: Part of the job. I’ve got some photos if you were here long enough to show of me doing things like that.
BP: Recreation. Now, that’s censorable. [laugh] No. I knew Faye but I was a good boy. For recreation we used to go to London. Of course, thing was we used to be paid what? Thirty bob a day then. And we had an odds incidental form, Form 1257. You got paid three pence for a bloody hair cut or three pence a week because you didn’t — a hard living allowance or you didn’t have a batman or things like that, so every three months we used to get this sheet which was about another thirty pound. So, every month we had about forty pound to spend and every third month we had about sixty and so we used to go to London and spend it.
BG: So, it wasn’t a bad life if you survived.
BP: If you survived it was a good life because I used to go to wherever I was. I’ve seen more places in England than a lot of English people purely because they iss— as we were RAAF people we were allowed a rail pass to anywhere in Britain.
BG: Right, right.
BP: The RAF or the English people could only go to their home town. We went to anywhere so go down to the pay clerk and say you were on leave, for your leave warrant, and coupons and that. ‘Where are you going this week?’ We had a map. ‘Oh we’ll go there.’ [laugh] Been over cotton mills and steel works, you name it, and all the rest of it. I’ve been from Plymouth up to Lossiemouth and things like this. We had bags of fun.
BG: Well, it’s been great talking to you Bob and I really appreciate you taking the time.
BP: Well, if you had a couple more days to talk I’d tell you what I really did. [laugh]
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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APorteousB161102
Title
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Interview with Bob Porteous
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:52:20 audio recording
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Pending review
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Barry Green
Date
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2016-11-02
Description
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Flight Sergeant Bob Porteous grew up in Australia and after spending time in the bush he joined the Royal Australian Air Force. After training and spending time in the United States, he travelled to Scotland on the Queen Mary. He flew operations as a navigator with 622 Squadron from RAF Mildenhall. On one occasion he describes a secret operation to Gibraltar and Tangier on a Lancaster that brought back gold. He also explains his role as navigator and equipment such as H2S.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
Morocco
United States
Gibraltar
England--Leicestershire
England--Suffolk
Morocco--Tangier
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
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1942
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
622 Squadron
aircrew
Cook’s tour
entertainment
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Mildenhall
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/324/3480/ARodgersR170220.2.mp3
67c5ef52bd3e8e546995b948eeec9b4c
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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Rodgers, Ronald
R Rodgers
Description
An account of the resource
Two items, An oral history interview and some photographs concerning Ronald Rodgers (432573 Royal Australian Air Force). He served as a mid upper gunner with 460 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ronald Rodgers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-20
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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Rodgers, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean MacCartney, the interviewee is Ron Rodgers. The interview is taking place at Mr Rodgers home in Southport, Queensland on the 20th of February 2017. Ron lets –
RR: And the spelling of it is R,O,D.
JM: R,O,D. Yes, we’ve got that yes, yes. Now we’ll start at the beginning Ron.
RR: OK.
JM: Back in 1924, and you were born in Cowra?
RR: Yep.
JM: And did that mean that you spent some time in Cowra or your early years?
RR: I grew, I went to school in Cowra. And then I joined the, it was in those days the Union Bank, which became the ANZ afterwards.
JM: Um.
RR: And then I was seventeen by this stage and I was transferred to Caloundra, which was a town twenty miles away. And I worked there until I went into the air force. Well actually I got called up for the military first and I reported to the military area zone at [unclear]. And as soon as I told them that I had an application in for the air force and I was just sort of waiting on the reply, they discharged me in two days, and I went back.
JM: Right. Well just before we go a little bit further there, let’s just go back a little bit. So, your time in Cowra. You did primary school and high school? Did you finish at the Intermediate Certificate or did you go through to the Leaving Certificate?
RR: Yes, finished at the Leaving Certificate.
JM: Leaving Certificate, you did your Leaving Certificate?
RR: Did the leaving certificate, yes.
JM: Right, OK. And your parents, were both, were they in town or?
RR: Yes. my Father was a local builder.
JM: Right.
RR: And he was, he’d been building there for, since the early 1900’s.
JM: Um.
RR: Had built a lot of homes in Cowra over the years. And he died a couple of years after this period. When I, by this stage the bank had appointed me to – oh that’s right, no I was going into the air force.
JM: Right.
RR: So, I went straight into the air force.
JM: Um.
RR: And I was in the air force until I came back.
JM: Um.
RR: After the war.
JM: Yeah, but in terms of the, you finished your Leaving Certificate and then from having done that you went into the bank at the local branch of the bank there and then?
RR: Yes.
JM: You did?
RR: Had a few months there.
JM: Had a few there and then they put you off to Coonamble?
RR: Yep. Caloundra.
JM: Caloundra, sorry my apologies. And then you had the call up but you had, you’d sent off your application for the air force. Why did you choose the air force, why did you want to go into the air force?
RR: Well I’d been involved in the ATC.
JM: Right. The Air Training Corps, what from?
RR: From about when I was about fourteen.
JM: Right.
RR: And I had my heart set on being a flyer.
JM: Um.
RR: I finished up I didn’t fly much. I started Tiger Moths.
JM: Um.
RR: But each instructor had about five pupils and so they were looking to get you out very quickly. And I can always remember I’d had one flight out to the satellite drome and they came and said ‘The chief scrub inspector wants you to fly him back to Malanda’. And I said ‘OK’ and I can always remember this, as I was coming into land there wasn’t a Tiger Moth in the sky. And suddenly I looked at this area, part of the landing area, and there were nine Tiger Moth’s all coming in at once. And the instructor said to me, he said ‘If you land in a white pegged area you’re scrubbed’. And sure enough, there was ‘planes coming in, I moved over and I landed in a white pegged area. That was the last time until Margaret took me on my birthday a few years ago on a Tiger Moth flight. That was the last time I’d flown a Tiger Moth.
JM: Um. And this is when then you were in the Air Training Corps?
RR: Yes, I’d signed up.
JM: Yeah, for the air force yeah.
RR: For the air force yeah. And it was only a matter of a couple of weeks and I went to Lindfield in Sydney, in Bradfield Park.
JM: Um.
RR: Which was the induction area for aircrew.
JM: Um.
RR: I did training there and then I was sent out as a prospective pilot.
JM: Um.
RR: Because this one error that fixed me. And then I said ‘What happens now?’ They said ‘You’re being transferred to No2 Wireless School at, what was the name?
JM: Parks?
RR: Yeah, Parks.
JM: Um.
RR: Yeah. To do a wireless course. I’d studied Morse ‘cause my bank manager had been a first World War guy. And they did Morse and he sort of got me going on Morse and I’d obviously topped the course in Bradfield Park. And so, out of seventeen who were scrubbed out of, there were about fifty in the course, we all volunteered for straight gunners. And everyone except me was posted. I was down posted, you know I had to do a wireless air gunners course at the Parks. And I was the only one. I went to Parks, and the other seventeen I think there were of them. And I did the gunnery course with them and then went back to Parks, and I did the course, which took six months. And amazingly enough, my closest friend there, he’d been in the next bunk to me at Bradfield Park, and I got to know him well. And we became close friends and he was my closest friend and today I’ve just read an article, he got killed in a crash and he’d written – and he’d done twenty ops and every op that he did he wrote a full story. And Bomber Command have been printing his story for the last flight he did and the one today in that flight magazine, it’s his sixth trip. So he’s, there’s still fourteen –
JM: To go.
RR: To go. And they’re putting in one a month.
JM: Um.
RR: But it was amazing the pilot, how, we got split up once we got to England. And I picked up the paper one day, and there’s a photo of this pilot who escaped without a parachute. And it turns out he was the skipper of the crew that Mac was flying in.
JM: Um.
RR: And suddenly the, I forget what the aircraft was, an Anson or something, it exploded and blew this guy, the pilot, out into the air without a parachute.
MM: Parachute.
RR: At twenty thousand feet and amazingly enough as he was falling through the air he hit something in the air. ‘Cause some of the them had got out. And grabbed onto it and it was the mid upper gunner who was coming down in a parachute. So, he came down with him in his parachute. And it’s amazing, my doctor treated him after he came back, after the war for the injury to his legs.
JM: Legs.
RR: And he died only about a year ago. And of course, Mac came down and his parachute was on fire.
JM: Oh dear.
RR: And it, he was killed when he hit the ground.
JM: When he hit the ground, on impact?
RR: But that’s just a side issue.
JM: A side yeah. Well I mean the point is you were just saying about how you had been doing your training with him. Yeah, so having done your training at Parks, you then more or less went to preparation for departure and went up to Brisbane?
RR: Yeah. I went to No2 wireless air gunners course at Parks.
JM: Yes, but after that.
RR: For six months. After that I know they just moved us out of a tent.
JM: Um.
RR: And I can always remember the mud and stuff. Onto a liberty ship which was [telephone ringing], had brought some American troops to Australia on its first, its maiden voyage.
JM: Um.
RR: And we were loaded onto that ship. And there were about eighty of us I think we were. And we went, we got let off at Alcatraz.
JM: Um. And –
RR: I didn’t go in the prison.
JM: No.
RR: We were in a, there was a camp right opposite on the other side of the bay.
JM: Um.
RR: And I’d volunteered to fly as a straight air gunner, although I’d done my wireless course and had got my wags, wings and all that sort of thing. But I still decided to carry on as a straight air gunner. And I finished up, I’d been to 460 the Australian squadron.
JM: Um.
RR: I did a Morse, Reuters Morse course at Yatesbury and then I went, volunteered, went to Yatesbury in Wiltshire and volunteered again to fly as a straight air gunner.
JM: Um.
RR: And I’d been at Binbrook for three months or something, that’s with the Australian squadron.
JM: Yeah, that’s when you in the 460, so when you got to Binbrook was when you were posted to 460 Squadron? Yes?
RR: Yes. That was 460.
JM: Um.
RR: And then I got wings, I went to Yatesbury, which is Reuters wireless school.
JM: Yep, yep.
RR: And I did fairly well in that. And I still volunteered to fly as a straight air gunner ‘cause we wanted to get it over and done with and get home.
JM: Home, that’s right yeah. So that’s OK, so you got to, you did all your, you did –
RR: Conversion.
JM: You got to Binbrook as 460?
RR: I went from Binbrook to Winthorpe where we converted onto Lancasters.
JM: Yep, um. So, you didn’t do any operational work at Binbrook? Didn’t run any, didn’t do any operational flights?
RR: No.
JM: Ok, so.
RR: Only, I was flying one flight from Binbrook. One morning the call woke me up at seven o’clock in the morning, and said ‘Get straight up to the Adjutant’s office, there’s a Lancaster waiting outside to take you to….’ And I’ve forgotten the name of the squadron which up was up at, which was up near Newcastle.
JM: Um.
RR: And, Newcastle upon Tyne, and they flew me up. ‘Cause they’d picked me because of my Morse knowledge.
JM: Yep.
RR: And I was going to be. I was interviewed and I looked at all the equipment in the Halifax. There was sort of special equipment, and the last thing that the guy said to me, he said ‘Right, there’s a Lancaster waiting to take you back to Binbrook, and we’ll contact you within seven days. ‘Cause you qualify for this job handling the electronics on the –
JM: The Halifax?
RR: On the Lancaster, no Halifax, Halifax.
JM: Yep.
RR: It was ‘cause I think there were only three Halifax’s with this equipment in them. But in that week they had a couple of crashes and lost the whole crew. And so the next thing I heard, I’m posted to Morton in the Marsh.
JM: Um.
RR: Which was Wellington.
JM: Right. So you had to do –
RR: OTU Squadron.
JM: Right, yeah.
RR: So I was [unclear] Morton in the Marsh. And we, and from there, we moved to, at the end of the course, we were moved to –
JM: To Winthorpe?
RR: To Winthorpe.
JM: For Lancaster conversion is that right?
RR: To Lancaster conversion yeah.
JM: Yep, so that’s in –
RR: And we did the Lancaster conversion, and we got a report that we were a real good crew and they were going to recommend us for Pathfinders.
JM: Um.
RR: Anyhow suddenly the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
JM: Um.
RR: And we’d moved only a few weeks before to Skellingthorpe.
JM: Um.
RR: And to, oh what were they called? I keep forgetting the name of it.
JM: Tiger Force?
RR: Tiger Force.
JM. Yeah.
RR: Yeah we were moved to Tiger Force.
JM: Um.
RR: In fact there’s a photo out in the office there of our course. ‘Cause there were, there were, sixty squadrons of Lancasters going to bomb Tokyo. And we were due to leave in two days time to fly to Tokyo up by the Arctic Circle, and the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and that’s –
JM: And that was the end of that?
RR: And that stopped it all. But we’d done about five months flying in Tiger Force.
JM: Right, yeah.
RR: And within six weeks we were on our way home.
JM: Home. So basically you just – it was all training as such. You didn’t actually then do any operational missions –
RR: Oh, when we were doing at the conversion unit, which put us onto Lancasters –
JM: Yep.
RR: We did our, I’ve got the logbook down here.
JM: Um.
RR: And between Morton in the Marsh and Skellingthorpe –
JM: Yeah.
RR: We’d done about eight hundred hours flying. And we were flying every day.
JM: Um. Flying every day.
RR: And we were doing diversions.
JM: Um.
RR: And it’s amazing, just been looking into it. [unclear] getting the letter from Bomber Command. And there was one operation that we did, which was a, it was a bogus operation on Tokyo.
JM: Um.
RR: It was the diversion, and we were mainly flying diversions all over the Atlantic but no bombing.
JM: No.
RR: It was all this sort of flying. And so that’s my history really.
JM: Yeah, no. And of course you didn’t, with the way that all turned out you didn’t then have to do any of the pick ups and returns of the servicemen from Europe back to the UK? That, others did that?
RR: Oh, we did that.
JM: You did do that?
RR: We did that. We were put on a ship, and there was about a hundred of us. Australians, all Australians, about a hundred or so. They put us onto a ship, and the Chief of the Air Force in England was on the wharf. And all these blokes were coming off the ship and shouting and performing and. Anyhow they rounded us up and got us all back on the ship. You wouldn’t believe it and down this [unclear] of Spain it broke down completely. And we had to come back and they sent another ship down to pick us up to take us back and we were another six weeks in England. And then we came via Suez Canal and Taranto, Italy. We went around Italy and ‘cause they were picking up a few New Zealanders there. But yes well it was a very interesting exercise. And actually within two days of the Americans dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki the Japanese surrendered. And so suddenly everything had stopped and we were still flying for another month or so. We were just, we were flying over Europe, doing reconnaissance because they were worried that the Germans were going to start again.
JM: Um. Was there also a concern about the Russians at all at that point, or?
RR: Yeah, the Russians. The Russians came in, in fact the Russians released quite a lot of Australians that were, or Jews I think they were, that were in jail there. But that’s all the Russians. The Russians soon got out of the action there they wiped the Germans out. But that finished up being a very interesting period. And of the crew there’s only –
JM: When did you, because you’d had a lot of changes, once you were crewed up, when did you?
RR: Crewed up.
JM: Crewed up. Was it when you were at the Wellington OTU, was that when you were crewed up?
RR: Yes, yes.
JM: Right. And so who did you have in your crew? All Australians in your [unclear] yeah?
RR: All Australians.
JM: A mix of sort of west and east or?
RR: No, they were all Australians and we had a excellent pilot and the only Englishman in the crew was the engineer.
JM: Right.
RR: You’ll see in those photos, only seven of them in photo. Although I think there was one with only six. But yes so, we did a tremendous amount of flying.
JM: Flying um.
RR: Amazing.
JM: You said eight hundred hours I think didn’t you?
RR: The two together. I’ve got a copy of the logbook, pilot’s logbook.
JM: Right, yeah.
RR: And there’s about eight hundred. We did about eight hundred hours flying between OTU and the conversion. CSF.
JM: Going into the Lancasters?
RR: Yeah, Lancasters. But we did, I think we did, about three hundred hours I think in Wellingtons. There’s a note on the, in the logbook there, that the total was round about eight hundred flying hours.
JM: Um, gosh. And so, this pilot, well your crew, the whole crew that you were on. Did you stay together as a crew and then return home as a crew?
RR: Yes, yes.
JM: Yes, OK. And did –
RR: Out of that crew there’s only the pilot and myself left alive.
JM: And who’s the, is the pilot, was the pilot?
RR: The pilot was Wal Goodwin.
JM: Goodwin, yeah right.
RR: And we think there’s only the two of us out of the crew, others have died.
JM: Yes.
RR: ‘Cause the navigator and the bomb aimer were both, I think ten years at least older.
JM: Yep.
RR: The rest of the crew. And the pilot he’s just turned forty, sorry, ninety-four.
JM: Yep.
RR: And I’ll be ninety-three in August.
JM: August, yeah. And how, what, even though you were doing all this flying as training, were there any particular events, or sequence of events, that sort of perhaps stood out for you? That stay with you more than others? Couple of things, anything to mention?
RR: One of our flights over the North Sea we lost an engine and went into a dive and the pilot was getting ready to bail out. And we were out in the middle of the North Sea and there was no way of getting the dinghy out or anything. That was probably the worst experience.
JM: So, what did the pilot manage to recover at the last minute or?
RR: Yes. It got into a steep dive and the pressure on the jets, or the propellers, started the engine up again. And we were OK. We had one other –
JM: In the Wellington or the Lancaster?
RR: No, in the Lancaster.
JM: In the Lancaster, um.
RR: ‘Cause they used us in training for patrolling the North Sea, we did everything except drop bombs really.
JM: Um. ‘Cause I presume you were monitoring ship movements and that sort of thing were you?
RR: Yeah, yeah. In fact, I’m just reading a book about the, what’s it called, [unclear] I just bought it home. Guy that lent it to me, is our gardener lent it to me. It’s about eight hundred pages but it’s all about Bomber Command and their attacks on the Turbots. And thinking of the Turbots I went back a second time and found that it had a great hole in the side and the Turbot was sunk. Was sunk there and that was the end of it.
JM: So that was one when you lost that engine. Anything else that stays with you more than any other?
RR: No. We had a couple of tricky landings you know? They lost power and we came in round on the strip a couple of times. Only a couple of times, but in fact he was such a good pilot that one of the flights we came back, and it was in the daytime. We landed and we went into the briefing room and suddenly a person run in the briefing room and said ‘Is the pilot called Goodwin here?’ and we said ‘Oh yeah, Wal.’ And Wal stood up and he said ‘You’re wanted in the tower, some top-ranking officer wants to talk to you.’ And what it was, this guy was the top, one of the top half dozen in the air force. And he called him into the tower and said ‘Right’ he said ‘I just want to congratulate you,’ he said ‘That is the best landing I’ve ever seen made by a Lancaster.’
JM: Goodness.
RR: And from that we were recommended for Pathfinders. We were lucky we were a top crew and if the Tiger Force hadn’t suddenly happened we would have been posted to, to do, I’ve forgotten, I’ve lost track of what I was talking about now.
JM: You would have gone off to Pathfinders.
RR: Pathfinders.
JM: Yeah.
RR: Yeah. As a crew we would have been –
JM: Moved on.
RR: To Pathfinders.
JM: Yeah. And what about your leave times? You probably had various, quite often you would have had patches of leave, what sort of things did you do while you were on leave? Did you go anywhere? Did you end up with a particular place that you enjoyed going to or did you go to many different places, or?
RR: Well mainly we went on short breaks, somewhere the – there was one when we first got to England. We’d been there about three weeks I think it was and they said ‘ You’ve got five days leave.’ And a group of us, four or five of us, went off and stayed in a hotel in London, and that night was the most V1’s and V2’s they had over London in the whole time, London was very bombed.
JM: Bombed.
RR: And it was quite amazing. And we were there for two nights watching them.
JM: Um, um. And presumably the hotel you were staying in didn’t get any damage?
RR: No, no, no. ‘Cause they were going for certain targets and it was all round central London. But the other thing which happened to myself and I think three or four of us, the first night we were in Brighton, we were in two old hotels. Something and the ‘The Grand’ was the name of them. And that’s where we were living and this first night, and there was an air raid on London. And we all went down and got in the air raid shelter and when it was over we came back and went to bed. And next thing there’s a guy shouting at us. And he said ‘Get your uniform on, I’ve got a job for you.’ And there were four or five of us and I don’t know whether you know Brighton but the cemetery’s in very close. And he said ‘I want you to pick up a German who’s in the cemetery’ and we walked round, about eleven o’clock at night. And when we got into the cemetery there was this German in a parachute stuck in way up in the tree –
JM: Was he alive still?
RR: He was dead.
JM: He was dead.
RR: Obviously his ‘chute hadn’t opened properly and we had to get him down and have him taken away, yeah.
JM: Gosh, that’s a bit of an introduction to –
RR: Yeah, well we’d only been there –
JM: What two days in Brighton? Gosh –
RR: The other thing that I haven’t told you about, which is, and I’ve talked on this at luncheons and this sort of thing. Oh yes, yeah the Queen Elizabeth, when we came to get on the Queen Elizabeth, there were about eighty Australians and there was a band with about sixty or eighty in it and they played. And we marched down the side of this ship, and all we could see was a great hole in the side. And when we got in we found out it was the Queen Elizabeth. And the Queen Elizabeth, I’ve got all the records there somewhere. There were twenty thousand American troops on it. And they’d all loaded before us. And we came in and went into the area that was the, had been the middle stage, never been finished properly. And we were in a double cabin, and there were seventeen of us in the cabin. We slept on the floor with palisses, OK? So that night suddenly all the doors close, this sort of thing and we sailed off. And we’re out at sea two days and suddenly there was a great clanging of bells and this sort of thing. And they said ‘Everyone wherever you are on the ship.’ ‘Cause it was all colours, say if they wanted to use yellow that line down there would be yellow.
JM: Um.
RR: And that one over there would be red something. And we’d been picked out because we were all in gunnery and we were given a badge with a big ‘G’ on it. And so they said ‘Everyone stay where you are on the ship don’t move.’ And next thing all the guns on the grilles have opened up firing and unbeknown to us at the time ‘cause the gunnery on the Queen Elizabeth, there were three or four fat guns. And there was the gunnery crew, who were military, was over eight hundred. And all these opened up and there was a German Condor aircraft which had been tracking us since we’d pulled out from the wharf, and he was working in with a submarine group of eight or ten subs. And they were out in the North Sea, and we were only two days out, waiting for us. ‘Cause they were on the attack straight away out of the Condor aircraft. Took off because there was that much firing of flak and this sort of thing. It disappeared and they put a warning over the loudspeaker ‘Everyone, where you are stay there and hang on.’ And the boat did a ninety degree turn. Found out, I’ve since, met up with a guy who was pulled into the bridge whilst this was going on, and he said they’d got up to thirty-five knots and did this right angle turn and we went to Greenland. And we had a day aboard in Greenland. Then we went to Greenock in Scotland [unclear] day or couple of days. But Queen Elizabeth could have been sunk, it was quite amazing.
JM: It would have been an incredible number of lives lost.
RR: Oh God.
JM: You said there were twenty thousand Yanks on board, and then.
RR: Yeah, yeah.
JM: All the Australians and everyone else, and then all the gunnery guys.
RR: Yeah. I can always remember, another guy and myself were in the corridor kinda the mall, and this giant black guy pulled us up and for some reason or another, I don’t know why. And it was the bloke who was world heavyweight boxing champion. Trying to think of his name, I can’t think of his name. I knew it well, but he was on the ship for the whole trip. Can’t think of his name, memory is going a bit. But he was patrolling.
JM: Right.
RR: He said to us ‘Stay there, don’t move’.
JM: And you wouldn’t be arguing with him. [laughs]
RR: No. And they hunted off this Condor.
JM: Condor yeah.
RR: Which is a big aircraft. But we were just lucky. And what happened after we got to England. The Americans had sent several destroyers out after the subs, and they broke up the sub pack. And they captured a hundred I think. A couple of crews and it’s amazing that it could quite easily happen to someone like him, he was the world heavyweight boxing champion.
JM: Um, yeah.
RR: Oh, I know his name as well as anything.
JM: Oh well it’ll come back. So, when you were flying were you aware of anyone in the crew that carried a particular good luck charm or had any particular suspicions that they sort of?
RR: No, funny none of ‘em.
JM: None of them?
RR: No.
JM: So, they’re all pretty laid back and –
RR: Yeah they were all –
JM: Happy, confident in each other abilities all the time so didn’t have any need for?
RR: Yes it’s amazing. Of course out of the lot of them. Lot of German aircraft in the area but I think once they saw what ship it was and they would know they had flak guns they just backed off.
JM: Yeah. But as I say when you were flying, in all the hours of flying that you did you didn’t have any of your crew members had any good luck charms with them?
RR: No.
JM: No. And we were talking about when you did your leave and you talked about the time that you went to London and there was that heavy bombing.
RR: Yes.
JM: Any other times that you were on leave that stand out for any reason? Where you did something special or something funny happened to you?
RR: We got a group of us, about thirty of us I suppose, all Australians out of this intake. We got sent to Whitley Bay.
JM: Um.
RR: To a, like a, it was a military course.
JM: This was in June 1944?
RR: That would have been June ’44.
JM: Yeah.
RR: And, oh, can’t think about it.
JM: You went to Whitley, a group of you went to Whitley Bay?
RR: Oh yes. Whitley Bay and did this course. It was a, it had a name for it, I’ve forgotten the name. And the last day in it, I can always remember I had conjunctivitis in one of my eyes and so I went sick. And of course in the group of six or eight that we were in was a fella named Lenny Richards. Always remember his name. And we knew it was grenade throwing today and I said ‘I thnk I’ll be sick’ this conjunctivitis so I didn’t go. So, of course they were all having a joke that Lenny would drop a grenade or something, but he didn’t kill anyone. Anyhow I run into him one day years later, just off Martin Place, he was working for one of the typewriter companies –
JM: Um. That was a coincidence. And so when you were sent, eventually got going and got back to –
RR: Australia.
JM: Australia, you were discharged then?
RR: Yeah, and –
JM: In March 19 –
RR: Posted to Newcastle in the ANZ Bank.
JM: Yeah. So you discharged in the March of ’46?
RR: Yeah, that’d be right.
JM: Yeah, so then you what, went straight back into the bank?
RR: I went back into the bank at Newcastle.
JM: Um.
RR: In fact, I finished up marrying, my wife was a Newcastle girl.
JM: Um, so you met at Newcastle?
RR: Yeah, yeah. And then I was transferred to Oxford Street in Sydney in ANZ Bank. And then I got moved back from there to Head Office in Martin Place and I was Personnel Officer for New South Wales. Then after I’d done that for twelve months or so I became Methods Officer and was just driving round all the branches checking up on their equipment and this sort of thing, did that for [unclear]. Ran into several years, yes.
JM: So then did you retire from the bank or did you?
RR: I retired from the bank.
JM: Um.
RR: I retired from the bank in um, hard to think, around nineteen, about 1970 I think it was. I’d been to Newcastle staying with people that we’d known for years. I didn’t know that he was an alcoholic and he had a real estate business at Burley Heads. I finished up buying a half interest in it, and I did that for a couple of years. And Hookers had one office in Surfers’ Paradise and they wanted to get rid of the manager and they approached me from Hookers in Sydney. They flew me down and talked to various top guys and by the time I got back they’d offered me the job of managing the Hooker office in Surfers’ which had about ten or twelve staff. And I did that for several years and then resigned and came to the Gold Coast. I had this half interest business with this other guy, I found that he did all the drinking I did all the work.
JM: Work.
RR: But oh yes, pretty good life really.
JM: Um.
RR: And when I eventually sold out of here I had a job offer running Hookers. I’m trying, I’ve forgotten, years get away, so had a pretty good life really.
JM: Um, well that’s good. And it means that you’ve been able to do quite a lot. You mentioned that your pilot’s still alive. So, have you maintained, when you first came back did you maintain contact with the crew?
RR: Yes.
JM: All of the crew sort of?
RR: Yes. In fact, actually the rear gunner, his son had a job in the war memorial.
JM: Oh right.
RR: And he’d been there quite a few years.
JM: Um.
RR: So, he said ‘Well G-George is going to be refurbished, reconditioned and they’ll be taking it out. Why don’t you as a crew organise a couple of days? Come down to Canberra,’ he says ‘I’ll organise you an inspection on G-George and getting in,’ we finished up having two or three hours early in the morning, climbing all over G-George. Quite amazing.
JM: Would have brought back some memories to see George?
RR: Yeah.
JM: Not that it was in your unit, your squadron I should say. But that’s, well George was in 460.
RR: Yes. 460.
JM: So, there’s a relation. Like when, so you were in 460 briefly but so was George flying, being flown then when you were in 460?
RR: Yeah, when I was at 460 G-George was in that period. Was a period, three or four months I think it was I was there as specialist operator studying, it was to study the equipment that they were using then. But G-George had flown out to Australia by then it was just on display.
JM: Yeah, that’s right. And so as you say all the rest of the chaps have now passed away?
RR: Oh yes.
JM: But you still, where’s Wal Goodwin, is he?
RR: He’s in Melbourne.
JM: He’s in Melbourne is he?
RR: Yes, he’s two years older than I am. He’ll be ninety-four, he’s probably turned ninety-four now. And he’s fit and well. And it’s –
JM: Do you know if he’s been a member of Bomber Command or Odd Bods or anything?
RR: Him?
JM: Yeah.
RR: I would think he would, he seems to have a close contact in the veterans’ affairs. He occasionally used to get things that veterans’ affairs were sort of handing out, that sort of thing. But I talk to him at least every two or three months.
JM: Right.
RR: Particularly on birthdays and that sort of thing.
JM: Um.
RR: But the bomb aimer and the navigator were both at least ten years older than us. And the rear gunner just died he was the same age as myself, and he died only three or four months ago. And the, we had an Australian guy, brought into the crew as the engineer and he came from Adelaide and we’ve never heard a word from him or, he only sort of came in at the last bit.
JM: Last bit um.
RR: Last few months. So, I don’t know what’s happened to him.
JM: And he didn’t, did he travel home with you at the same time? In the same group?
RR: Came home in the same group.
JM: Yeah. But he didn’t sort of maintain any contact?
RR: Maintain any contact, no, it’s amazing really that we’ve lost track. Well we know that the navigator’s dead, the bomb aimer’s dead, the pilot’s alive and so that leaves us three gunners and one other the engineer who was an Australian, an Australian pilot, who they gave him an engineers course and he flew with us a couple of months or so.
JM: Months yeah.
RR: Yeah.
JM: So, you mentioned you do talks, have done talks in the past? Is there anything else that you would perhaps mention in those talks we haven’t covered now?
RR: No, I don’t think so. I think I’ve pretty well covered everything.
JM: Yeah, and maybe a bit more?
RR: Um?
JM: And maybe a bit more?
RR: Yeah, yeah. I got those couple of forms here.
JM: Of yes, well we’ll do those in a minute but –
Unknown: Coming down the stairs, I heard that you forgot Shorty.
RR: Huh?
Unknown: You forgot Shorty. Your wireless operator.
RR: Oh, Shorty died.
Unknown: Didn’t mention him.
RR: Yeah, Shorty died. [garbled mixture of voices] that was the other one I couldn’t think of.
JM: Yeah, right. So that’s all good.
RR: Yeah.
JM: Alright well if there’s nothing else that you –
Unknown: Would you like a cup of tea or cup of coffee?
JM: Well we’ll just finish the record. We’ll sort out the paperwork and that.
Unknown: You haven’t finished recording? I thought you might have done.
JM: That’s OK, no, no it’s alright we’re just wrapping up now. So, I’ll just formally thank you Ron very much for sharing all those memories with us. It’s very much appreciated and it’s just wonderful that you could give us the time and make the effort to do so.
RR: Good, no problem.
JM: Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ARodgersR170220
Title
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Interview with Ronald Rodgers
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:07:56 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-20
Description
An account of the resource
Ronald Rodgers joined the Royal Australian Air Force aged seventeen, having previously been in the Air Training Corps. He trained as an air gunner and was posted to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook but did not fly operationally. On discharge in 1946 Roy worked in banking, retiring in 1970.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
460 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Halifax
Lancaster
RAF Binbrook
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Yatesbury
Tiger force
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/327/3486/AShuttleworthHJ151021.1.mp3
1e229b0a918cfe3b6d74219097f584c4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/327/3486/PShuttleworthJ1501.1.jpg
59a7d9a38c1dae94a5276abcaff86f0f
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
Shuttleworth, Joe
Hugh Joseph Shuttleworth
Hugh J Shuttleworth
Hugh Shuttleworth
H J Shuttleworth
H Shuttleworth
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Hugh Joseph "Joe" Shuttleworth.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-21
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
Shuttleworth, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive is with Joe Shuttleworth. A 50 Squadron rear gunner. The interview is taking place in Surrey Hills which is a suburb of Melbourne. It is the 21st of October 2015. My name’s Adam Purcell. So, I think we’ll start, if you don’t mind Joe with can you tell me something of your early life, growing up? What you did before the war.
JS: Well I grew up and born in Brisbane and had a pretty charmed life. Went to a state school. Wasn’t much but was good at ball games and I enjoyed life with my mother and father. Father had a job whereas, you know in the Depression years in the 1930s times were pretty rough really. I remember kids taking food out of rubbish bins at school. That didn’t ever happen to me. My mother and father came from Victoria and they moved up to Queensland at some point about 1920/21. And they came. Big families. And I had the opportunity of being sent down to, to Melbourne when I was ten and again when I was fourteen and caught up with my, my relatives on both my mother’s side and father’s side. And after a long time my mother and father agreed to, that I join the air force. So I went to the air force place and I was accepted to air crew. And that was February 1941. That was before the Japanese war but I wasn’t called in for a uniform until May of 1942. By that time the Japanese were well advanced in the, in Northern Australia. I was at 3 ITS. The Initial Training School that was based at Sandgate and the waterfront was just outside, you know. Do you know? You know Brisbane I suppose?
AP: I don’t. I don’t know it very well but —
JS: Do you know Sandgate then?
AP: No. I don’t actually.
JS: The water was just outside the area there. There I was told I wasn’t accepted to go in aircrew because I had an eye deficiency. I wasn’t smart enough to be accepted as a navigator. They were the boys with all the brains. So I enlisted as a wireless operator/ gunner and went to Maryborough where I was there for about seven months. Whilst there I got the mumps and I was in the, in the hospital at the camp for a few days and then I went down to a convalescent place nearby. Spent a couple of very enjoyable weeks there. Life in Maryborough was, was pretty good and we stayed in huts of about forty blokes in there. Food was pretty good. I palled up with a particular bloke who came from Bundaberg. He had a brother that was killed in the early stages of the war. And we saw a bit of Bundaberg, went down to the various beaches on the back of his motorbike. Then after Maryborough went down to Evans Head to a, to a gunnery school and did a bit of flying there. We had Fairey Battles aircraft pulling a drogue and we’d have a pretty, what do they call it, a go gun to shoot at the drogue. About 5 o’clock everybody was saying to me go down to the, to the beach. Occasionally I went to Lismore for the weekend and I stayed at a hotel there. Was presented with the, with the wings and went back to, to Brisbane. Stayed around on, on leave there for a few weeks. The air force then sent us down to Melbourne. We, I was able to get caught up, caught up with my relatives. Uncles and aunts on both side. Saw my grandmother who died when I was overseas. And then, surprisingly the air force decided to send us back to Brisbane. We sailed from Brisbane in about May of ’42. Went down to the wharf and got on to a ship. A Dutch ship. The [pause] What was its name? Anyways, under, under American command. We had bunks down in the holds of the ship. It was, the air was pretty putrid there. I elected to sleep out most nights on the, on the deck. Sometimes I got a bit wet but just a light shower. Life was pretty good. There was lots of good reading material there. Particularly a publication, a Saturday Morning Post, err Saturday Evening Post. But it ceased publication but I read a lot about American life. We had nineteen days on the, on the Pacific. Didn’t see another ship. Didn’t see any land at all. But it was a very enjoyable nineteen days. The weather was pretty good the last couple of days going into San Francisco. In San Francisco it got a bit rough but not too bad. Went in under the Golden Gate Bridge and the ship docked just in the bayside outside Alcatraz at the, the big prison there. After about a day and a half we went across to, to Oakland. Got on a, sent on a train and we went on the train — spent about four and a half days on the train going across America. Went up through Sacramento and that’s where I saw my first snow. I hadn’t seen snow in my life because my previous trips to Melbourne were in the summertime. It was. There was no, no snow up there [unclear]. And we went to, we sat up during the daylight hours and there’d be an American negro putting down the beds that we could sleep on at night. But it was very interesting going across America, seeing. I recall going across on the boat — we didn’t have any ice cream and I think I had the best ice cream in my life at Salt Lake City early one morning. Bought a, bought a packet. It was great. We continued on the train across the, across the Mississippi which the negro, the negro fellow pointed out to us and went outside to a place called Taunton which was outside Boston and there we had some leave. Got down to New York. Saw The Rockets. They were a dancing team. Also, the Rockefeller Centre which is an ice rink there. Lots of American people skating around on, on ice. Went down to Philadelphia to see a, the father, I previously worked in Brisbane at the SKF Bearing Company and an American GI, I believe went in there to enjoy himself about his father being employed at the SKF Bearing Company in Philadelphia. So, I went down there, introduced myself and they looked after me very well. Went back to Boston. We used to get leave in the, during the day. Went down to, to Rhode Island. And life was, was pretty good really. Then we went down to New York. Got aboard the, the Queen Elizabeth and at that time in the next berth was the Queen Mary and alongside again on an adjoining wharf was the Normandie, the French ship which was sunk there — caught fire and they pumped so much water I think it was always suspected it was a, as a ploy really because the Normandie would have been a great asset to the allies ferrying troops to and from Europe. There was only about two hundred Australians there. We were selected to do anti-craft, anti-aircraft watch on the, on the ship. And that was a bit, a bit of a thrill for a twenty year lad on the QE. Was it just the Queen Elizabeth? The QE1 it was subsequently called. Spent about four and a half days getting across the Atlantic. Went in to Scotland to, to Greenock. Stayed there on the ship for about a day and a half and then got on a train and sent down to Brighton. And one, one evening I was out on the, doing the anti-aircraft watch and a Sunderland circled around and it was pretty atrocious weather and I thought not Coastal Command. It’s not for me. I’ll take my risk on Bomber Command. So, after a few weeks in, in Brighton I was sent to 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe which is now still an operating airfield. The equivalent of something like Moorabbin. It’s not, not an RAF station. But Bruntingthorpe initially was pretty much lectures and the operation of turrets and I did reasonably well on that. I was selected by a flight lieutenant, a Scotsman from Dunoon in Scotland and he, he thought I had potential evidently. There was another chap, Bill Bottrell. He was an Irishman and he had an Irish wireless operator and they were very keen for me to join their crew but I didn’t do so. But fortunately, or unfortunately they were all subsequently killed. At the OTU we lost two aircraft. One disappeared off the Wales Coast and another coming back from dropping pamphlets over France crashed. There was an Australian air gunner, rear gunner, he died. And the only person who got out of it, a chap named Terry Wilder who I subsequently met and I’ll refer to him later. The flying was at an subsidiary airfield Cresswell. And on OT, on Wellingtons, which were pretty well clapped out, one night we were doing circuits and bumps as I used to call them. Just circling around. Mainly to get the pilot practising in flying the Wellington. Circuits and landings and take offs. But one night when we were just about on air speed of about a hundred, a hundred kilometers an hour got a tyre burst and the aircraft crashed and slewed around. We all walked out of it unscathed but the risk was that sometimes in those circumstances if it caught fire because the Wellington was only fabric covered. Then whilst at Bruntingthorpe the adjoining village was at Lutterworth and there was a bit of a fair there one night and I was walking around and girls, two girls came up and one girl, Joyce Barry asked me did I have any change which I was able to oblige but I palled up with the other girl Freda who I subsequently married. We, we spent a lot of, a bit of time together. I was, after leaving Bruntingthorpe, I went up to Bitteswell and converted there to four-engined aircraft. Particularly the Lancaster. What’s so interesting in my father’s era pretty well they were all smokers but in our crew, there was only two smokers — the wireless operator and the top gunner. And that was pretty representative of the situation, I think, everywhere really. So, it’s the attitude to smoking has changed so much over the years. At, at Bitteswell we could, I was sent up to Skellingthorpe to do fighter affiliation work. We had Australians flying Tomahawks and, you know they were just making a simulated attacks on the aircraft and there would be a camera so that it would record what you did and the circumstances. We also changed the wireless operators at Bitteswell but I was up at Skellingthorpe so I don’t know really what happened. I wasn’t there to. Then we went to Morton Hall. To a commando school really. Jumping over fences and getting through wires etcetera. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle on the second day so I was, did very little. I often thought subsequently that Morton Hall could have been the Command Centre for 5 Group but I, I don’t know whether that was right or not. Also, when we were at Bruntingthorpe we could hear engines running and just talked about, you know a place down the road running engines. We subsequently found that it was Frank Whittle, subsequently Sir Frank Whittle developing the jet engine. What happened then? I think we went to, posted to Skellingthorpe. Now, one thing about Bitteswell, that was a permanent RAF station and the accommodation was in brick buildings whereas at Skellingthorpe it was a wartime aerodrome. Lived in what we called Nissen huts — accommodation for about ten crew. And there would be a stove in the centre of the hut where we burned coke to keep us warm in the, in the cooler times. Also, before we went to Skellingthorpe went to Syerston. That was another permanent RAF station where the accommodation was in brick buildings. Actually, I saw my first snow drop at Syerston. That was the first I’d seen in England. Life on the, on the squadron, 50 Squadron and the flight insignia on the aircraft was VN and I’ve got a plate inside where that, the N is showing. We tended to go up to the flight office about 9 o’clock in the morning to see whether there was a war on. If there wasn’t we’d go out to the aircraft and have a mess around. Have practice of getting out of an aircraft into a dinghy. The food was pretty, pretty reasonable. It was certainly the best available in England. Sausages were mainly a lot of bread. I often thought I wouldn’t eat baked beans again but I quite like them now and again. But certainly, food at the squadron was the best available in England on the operations. If the war was on we were given an evening meal and briefed as to where the aircraft, where the target would be. The wing commander would say where, where the target was that night. We’d see the target. The flights into Europe, we did a lot of trips to Berlin and they were generally about ten hours. Sometimes you went in, flew over France. Other times it would be over north, over Denmark and into Berlin that way.
Other: Do you want a drink of water, dad?
JS: Pardon?
Other: Would you like a drink of water?
JS: No thanks. No. Yeah, perhaps so.
[pause]
JS: The great losses of aircraft at that time — we would be sending out about seven hundred and fifty aircraft and we’d generally lose about fifty. So, on a tour of thirty, statistically it’s impossible to get through a tour but some, some did.
AP: What time was this?
JS: Pardon?
AP: What time was it? What? Or when was it?
JS: We tended to, to go off just before dark. About an hour, this is English time. I suppose it would be about 8 o’clock really because there was double daylight saving over there then. So it was, you know normally light till about ten and we’d probably take off about eight and get back about ten, ten hours later. That was coming back after a flight. The, all the, the squadron leader and the wing commander and sometimes the air commodore would be there to greet you. Hot, hot chocolate drink to drink. It was a bit hard at times, you know. It would come back to you, you had to go to bed but sometimes representatives of other crews didn’t survive. On one occasion we did three, three flights in and, then in four days we did two daylights. Take off at daylight. Another one we turned, turned up about midnight. Came back in the light and flew over England. And I recall one particular occasion coming back over the south coast of England, seeing the white cliffs of Dover and up through England. I often thought that, you know life was pretty great really. What else? When I was at Skellingthorpe I used to go down and see Freda, my wife and often hitch-hiked back and often stood outside the Trent Bridge Cricket Ground waiting for a lift back to Skellingthorpe which is just outside Lincoln. Eventually, one night coming back there was a flash about 11 o’clock high and I felt immediate pain in this eye. I think one of the crew dragged me out of the turret. We got back to, to England and went to, to hospital at Rauceby which was outside Grantham. And there they gave me the decision that they couldn’t do anything about the eye. It would have to come out because the piece of metal there was, was too big. And then after about, oh about a month in hospital there I went up to Hoylake which is outside Liverpool. The RAF had taken it over as a convalescent. It was a public school and they’d taken it over as a reception recuperation place for aircrew personnel and I had a few months there. Quite, you know, life was good. Used to have various exercises to keep us, keep us young and fit. One particular bloke that I met at Rauceby, an RAAF bloke, an RAAF bloke he came from Barcaldine in Queensland. He’d married one of the, the nurses at the hospital. A bloke named Templeton. I guess he came, eventually came back to Australia. The, after Hoylake I went back to, to Brighton and they asked me did I, they told me I was declared unfit for further flying. They asked me did I want to go up to Kodak House and stay in a clerical position or come back to Australia. And I said, ‘No. I’m going back to Australia,’ but I went up to Kodak House and did clerical duties there for a couple of months. That was, that was alright. Eventually they sent, took me back to Brighton and I waited then a decision on, on going home to Australia. Whilst in London I had the husband of a cousin of mine on my mother’s side who had been in the Royal Navy since about fourteen or fifteen years of age. He was a lieutenant there and I saw quite a bit of Keith. Also, Australia House they had a Boomerang Club where they used to serve luncheons there. It was all done in a voluntary capacity. A lot of Australians would go there and meet fellows that we’d met at various times at our training. Eventually the word came. Get on a train. Went back to Greenock. Back on the Queen Elizabeth. Back to New York. By that time there were very few Australians there. Only, only about a hundred of us and there was no, a few Americans going back after being injured in various parts of the UK. Well, whilst at Hoylake we went down to the luncheon. The BBC news came on and announced D-day. That was a great thrill. It was eventually on. My brother in law, Fred is my sister’s husband, he was in the, in the army and you know he got out at Dunkirk. Went around to North Africa. Involved in the, in to Sicily and in to Italy. Back to England and then went into Europe about two, about two days after D-day. So, they certainly had a tough, tough life. One of the things at the RAF stations we used to have sheets on our beds. That’s something that we didn’t ever have in Australia but we had lovely blankets and the idea was to hang onto your Australian blankets because they were real wool and warm whereas the English blankets tended to be a bit feltish. At [pause] New York we, we had constant leave. Went down to one of the United Services Club and they invited me to go down and meet a couple of girls there, you know. Palled up with one girl. Went out with her and she took me home to a place on Great Neck and introduced me to her sister and her father who was involved in the forestry business and, yes they looked after me very well. Took me to a nightclub. Café society. And I got a signature of Joe, Joe Lewis — the American world champion boxer. Had quite a number of other signatures in that, in that RAAF diary but it’s disappeared like a lot of other things. Back on the train to San Francisco. This time we went on a more southerly route in those rather poorer areas of America. Whereas the country up north around Denver, you know was lovely and prosperous but the southern parts looked, looked pretty tough. Went to a staging camp, Petersburg. Was there for about a fortnight. American people often took us for drives around the country. Eventually we went on to a ship, the Monterey. One of the American liners. Went to, sailed it across. The ship was full of Americans going out to the Pacific war, warfare. Sailed into Finschhafen, saw my first American Duck in the water there. Spent a couple of days there. Then went up to Hollandia, changed ship there on the Swansea and that came down to Oro Bay and Milne Bay and back to Brisbane. That’s about it.
AP: That was pretty well your story. Well, we may as well go, have a look at some of the things in a bit more detail if you don’t mind.
JS: Yeah.
AP: I love it. I ask one question and thirty minutes later we, we’re just about finished. We’re not really. Where were you when you heard that war was declared? And how old were you and what did you think at the time?
JS: I was [pause] When the Japanese invaded or are you talking —
AP: Well, right back at the beginning. 1939.
JS: Oh yes. Yes. I remember. I was working then at the SKF Bearing Company in Brisbane and a couple of months after the war started it was obvious we wouldn’t be able to get ball bearings and roller bearings from Europe where most of it was coming from. Not a lot from Sweden. So, the boss said to me, ‘Well Joe. Sorry.’ But I was a stock clerk there and quite an interesting job. Enjoyed it. So, I was able to get a job at a warehouse in Brisbane — Hoffman’s and Company who sold supplies to, to the small shops in those days. Of course, there was small shops over the Brisbane area and over the Queensland area. And I was there until I was, went into the air force then in, in May of ’42. One thing too that I may, should have mentioned. At Sandgate we were, just before lunch, there was an American Airacobra who flew around the station. But he got too low. Dipped his wing in the water and crashed. And in those days I was pretty, pretty fit so I and a few others swam out but he was dead unfortunately. Whilst I didn’t see it that same afternoon another one crashed out, out into the sea.
AP: You were on the Reserve. The Air Force Reserve for a fair time, I think. You said it was.
JS: Yeah.
AP: It was almost a year.
JS: From February. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. What, did the air force give you anything to do in that time?
JS: Yes.
AP: Or did you just carry on?
JS: We attended educational classes in airmanship and particularly Morse code which I never really ever mastered well. Formed quite a few friendships of fellows there. In Brisbane a number of fellows who, who went to, to England there was a very high casualty list amongst them. Fellows that I went to school with, who knew in various parts, you know, didn’t come back. But I, when I was discharged at the [pause] just after the world war, the Japanese capitulated, I joined Veterans Affairs and worked at Veterans Affairs for a couple off months off forty years. First in their administrative offices in Brisbane. In Perry House. I was there for a few years. Then I went out to the Greenslopes Hospital. Was there until 1959 when they, for the last six months I went to Kenmore which was a TB sanitorium out [pause] out Lone Pine way. Out that direction. And then in 1960 I applied for positions. The blokes ahead of me weren’t going to move from Brisbane. My father had died. My mother was living with us and we were in a, built a home in Corinda in Brisbane and we’d only two bedrooms. My mother was in the lounge and she had relatives in Melbourne of course so I applied for a job in Melbourne. Eventually went to, to Heidelberg and I was there most of the time in Heidelberg. My last job there was director of administration which was an exceedingly interesting job. You know, in charge of the domestic services, food services, ordinary stores and administrative people. And I had a lot of liaising with the, the medical people and specialist departments like occupational therapy, physiotherapy. Yeah.
AP: So that’s the repatriation hospital at Heidelberg.
JS: Heidelberg. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Just for context because this is going to the UK.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Why did you pick the air force?
JS: I had a fear of fighting in the trenches of France.
AP: Did you have any —
JS: And I was always interested. We lived in, in Sherwood in Corinda and it wasn’t so many miles across to the Archerfield Aerodrome. And I often used to cycle out or being taken out by somebody to see visiting aircraft. Had a few joy flights out that way. My father, airlines had prospered, it meant that caught an aircraft, a Stinson to Townsville and then changed aircraft. He was going to Cairns and he got into a Dragon Rapide. Only a little two-engined aircraft. And going out the weather closed in. They landed on the beach. Stayed there for a couple of hours. The pilot said, ‘We’ve got to get out the tide’s coming in too quickly.’ So, they went on to Cairns. Now, fancy that happening that way.
AP: Now [laughs] yeah. It’s a bit different. I was going to ask you something about that. Alright. The first time you went in an aeroplane. Apart from those joy flights. When you were in the air force tell me about your first flight if you can remember it.
JS: At Maryborough. That was my first flight.
AP: What, what did you think of it?
JS: They were pretty basic aircraft but they were pretty good in those days.
AP: That was a Battle?
JS: They had wireless sets and you’d practice your Morse code and verbal communication. Yeah.
AP: Very good. You’ve told me how you got to the UK. That’s very good. When, what [pause] that was the first time you went overseas?
JS: Pardon?
AP: That was the first time you went overseas?
JS: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. What did you think of wartime England? First. First thoughts on arrival.
JS: Oh, lovely country. Lots of beautiful girls. Lots of warm beer. It was pretty hard to get cold beer in those days. The countryside was absolutely beautiful.
AP: Alright. That leads on to the next question, I guess. The beer question. What did you do to relax when you weren’t on duty?
JS: Where?
AP: What did you do to relax when you were not on duty?
JS: Where?
AP: Ah, well anywhere. On the squadron. On OTU. That sort of thing. When you were on leave. Or not even on leave.
JS: Very often I was going to and from Lutterworth to see my wife.
AP: And you actually got married in England.
JS: Yes.
AP: Yeah. That’s —
JS: Got married on the 30th of December 1943.
AP: Tell me about a wartime wedding.
JS: It was at Bardon Hill just outside Coalville. We toasted with a bottle of Australian wine. How it happened to be there I’m not quite sure but it was there. I realised, you know, that people in England had it pretty tough in comparison to, to life in the Australian household. You know they didn’t have a bathroom. They’d have a tub which, which you’d have a wash in that. Whereas of course in Australia, you know I grew up in a house, a timber house on stilts. Had a copper down, down under the house where you washed your clothes. But if you wanted a hot bath you had to bucket water up in to the bathroom. I remember a chip heater being installed to heat the water in the bath. That was a great advantage. Subsequently of course before the war it was put in an electrical system [pause] And domestic appliances. In those days there was no dishwashers, vacuum cleaners or anything like that. Cleaning the floors was done by a broom or down with a cloth. Hand and knees. I remember my mother, you know washing the floor and polishing the floor which was in those days was linoleum. Whereas these days we’ve got all these modern cons and every, and of course, you know people get fairly gigantic loans to get into houses but you know they, they want and expect everything at the same time. All of those modern cons. Two cars in the family which is pretty well a necessity these days.
AP: Different, different times I think, Joe. Different times.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Alright. We might, might talk a bit about, well ok the aircraft. The Lancaster. What did you think the first time you saw a Lancaster?
JS: Yeah. Well it was, was built to carry bombs. Pretty light construction really. I saw the one earlier this year. Went up to the War Memorial in Canberra. And whilst we, we thought it was huge back in 1943 you know, they’re pretty tiny now. And one of the, one of the things that the RAF didn’t miss on. You know, you often thought that the aircraft would be attacking you in to the, in to the turret but what was happening would be German aircraft perhaps a thousand feet down below you and what they didn’t know — the Germans had a gun pointing up like that and of course the aircraft was sending out a certain amount of exhaust fumes so we were sitting ducks to the German fighter pilots. And the RAF didn’t ever wake up to the fact that this was what was happening.
AP: Did, did the crews themselves have some sort of an idea of that? Or —
JS: No.
AP: There was just no, no one had, they just disappeared.
JS: It didn’t seem to get through to anybody.
AP: No one worked it out. What’s a turret look like when you’re in it? You’re sitting in your turret. What’s in front of you? What’s beside you?
JS: There was, in a Wellington it was two guns — 303s. And in the Lancasters four. Four guns. The ammunition. Every, about every tenth shell would be a tracer so that you could see it in the sky. I didn’t ever fire a gun at a fighter pilot. A fighter. I didn’t see one. And of course, our gunnery was 303s whereas the English, the German fighter pilots certainly .5 or 20mm.
AP: Yeah. There was a bit of an unfair fight, I think.
JS: Yes. Yeah. The, the Halifax, I didn’t ever have a flight on it. I was very impressed with the turret in the Halifax. A Boulton Paul whereas it was a Fraser Nash in the Lancaster. And I’ve been told that they were easier to get out of if there was an emergency.
AP: I’ve heard of that sort of thing. That kind of declares my next question null and void. But I suppose you did fighter affiliation. What’s, what’s the drill when you, if you were to spot a night fighter somewhere —
JS: Yes.
AP: What happens next? What’s the drill?
JS: You’d do a corkscrew. Down. Down to port or to starboard. So, go down and up, down and up again to get out. That was a case of being attacked from the rear by an aircraft. Now that didn’t ever happen to me and I don’t think it happened to too many.
AP: What was a corkscrew like in a turret?
JS: It was up and down, you know. That wasn’t, that wasn’t too bad you know. In the turret of course, we had heated, heated suits on. One night coming back across Denmark mine petered out and I had a fairly cold trip back. But I survived alright [laughs] the temperature outside me would be down. Down to about fifty degrees centigrade. Centigrade.
AP: What, what was your evacuation drill if you had to leave an aircraft in a hurry? What would you have done as the rear gunner in a Lancaster?
JS: Well, you had to get around, open the doors, grab your parachute. The parachute wasn’t in the turret. It was inside the aircraft. Grab the turret and either get it back and jump out of the, from the turret or get out through the main door. And the idea was to roll over so that you didn’t get hit by the tail fin.
AP: It sounds like it would take a fair bit of time that you probably might not have had.
JS: Yeah. And if you were doing it at say eighteen thousand, you know we would be bombing at about twenty one thousand. You know. You know, coming down all of a sudden. Pretty hard getting out I’d imagine.
AP: How many, how many trips did you actually do?
JS: Twenty five.
AP: Twenty five. And it was the twenty fifth trip which you were injured.
JS: Twenty fifth I met my Waterloo.
AP: Do you know what it actually was that hit you? You said you never saw a fighter.
JS: No. I suspect it was — of course the Germans were sending out anti-aircraft fire from the ground. But I strongly suspect it was one of these, these fighters that were down below, below me and sent up a shell hoping to knock out the aircraft. Perhaps his shot wasn’t all that good and hit the turret.
AP: Was that the only damage to the aircraft that you know of?
JS: Yes.
AP: Yeah. So, and you were the only one injured.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Luck of the draw isn’t it?
JS: Yeah. Luck of the draw.
AP: Yeah. Very much so. Do any of your other operations stand out in your memory at all? Any, any other interesting ones?
JS: There was one particular night there was a bit of a disagreement between the navigator and the pilot as the track which we should go back on and we wandered over, over France and got coned by about a half a dozen searchlights. We thought we were a bit lucky to get out of that and didn’t deserve to get out of it really. Another night, taking off, the aircraft swung across to starboard and pretty much out of the control of the pilot really. Scooped off the runway. Got up alright but was a bit dicey there for a few minutes. You know there was a tremendous amount of people killed over there as a result of sheer accidents really. You know there was six hundred and fifty two thousand killed in Bomber Command and a very high percentage of those were due to accidents and not involving operations.
AP: Yeah. It was a large, it was, was a certainly a large —
JS: Yeah.
AP: Before they even got on to a squadron let alone —
JS: Yeah.
AP: Yeah.
JS: There was about four hundred plus or minus a few Australians killed over in, in Europe.
AP: Yeah. There were quite a few.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Oh, Morton Hall. I was going to ask you about that. My great, this is the personal bit for the tape. My great uncle, so my Bomber Command connection spent some time at Morton Hall as well.
JS: Yes.
AP: It’s written in the back of his logbook. I don’t know what he did there.
JS: No.
AP: So, if you could expand a little bit on that that would be really cool.
JS: Just a commando school to make us physically fit. It was, you know, it was important to be fit for flying. It was also if you happened to parachute down into Europe to try and escape. You know. It was good fun and I enjoyed it very much until the second day I sprained my ankle.
AP: That was the end of that.
JS: Harris, the, in charge of Bomber Command. We didn’t ever see him at the airfields. We used to refer to him as Butcher Harris.
AP: London is, is something that comes up often in these interviews. Aircrew sort of seemed to gravitate to London on leave or as they were passing through on the way to other things. Obviously, you spent a little bit more time there than most at Kodak House.
JS: Yes.
AP: But I’m interested in perhaps in what, what sort of things you did in London. What did you see? What did you do? When you weren’t, when you weren’t necessarily at work.
JS: Well I used to see my cousin a fair amount. We’d often go out for a few drinks. He knew the London area pretty well. He’d been there since well before the war. Knew a place down near Victoria, Victoria Street station where we could get some steak. That was a pretty important factor over there. We weren’t great drinkers. I was never a great drinker, and I wasn’t a smoker.
AP: That’s, yeah that’s it’s something that a lot of people seemed to meet friends in London as well.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: The Boomerang Club for example.
JS: Yeah.
AP: There was a signing in book or something. You’d look through and go, ‘Oh, I know him.’
JS: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Very good. I guess we’re getting pretty close to the end of my list of questions. You said you weren’t a great drinker. Did you spend any time in the local pub near Skellingthorpe? What was it called? And what happened?
JS: No. We spent more, more time in the local pub at Lutterworth drinking some of the warm beer. Looking at the fire. There was always a fireplace so, and there was always somebody who could play a piano, have a sing song and very enjoyable nights.
AP: Excellent. Piano is something you don’t get very often these days either.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Alright. I guess we’ll jump down towards the end now. You’ve told me what you did in civilian life. How is, how do you think Bomber Command is remembered and what sort of legacy do you think?
JS: Well, unfortunately, of course they got a bad name on the, on that last raid to Dresden. A lot of people think that that was unnecessary. I think it was probably at the request, to some degree by the Russians and of course not only did the RAF operate at Dresden the Americans sent daylight aircraft over there. And that seems to be, seemed to be forgotten. You know, Harris after the war he didn’t get any, any knighthood. He went back to South Africa, I think. I’ve got an idea he went to Kenya where he’d come from originally.
AP: So, for, how do you remember your time in Bomber Command. What did you get out of it, I suppose?
JS: A great experience. Great experience. I had a world’s trip.
AP: I guess that’s —
JS: A selfish, selfish attitude but that’s what it was.
AP: That’s —
JS: I, you know, saw places. I’ve never been back to England. I haven’t been outside of Australia at all.
AP: That was, that was your one opportunity and you grabbed it.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Very much so. Well, I guess that’s, that’s really all I’ve got for you.
JS: Yeah.
AP: So, thank you very much Joe.
JS: That’s alright.
AP: It’s been a pleasure.
JS: How much do I owe you?
AP: [laughs] Not at all.
[recording paused]
JS: Control at the aerodromes were girls.
AP: Ah yes.
JS: Talk you in. Sometimes you’d come back after operation — you might be ten or fifteen thousand feet and you’d come down on five hundred feet levels.
AP: Someone would have to control that.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Do you, do you remember much about the process of arriving back at the base?
JS: Well I was, you know we were treated like heroes when you came back. As I’ve said before the station commander and the wing commander if he, sometimes he’d be on operations but generally he wasn’t. They were there to, to greet you. And sometimes the commodore within 5 Group was 54 base and that covered Skellingthorpe, Bardney, number 9 Squadron. And 463 and 467 at Waddington. It was 54 base and there would be an air commodore in charge of that and sometimes he’d be there to, to greet you.
AP: That’s pretty [pause] yeah. Excellent so , ok why not keep going? When you, when you arrived back you come back to dispersal, the engines shut down. What do you feel? What do you think?
JS: Relief. It was nice to get out. Out of that aircraft. Get some of that flying gear off. You know these Taylor suite. These great huge yellow heated suits. Get that off and out of uniform would have underclothing. Cotton. Warm underclothing. Long strides and singlets. So, you liked to get that out of the aircraft. Outer garment off. It was a relief of that’s another one towards the twenty five, from the thirty. They didn’t, we’d hoped to, our aim was to complete the thirty and then go to Pathfinders. Kind of liked an eagle on my uniform but I didn’t.
AP: Did the rest of your crew go on?
JS: No. No. They were all, all killed.
AP: Oh really?
JS: They went on flying and were killed.
AP: So you, I guess you got away with it didn’t you?
JS: Yes. Yes, I was one of the lucky ones.
AP: Yeah very much so. What was, what actually was the target that night and when, what night was it. Can you remember?
JS: No.
AP: No. Sorry. That you were. That you were — sorry.
JS: Yeah. Well I was in hospital.
AP: Sorry.
JS: Yeah.
AP: The night that you were injured what was that?
JS: Berlin.
AP: Berlin. On which trip? What night? Do you know what the date was?
JS: 25th .
AP: Of?
JS: ’43. No. No ’44. ’44.
AP: ’44. So, March. Was that March?
JS: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
JS: Yeah.
AP: Ok. My great uncle was on that trip as well.
JS: Yeah. Of course, as you know they had some disastrous trips. Leipzig, they lost seventy nine and about ninety six, ninety seven at Nuremberg.
AP: Yeah. They were all in, in that area.
JS: Yeah.
AP: And there was a Munich trip in there as well.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: And there was a whole bunch. Yeah. That was a particularly bad time to be operating actually.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Wow. That’s, you were very lucky then.
JS: Yeah.
AP: To be taken off ops then.
JS: Of course, the Americans saved us really with their capacity. The manpower and their capacity to build ships and provide aircraft. I don’t think England would have been able to survive without American help. If the Japanese hadn’t have come in I think ultimately Hitler would have been, invaded England.
AP: It could have been a very, very different war.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
AP: Yes, that —
JS: You know, the American capacity. I know was probably a stunt but they, they built one of those Liberty ships, about ten thousand tonnes in three and half days. Working twenty four hours, seven days.
AP: Craziness. Shows what wartime economies can, can achieve.
JS: Yeah.
AP: To a certain extent for unlimited. Very good. Ok. Anything else you have to add?
JS: No.
AP: Just before I turn it off again.
JS: No. That’s about it, I think.
AP: That’s about it. That’s, that’s very good actually.
JS: Yeah.
AP: That’s some very good stuff there.
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AShuttleworthHJ151021, PShuttleworthJ1501
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Interview with Joe Shuttleworth
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eng
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01:03:05 audio recording
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Adam Purcell
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2015-10-21
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Joe Shuttleworth was born and raised in Brisbane but also spent a lot of time with family in the Melbourne area. He volunteered for aircrew and soon began training as a gunner. After initial training he sailed to the United States and on to the UK. While at operational training unit at RAF Bruntingthorpe he went to the local village where a chance encounter led to meeting his future wife who he married in 1943. He was posted to 50 Squadron as an air gunner and was based at RAF Skellingthorpe. On his twenty fifth operation which was to Berlin he experienced a sudden flash and a searing pain. One of the crew managed to pull him out of the turret. He was taken to hospital at RAF Rauceby where he lost his eye. The rest of his crew continued to fly but they were all killed in a later operation. Joe returned to Australia where his wife joined him a year later. He remembers his time with Bomber Command as a wonderful experience which led him to see the world. After the war Joe never left Australia again.
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
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
United States
England--Lincolnshire
New York (State)--New York
Queensland--Brisbane
Victoria--Melbourne
Germany
Germany--Heidelberg
Victoria
New York (State)
Queensland
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1943
29 OTU
50 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
crash
Lancaster
love and romance
mess
military living conditions
Nissen hut
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF hospital Rauceby
RAF Morton Hall
RAF Skellingthorpe
take-off crash
training
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/329/3489/PSmithNG1701.1.jpg
4468b6f3352faded13c6188715151f2b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/329/3489/ASmithNG161203.2.mp3
7eaf605fe11d56646d7146cefca804e4
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
Smith, Norman George
Norman Smith
Norman G Smith
N G Smith
N Smith
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview and a video interview with Norman George Smith (b. 1924, 427226 Royal Australian Air Force). He flew 10 operations as a pilot on 463 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-03
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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Smith, NG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RB: Now Norman have you got any questions for me?
NS: No, not really.
RB: Okay, well I’ll read this interview heading that I’ve got and then perhaps answer any questions you might have. This is an interview being conducted by the International Bomber Command Centre, and I am Ron Baron and I’m talking to Norman George Smith.
NS: That’s right, correct.
RB: And I’m in Western Australia, and also present is Kathy, Norman’s daughter, the date is 3rd December, 2016.
NS: Correct.
RB: Now can you tell me where you were born and when you were born?
NS: 1924, er, in Perth, then spent a bit of time Armadale afterwards.
RB: Right, can you tell me a little bit about your family, your parents, brothers and sisters?
NS: Roy my brother was the next one down, then had sisters, two sisters.
RB: And their names?
NS: Their names [coughs], what the hell were their names, Kathy?
KY: Lynne and Beattie.
NS: And Beattie that’s right, yeah Beattie. Lynne I always forget her.
RB: Lynne and Beattie
NS: She’s named after my mother.
RB: What did your father do what work?
NS: He was what they call a bush boss, he goes into the forest and worked out which trees to fall and made sure that the people picking up trees to take them to landing [unclear] were doing the right thing, picking up the right trees what I suppose had fallen down.
RB: Let’s go on to your schooling now, what age did you start school?
NS: When I was six at Whittaker’s Mill, I just lived about a couple of hundred yards from the school and in Whittaker’s Mill.
RB: And how long were you there at what age did you leave?
NS: That place there would be about eleven, eleven or twelve I think it’d be, and then we went down to Perth, but by this time I’d become a assistant in the timber mill workshop [coughs] and no more school.
RB: You didn’t like school?
NS: Well I wasn’t [unclear], wasn’t too bad at times I suppose but was too much fiddling around.
RB: When you were in the mill what sort of work did you do?
NS: Engineering, and whenever there was a [coughs] trouble in the mill itself at the weekend the engineer and myself as offsider picked up the bearings in the mill and all that sort of thing and we had a pretty good time together.
RB: What sort of wages did you get then, what sort of pay?
NS: Pay?
RB: Yeah.
NS: Oh gosh I’ve forgotten what pay it was but it was pretty good and I remember working at the mill, when I worked in the mill before I went to Perth and it was pretty good. We used to have, sometimes I used to work with the blacksmith and other times they’d be down in the mill itself and do a bit clearing out on the benches.
RB: What sort of hobbies did you have then? Did you enjoy —
NS: Swimming I did a mainly going [unclear] up and down the creeks looking for junies [?] there a sort of a prawn but in the water the white mermaid there only about two inches long, three inches, four inches some the big ones, a bit dirty they’d be about —
RB: Did you eat them? Were they tasty?
NS: Oh yes of course they are yeah, put them in water and boil them up like you do a prawn and there, there just like a prawn that’s all, there in the water, in the rainwater creeks not in the salt.
RB: As you got older did you have any other jobs?
NS: No I don’t think I did really, er none that I, none that I had pay for, might do a bit of self, self, self work, but Roy and I, Roy my brother we’d go off to the bush hunt around for kangaroos and things. Chop a bit of wood on a fallen tree that’s why what happened one day when I went to chop a bit of wood off the end of a tree and instead of hitting the wood straight away I got tangled in a bit of bush the back of the axe and it swung up like that and Roy was standing on the tree and it swung up to him and cut the back of his knee, and had to carry him down to the schoolteacher’s house, the schoolteacher took him away and took him down to Pinjarra to get fixed up, but saved his leg anyway.
RB: When did you become interested in flying?
NS: Oh that’s when I rescued a boy that was in the swimming at the bottom of the falls, out in the middle and he got a cramp but he started to sink and why [unclear] having a bit of a sunbake on the rocks decided so we dived in and grabbed hold of him but he pretty near drowned the two of us, had hold of me around the neck but anyway I got him, got him to the side and he was all right and took him home eventually didn’t seem any, he apologised to me said he was sorry sort of thing. His family reckoned I was pretty good saving him and they invited me down to Perth for holiday that’s when I went down to Perth and the first morning I when I went outside the house had a look out and overlooking the airfield heard the Tiger Moth flying away, suddenly flying away and that’s what I was going to do that’s me fly an aircraft and, er, all the books I’d been reading and monthly magazine learn how to fly a plane and I knew, pretty well knew there and then how to fly the plane and well, well eventually anyway I joined the Air Cadets and well I was going around Air Cadets, Air Cadets in Perth but I was pretty, I was gonna be an aircraft pilot anyway.
RB: When the war came, how old were you when the war started?
NS: Er, I wasn’t, I wasn’t eighteen yet. Eventually I turned eighteen and that’s when I joined the actual Air Force itself that was, that was just after my eighteenth birthday.
RB: Where did you go for your initial training?
NS: Clontarf, that was, no flying but what do you call it an ex school where all the pupils were women and I checked out, waiting for the cleaners to clean up the place, most of the pupils I think had shit on the floor, they cleaned up the place for us anyway and took us in from the tents we were in tents for about a fortnight, took us inside gave us a bedroom.
RB: How long were you there?
NS: Oh, about a month, two months, then we went off to Cunderdin then, where the Tiger Moths were that was what we had after.
RB: What was your first posting then from Clontarf?
NS: Clontarf, after, after, Merredin, yes down to Merredin.
RB: And what did you do there?
NS: That’s where we started to fly planes, and had a pretty good time chasing bloody emus in the planes making out we were gonna shoot them yeah yeah, on the beach firing at people in boats, little boats, make out we were going to shoot ‘em, dive on ‘em —
RB: What sort of aircraft were they?
NS: Tiger Moths, yeah, DH82A, but they were really good planes Tiger Moths.
RB: How long were you there?
NS: Oh, went up, from there we went to Cunderdin where we started really learn how to fly and it was pretty good become pilots eventually had to go to Geraldton, after Geraldton, I, I was up near [unclear] but I came back to Geraldton I knew the place you know, I knew all the corners and all the little, quite a few little huts they had two beds in ‘em, where people should go in when there’s any bombs, bombs coming over, instead of that we were using them as little beds to put the women in while we sort of cuddled up to them.
RB: How did you feel when you first went solo?
NS: I went solo eventually, and by that time I did pretty good because the chap that’s teaching me how to fly and everything apparently I was pretty good on doing the loop de loop, loop de loop, and he used to boast about me to all the other teachers and that in the mess, and I didn’t realise this but he used to keep me pretty near on the same thing all the time and I got fed up with him and complained to [coughs] to the head office. And the chap there he said, ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, ‘Well listen I can’t carry on being learnt anymore about the aircraft so I don’t think I can fly anymore you better take me down off this course.’ And they said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because the bloody teacher there keeps on telling me to do the same thing over and over again.’ And er, anyway they promised me a well they would fix that up, and then they gave me another teacher so okay I settled in quite well and became quite good. But apparently I still had the plane, not the plane the people that looked after me they realised that my first teacher that I wanted to get out of all he was doing was boasting about how I could fly loop de loop and anyway.
RB: And that was still in Tiger Moths?
NS: In Tiger Moths oh yeah, that’s all they had here in Australia at the time.
RB: Did you make any mates while you were there?
NS: Any what?
RB: Any friends, mates?
NS: Oh one or two, Bill, Bill was one, Bill Adam, he was the main one. There was only about one because quite a few of them didn’t come from Western Australia they came from Eastern States, but I got along pretty well the new teachers.
RB: Did you have any troubles there any problems?
NS: No only, only thinking that the Japanese were looking after, tearing after me one night when I was on guard duty and I heard these footsteps, and I said, ‘Okay halt or else I shall fire.’ And this was about three o’clock one morning and I still heard these footsteps so I let go of the rifle and bang, three o’clock in the morning woke the whole school up, and turned out it was aircraft hangars that looked the rooves, the rooves were false never went up to the roof about three or four feet from the roof then up to the roof they had can canvas and of course when the breeze blew it shook the bloody canvas and sounded as though somebody was walking around, and ‘cos I, when I let the rifle go off the CO didn’t like it much not being woken at that time in the morning three o’clock but, er. He said I did the right thing, but at that time it was wrong shooting at that time in the morning waking everybody up, but that was one of the times when I did the right thing but at the wrong time.
RB: When you were at Geraldton did you fly any other aircraft?
NS: Not there, not in Australia, no, no Tiger Moths that’s all we had, and then I got my wings went over to England, over first to America then to England, but got to England that’s when I started on other aircraft to fly.
RB: How did you get, how did you get to the UK from Australia when you were?
NS: By boat, boat to America that was in the coast of America, got that end I went ashore then they took us to an air, a big Air Force base just outside Boston and that’s when I, we were having a meal one day, three of us, three fellas and myself having this meal some ladies next door to us one of them come over and said, ‘You come from Australia?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s right, Australians.’ And she said, ‘Coming from Australia’ She said. ‘How did you learn to talk English?’ It showed you how much they knew about Australia in those days, but as it was I tried to explain to her and away she went she was quite happy about it. But, you can have some fun —
RB: And then you went by ship from the USA to the UK?
NS: Went from USA to America to Australia —
RB: To the UK?
NS: In the UK yeah, and then started doing a bit of flying when we go to the UK.
RB: So what was the first posting in the UK then? What aircraft were you flying? This would be in 1943 when you arrived.
NS: I’m just trying to think what aircraft we were flying then, flying first. Ansons, yeah Ansons that’s right, Anson Bombers we started flying them. And then went produced up that little bit further and started taking [unclear] Ansons, what’s the other ones.
RB: When you got onto your first squadron what squadron was that?
NS: Er, that was 463.
RB: And the aircraft type you flew there?
NS: They, they were, 463 now what were they flying, they were flying, they were flying Stirlings, Stirling aircraft, so we started flying Stirlings and then the next thing we know we were equipped with Lancaster Bombers
RB: And which squadron were you flying with the Lancasters?
NS: ER, 463, and the only time I got changed, when the war finished in Europe because we after 463 to 467 and waited for our ground crew to go out by boat they had to they were going to Japan. Actually we did that we made [unclear] to go out but funnily enough the Yanks dropped their silly little bomb and finished the whole show and there was no more bombing it simmered down.
RB: Did you do any other flights before you came back to the UK?
NS: Oh we, a few times, a few times we got out to Germany and France to pick up ex bomb, ex people that were captured by the Germans.
RB: Prisoners of war?
NS: Prisoners of war you see and taking them home and I put a sign on the side of the aircraft where the door was I decided to tell them welcome aboard curvaceous hostesses about and as soon as they got inside the aircraft they said, ‘Where’s the hostesses?’ I said, ‘You’ll have to put up with that bomb aimer today.’ He was in charge of them all, I hadn’t, I don’t know, working on the Lancasters.
RB: Did you enjoy flying the Lancaster?
NS: Yes, definitely, beautiful plane, it was one of the best planes I’ve ever flown in I reckon, but there’s Boddingtons, oh quite a few different planes, and, but the Lancaster was the best.
RB: When you were flying operations from Waddington did you have any incidents when you were over Germany?
NS: A few times, over Germany, actually ran out of petrol just about one day we were going to get home but ‘cos we went way out of place we went up over one of the didn’t matter what it was some other country up that way that wasn’t in the war and as I was going along I could see these aircraft, not aircraft, bombers big rockets going off and they followed us they were about two mile away at the time and turns about that, I said to the navigator, ‘Look at them because better alter the course’ I said, ‘We’re going the wrong way.’ And anyway after we come over The Channel, he said, ‘We better bale out get everything out and dive down to the North Sea’, and I said, ‘Well I’m not going to do that too bloody cold out there to get under water so I’m going to try and make England.’ And we made it only just not to our home base another aircraft, another aerodrome and the engineer there checked the bloody petrol down, and he said, ‘We shouldn’t have even it was empty, the tank was empty.’ Which means that we just managed to make it, but they filled me up with petrol, and the next couple of days we were there for a couple of days it turned out it was an American place and they treated us pretty well, we charged them a pound each to come round and have a look over the aircraft, we got quite a bit there was a lot of beer bought, all, all our money we had, all of it we got paid, but we spent most of the money on drink, and we’d all had a booze up.
RB: So when you finished bringing the prisoners of war back to the UK you were finished then, when did you get back to Australia?
NS: Well that Christmas, we got after the war finished in Europe we got back to Australia and as I landed all my family were there to welcome me back home. ‘Oh come on, welcome home, welcome home.’ And my dad was the last one he shook hands with me and he said, ‘It’s good to see you home, good luck Norm.’ And he said, ‘But I’ll tell you why, you better not tell me that you’re not, you’re not a boy anymore you’re a man.’ He said, ‘You’re smoking.’ And I said, ‘Yes dad.’ And he said, ‘Well you had to learn that in the Air Force.’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘When I made the cigarettes for you there was five for you and one for me.’ I said, he said, ‘It’s the same with the beer, you used to drink my beer.’ When it was Fosters, Fosters. He said, ‘I allowed you to drink the bottle empty.’ And he said, ‘Pretty good beer wasn’t it?’ I said, ‘Oh yes pretty well.’
RB: So when you left the Air Force what jobs did you have?
NS: Oh crickey, dozens. I went up to [unclear] oh by that time I’d got rid of my wife, I married in England, I married a girl in England before I left and she arrived back in Australia two or three months later. On a boat what they called the bride, the bride ship because all the, all the women on it were brides come out to all the Australian soldiers they’d married and she did mine was the same. I think that she played naughty and one of the [unclear] and went farming and she started playing up a bit till eventually I caught her one night having a naughty with a boyfriend and so I told her that she better come, she told me to go and see her boyfriend and tell him to come for breakfast he’d run away, but he wasn’t running away at all, he just went away, left the place, left his pay behind a fortnight’s pay left that behind, and told her that he’d gone so she come back to me and said would I stop with her and I said, ‘Well okay.’ I said, ‘But don’t expect me to be a good boy a good man to you.’ I said, ‘He’s ruined everything.’ Anyway she put up with me for a bit, had a daughter, looked after young Kathy, Kathy was the youngest one, Kathy was about eight years, about eight years between the kids, and anyway she turned to me one night and had a couple of naughties with me and the next thing I know Kathy arrived.
RB: So now you’re retired and they're looking after you.
NS: Yes.
RB: That’s good.
NS: That’s right.
RB: Yes.
NS: Then Kathy and I went one day to see the ex-wife where she was living with a chap at a farm and she was living with him, and then she goes into hospital and the next thing I know she dies, so that get rid of her. I finally got another woman and finished up marrying her and then she damn well died on me too.
RB: Well Norman thank you very much for talking to me and doing this really appreciate it.
NS: Hopefully I remembered all, my memory is not so good as it used to be but at a hundred and, I’m heading towards a hundred I’m ninety-two years old at the moment, but actually I’m ninety-three in three months, March I turn ninety-three.
RB: Well I do appreciate it and I’m sure they will when we get, we get this back home, thank you very much.
NS: Well if there’s any question you want to know?
RB: I think you’ve covered everything I think you can remember, yeah that’s great I’m going to turn this off now.
NS: Righty oh.
[Background conversation over tea and cake.]
RB: I’m going to put this back on.
KY: Frank were you ever up at Metheringham? Dad was actually at Metheringham in the beginning and then he was sent down to Waddington later but his initial training and flights were in Metheringham.
F: Scampton, and Skellingthorpe all round there.
KY: So that area of Lincolnshire that’s the central area was there other major bases through England?
F: No this was the main base, Bomber Command was divided into several groups, we were 5 Group was we had our own pathfinders and we had the Dambuster squadron, [unclear] we had our own pathfinders and we developed the ground, ground marking of the targets as well, by Cheshire, Wing, Group Captain Cheshire the last six months of the war.
RB: That was with Lancasters again was it?
F: Yes.
RB: Did they use any other aircraft for that?
NS: Er, no, they Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes were used.
RB: Mosquitoes.
NS: Mosquitoes were used extensively by the pathfinders and also for um [unclear]. That was one of the planes I was looking for.
RB: What the Oxford?
NS: Couldn’t remember what plane it was.
RB: Have you still got your log book Frank?
F: Yeah got it here.
RB: Oh okay. So what’s gonna go, go in a museum somewhere.
[General background conversation]
KY: Unfortunately dad has his flying jacket the nice big thick furry lined one — it was left on the farm it was left on the back of the door. Unfortunately it got left there.
RB: That was in December 1944.
NS: That’s right yeah.
RB: Did your flying take the same sort of route that.
F: Much the same.
RB: Start with the Tiger Moth and Anson and Oxford.
F: Oxford, then Wellington, then Stirling, and then Lancasters.
RB: Yeah, yeah.
F: Virtually the same.
NS: Tiger Moth —
F: Great plane, great plane.
[General background conversation]
RB: How did you find the conversion from single engines, to twins, and then to multis?
F: The only single engine was the Tiger Moth that’s all it was very simple to fly.
RB: Yeah Norman says that.
F: But the Anson was quite good the funny bit about the Anson was made by the same people that made the Lancaster, there was still a bit of a fear that when you crossed the fence in a Lancaster there was still the same feeling as the Anson, it was built under the aircraft the same sort of buzz in the same way.
NS: Did you ever fly Stirlings?
F: Oh I flew bloody Stirlings.
NS: Bloody things —
F: Terrible plane, the back of the Stirling was like a big truck, like a big truck with a wing on the top [unclear].
RB: They were just hard to fly were they?
F: No they were terrible things to taxi because you had to have your foot outside foot here and you had to brake as well because to taxi you’ve got to put you’ve got to use your foot and brake at the same time and you just didn’t have enough hands for it, if the wind was blowing — And then you run out the air.
NS: Not enough air.
RB: Oh right, the air always. Did you guys ever bomb in Stirlings?
F: No, no, no, only practice bombing that’s all.
NS: When I was in the Air Force the best place every day was in the officer’s mess [laughs] down a few beers.
F: That’s right yeah. We had a before you start the Stirlings in the morning you had to turn them over by hand because the oil could run down into the sill at the bottom there get a little oil on top if you start it it would blow the cylinder head off all had to be turned over, turned over by hand before you start.
RB: You guys didn’t do that you had ground crew.
F: Funny enough we used to do exactly the same thing with the Shackletons which is a much later aeroplane but based on the —
NS: What still hand start them?
F: No, no, no turn them over because the oil used to collect.
NS: What stay in the bottom?
F: Yeah. We had a rather nasty accident to a nice young little WAAF when we were on Stirlings because the little WAAF’s used to be delivering things around the aerodrome at night in little Ford 10 vans and they got off [unclear] but the girls were not supposed to drive under the aircraft but they found that they could drive under the outside engine of the Stirling ‘cos the engine was very high and keep under it a couple of Lancasters came in one night the girl was three months out of training school and of course in the night you wouldn’t tell the difference between the Stirling and the Lancaster in the dark and she was driving under the outside engine and took the top off her head.
Oooh.
F: Only a kid out of drivers’ school.
KY: My mum was a driver but in the Army and she was English and she grew up in County Durham up in the North, and she was down driving at the same base where dad was, I think there might be a picture in there of mum and couple of others who she was friends with.
[Pause]
NS: There’s a photo taken in 2004 when we went to Coningsby and that’s where Bull Creek no that’s Coningsby, that’s the, that was Mickey the Moocher then. That’s a copy of Frank’s plane, is that right Frank?
F: Yeah.
NS: So that’s the Lanc he used to fly and that’s a replica, they made a replica of it. That’s at Coningsby [coughing] [unclear].
F: About ten or twelve years ago I had a phone call from the secretary of the 56 Squadron asking me did I have a current picture of Mickey the Moocher because on one of the next conversions of the Lancaster they were going to become Mickey the Moocher and they wanted it, I didn’t have any black and white photographs and I went down to the local library and found a Walt Disney book, and I realised Mickey’s, Mickey’s mouth always the same colour, always the same.
NS: Oh yes Walt Disney was amazing.
F: So they converted them, and when we were going to England with [unclear] I rang them up and they said, ‘Yeah come up, come up, come up.’ [unclear] We were walking [unclear].
NS: Is she still alive, and who’s the young fella?
Other: He was the one that was taking us around wasn’t he?
NS: He was the tour guide was he?
Other: After that he was flying.
F: He was flying the old AC4.
NS: So he can fly Lancasters?
F: Oh yes. He was, like we had we sat down, we had a wonderful time, we were allowed to go inside the Lancaster I think if someone could have but today she was only a test flight.
NS: Was it the brand new one.
F: No this is the one at Coningsby the one that flies every year.
NS: There’s only one or two, one in Canada and one in England, is that right Ron?
F: This was the one in Coningsby and you see they change the nose over every four years for various reasons and it just happened that Mickey the Moocher was right over there.
NS: How appropriate was that.
F: We were the only crew that flew the old Mickey.
Other: The young chap there he was the one that flew it afterwards, you know take it over.
NS: No he must be in the Air Force.
Other: We even corresponded.
F: A couple of years or so hoping he would come out to Australia and see us but he never did.
NS: Well Ron, Lincoln was on the news the other night, last night or the night before they had a big show on on TV.
RB: There’s two sections, you’ve got the memorial itself which overlooks Lincoln, and then you’ve got an archive which is actually in the University and the recording is for the archive, and they are hoping to put basically they call it our life story of air crew, Frank and Norman, from the time they were born right the way through flying different types of aeroplanes until they actually flew their Lancs and did the business as it was.
F: So you really haven’t been able to do that?
RB: Not with Frank but I’ve done it with Norman.
NS: You want to ask Frank if he wants to go and do that you genuinely want to write down your name and particulars so I can keep it on my notebook and email if you’ve got an email address.
KY: Frank have you been inside the Lancaster that’s up in Bull Creek Museum.
F: Yeah I’ve been in it but not for a long time no.
KY: We put dad in it about a month ago.
F: Oh yeah.
KY: And there was a lot of climbing over.
[general background conversation]
KY: There were a couple of places where even I struggled to get through and I had to virtually crawl through to get up to sit in his seat.
NS: No they were, they were a difficult aircraft to get out of [unclear] —
F: The pilots we sat on the parachute and we had full hardness, the rear gunner had the same so all the rear gunner had to do was to turn it to a side where and he could do it hydraulic by hand and get about six foot off the ground and open his doors and put his knees and go straight backwards so he could very quickly get out, we used to practice that actually and we’d play catchy catchy when he fell down just for fun. [laughs]
KY: ‘Cos dad said he didn’t remember there being that many things hurdles that he had to get through —
NS: Well you didn’t, you didn’t notice it when you’re twenty years of age.
KY: No I suppose not.
NS: No you’d be bouncing through the air. [laughs]
F: There all, there all parts of the aircraft, other aircraft have the same thing now —
RB: Name and address, website, er email.
NS: So Ron if you, if you want to put this interview together ask Frank if he’d be prepared to go in there on his own and you two talk. What do you think Kath would that be all right? [unclear]. Is that all right Frank?
F: Yeah okay yeah.
NS: ‘Cos otherwise we’re interrupting as, I’ll take it in thee and we can stay out here Kath is that all right? The bomb aimer forgot to put the switch on.
RB: Sorry Norman go on.
NS: The bomb aimer rang me up and told me we were over the target, but we didn’t bomb the target, I said, ‘Why not?’ He said ‘Well I forgot to put the switch on probably. No I didn’t did I’ Made him go back again and have another go. The air officer commanding wasn’t very happy about me doing that because [unclear]. Told me off about it I never did it again.
[general background conversation]
Other: Now Norman’s just told Ron about the time remember I told you in the car, the bomber didn’t release and he had to come back round the stream and redo it? Did that ever happen to you?
F: No I don’t think so.
Other: So the bombs always went off when they were meant to. ‘Cos he got in big trouble and got told off.
NS: I did the wrong thing.
Other: That’s easy to do.
NS: Well we survived.
[general background conversation]
NS: We had two Australians you know.
Other: Well where your two Aussies, yourself and who else?
NS: Warrant officer.
Other: So you were an Aussie and he was an Aussie and the rest were Poms were they?
NS: Yes.
Other: May be that’s what they did back then Frank, just had a couple of Aussies and the rest were Poms. These are all copies of your log book and everything.
NS: Oh yes.
Other: Yeah, they there are, there’s these incendiaries that he dropped. Didn’t you say that you had one of those stuck?
NS: We had one of the big ones, I think it was that one.
Other: The big cookies there. He had one stuck in his bomb bay and you had to do it freehand didn’t you?
NS: [unclear]
Other: Yes, you guys want to stay here, Norman I’ll come back out here with you.
RB: I’ll put your log book back in my bag when you go home, okay.
Other: That was a disaster, never mind. I could get this opportunity now just one on one. [muffled noise]
RB: It won’t take long Frank, just a brief —
Other: Linda could you turn the music off please there just going to do some interviewing.
RB: How do you pronounce your surname Frank?
F: Moritz or can be Morris, MOR ok.
Other: I’ll leave it with you.
RB: Thank you John. Have you got a small table that I can put in front?
Other: Oh for the thing to go on. There you go, turn that around that way.
RB: That’s great thank you.
Other: No worries. Put that aircon on for you?
RB: Are you comfortable.
F: No it’s all right.
RB: No you’re comfortable. No we’re fine John, John we’re fine.
F: Bits about our family Moritz had been in Australia since 1837 actually we were one of the early settlers in various parts and I’ve relatives all over Australia now.
RB: Right.
F: We were part of some Irish family because the original route to come over —
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ASmithNG161203
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Interview with Norman George Smith
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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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Sound
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eng
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00:55:57 audio recording
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Pending review
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Ron Barron
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2016-12-03
Description
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Norman George Smith grew up in Western Australia. After leaving school he became an assistant in a timber mill workshop before volunteering for the Australian Air Force at the age of eighteen. He flew operations as a pilot with 463 Squadron from RAF Waddington. He returned back to Australia at the end of the war and recalls how he was welcomed home by his family. He also talks about how his first wife arrived from England, and his subsequent family life.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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Jackie Simpson
463 Squadron
467 Squadron
aircrew
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
pilot
RAF Waddington
Stirling
Tiger Moth
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/330/3490/ASolinD170220.1.mp3
72bf807187c9aefe4305a0b3bcca21db
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Solin, Donald
D Solin
Description
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One oral history interview with Donald Solin (427265 Royal Australian Air Force)
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-20
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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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Solin, D
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Jean Macartney, the interviewee is Air Commodore Retired Donald Solin. The interview is taking place at Don’s home in Carrara, Queensland, on 20th February 2017, also present is Don’s friend Helena. Don let’s start at the beginning I believe you were born in Perth in 1924.
DS: Yes.
JM: Yes. And does that mean that you lived in Perth for your early years of?
DS: Until I was eighteen.
JM: Eighteen.
DS: And the day I turned eighteen I was conscripted of course into the RAF as everyone else was I think, and I ended up in well it was a crowd called, and there was a you know stopping, stopping the bombs, no bombs, you know. Anyway, er, we were tying explosives around bridges you know [unclear] that was our main watch that happened, concerns about the Japanese invasion and then we wouldn’t explode them, we would rush off somewhere and say yes they had exploded and after that we would go back untie them all again for tomorrow. Now that went on for several months and it didn’t appeal to me very much because I would always wanting to fly. So I pulled all the strings I knew which were not many, I had no one in particular to help me but anyway we made it finally. In the meantime being in the Air Force, er not very at there was an idea where we took twenty-one lessons prior to joining aircrew, and I started on a session of lessons, and for one way and another of course I then became switched over after a lot of trouble from the Army, and I then became an AC2.
JM: Right. Let’s just pause there for a moment.
DS: Yes.
JM: And go back before you were eighteen and you were conscripted, your schooling was in Perth so you —
DS: Ah t was all over the country.
JM: It was all over the country.
DS: Yes, all over Western Australia.
JM: What because your family were travelling or?
DS: Well mother had been, ‘cos she was a district nurse and she had been divorced for very good reason and there were two small children living with grandparents and I was one of those, been looked after very, very well, we lived in Donborough, and we had all the delights of being able to fish and swim every day, and go rabbit shooting, and fox hunting and god knows what, and it was all very good. So that was brilliant in-between until we got a bit older, not much doing, very little, so I had a lot of catch up to do of course as soon as we go on to these twenty-one lessons from the Air Force, and it introduced me to things like algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, which I hadn’t really done much more than hear about average schools don’t cover too much, I finished it but boys one year you can’t catch up too much, so anyway that was it.
JM: So that was like equivalent to an intermediate certificate?
DS: Yes I believe it was Union [?] University, Western Australia.
JM: Right.
DS: That was hard as I went back I was very good really but nonetheless so there was plenty of catch up work.
JM: And so you that would have been sixteen you finished sort of that schooling?
DS: Er, I finished schooling at fourteen.
JM: Fourteen.
DS: And left school then.
JM: At fourteen okay. So between fourteen and eighteen when you were conscripted what sort of things did you do?
DS: Nobody asked me that for a long time, but I, I got a job, any type of job all I wanted to do was to work and get a few dollars. Now I got a job with Harris [?] Centre the big hardware people in Western Australia and they were, they covered a whole lot of things and you could do everything from broom sweeping to filling bottles and I did all that, it was all right, l had a, they were a good crowd, very good. But that was it then that covered two years at least may be three out of the four, anyway and then —
JM: And was that in Perth?
DS: Yes, yes. And then I did something else for a pharmacist for some time until the day I was eighteen.
JM: And had your mother come back to Perth at this stage and you were living with her or were you had the grandparents moved in to?
DS: Yes she was back from er, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten. I think the last, her last country post was Greenwood [?] she was the matron at the hospital there, and I lived there for a while until the local [unclear] you can’t do that because the maternity ward is just so close to where you were sleeping and what’s going on there is not good for growing boys, something in that order so they said right oh well you’re out. So some very nice English lady who already had three children more than, more than she could manage was good enough to take me in. So that was it whilst we were in the country we were staying with this and finally we got together with mother in Perth for say about twelve months before the call up date.
JM: That’s call up, so you had your call up and sort of then from the time, well I think you did your initial training, in June 1942 at Clontarf, so that would make you twenty, a bit over twenty, about twenty and a half so then you were in the Army for about two years?
DS: Oh no, no, no.
JM: No, not that long?
DS: Probably.
JM: Right okay.
DS: I was only the Army for about three or four months.
JM: Oh okay, right.
DS: Not that that matters, and then we were in the course of doing these lessons from the Air Force the crowd that gave you lessons, I’ve forgotten, er but I’m not sure about the time but anyway —
JM: No, no, I think it was my actual, I’ve got an arrow in the wrong place I can see where I’ve made the mistake so that’s okay. So then you did your initial training at Clontarf and then did your pilot training —
DS: At Cunderdin
JM: Yes, that was when you were in to Tiger Moths.
DS: Yes we were on Tigers but then you did the solo bit.
JM: Yes.
DS: In time yes.
JM: So how long before you went solo?
DS: Six months, quarter hours I think it was something like that.
JM: And how was your experience first, of your first solo flight?
DS: Oh well, course all of you, you know, all of you are as proud as punch you can’t think of anything else really, er, but we were mostly very happy about that, but then it was only a matter of another weeks or a month or so we went off that job and of course on to —
JM: Avro Ansons? Ansons, Avro Ansons?
DS: Oh Ansons, yes, and of course they were very reliable you, you could make a dozen mistakes you know and they would still be in the air, but, er —
JM: Which was a little different to the Tiger Moth situation?
DS: Oh yes, oh well the Tigers you had do give them some respect because they were so gentle but really that’s about it the way you had to treat them and once you get used to that you’re right, gentle [unclear]. They used to say there was a saying, gentle treat them like a woman, and so that’s what we tried to do and that was successful. So we went on the job and that was another four months graduating [unclear] with hundreds and thousands of others, and then it was only a matter of days or may be weeks and we got the posting and of course the posting was to the UK. And well there was via Laporte.
JM: Freemantle.
DS: I went to Melbourne.
JM: So Freemantle to Melbourne.
DS: Melbourne.
JM: And then Melbourne to —
DS: Sydney by train.
JM: Oh okay right.
DS: And then there was an amalgamation of bodies and they got on, we went on The Matson Line.
JM: Right.
DS: The Matsonia [?]
JM: Right, so when would this have been?
DS: It was about the middle of ‘43.
JM: The middle of ’43.
DS: And, er, wended our way to the US and across the US, in the normal way, and then —
JM: Across to New York obviously.
DS: Yes, sometime in New York big camp [unclear] there, enormous place a small city in itself and then finally we got on a boat to England, that was the Queen Mary.
JM: Right the Mary, yes.
DS: All very nice that was the first of the [unclear] that could go unaccompanied by a whole of plethora of ships because they were fast, it was fast enough —
JM: To out speed the German U-Boats and all the rest of it?
DS: Subs.
JM: So did you land in Scotland, land in Scotland?
DS: Yes, yes, and finally ended up on the south coast.
JM: To Brighton?
DS: Brighton.
JM: Yes.
DS: Where there was a whole load of us and er, not much time there and then we were off to a whole load of different training, we’d go do this course, that course.
JM: You do your affiliation in a sort of is that where you first started flying Wellingtons?
DS: Er, Wellingtons was the first large aircraft yes, yes.
JM: So it was a conversion from your Avro Anson to your Wellingtons?
DS: The Wellingtons was the next. Did that, and it was a nice old aircraft really you know and of course it was the mainsail of Bomber Command early in the piece [unclear] you know a first class bomber. Always did stay as a bomber but of course less and less significance, anyway —
JM: And from that conversion course did you then get, is that when you were posted to 149?
DS: Oh no, no, no, oh crickey you can’t get away with that, there was half a dozen courses in-between, one on stars you know meteorology, another on beam landing systems, and another on some other, oh there was a whole load a plethora of reasons that we had to do another week here, or a week there, always in a tent it was winter, and anyway—
JM: In a tent did you say?
DS: Mostly in a tent somewhere?
JM: So you didn’t even have the Nissen hut?
DS: Oh yes, we lived in, we had our permanent time there, but when you’re posted off to a course somewhere you know you’re a week away from it.
JM: Right, so if this is approaching the end of ’43 you’re coming into the winter?
DS: Yes, I, I, I [unclear] a little bit because we had to have someone on patrol every night you know with the heater in the middle of the, of the unit you know there was thirty-six bodies I think in the, in the tin shed that we were in, but they were nice units but just made to put beds in after all, and we, but we had this fire in the middle and that was very useful, very useful. Anyway so it was only then a matter of getting another posting to another place and we then converted onto the next step up.
JM: Then the Halifaxes or Stirlings?
DS: Stirlings.
JM: Stirlings right.
DS: Stirling was the first four engine that we had and we loved it.
JM: How did you, what sort of differences would you feel you experienced between flying the Stirlings and the Wellingtons, anything stand out for you?
DS: Not really no.
JM: Only major difference is four engines versus two obviously —
DS: You just had to get your fingers over the fourth thing you know make sure that you had it covered, I remember having initial problems with it you know not my fingers but obviously it, it becomes easier, no trouble at all, so that was it amen, you finally get a post.
JM: Posting.
DS: A post, at we got ours at 149 Squadron, but, just out of London, north of London, and but ah her we go, we were quite happy to go, go off in a Stirling really but they had mainly Halifaxes and Lancasters there so, they’d only just getting the Lancs so what happened the first thing we did was oh you can’t fly that you’ve got to do a course first. In the usual way so we did our course on the Lancasters and about the last day or the second last day a posting came through from whoever does the postings in the UK to say your crowd, your crew 82 special duties.
JM: Right. Just before we go to that you by this time had a crew.
DS: Oh yes.
JM: So where did you crew up?
DS: Before we got in the four engine aircraft.
JM: So
DS: That was after the Stirling, after er, —
JM: At —
DS: After the Wellingtons.
JM: After the Wellingtons.
DS: After the Wellingtons yes, that was about crewing up time.
JM: That was crewing time. So who what sort of crew did you have, did you have a mixed, mixed crew then if it was 149?
DS: They were mixed.
JM: Oh no you weren’t actually on 149.
DS: We went into a, the expert way in which it’s done, your shoved into a room like so many cattle, and said, ‘Right everyone’s got to make their own crew, pick their own bodies, seven, seven each, and that’s it.’ Very scientific of course. So how much, how do you know who the hell unless you know people, and as a pilot you, you only learnt people’s names and friendships since you’d been on the course, so it’s the luck of the draw really right from day one. But of course that’s the whole of the Air Force then became Bomber Command is a story of the luck of the draw and if you’re really lucky you’ll be all right, [unclear] bad luck. So anyway we crewed up all Western Australians and that was my scientific method of ticking the box, a perverse, quite a perverse crowd, navigator for example who was subsequently killed in an accident we had in Italy, er, he was a great [unclear] of a person he was over twenty-eight most of us were still eighteen or —
JM: Twenty, I think you probably would have been about —
DS: Nineteen twenty.
JM: Nineteen twenty by this stage.
DS: So whatever it was, you weren’t all that old. Anyway you crew up and you ask what, what was the crew, I mean there was a bomb aimer from Sydney who had done nothing much but drift in his life but a nice guy, and then the wireless operator who, whose still alive we became you know real, real close, he’s the only member of the crew that’s still around other than myself, so and then we’d got an English engineer who had according to him had all kinds of experience in a Rolls Royce factory but in fact I think in practice had very little experience but a nice bloke but he was a womaniser and loved drinking, but you know all full crews had that I guess, [unclear] anyway that was it that was our crew.
JM: That was your crew. So you’re together you did your concluding together for Wellingtons sorry Stirlings and then you get the you’re about to start on Lancasters when your told you’re going off to, so you didn’t actually do any operations, do any ops?
DS: No less. No, I did no operations at all in England.
JM: In England right.
DS: As it happened at the time well it was something to do with someone who [unclear] because the timing was right it was just at the end of our conversion course. Obviously they didn’t want another crew although the squadron had have a number of losses but, er, and that was it. I would they made to go on oh you’re content for a week here, the posting [unclear] about a week second time down to somewhere in the South of England, we were then flying Stirlings and we had to press a button, right here we go it’s a brand new aircraft no hours on the clock. [unclear] you’ve got to give it every check possible, it’s yours, it’s yours if there’s any complaints feel free but give it now because it’s then yours, so we did just that.
JM: And this is a Stirling?
DS: Yes. Talk about it performing perfectly the whole time, we wouldn’t have given it back anyway so [laughs] there was no way, and that was the aircraft we took away with us.
JM: Right.
DS: Another week or so later they said, ‘Right you’re off to across Africa.’ We didn’t know you know we just got a posting that’s all, so we were posted to Radar Salem, North Africa [?] and we stopped there for the night and thought oh you know we’re on our way certain we were going to the Far East because they were very short, the Japs were getting the better part of the war there, so we reckoned we were on our way. But no it wasn’t that at all we got a posting to North Africa and another part of North Africa if you’d like to call it that, BNA, British North African Forces. And so we go to Algiers it was a place called Blida, big aircraft, a big Air Force base just outside of Algiers the capital, and they said, ‘Right oh you get this ops here.’ And we, we were in, we were actually posted to 624 Squadron that was our first post and we flew several on to [unclear], Africa South, but just across the Mediterranean from there. That was about the time there was a big upheaval when we, we lowered, took over, captured or freed up whatever, a lot of, held up ships, French, French warships, that were valuable to the allies but were being held up and put away the German fleet. Anyway so we thought oh we’re here for ages, but no we were there about four or five, six maybe six days, not sure, and a signal came through this time saying we’re going to the Far East, but no we’re going to Italy then.
JM: Right just before we get off to Italy, in those four, five, six trips, did you drop any bombs at all, were you just surveillance or what?
DS: All bodies.
JM: Sorry?
DS: We dropped bodies.
JM: Bodies right. Were they Special Forces or something?
DS: A whole lot of activity going on particularly in Southern France.
JM: So they were what Special Forces that you were dropping or?
DS: Oh yes, well we were in, of course still 624 Squadron was a part of the Special Forces, Special Bomber Command Forces. And then when we, we moved over to when we got the posting to Italy we found out that was Brindisi and that was Brindisi 148 Squadron which was still of course RAF, actually it was all RAF [unclear]. We had any, we had a mishap and [unclear], on take-off on one trip apart from that it was [unclear] aircraft.
JM: So how did you go with any particular damage to the airplane or?
DS: Well the aircraft was in pretty [unclear] shape I’m not too sure whether they could fix it up or not because we didn’t stay long enough to see what and you asked blokes about it, ‘Oh no, oh no, never heard of it.’ Anyway.
JM: So that was the most —
DS: That was the excitement.
JM: The excitement in those half a dozen or handful of trips, yep.
DS: Brindisi we got to.
JM: Got to Brindisi —
DS: Brindisi yes. We had, there was a Polish flight, really nice squadron on the other side of the airbase, we were on this side, whichever side you were looking at. They were operate, they operated absolutely separately from us and I have to say they were fearless, there were lots of days that we couldn’t fly because of the weather because of the distance, it didn’t worry the Poles they were always flying, and particularly a bit later on we had four trips towards Poland, er, we weren’t allowed to go fortuitously or otherwise a week or so before we got there, maybe it was that week, we were helping, we were trying to help the Poles, when the Russians were approaching and of course they had the German Panzer there, then they had the Russians coming that way. They appealed to every squadron everywhere, commanders in chief the lot, we want all the assistance we can get, anyway it was quite a game, half a dozen [unclear] as many as they had planes for about five hundred or more were lost over wasn’t over Warsaw but it was I would say the battle for Warsaw.
JM: But you weren’t on that particular mission?
DS: No, no, oh no fortunately, once again luck of the draw, and they said cancelled all, all, all those trips to Warsaw, Poland, but there were plenty of others till we [unclear]. We never ever had a prime aim or you’ve got to do this or you’ve got to do that. We just —
JM: Mission by mission basically.
DS: We were on call.
JM: Yes, yes, for whatever they decided they wanted to be the next target.
DS: One of the big thing was, or one of the big things if not the biggest, Tito of course was commander of the forces over the, over the war, and Tito was a very vigorous fighter, we weren’t too sure whether he, which side he was on but we were supposed to be helping him and each second or third crew were surprised you know we used to call it [unclear] with the Luftwaffe quite [unclear]. There were all kinds of things they introduced I remember a land mine in those days of course these things were about this round all big heavy —
JM: A couple of feet wide?
DS: Oh anyway all the holes in aircraft that you get in and out are square you see so we had to cut a big round hole to accommodate these, course we had —
JM: So these were the bombs that —
DS: Oh we didn’t drop them as bombs —
JM: You didn’t drop them —
DS: We dropped them as for TJ [?] forces when we dropped those kind of things, that was quite a frequent player because arms and ammunition actually were always short for on the other side. Mind you we didn’t know too much of what was going on, they very rarely opened up to say we’re going to do this, or you are going to do that, or you’re going somewhere, but you never ever well very rarely ever knew there was no fixed place. Mainly the trips at night when we were dropping bodies were in the dark and mostly on a hillside that was hard to find always of course, but that, that was all part of the, part of the act of course.
JM: And what, and you still had your initial crew?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: That you’d crewed up with —
DS: Yeah we had —
JM: That would have been 14 —
DS: 148 —
JM: Stages there, so that crew had come through from all each of these different stages, you still had the same crew?
DS: And we were all together except the navigator who we lost on the, oh what trip it was but it was on 26th December ’44, would have been ’44 or ’43?
JM: Probably ’43 I’d say.
DS: No.
JM: No ’44.
DS: And we crashed, I should never have ever really, this is off the record of course, but I should never ever have going forward we lost an engine on take-off, so many times it’s easy to turn back your excused you know so it’s just to press on, this was an occasion I thought we’d press on you know the old story, press on regardless —
JM: And you were taking off from?
DS: Italy.
JM: From Brindisi?
DS: Brindisi. When we got to about the Slavic Coast, the north coast it became pretty evident our engines were overheating and the engineer said, ‘Oh we can’t go anymore.’ Because dropping stuff we have to go low and then you’ve gotta, so it got to the stage that we thought we’ve gotta go back, and we went back cut across to Italy and we looked for a nice soft landing spot of course and we picked a fairly good spot it was a grape growing place in, a place called San Pico [?] if I remember rightly, and unfortunately you, you don’t know the aircraft but the Halifax was, we were flying [unclear] the navigator used to be way beyond the front and you had to climb two flights of stairs to go up, and at, on that particular flight we were loaded to the hilt, there were extra clothes and food it was Christmas time you know, and er, he just couldn’t get up the stairs he had the certain navigation equipment that he should have done this with but struggling up to get the stairs and sooner or later of course you know he the props flew off, the right, the right hand motor had been what do you call it not seized up, but it had been cut off because —
JM: Feathered?
DS: It was propeller, it had been feathered [unclear] but it had been freewheeling there’s a word for it special [unclear] anyway. So as soon as the prop hit the ground the bits just flew off and fortunately the pilot was just about that far in front of where the props fly off so it missed you know who, but unfortunately the navigator was right in the road and it cocked him, so I don’t know what number trip it was but we, that was, we flew on for months after that you know borrowed a navigator. You’ll have to excuse me I’ve got to go to the toilet frequently.
JM: We’re just resuming now we’re picking up on December ’44, so where you had —
DS: We did a number of very interesting trips following that —
JM: Following that —
DS: The most interesting one was when we took four very brave characters to the Hitler’s retreat[?] up in the mountains, of course we came from Southern Italy just a bit to the left, our big concern, biggest concern in getting there and getting back there was, there was a squadron of Messerschmitt 362 had moved into somewhere near Trieste, and of course we had the option of our own of doing our own navigation you know we were well away from this crowd, so we dodged them without any trouble, then we had to find this virtually a torchlight, and I said, ‘oh no trouble.’ We’ll follow the mountains close to the mountain peak of course and they were all mountain peaks [laughs] heck of a place. So anyway we finally estimated what we reckoned what was right, confirmed by the blokes we were carrying because the method of identification was pretty raw really, but that’s the problem we were happy when they was off, snow and it was desolate you know but very close to his headquarters, we flew around a long time looking for the place but anyway we’d done what we were doing for months no too keen on that trip at all but anyway —
JM: And they dropped successfully?
DS: Oh yes, yes, the drop was. Unfortunately we never or very rare ever heard back from the blokes as whether it was successful or otherwise. But obviously some of the operations were captured before the blokes got to the ground, because the, they’d been the fellas down there had been captured by the Germans and they were using the signals you see, but you know that’s war and I guess happens all the time. Anyway so that took us up till about they declared armistice in Europe and then of course we thought well we’ll get a week have a little rest and peace and quiet, but the next important job was flying all the oddbods all over the place back to Europe, and of course that was a very joyful task, but we didn’t partake because the next day or the day after another signal came through all Australians have got to be returned they wanted everybody in a hurry so that was it, and then we boarded the first ship, or a number of aircraft ready we’d got over to Egypt and we were on the banks of the river there, The Nile, for months, months, and then the war finally ended whilst we were there, they dropped the big bomb —
JM: Hiroshima?
DS: Hiroshima, that was it, end of story.
JM: And when you were in Egypt there you were just —
DS: Doing nothing.
JM: Doing nothing just waiting?
DS: Waiting, waiting, waiting.
JM: Okay backtracking to Brindisi again, you obviously because it was such a long period of time a long posting do you have any recollection of how many ops you did altogether?
DS: We did forty.
JM: Forty ops?
DS: Forty trips yes.
JM: Okay from Brindisi?
DS: No, no all told, our log books recorded, I don’t have mine I lost it mine years and years ago, Rod Harrison said we logged forty trips.
JM: Right, right. A fair reasonable number would have been while you were at Brindisi?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: So what sort of things did you do in your down time during ops?
DS: I’m afraid we probably drunk too much red wine but I’m ashamed to say, but there wasn’t too much to do —
JM: That’s the point —
DS: And you had to fill in the day and every now and again of course they did say the weather was so terrible, but the Poles can fly but you can’t, so we got four days off we’d say right we’re off to, the favourite place was Pollina[?] in Sicily but that wasn’t very far away from Mount Etna, a road goes through from Pollina [?] up to, to the mountain, and you know it’s a story really but we got hemmed in there was the biggest snow of all time there were hemmed in just as we’d kind of settled in ready to come back [unclear] very little time.
JM: So what you’d driven up —
DS: Oh no, no, oh you’d get to the, the accommodation was in Pollina [?] a little place by the coast and then you would scrounge your way up there was plenty of vehicles going all the time Italian vehicles, so we got up there without any trouble it was the getting back of course we had to have a quick lessons in skiing, and you know we were trying all the time to do a bit of this and of course falling off most of the time but—
JM: So where did you get the skis from?
DS: Oh they loaned us to, they said, ‘Right you’re quite welcome to them just hand them into whatever centre it was back in the Pollina [?]. So I think one or two of them were badly bruised but we didn’t break anything except didn’t break any bones really they were badly bruised, lucky because when you can’t steer properly you’re bound to hit a tree and things like that, anyway we were much better skiers at the end of the time because it was a hell of a long way from up top down to where the road, where the snow stopped, a long way, unbelievable.
JM: Did you have any sense of time, sort of was it four hours, five hours, or any sense of timing at all?
DS: Really lots of time.
JM: And how did you sort of navigate, how did you know where —
DS: Ah well you know but it’s —
JM: You followed the road I presume?
DS: Yes, well more tried to follow the road but you knew if the road was east to west you knew that it was basically east to west or whatever it was, so that was one of our special trips, mind you we did quite a number of others. I don’t think we ever told the story, we were going north, north to Naples but anyway that’s another the story, but we were particular keen about Malta [unclear] never done this, never done that, there was a thousand rogues and vagabonds there, every street corner was covered with them, and of course if you were stupid enough to be out after dark you were asking for trouble, anyway we, we probably had a few drinks one day or every day I guess, but we it was after dark and we were still out and of course we got the greatest lashing of all time the whole crew.
JM: The whole crew?
DS: No there were only five of us there I think five out of the seven, the two other were too smart to come with us but probably a good idea of what was going to go off, but anyway —
JM: So how did you get to Malta?
DS: Ah, that’s another story. We had a, I’ve forgot the name of the type of [unclear] kind of a major repair very close to us, they fixed all kinds of aircraft from all over the place, so if they had anything that was flyable that we thought we could, that I thought we could fly we flew, so we had this water repair and we could [unclear] there was supposed to be —
JM: Another type?
DS: Another type, yes, that’s right. And we just squeezed in should never have had quite that many but anyway I was, I thought I could fly this in and so we did, I got it down there but very glad to leave it to someone else to fly it back because I don’t think I could have done it again but, and there were all kinds of other trips we could do.
JM: So just going back to you flew, so you got this aircraft it —
DS: Yes. Borrowed it.
JM: Borrowed it, flew over to Malta, had a bit of a day or so in Malta and then you in the evening you copped a bashing, and how did you —
DS: Get home?
JM: Get home then?
DS: I’m not too sure but we finally made it, there were some reprimands of course [laughs] but fortunately it didn’t extend beyond that, mind you they wanted, they wanted crews to fly, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t kind of send us off and say right you can go somewhere, but that was, it wasn’t our biggest adventure really, but these are the things that you know, all the aircrew, or nearly all aircrew were up to it one way or the other.
JM: No that’s right and of course the difference being with you being over there in Brindisi was very different to squadrons back in the UK —
DS: Oh yes.
JM: When they had leave they could go to London or wherever it was, but as you say sort of very much almost left to your own devices at Brindisi.
DS: We were entirely, entirely. Eventually it was rare when well Rome particularly was always a magnet to go up and you know you had to have your photograph taken in —
JM: For the —
DS: In all the places that were old and historic and that was all good fun but —
JM: So how many times do you think you would have gone to Rome?
DS: Oh several, several times.
JM: Any particular incidents stand out then?
DS: No, no real nasty incidents, we were stuck on the road sometimes, all you could see were Indians, and you know you think —
JM: How did you get to Rome?
DS: Always vehicles going, coming and going all the time, sometimes took an aircraft halfway if it was down for servicing or going back again, there was always a you know, never really anything exciting happened other than the historical photographs outside this place and that place, and of course seeing it, ah that’s right I forgot to mention our, our historic visit was the day we visited Rome and we had a special trip, an invitation from one of the padres that were training, under training here and they were quite a few of them a good number of Australians’. And anyway so we had this invite, special invite, a couple of cartons of cigarettes you know to do all this, so but we did it, and we had this personal interview with the Pope and received his blessing.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: That was a, we thought it wasn’t a big deal, but everyone else thought it was a big deal after, but it was exciting, and you can remember things you try to have a good look and see the big ring on his finger all that.
JM: So that was what a ten minute —
DS: Oh that was, we had an audience —
JM: An audience?
DS: There was a great crowd out the and we sat out there, he had a thing like this right up at the front, and at that stage he used to stand, I’ve read about it since, he’s now down on the floor level for some reason they cut out this special groove, ‘cos they were all first to get the blessings if there’s any blessings left [unclear] they on the floor, but anyway that was you know so at the time, but otherwise it was all pretty average, pretty ordinary you know, all we wanted to do really was to get home, and but we then spent four at least four months over in Egypt waiting for a ship before we got home, that was the time the bomb was dropped, the big one. We got home as peaceful civilians you might say.
JM: And when you were flying did you have any lucky charms, or any of the crew have any lucky charms, or have any suspicions that you used to that they following that anyone followed, ‘cos some I know that having talked to a few other chaps that you know other chaps did have lucky charms, and did certain things in a certain routine that you know never varied, I mean obviously the usual checks and all the rest of it.
DS: We were a pretty ordinary crew really, a pretty ordinary crowd. One of our, well it wasn’t a problem but for social aspects all the rest of the crew were under twenty-one years of age and we had these two blokes were twenty-eight and they were quite elderly.
JM: By comparison yes.
DS: Yes, so that, that upset some of them, well it didn’t upset them but it, it was divisive in as much as they didn’t all want to come with us, but mostly we drank too much anyway, nearly all the time if we could get booze but you couldn’t get good beer anywhere.
JM: Not in Italy I wouldn’t have thought.
DS: So you just drank what there was.
JM: What there was?
DS: So to cut a long story short, mother was very pleased to see us get back, she was down at the ship there so [laughs]
JM: I’ll say. And I didn’t check before did you have any brothers or sisters?
DS: I had a sister who joined the Air Force about the same time as I did and she became a radio operator and they used to be stuck up in the bush up around Jordan [?] or out north from Jordan [?] in the bush there, where the [unclear] that was it she —
JM: No it’s just that so for your mum there was only the one that she had to worry about coming back, returning from overseas, yes.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that was in you came back and then you ultimately were discharged in February 1946, is that right?
DS: Yes, that would be.
JM: Is that right?
DS: Yes. Had a week or two after we got back not very long, anyway.
JM: And then what did you do for the next few years?
DS: Well, they were very, very busy years, because when I was in the desert waiting for the ship we bought a store at Mingenew[?], do you know west at all?
JM: Not really that area no.
DS: You’ve gotta know Mingenew relatively speaking, it’s not the most salubrious town around, a typical country town, wheat and sheep, but all the good properties all the nice houses are way up in the [unclear] not many around town except the pub and our store that was good whilst it was there. I was there for not long a year or so but it was everything was rationed you know, milk, you were around at that stage or were you?
JM: Not quite no.
DS: But everything was rationed, I mean cigarettes and booze were most wanted, hard to get but you know, you couldn’t buy extra milk or cream or butter, a whole range of stuff, it was very difficult to even think that we were like life could have been like that, but anyway that didn’t last for long. I trained to be a schoolteacher, quite stupidly, god knows how I got the thing in that you know, but anyway so we left the store round there and a fortune with it for an academic career. And we were going fine, I was I did the teacher’s course and it was only two years.
JM: At Perth? Was this at Perth?
DS: At Perth yes. Became a I forgot what they call it something psychological and so and so expert you know, I only had about five minutes of training on the course. Anyway that was, that was good until and I was gonna, oh mother was happy with that, she said, ‘You’ve got a job for life son you’ll never get the sack, oh there’s permanent holidays’. Anyway so I was busy teaching, I had because of my training you know I did ended up as a special class of kids, children, and some of them had an IQ as low as fifty-five and that’s a if you know IQ’s that’s getting down a bit, nice you know, lovely children and all that but you know I was happy to stay doing this every day of the week. Ah in the meantime I’ve bought another store [unclear] you’re good at this and I thought should be a supplies store, and my wife said oh I’ll look after the store through the day and we had a manager in as well, he used to drink all, a fair drop, it was hard to get of course, and everything was sailing along beautifully for the first several months but until one day two big burly strong fellas came in and they were from the union the teacher’s union, and of course they said, ‘Oh we understand that you’re not in the you know, you haven’t joined the teacher’s union.’ And I said, ‘No that would be right I haven’t.’ They said, ‘Oh you’ve got to join the union otherwise you can’t stay, you can’t be a teacher you’ve got to be in the union.’ And I said, ‘Well, you serious about that?’ So I said, ‘Okay well.’ That was a very big silence and there we are I went off to the headmaster and that finished that job. [laughs] So no more, no more academic career for me.
JM: What, what sort of years was this, this was about ’48, well you said you did about two years training so are we up to about —
DS: No, no, no, not two years training.
JM: Teacher training I thought you said.
DS: Oh yes, yes that’s right yes.
JM: So are we up to about ’49?
DS: Well, what, two years on top of what after the discharge, would have been about right, I needed another six months to get a leaving certificate as well.
JM: Right.
DS: To allow me to do it.
JM: Do the two years.
DS: So there’s two and a half years, busy years, between drinking and, and school work, there was no spare time, oh and of course I got married in the meantime.
JM: I was going to say you mentioned your wife there, so we, I was going to find out, fit that in as well, when you got married and how, when you met your wife?
DS: Well, we met in the usual way, before I left we were both in the surf club.
JM: Which surf club?
DS: City Beach.
JM: City Beach.
DS: City of Perth, and it was you know, things were very rough and ready out there, we had a, although we had a nice, nice big shed for dressing and undressing, and we had a nice big heavy surf boat, which, which it took about eighteen blokes to just get off the ground, but we had to walk across the sandy beach you know to get it back up to the surf club. Anyway, that was, that was the recreation side, but I met Julie used to come along with several other elderly sisters, two elderly sisters and another one or two girls, and you know in the usual way we got to talking, a bit of this, a bit of that, and we decided it mightn’t be a bad idea all the rest of ‘em had said they were getting married, doing this and doing that. So we said that would be a good idea, but not till we got, not till I got back from overseas. So we did just that, got back from overseas and a couple of months later I still hadn’t turned twenty-one so it was pretty quick but it was all fixed, and she was very good she looked after the shop while I was still teaching, and then she took over the ladies section up at, when I bought the big place up at Mingenew [?], and of course you know very handy to have a wife, who suffered the most. [laughs] Very handy. Anyway you know and then the Korean War hit.
JM: So then yes, so what you decided to give teaching away?
DS: I gave it away, I packed up
JM: Yes you gave it away after that —
DS: And it wasn’t short, no it was about that time I started to get letters from Air Force Headquarters, and so they, they decided that things were getting serious again and we were needed to re-arm and the Air Force of course had let everyone go, a lot had gone [unclear], so the first thing they wanted was old aircrew back particularly, oh of course we were still on the active reserves so wanted to see you back, so that took some months of wangling and selling my business and you know cleaning up. And then you don’t have a house to go to, Air Force then had very limited accommodation, so you had wherever you went you had to buy your own house and you know self-accommodate, so we did that of course, you just get by. And then of course they said all of you we’d like you to stay and they gave you, you get up as your old rank was flight officer. So you go back as that and then, I don’t know whether that’s when I got a new number was it? Perhaps it was 051723. Anyway, so that was it, it was just a nice long career in the Air Force.
JM: But well yes. So you were still based in Perth at that time?
DS: Oh yes, that lasted about five minutes.
JM: And from there?
DS: Melbourne.
JM: You moved to Melbourne yep. And that how long were you in Melbourne roughly?
DS: A very short time.
JM: A very short time.
DS: So then you, you needed experience of course.
JM: Because at this point you’re not flying?
DS: No.
JM: Your in —
DS: I was doing a bit of flying but there were too many old war time pilots that had gone back and they were very, very jealous of their careers and they didn’t want any extra crew around, so they said, ‘Oh you better do this, you better do that, become a teacher you’ve got the qualifications.’ So I said, ‘No, no, no I don’t want to do that.’ And I took the job as equipment officer and, I, all I know about it, all the girls used to hand stuff over the counter, when you wanted clothing and stuff you know, I thought that’s what the equipment officer, that’s what they do. So of course, it is what they do, it’s a very small part of it of course, so that was my view of it. So we did this there was really no appreciation of time you know you get [unclear] So we got, till we got up to Canberra, and of course once you’re there you’re stuck there, you know it doesn’t matter what you do or say or where you wanna go. Oh we had a couple of years in the States.
JM: Okay, what sort of, heading up a base or something?
DS: No, no, no, they didn’t want too many strangers, too much for them. There was the nicest, kindest people in the world as long as you didn’t cast any shadow on the mishap or the US generally, well no, no trouble, I mean we enjoyed the place it was all very nice. So we had two years ensconced to the Air Force base, and I was the chief missiles man quite a new sidewinder missiles they’ve still got some a very basic missile but very, very effective.
JM: So what you were looking after their —
DS: Well looking after our interests or trying to.
JM: Or trying to.
DS: Yes. And that was an Air Force base where they’ve got a lot of [unclear] and we they were kind enough to lend me a, an F100 which was very modern aircraft and the gentleman with me the pilot he’d got a flare for me you know and it worked, and we saw it work it was all good fun.
JM: So that would have been a very different flying experience to your Stirlings and your Lancasters?
DS: Oh yes, a world apart, world apart, but mind you Bomber Command was Bomber Command and they had nothing better anywhere, and the States never got, never got up to the bombing raids because they were, their aircraft weren’t specifically built for that particular job whereas our aircraft were, and they might have been clumsy to get around them because there was bits of stuff sitting out the floor here you know, but they were essentially for carrying bombs, the more they could fit on the better, and they did just that. Well —
JM: And, except when they were used for transferring all the at the end of the war, after the war had concluded and were transporting all the troops back from, from Europe back to England, of course then it was a fairly difficult exercise trying to get the chaps you know I believe they just packed in and sat on top of their parachutes.
DS: Well in some parts in others they only had a handful of blokes.
JM: So how many, you did a few of those —
DS: No, no, I was ensconced in Egypt by then.
JM: Yes, yes, in Egypt by then.
DS: But my friends, who one was a Kiwi, another a great Englishman, and we were in close contact with and they had some terribly exciting trips to all parts of Europe picking up two blokes here and three blokes there for different reasons why there were only two or three there, and of course there were other sad scenes too where they got a lot of others, but anyway that was and I, we weren’t there, I missed out on all that I’d have loved to have been there, but so endeth the —
JM: So then, we were just talking about that flight you know comparing that flight for you in that F100 —
DS: Oh yes, yes. F100.
JM: Compared to the experience in —
DS: Oh, chalk and cheese.
JM: Chalk and cheese, yes that’s right. Again that’s more or less the fighter pilot which again you know as we said, we’re talking specifically designed for bombers, for bombing raids.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that’s a major, major difference there and then. So what sort of roles did you ultimately do in Canberra?
DS: Oh well, briefly I’d have to say pen pushing, there was a lot of politicking and inter-action with the department you know the crowd that were close to defence and —
JM: Defence affairs?
DS: No, no, defence affairs, there were well I should, I should be able to spout it off but I can’t, anyway that, there was a lot of as we got sent on a course, lot of politics.
JM: Foreign affairs?
DS: No, Air Force Headquarters.
JM: Oh Air Force Headquarters.
DS: You know you always had to be a bit careful of which side of the camp you know, we got a very nasty senior civilian in the Department of Defence, he was the first of the Defence Ministers that was oh rough, and gruff and anti-services, so there used to be this constant battle all the time you know to get, to get to do this to do that, now of course many years later there well and truly integrated, were into their department as well as they’re are with us and hopefully things work differently now sometimes they do, but anyway that’s not for me to say. But I enjoyed it every minute, the last couple of years when I was Air Commodore the last year anyway when I was briefly in charge of our branch, er, I used to be at work at seven in the morning, half past seven, but purely there was a load of stuff to do always, always working, always behind, but I always had my dilly bag and maybe a carrier bag, I’m afraid I wasn’t not much of a nightlife at home because had to do the books, the Air Force books every night, anyway that’s another matter, but I enjoyed it anyhow.
JM: Which Air Force books were those, which Air Force books?
DS: Oh, the books, the books, er, well our own branch in particular because we had thousands of blokes in the branch, but you so far away from most of them you only know the names of all those that are up close and we did it, we had a an Air Vice Marshall who was actually senior to me and he was posted to Defence so it didn’t leave too many others round our way, but that didn’t matter, we enjoyed, I enjoyed life, and going to the mess and having a few grogs, but not half as many as I drank as a younger bloke, not half as many.
JM: No.
DS: So it got to be different anyway.
JM: Oh that’s right, that’s right. And of course as well I mean you were going home to your wife and all the rest of it so that’s a totally different situation.
DS: Yeah well we flew over from Perth with, er, we only had one child at that stage, and he’s since dead, died, what we did bring over was a big cattle dog, I’d been, one of the blokes had come back from the Kimberley’s and he was a drover and he bought it origin magnificent countryman good family, he said, ‘There.’ But cattle, on the cattle side I can speak for exactly [unclear] crossed with a dingo, but he said, ‘He’s a faithful animal.’ So we had this, I called it “Aspetari, Aspetari Peter” so that was his name [laughs] not quite an ordinary dog’s name.
JM: Not quite.
DS: My navigator we used to in the end we used to call him, the navigator that replaced poor old Fred, we used to call him Aspertari which is Italian for going slow, or a derivation of that anyway. Anyway so we brought our big dog over, he used to bite anyone he could, oh he was always heeling and very, very rarely would he break anyone’s skin, but I bought a lot of socks for people, he used to grab it and anchor it you see, grab a bit of sock with it, there all good stories.
JM: That’s right yeah.
DS: All good stories.
JM: So when you, so you retired in what?
DS: Ah, it would have been, it was either ’80, ‘4 or ‘6, or ‘8, it was one of those multiples, I’m gonna say the middle one about ’86.
JM: About ’86.
DS: Yes, it’s very close to that anyway. So I didn’t need to retire I could have they wanted someone to take over the support command and then post another bloke into my job, so I went home and told the bad news to Julie my wife and she said, ‘Oh love, I just don’t wanna move again, I, we’ve been from there, to there, to there.’ So then we bought three or four houses along the road, none of them very good but good enough to live in for the time being, and that we’d, she’d had enough and I wasn’t far behind so I didn’t take much convincing so I threw it in. But you know there comes a time for everything.
JM: That’s right. And did you stay in Canberra then?
DS: Oh no, the day, oh we left the house and oh we came straight up to the Gold Coast that’s right. I bought a block of flats pretty clapped out they were but all they needed was a little bit of —
JM: TLC?
DS: Oh perhaps a lot of TLC.
JM: Okay.
DS: But anyway, that was, the story is they were right next to the Grand Hotel, you don’t know the Grand?
JM: Not really, where, which part are we talking about?
DS: On the coast, on the Gold Coast, at Labrador.
JM: Labrador, right okay.
DS: There’s this much water between us and the ocean.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: The road up there, anyway, I didn’t, we didn’t realise at the time what an asset it was but of course I don’t know why you know you get the urge when you’re younger and for some reason you want to do something else. Anyway this crowd came up from I don’t know Canberra probably and offered a price and it meant I made a few dollars, and I was silly enough to sell it, mind you the wife had worked too hard there and I wasn’t too keen about that either but, and so, I was stupid enough then to buy I think we bought some more flats but they, they weren’t as good, oh anyway that’s another story. I bought two more blocks of in Main Beach and they did become very valuable, but by that time I’d gone, we had a house a very comfortable place but you know there you are.
JM: Yes, by this stage a few years had passed by —
DS: To get away from the Air Force too, you can’t go to any of the, we went to the reunions till they finally wore out.
JM: Yes.
DS: But there’s a limit, there weren’t that many bods around here, but —
JM: So in terms of then maintaining contact you said that your wireless operator is still alive?
DS: Oh yes.
JM: And what was his name?
DS: Rod Harrison.
JM: And whereabouts is Rod?
DS: He lives in, um, oh, it’s 19 —
JM: No just the, Queensland, New South Wales?
DS: Oh sorry he’s in Perth still.
JM: Oh he’s in Perth okay right.
DS: Yeah, when we were younger and fitter we used to visit each other of course, his wife died at the end of the century and my wife died nine years ago, so we’d been on our own, he was foolish enough to remarry at the age of eighty-four but you know that’s life.
JM: And what sort of contact, you said made reference to a couple of other chaps that you’ve spoken to, a Kiwi chap and another chap are they Bomber Command people were they?
DS: Yes the Kiwi blokes gone he was with us in 14, 148 Squadron, yes he died, and the other guy I can’t remember.
JM: Can’t remember that’s okay that’s fine.
DS: It was bad enough remembering, you know ’cos I’ve been in the RSL for years and years and years, but even there the old timers have all gone and I’m the eldest member there certainly the only ex Bomber Command, so nobody knows anything about it, nobody cares, that’s my how I get the message, and it wouldn’t matter if you walked in with the VC tomorrow it wouldn’t upset any of them. Anyway that’s enough.
JM: So that’s —
DS: I’ll come back to one or two reasons, the luck of the draw and if your just lucky, and postings come up and they protect you, I mean I was protected with going to a special unit, how you’re picked for it, God knows and he won’t tell us, so you can never find out, but these things just happen that’s it.
JM: And it was good, it was good for you too that you were able to take your whole crew with you at the same time which makes a big difference because having that core of people around you to come back to, and when you came back, I mean obviously as you say they’ve all passed away now bar Rod but did you keep in contact with the initial ones?
DS: Oh except our engineer, the old Englishman and even nice correspondence didn’t elect any, he was that kind of a character.
JM: He just didn’t want to maintain contact with you?
DS: No, but he was a happy-go-lucky engineer. So, but you know that’s life, I’m very fortunate to be around I suppose although there are many bloody days I think that’s a misfortune, one of them is that I’ve gotta go to the toilet all the time, and I’ve gotta go again.
JM: You’ve got to go again. Well, is there any other particular things at this point that you wanted to bring up?
DS: No.
JM: Well we’ve covered a tremendous amount of territory there Don and I very much appreciate your, your candidness and —
DS: Well nothing to hide, nothing to –
JM: No, no, no, just being able to sit and reminisce that’s so important and I’ll thank you for it. Thank you
Dublin Core
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ASolinD170220
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Interview with Donald Solin
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:32:13 audio recording
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Pending review
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-20
Description
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Donald Solin grew up in Perth, Western Australia and worked in a store before joining the Air Force. He served in Europe and North Africa. and flew 40 operations as a pilot with 624 Squadron, a special duties squadron dropping supplies and agents into occupied Europe. He was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of Flying Officer. He rejoined the Royal Australian Air Force during the Korean War and eventually retired with the rank of Air Commodore.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Algeria
Australia
Italy
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Mount Etna
North Africa
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
624 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
crash
crewing up
Halifax
love and romance
pilot
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Tiger Moth
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/331/3491/PSouthwellDE1603.1.jpg
14aae2a01070e096fa9c00a5c57a4ace
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/331/3491/ASouthwellDE160424.2.mp3
bd5f88b470f50c82d0fece440095f478
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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Southwell, Don
Donald Edward Southwell
Donald E Southwell
Donald Southwell
D E Southwell
D Southwell
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Donald Edward "Don" Southwell (b. 1924 - 2019, 423987 Royal Australian Air Force), documents including a navigation chart, and six photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 463 and 467 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Don Southwell and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-04-24
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Southwell, DE
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DES: [unclear] have you?
AP: My little question sheet.
DES: Oh, good, [unclear] you should have given it to me before.
AP: No, no, no.
DES: [laughs]
AP: So what I do, uhm, because of this little adapter, if I unplug it, the careful tuned thing dies and it gets embarrassing cause it never works. So, instead I have to plug in earphones, so that I can check cause this is a little splitter. I can plug in earphones so that I can listen to it, because if I just try on the speaker, it goes out the earphones so, anyway. It works now, that’ the most important thing, I’ve had a couple of interviews where I had to use the little microphone built in here cause I never know if this thing’s working. Very very [unclear].
DES: I didn’t know there was a mike in those. See, I use one of those all the time. [unclear]
AP: Well, some of them, some of them do, so there is actually a little camera up here, there is a little microphone there, so it is like for web cam, is not for very good quality and it picks up all the noise that’s around, this seems to be more, uhm, localised to adjust your voice, which [unclear] in the recording. I did one of those with a bloke, uhm, Jack Bell, who, he was shot down in Libya, uhm, he’s 98, he was shot down in Libya in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as prisoner, ’43, very early [unclear].
DES: Ah, prisoner.
AP: 42 [unclear]
DES: In Germany?
AP: Uhm, in Italy and then in Germany.
DES: Ah.
AP: Uhm, and the house next door was actually being demolished at the time we did the interview. In the background you can hear a little bit of it, but not very much. So, for a twenty dollar E-bay special, they are pretty good. Anyway, if you are comfortable and ready to [unclear]
DES: Yeah.
AP: All this is, as you know, IBCC interview, uhm, basically we just have a chat. Uhm, I’ve got a sort of list of questions to get us started, but basically I’ll let you run and we go wherever we go and then we might come back and fill in gaps, all that sort of stuff.
DES: You edit it. Yeah.
AP: Yeah, uhm, we just go until one of us begs for mercy basically. I know what you are like, so it could be for a while [laughs].
DES: No, no, no, it’s not right. No, I, whenever this comes up and I’m in a group, I know the people who’ve got all the interesting stories. I’ve been doing this since Australia all over.
AP: No, I.
DES: Down in, [unclear] I’m gonna write him a letter too, but, uh, Ian McNamara and uh he was, uhm, I was all, I did directing, at, down there, I got the, we got this bloke and got this bloke, got that bloke, got that bloke, he’s gonna get all interesting blokes, you know, I knew [unclear] too long [laughs] and they didn’t want me [laughs] Yeah.
AP: Very good. Anyway, uhm, so, look, the shortest interview I’ve done went from forty five minutes long to three and a half hours or so, you know, whenever we get, we get, it’s quite ok. As I said, there’s a list of questions to sort to start of, so
DES: Forty five minutes, [unclear]
AP: That’s very short one, that was very hard because I had to keep asking questions to. Uhm, my favourite one.
DES: You’d might have to do that.
AP: We’ll see what happens when I ask the first question, that’s always the same question I start with and once the opening response went for about ten words, the longest one has been an hour and fifty before I had to say anything else. Which
DES: [unclear]
AP: It’s astonishing, it’s really really good. Anyway, so, uhm, I start off with a little spiel, so, kick off with that now, just to sort of set the time and the place, uh, so, we are recording and it looks good. So, this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Don Southwell, who was a 463 Squadron navigator at the tail end of World War Two. Interview is taking place at Don’s home in St Ives in Sydney, it’s the 24th of April, I should know that, it’s their [unclear] day, my name is Adam Purcell. Uhm, so, as usual, Don, we will start with the normal question, can you tell me something of your early life, growing up, what you did before the war.
DES: Yes, I can certainly do that. Ehm, I was born in Croydon, in New South Wales, in number 10, Hardidge [?] Street as a matter of fact and I was the third child of my mother Cathy. Ehm, I had my brother Brian, my sister and myself, we were four years between each of us and we lived in Croydon, in Sydney. My father died when I was thirty, when he was thirty five and my mother brought us all up to the [unclear], my, I went to school in [unclear] High school and I had, oh I had a job when I left high school. I was, uhm, my first job was at, uhm, RKO Radio Pictures and I was there for about eighteen months and uhm, my mother thought that this picture business wasn’t the sort of place that [laughs] her son should be spending his career in. So, she started to work on various people and I finished up with a job at the MLC. At the MLC, at this particular stage, they only took you with the leaving certificate. My mum couldn’t afford to keep me on the leaving, so, while my brother and sister went to Fort Street High School and did the leaving, uhm, my mum couldn’t afford it. Anyway, we, I went to RKO Radio Pictures and we, uhm, I lasted there and, uhm, I got the job at the MLC and my sister actually worked and that’s how I probably had a little bit of influence and they didn’t want to appoint me first of all but I reached the stage where there weren’t getting many men in because of the war and the war had started and this was in 1941. And so, uhm, I was very fortunate to get that job because I remind there laws about 90 and that’s not a jag either, this is quite true and I [unclear], I have to write, yeah, uh, I was there for eighteen months and the war came and I’d already enlisted, I’d already joined the air training corps, it was 24 Squadron at Ashfield and under control of squadron leader Whitehurst and he had the grads there and we did all the courses for the air training corps and I was also an ARP warden on my bike and I had an ARP band on my arm, patrolling the streets at night to make sure the people were keeping to the blackout rules. I used to sit in those, sit at the top of the town hall at Ashfield and looking for [laughs] Japanese planes coming over. We didn’t get any Japanese planes but we had to report all things that were going in there and then I got the call up for the army. Because I was eighteen the army called me up and because I was in the air force, I had already been in the air training corps it didn’t make any difference so I went up to the infantry training battalion at Dubbo in central New South Wales and, uhm, I was there for about three weeks, while the rifle regiment came in on a motorbike and looking for [unclear] and took me back to the, you know, the orderly room, I was put on a train to Sydney, I was discharged from the army and sent down to Woolloomooloo. In Woolloomooloo was the air force, uhm, recruiting depot and there we did the medical tests and so forth and I was then posted off and I to number nine Glebe Island [?], which is a wharf in Sydney, I went in as an aircrew, I was called, the air force had so many people for aircrew that they couldn’t cope with them at a particular time and they made us air crew guards and I served for three months in Sydney, there’s an aircrew guard, some of them got posted all the way from New South Wales but I was fortunate enough, I caught number nine Glebe Island, where we guarded little beds, belonged to the air force and so forth and we also did jobs working on the wharves and I was part of the secret war people talk about, that the wharfies continually being out on strike and so forth and they asked the, they sent one of us down to do various jobs on the wharves because later all the supplies were going up to New Guinea, was on a ship called the Marino and it belonged under contract to the air force and now, the wharfies were pilfering stuff from this convoys that were going up to the, the trips up in New Guinea, they were pilfering stuff there and so we had a, we were put, what do you call it? A revolver, a Smith and Wesson revolver around their waists and I did stay for one night, I’d be inside the wharf for one day, inside the wharf in the stores where they had all the stuff there laying. We had a guard on the door, a guard on the, uhm, where the crane came down and picked the, uhm, supplies up, one on top on board the ship and one down in the hold. And we virtually stopped the pilfering in the, but there was a great war against the wharfies in those particular days but a very interesting book has been written about the secret war and it’s not only happened there, but it happened in the army and all around the place. So, that was just a little side set up, while I was waiting to go to aircrew. I was then called up to number 2 ITS in Bradfield Park, to go and do my initial training school and, uhm, so began my career in the air force. Then, do you want me to go further?
AP: Yeah, can you keep going as [unclear].
DES: I’m in the air force then, ok.
AP: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Absolutely.
DES: We’re in Bradfield Park and Bradfield Park was the centre of two ITS and we did the normal parades on the [unclear] rid marches, uhm, we did cross country runs, we did all sorts of subjects that were pertinent to air crew and so forth, meteorology, all that sort of business and we, uhm, that took us about three weeks to do that and then I was categorised as a pilot. Cause I wanted to be a pilot because my brother was a pilot and so they made me a pilot. They sent me off to number 8, I think it is number 8, EFTS at Narrandera and so began my career, started my career as a pilot. The time limit for getting through, through the school was you had to go solo in twelve hours, now came twelve hours and I hadn’t gone solo and the, uhm, my instructor said; ‘Come on, Don, we gotta get you through this’ and we were operating from a little satellite area, outside of Narrandera, he said you gotta go up and go solo today [laughs]. So, I worked out all what I had to do in the circuit and so forth and I went up on the, took off, made a nice take off but I got the wind changed and then [laughs], I didn’t know the wind had changed and I’m doing the circuit on the basis of when I took off, I did the left-hand circuit and so forth and coming, all of a sudden there is a Tiger Moth coming up beside me, it was my instructor and he was pointing down to the wind sock and I didn’t know what he was talking about, you know, so I didn’t, I just went up and landed, I did a beautiful crosswind landing, it was a good crosswind landing but that’s the last time I, I think I lasted for another half an hour or so flying and then they decided that I, you know, I hadn’t gone in twelve hours, didn’t look like it, so they scrubbed me, I was scrubbed and that was a terrible thing to happen to me, to be scrubbed, I wanted so much to be like my brother who could fly before the war. And, so, uh, I was then, I thought, oh, I’ll have it now the air crew but they transferred me. The boy that got a B in mathematics 1 and mathematics 2, the intermediate, they transferred me to embarkation depot as a navigator and so, but I, and then I stayed at the, I came from Narrandera back to Sydney and I stayed there at the embarkation depot and uhm, just as on the side, we used to, get my [unclear] at Burwood, that was a [unclear] about twenty minute train ride from Chatswood, we used to have a night down, tucked down under the barbed wire, get down a lady game driver, was not a lady game driver this near, walk up to take off, picked to be kept, seen the fiver air crew, when I say we there were a lot of fellows doing this, and we get, I get the train to Han, I spend the night at Ham (or Han), get out of bed at about five o’clock, then come back and up [unclear] at five o’clock ready for parade. And so that, that didn’t go on for long of course, but I did my, that was our waiting game but of course, we were going overseas an therefore we couldn’t leave Australia until we were nineteen, that was a government rule, they just couldn’t, you couldn’t leave, you couldn’t get out, be transferred out of Australia unless you were nineteen. So, I kept going, I was before I turned nineteen, I went to embarkation depot, so I kept [unclear] just about every day reminding them that I was, I’ll be nineteen on the seventeenth of April. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were bound on a train up to, from Central Railway, we went up to Queensland and transferred to Kalinga and the army came, was a big army came and we slept in tents, oh, by the way, the train trip was terrible, we were in, we had to sit up or some fellows were sitting up, lying down on in the luggage racks upstairs but we had a terrible trip that night, that train, they put us like cattle in there, and so we got up to Brisbane to Kalinga and we had to wait there for our ship and that was somewhere around the first or second of July in 1943, ’43, yeah ’43, and we uhm, one night we had the cars or the truck all arrived and took us down to the boat, was the Noordam, was the United States army transport going back to San Francisco, empty or as empty, except for us air force, because they’ve been bringing all those hundreds of thousands of American troops over to Australia for the Pacific War and uhm, so uhm, we set sail from Brisbane heading or Morton Bay and then shortly about two or three hours out from Brisbane we [unclear] and we wonder what we were doing because of the Japanese submarines and all that sort of thing and it was the, only about three or four days before, or, yeah must have been before, we have to because the Japanese had sunk the hospital ship, the, the, the, the, because they sunk one of their hospital ships and we had two minutes of silence we expected to be torpedoed [unclear] and we headed on our way to, I think it took us about eighteen days to get to San Francisco and never been past Hornsby, past Wollongong, never seen the Blue Mountains, I hadn’t been out to the parks to the, in the [unclear] and to Dubbo in the army and, uhm, here I was, just coming into San Francisco harbour and so I made sure I was at the front of the ship and I never left that ship till about two o’clock in the afternoon, we came by, saw the Golden Gate bridge [unclear] I was nineteen years of age and we heard the, we saw the [unclear] prison and the San Francisco bridge and we landed at Oakland and from there we were put on a train and sent up to, up the uhm, West Coast of America, uh, to Vancouver, where we switched trains for our trip on Canadian national Railways, was a steam, was an old-burner train and we went to, went on our way through the Canadian Rockies to Edmonton and slightly north of Calgary at and the thing that strikes us, was the difference in travelling in Australia in the cattle trucks, where we had, uhm, they weren’t there for our Americans in those days but they were there for Americans were waiting on us, we had sleepers, everything was laid on, the Canadian people, the Canadian government were fantastic, and here we were, we were only leading aircraftsmen, we weren’t even sergeants, and so anyway, we got to Edmonton, I went to the, uhm, manning depot, manning depot and I have a big photo in my home here of the, uhm, on one of our parades, you can pick me out in the [unclear], we had the morning [unclear], you can pick out the Australians because of their blue uniforms, all the rest wore khaki, was in summertime, but anyway, you could pick us out, pick me out with the manning depot and then I was transferred from there, which was just across the road, really, to number 2 AOS Edmonton, that’s where I did my navigation course. My first trip on navigation course was a real, [laugh], was a real did last as far as I was concerned but I’ll tell you about it. We, uhm, I had a, uhm, another navigator, we were flying Avro Ansons and, well, just digress slightly on our Avro Ansons and then poor our navigator had to wind the wheels of the Anson, Avro Anson up, a hundred and forty-nine times to get the wheels up, that was their job for, just straight on take-off. Anyway, we went on from this first navigation trip, I had a second navigator with me, who was supposed to be giving me fixes and that sort of thing and I got lost and so while I was suggesting we do, the pilots by the way were all civilians, they were not in the air force, they were under civilian contract and that was [unclear] Canada and, uhm, Maxi Titlebomb his name was and he suggested we get out and have a look at the railway sign [laughs] so we went down to the railway station and were at a sort of place called Wetaskiwin, not far out of Edmonton, but it was Wetaskiwin so I proceeded to [unclear] I knew where I was, I got me air plucked for Wetaskiwin and went up and we continued on our course, I expected to be scrubbed straight off on that score but I wasn’t, no, they didn’t, was the best thing that ever happened to me because I made a mistake on my first trip, you were never, the navigators rule was never to drop your air plot and I dropped me air plot because if you kept your air plot [unclear] end your life to get a position, make some sort of, where you think it was but you, you’d always got the opportunity to do that and, so a navigator never had to, should never drop his air plot. But anyway I finished up, was about six months course, was about six months and we, incidentally we had to, people talk about the weather these days, it was forty degrees, one night it was forty degrees below zero, now was in Fahrenheit was thirty-two degrees and so was seventy-two degrees of frost. We had to warm the aircraft up in the hangers before we went out and we had winds, sometimes we had headwinds where we were going backwards up in the north part of Canada [laughs], you know, very, very frightening for a nineteen year old [laughs] that didn’t know a lot about navigation, but we got through all of it and we, I finished up with a reasonable max coming out of my course, I was always better at the air plot than I was, I always had trouble with my theory things, wasn’t very good on the theory but I was, even if I say so I was reasonable as a navigator. And so we got our wings there and was around December 1943 and I haven’t been out to find many [unclear] since I came across my fellows book called Navigator Brothers the other day and I wrote to the author, because in there was a photo of one of the group that was having their passing air parade, cause a big deal the passing air parade, the Canadians really put on all their pomp and ceremony for their passing air parade. The, uhm, uh, yes, we got our wings and we proceeded then to go to, uhm, to uhm, we’d being posted to Montreal [unclear] I just had a thought, we went to Montreal and we had to wait a bit to go over to England and, you know, during my stay in Montreal, we stayed at a place called the Sheen, we were sent off for six weeks up to a ski lodge, so they didn’t have a boat to take us over to England so they sent us, was about thirty of us, we were all sent up to a ski lodge, luxurious place for, you know, a couple of weeks, two or three weeks, we learned to ski, we learned to use the tennis rackets on the feet to walk in the snow, we learned to ice skate, to do all sorts of things, it was wonderful. Anyway, we got back from, we went back to the Sheen and I found out that my brother, was, uhm, who was a pilot in the Middle East and an instructor at Lichfield, which would probably entirely they said to be Bomber Command.
AP: Absolutely.
DES: But he, uh, I found out he was coming over on his way home to Australia having completed his tour, he was transferred back to Australia but on his way he had to go, he was [unclear] to fly back with a brand new Liberator and Bryan was in New York with his crew, but they’d been flying Liberators although a lot of these fellows who did this were Lancaster pilots, cause there’s two hundred of them eventually, and then Bryan and I we shared a room in Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York for a couple of days. Then he went on his way home or to California, I should say, where he did three months before he flew off back to Australia, If you like I might talk about that later on. But, then I went back to Montreal and we then got advised that a ship was waiting for us in Halifax, so we did a night trip to Halifax from Montreal and we joined the maiden [?] vessel called, the maiden [?] vessel called the Andes, was a flat bottom boat, a, yeah, a 20000-tonner I suppose, but it was very fast and on that boat we had a complete Canadian armoured division, were ten thousand fellows with their tanks and about a hundred aircrew, [unclear] pilots joining there, there were navigators, there were wireless operators, there was bomb aimers, all been trained in Canada and sending us all over and so we went over there on our own, we didn’t go in a convoy, we went on our own, took us about seven days, we went up towards the North Pole and [unclear] in Liverpool but we didn’t have any, uhm, we didn’t have any [unclear] things happening to us except that we, was a [unclear] taking more than seven days but it was a fast trip was what we did and we weren’t allowed about decks at night time, so, at night time you couldn’t go up on deck no matter what it was because people had a habit of lighting cigarettes and submarines could catch you but some of these, the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, they were too fast for the submarines so they, we zig-zagged all the way across and we arrived in Liverpool and uhm, we uhm, got, we arrived nearly as the morning met by the salvation army, they gave us food and so forth, we went in the big tunnel out of Liverpool and came down to, went down to Brighton PDRC and that’s where I started my first, uhm, flying, my first events in England.
AP: What did you?
DES: Now.
AP: What did you think of wartime England when you first got there?
DES: When?
AP: As a nineteen year old Australian, you are now in wartime England. What?
DES: What I thought of it? Well, uhm, when I first got there I, we went by train down to, we skirted to London, we went to, Brighton was a lovely place but, we were, there was the IFF that had taken over the uhm, the uhm, the Metropole and the, the Metropole and the, the two big hotels, I have just forgotten their names but it was where Margaret Thatcher was blown up later on, she escaped the bombing near in Brighton some years later but we went straight down so, we didn’t see much of the, uhm, the countryside. We were billeted out from the hotels, the [unclear] were billeted out in homes quite near the hotel but we didn’t see any great, you know, people had their coupons, that sort of thing and I saw a lot of it after on my first leave to London, then was when I, you know, realised how terrible things were but there in Brighton, where we were, all the beaches were, they’re all pebble stones not sand all the beaches were mined so you couldn’t go there. If anybody knows Brighton as the Brighton pier, and then it had been chopped in half purposely and the bottom half was used by the air force to, but we used to go and gonna get paid there, we used to go and collect the money on a Thursday or whatever it was, and so uhm, we didn’t see, uhm, in all fairness, you know, I didn’t see, you know, it was, I wouldn’t say, you know, nasty looking, you know, there wasn’t, there was no visible damage that I saw down in Brighton but, my mother and father both came out from England in 1912 so I had relations to go to in England and so I was, uhm, my first leave I had when I went to, I went to a place called Maidstone where my mother was born and uhm, I went to see uncle Ted and auntie Gladys who became [unclear] mother while I was there and I stayed with them and they had a big two story home. He was the general manager of Fremlin’s Brewery, which was a big brewery [laughs] in London and Maidstone, and was a white, the emblem was a white elephant on all the London busses and he was the general manager of this [unclear] and so naturally I was well looked after. If they wanted some meat, if they wanted a steak or some, which was very rare, she takes it, make sure you keep the uniform on and we’ll go down to the butchers today and she, he’s my cousin from Australia you know and they’d toss out some special food for us. But uhm, they seemed to live pretty well you know I think they were, you had to be careful with petrol rationing and that sort of thing but in the group that I sort of as, you know, these people were part of, put in mind, you know, reasonably well off as people and, but she was a real mother to me, she used to take me round on, I always used to go there on leave but she used to take me round and onto, show me the Rochester cathedral or Ramsgate, where my mother used to go and swim as she was a kid and so forth, you know, and I’ve met all my relations but I, I don’t have any, it’s only when later on I went down when I was in the middle of the buzz bombs and the V2 rockets that I realised, you know, how terrible that, uh, what the Germans had done to our people here in London and, you know, when you see streets that are just completely, [unclear] smashed, it was quite something but generally speaking I can’t say that I, you know, I go shopping in London and I, one of the girls there I used to take out, Elisabeth Fulligan, she was a solicitors clerk in London and I used to see her every now and then when I was on leave but I generally speaking, you know, the, I go into a restaurant but we might have a bit difficulty in getting decent sort of stuff but, you know, I can always get eggs and bacon or some I think we had horse meat at some places in London but I didn’t know we were eating horse meat until somebody told us but. Uh, all I can say is about, the people there were marvellous [unclear] and if I can just get back, the people in Canada I missed them, I spent a lot of time when I was in Canada doing my course, one of the fellows on my course was Harry Thompson and he was a Canadian, he lived in 1065 107 Street and we used to go to weekends there and you know, they couldn’t do, his parents and their friends had us all out to their places and we go, they take us to their places and, you know, you can never pay for them, they , it was fantastic in what they did for us and I had, as I say, I had relations in England and they are all the same and I, I think that I was fortunate in that I had relations to go and stay with, all our on the other side of that I missed seeing a lot of England, I used to go down on leave to Wesperdale [?] , good to be when I was there, I was enjoying myself immensely you know, I didn’t drink beer, I drank cider and that was worse. I can always remember going to a Rotary club meeting in Maidstone and they introduced me to a sergeants household and I had to get up and say who I was and I didn’t drink beer and I thought I’d have some cider and I think I was silly as anything because I didn’t realise cider was, I any, I didn’t know much about the air force and before we finished I’d like to speak about to something about the air force that I would like to say but I answered that question there and that’s about the best I can do about the people and the conditions and that sort of thing.
AP: So.
DES: Except that I had a good time.
AP: Well, that’s the important thing.
DES: When I was on leave that was, all my leave [unclear], that’s when you notice these things.
AP: So, from Brighton, where did you go next?
DES: Oh, ok, from Brighton my first port of call was, I think it was 29 OTU, operational training unit at Bruntingthorpe, which was near Leicester and that’s, no, I’m sorry, that’s not where I went, I went to the advanced flying unit in Freugh in Scotland. There’s a good story about Freugh and that’s where we did our first lot of real navigation. We did all trips, day trips out to the Mull of Kintyre, we’re up right in the north of Scotland, no the north, but half way of Scotland, and we were doing all these trips. You went over pretty close to Ireland, we’re doing all these marvellous trips, you know, that’s where we really learned to be navigators, really into, we got our wings in Canada, but this where we really did the real thing and there we spent, West Freugh is near Stranraer and Stranraer was the main port of call when you go over to Northern Ireland and now we are on the maps, normal maps, you can find them on google now but on the normal maps you buy, you will never see West Freugh, I’ve asked many a Scottish bloke about West Freugh but they can never find West Freugh, they can only assume it was probably a farm of some sort but they had especially for that, they made it [unclear] because it was flying, we’re on Avro Ansons again, we were flying Avro Ansons there at West Freugh, they’re a two-engine aircraft, and they had two navigators on board and then we, uhm, so, I think from a point of view of a AF advanced flying unit, by the way, it was number 4 [unclear] which is [unclear], we stayed there about, uhm, oh, we didn’t stay there long, we stayed there from July ’44 to the end of July, early July, 5th of July to the 21st of July and that’s where we did our AFU advanced flying unit . Now, from there, we graduated from there and we were only doing cross country trips and that sort of thing from there. From there we went to 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe and that’s where what we called crewed up and that’s where we, uhm, we’re all pilots, navigators, wireless operators, correct me if I’m wrong, there was, we didn’t have any engineers cause we didn’t have engineers at that stage we had two air gunners, not certain about if we had all, and the wireless operator and so we all, where we were, we were put in a big room and we were told to find yourself a pilot, navigators find yourself a pilot sort of, so, all was a real PR job, you know, we’d all yeah and there might have been a few drinks [unclear] around too as I say but they all, we were all supposed to be friendly and you wanted to find out if you, you wanted to find you’ll gonna have a team that you could work together with and I, I don’t know how I picked my pilot but I [unclear] [unclear] from [unclear] and was slightly older than me, he’s a big man and he had the biggest hands I’ve ever seen, he was a, he had a grape, not a vineyard, well it was a vineyard but he had dried fruits in [unclear] and now was to sitting behind a big bomber and we had to carry a full bomb load and with his hands gave him a great confidence. But I’ll get back to the Bruntingthorpe now, but we, we got together and we finished up with whatever we had to do and we all then did various cross country fighter affiliation where they send up and you get up in the air find another fighter plane to come and meet you and then attack you and all that sort of thing and all various subjects pertaining to air, Gee, H2S, all that sort of thing and we we’ve been introduced to, that was our navigational aids, air positioning indication, that was another thing we learned all about but that was, an hour on Wellingtons, Wellington bomber, well, they were bombers in the early stage, they were being used for training at this stage now and uhm, the uhm, and so we, when they thought the pilot was satisfactory, off we went then to, let me see, we went to, from to HCU which was the heavy conversion unit and that was our introduction to four-engine aircraft and we caught the Sterling, now said and the, uhm, we were there for a short time, that was just, this was mainly the, the pilot getting used to and the navigator, we were doing more, more uhm, things that we had done before, you know, were dropping bombs and packed us bombs and we were doing long, uhm, long cross countries, uhm, you know, five hours, two hours, that sort of thing and uhm, we, uhm, we’d be when the pilot was satisfactory trained, we were showed off to what we called the Lank finishing skill, it was the Lancaster finishing skill and we were introduced to Lancasters and the, from and that was once again, we all did our own thing with the pilot and he just had to become a professional on that particular type of aircraft and from there we were sent to the squadron. Which was Waddington, which was just a few miles away and, and that was when we started our operational flying.
AP: So, what was your first thought of the Lancaster when you first [unclear]?
DES: Oh, after being on the Sterling [laugh], after being on the Sterling it was marvellous, uhm, yeah, with, uh, yeah because [unclear], the carry under the Lancaster, you know, this was probably the best aircraft that had ever been produced at that time for the duration of the war uh, but everything was, when you are a new pilot on the squadron, you usually get the [unclear] aircraft, but some of them, some of had been there for a while had their own aircraft made sure that they kept their own aircraft, we were not allowed to do this, I was on my first start, we were on one particular type of Lancaster and but everything was so modern and up-to-date, you know for us the Gee was, the navigational instruments were all spot on, you know, we never, I don’t know who did the, to this day I don’t know who did all the mechanics and the [unclear], our aircraft was already, it was one of the ground crew base but, you never saw them at work, at least I never saw them at work, unless something really went wrong but yeah, the gap at the back steps of the Lancaster and to walk along the, yeah, it’s try I suppose when I first went up there, you wonder, Gee, where am I going, you had to walk over a big spare but then again I had my own room, well, area, it was just a small area with a black curtain around it but I had a nice desk, had the astro[unclear] up on top which would flashed the various maps down on the and the stars onto the table, everything was spot on and you know, we came to expect, we’re on a Lancaster, we’re on the best we had and that was the feeling that I had, that I was very, very fortunate, you know, some people like the Halifax , you know, but, you know, they say, I love the Halifax and so forth but we just happened to, uh, it had such a good reputation and such a wonderful aircraft and could carry so many more bombs than anyone else. Uh, you know, I think that, uhm, that was my feeling about my first, but I was amazed, really. I was in awe. Yeah.
AP: So, you then go to Waddington from, what’s it, I think, I saw Skellingthorpe in [unclear]?
DES: Yes, I did, I went to Skellingthorpe I thought that was after. I went to Waddington [unclear].
AP: [laughs]
DES: No we didn’t get to Skellingthorpe.
AP: You didn’t get to Skellingthorpe? [unclear] after.
DES: No, we went to Skellingthorpe after the war finished. We went to Skellingthorpe and we were all transferred to Skellingthorpe and we were, uhm, we had our final passing air parade in August, August 1945. We had our passing air parade.
AP: So, alright, we will get back to Waddington then.
DES: Yeah, get back to Waddington.
AP: Yeah [laughs]. Uhm, where and how did you live on the Squadron at Waddington?
DES: Oh, well now, Waddington was a permanent station in England, a permanent RAF station. It was, it had been there for many years and it consisted of what you would call apartment-type of accommodation, it was brick, big brick flats and in that we’d all, the officers, my pilot now was a flight sergeant right through but as soon as he went to the Squadron, he got his commission and that was the rule then he got his commission. And so he went to the officer’s mess and they had their own specific area and we had our own, we were in dormitories and, uhm, I had, I sort of, well, I was a flight sergeant a lot of that time but I was regarded as a bit senior, not senior but, I seemed to be the one that organises for when and what we are doing outside out of the, you know, for our recreation cause my pilot didn’t smoke or drink and that is marvellous, [unclear] didn’t smoke or drink, he was young too but, but he was a great one for, uhm. He was really wrapped in aircraft, which he should be I know, no, but he gathered at the end of the runway if we weren’t flying a particular day on the squadron he’d go off at the end of the runway and watch them all take off and that sort of thing, he was, he was a wonderful bloke and then he took a great interest in everything, but he. My brother was the same, he would do all that sort of thing, you know, they’re really wrapped but others might be doing something else, but, we used to, well, there were various things we could do, I used to take them down to the, we used to go down to The Horse and Jockey, which is still there, the hotel, but it was a hotel in the , you know, we could go and have something to eat down there, or we’d have a few [unclear], play darts, [unclear] balls and that sort of thing and there a lot of our lot, we had pushbikes and we could pushbike down to the Horse & Jockey and that was in the little town of Waddington, was only a little place and uhm, uh, a lot of our time was spent going around and then we’d have, every six weeks we’d have leave. But, sticking to Waddington, uhm, you know, we had a lot to do, we had dances, the west [unclear] we would have dances all night, yeah, we’re all, uh, I reckon that we were all well looked after and they really were, I’ve recently been back to the Horse & Jockey, and, you know, they are so pleased to see you and they were like that in England. Most, I think of most of them were, I’m not being a snob but I think most of them were pretty good party fellows, there were not a lot of drunks, gave me a favorite to drinks, we had a, we had right a bite back and a [unclear] who used to stop us every now and then and say: ‘Aye, aye, aye!’ but they wouldn’t do anything to us. They were quite, uhm, quite pleasant. But I’ve really found that the people there, I didn’t get involved in anything much outside [unclear] leave I had relations to go to [unclear] wonderful, cause I had my mother’s side and my father’s side so I had relations of both so [unclear] he was from, my father was from Maryport in Cumberland, right up in the north and I have been there a few times since. I met my grandfather that I had never seen and a bit quite of the other relations but the grandfather was the closest, he was a tenner and there was gaslight, there was no electricity, was gaslight, and he, I had to sleep with him, he had no other accommodation there was I think he had a family gone but there wasn’t a very big place and I had forgotten he had, I was [unclear] he was one of six brothers, my father was one of six brothers but later on I found out that my grandmother had fourteen kids so that meant we, in the last few years I’ve been chasing up all these people we’ve met, since I didn’t know we had but sticking to the, uhm, on the Squadron, yeah, we, uhm, I don’t think I had much more [unclear] than I, I had just a normal [unclear], I used to go to church at the Lincoln Cathedral every now and then, I used to go to Southwell. In case you don’t know that Southwell was six miles south out of Newark in Robin Hood territory and it’s a cathedral, it’s got a cathedral so it’s a city, it’s only a small place but it’s a city of Southwell, although they call it Southwell, and so I went there a few times, I was made very welcome and incidentally the Southwells in Australia is one of the biggest families in Australia but, and I am connected with them but they’re in Canberra and they, their offshoots are all, uhm, there is an enormous lot of them, probably the biggest family in Australia, the Southwells. You might, [unclear], but the government gave them a grant in the bicentenary they have their big reunion in Canberra, so there must be some truth in there.
AP: So, you mentioned The Horse & Jockey earlier. Uhm, if you walk into the Horse & Jockey, in wartime, what’s there, what does it look like and what’s going on?
DES: Looks like an old English pub.
AP: Yeah? Funny that.
DES: Yeah, a bit out [unclear] cause I went back a few months again and I hardly knew the place, it had been changed around, they moved a lot of the chimneys out, but I can’t remember getting to a reunion in 1995 at the Horse & Jockey and they had an upstairs everybody could go and we had a great get together that day which was been back on Channel 9 and I was lady in the singing of all the wartime songs in Waddington but it was a real meeting place down, there was another pub we tried [unclear] plus I didn’t drink much but I went to that, oh, I was drinking as at that stage I hadn’t started to drink but that’s another story. My brother, I didn’t mind, now I never drink in our family and my brother on his way back he came up to see me in Montreal at one stage and he said: ‘Would you like a beer?’ And I said: ‘Oh no, I will have a lemonade’. And he said: ‘I will have a beer’. I said, oh, so I didn’t say anything to him. And when since I got back to Montreal, I’ve had a beer and I’ve been drinking beer ever since [laughs]. But, you know, Canada was a funny place for beer because it’s a, they don’t sell beer in a, in those days they didn’t sell beer in a hotel, you had to go into a place that was especially designed and sit down and have a beer but you put salt into the beer to get the gas out of, it was so gassy, that’s another story. But, the Horse & Jockey now, I gonna say now because honestly I’ve forgotten what it was there like but now they have a lot of dart boards around, we played darts and we played balls outside, it was fun, uhm, but it was just, you know, there were members of the public, you know, the people that were working there, we would fraternise with them, they were all friendly with, so, it was generally, it was nice, actually it wasn’t a bad place to go and have a [unclear] and a [unclear]. No, I wouldn’t say that, [unclear] we were [unclear] but more recollections of the Horse & Jockey that was, I said, the crew kept together, I kept the crew together, we were all there together, it was the whole other six of us, there as, that didn’t mean, there was no worry about that but I would like to add that I had [unclear] to my place in about 1950 or 60 and he [unclear] smoked. So, [laughs], [unclear] it’s been a change, he remained a bachelor all his life. But he was wonderful fellow and he was another one, as I say he was very, very keen on, what he did, he took on the training course after the war in [unclear] and he was, he got a medal for that, an RFD or doing something like that, royal returned forces, no, not returned, what’s it, returned something forces decoration? Not returned forces. Anyway, as an RFD, as a, there’s a post normal or medal, but he, he got one of those. But he was a great fellow and he brought us home safely.
AP: [unclear] Alright.
DES: But I had a lot of confidence in him, as I was saying, earlier on, [unclear] blessed hands, they were bigger than mine, I got the tiniest hands you’ve ever seen, mine, my wife’s gloves won’t fit me, you know, they’re my hands, my hands are so tiny, but, yeah, he was, yeah, that’s about it, [unclear].
AP: Yeah, we’re going alright still. So, a little bit more about this daily life in Waddington. The Sergeants Mess, what was that like, what sort of things happened there?
DES: Oh yeah, the Sergeants Mess. Yeah, well, we spend a bit of time there, no, after a trip we do was going to the mess and there’s a lot of, a lot of untoward things went on in the Sergeants Mess and some of the other persons over there, a bit longer than I was, tell some wonderful stories about bringing a donkey into the mess and there’s the Officers Mess and all sort of that. But, we, uhm, I can’t recall, my memory is not that good for the Sergeants Mess. I can, I know what it was like but it was not a place that, you know, we all met there at various stages and had our lunch there and our dinner there and all that sort of thing but, uhm, this never stayed in my mind as being rather relevant to me, I don’t know why but I know we ate there and had our meals there and you know the ordering officer would come round and say: ‘Any complaints?’ [Laughs] Every day in the evening we had our meal there, the ordering officer would come round and say, quite often it was one of the, one of your pilots that, [laughs] you know, was his turn to come over from the officers mess and say: ‘Any complaints?’ What’s the officer, orderly officer, any complaints, I don’t know, that I had many complaints, no, I can’t help, I can’t recall a lot about the Sergeants Mess.
AP: Did 463 and 467 Squadron eat in, did they have their own officer’s mess [unclear]?
DES: No, we were all together, they had their own, the two were there together.
AP: So it was more [unclear] Waddington.
DES: yeah, yeah, yeah. Was Waddington, yeah. Yeah, when we went back to Waddington in, when we went to the Officers Mess there was just one place, yeah, there was only one place, there was 463 and 467, yeah, we got to know each other 463 and 467, as you know 467 was the first Australian Squadron, first Squadron on, uhm ,first was their own Squadron, they were formed in about 1941, something like that and then after they got a big bigger, we wanted to have another Squadron, so 463 grew out of [unclear]? Yeah, [unclear], grew out of [unclear], is it about November or December? ‘43, would that be right? 47 might have been ’42, I think it was ’43.
AP: Yeah, ’43.
DES: Yeah, it was ’43, I think. And so that’s how 463 was. Uhm, and that was under Wing Commander Rollo Kingswood-Smith, who send me off the parade ground for not having a shave. And I was only a young bloke who only shaved about four days a week and I was on, and they sent me off the parade ground for not having a shave. And then later on of course, I’m going ahead of fifty years I became the secretary of 463 Squadron, Rollo was, he is the patron at present, no, he is the patron, I think but he was and he came up to me, oh, I did know him a bit afterwards so. He came up to me and looked at me and said: ‘Oh, Don, you’ve done your shave today’. And days before he died, he said to me: ‘Don, you had your shave today’ and I reminded him when I came back from England but I became quite a good friend of Rollo, when I finished, cause he is really very, very good, he always [unclear], you know, he was a flight commander, no he was a CO, or was a flight commander, whatever he was, he wasn’t a station commander, because that was different from, but he was, he was a 463 commanding officer but he did his trips at the time, he never, he always did his trips, so, he could have quite easily have said, No, I’m going tonight or something like that, but Rollo would always do his trips and never fail. And he was always very good with his, I know, with his writing to people for, you know, lost their and lost their sons and but I believe he was a very strict, he was a very, very strict man, as I say, he was quite different in late years, well, he was, you knew where you stood with him but, and I think he had to be to be the commanding officer at that particular, and we had all walks of life in our, uh, in the air force.
AP: Did 463 Squadron have any superstitions or hoodoos or anything that you are aware of of [unclear]?
DES: Not that I am aware of, I always used to carry my RAF, I had no RAF scarf, always carry my RAF scarf, had to go back one night to get it, but, which I had forgotten, I had to get back but that was only a personal deal I don’t think I was really superstitious about I had to carry my RAF scarf, it was a scarf, it wasn’t a tie, it was a scarf, I didn’t see many of them, I still got mine on my top drawer beside my bed I’ve got my Royal Air Force scarf. I also had my Royal Air Force [unclear] [laughs].
AP: [laughs]
DES: Some [unclear].
AP: We were talking about off tape before we started. Very good. So, you flew nine operations [unclear].
DES: I did nine operations, yep.
AP: Do any of them particularly stand out?
DES: Yeah, was a couple I can have. The trip, uhm, I did to Pilsen. We took off, was a long trip, Pilsen was in Czechoslovakia and it was a long trip and not, we had a couple of hours and now one of our engines went and the skipper said to me: ‘Do you think we can make it?, and I said: ‘Yes, I think so. I think we can take a few short cuts [unclear] we might be able to make it, we don’t tell anybody whatever’. And he said, [skimming through pages of a book], yeah, the uhm, I said: ‘I think I could make it’ and I did a few calculations and even though I say [unclear] I reckon I did a pretty well navigation so I think that was that day because you know you had to be careful if you gonna take any short cuts it couldn’t stand out we were on a track that you were given and as long as you stayed four miles or five miles out of the side of the track you are fairly safe because that’s where all the other aircraft were going, and we were tossing out the silver paper, the Window, that made look as if there are more aircraft out and that sort of thing. But we had to be careful if we went out of it, you could be picked off by the German radar, so you had to be a little bit careful. So, anyway, we got there on time, uhm, we uhm, and uhm, so that was a long trip that I got a bit of praise for by my skipper in the briefing that we went back to and that was about uhm, eight hours and we bombed on three engines. We were diverted when we got back cause we didn’t have much fuel left, uhm, we landed at Boscombe Down that particular night and, uhm, then the next day went back to, uhm, to, uhm, Waddington but uhm, yeah, it was that. And one other night we went to [unclear]. I was in a couple of thousand bomber raids, daylight, we were over Essen and Dortmund and I, we bombed through a cloud there and this was, you realised we were getting towards the end of the war and the master bomber was down below the clouds and he’d come up the cloud, drop the target indicators and go back down again and see how they went and he turned on the RT, the radio telephone and he turned into [unclear] TI by ten seconds or something like that, you know, and he’d be conducting the whole operation from down below. And, so we were just, we just dropped bombs, we didn’t see where they go, we just dropped them on top of the cloud, and that was on the Krupp works at Essen and Dortmund and. But there was another one I was going to mention and we went to [unclear], and uhm, which is just south of Hamburg and the wind changed that particular night and the whole force was all over north-western Europe, we got a little blown away but well, I got a little bit off course, I got to say this, I got a bit off course and we were chased by the German jetfighters, the 263 I think it is? The 263, something like that, the 263? But, we went into a cork, we did have, we were well-trained, went straight away and went into the corkscrew and we did all that, and, cause they can only stay up for about ten minutes and so they, you know, you, if you did your corkscrew properly, probably you were safe so we got out of that but that was, we were picked off there because I got a bit off course. And then I went to uhm, smaller refineries, Bohlen, I went to Bohlen, that was out near Leipzig, for people that might know where Leipzig is, a lot of these synthetic oil refineries were in Eastern Germany and, uhm, we’re at the crossing of the Rhine when the British army were, uhm, crossing the Rhine, uh, we were given the job of bombing Wesel, we were given the job of bombing Wesel and, uhm, which we did and I think it was only, it was only our, you know, our group went that particular night but the British army were on one side of the river and the German side, the Germans were on the other side, and we bombed the other side but we were given a certain time because the British were going into the water at a certain time to go over and I took it with the loss of one life, I think it was in, General Montgomery, Field Marshall Montgomery, he, send the message back to, they brought it over to the loudspeakers the next day on parade, do you want something to eat?
AP: No, thank you.
DES: It was on parade and we were on parade and they read out a message from Montgomery to say how wonderful it was and we did a wonderful job bla, bla, bla, yeah, and uh, yeah that was interesting because you can, if you go to Wesel afterwards it’s quite, you know, I’ve seen some photos of it lately and I think they have rebuilt most of, most of the place. And lastly we did the last operation of the war which was on Tonsberg, which was in the southern part of Norway and we approached it from the North, so it was a long crossing over the North Sea, this was the last operation of the war, on Anzac Day, and with the, we came down the coast, I was coming down from Norway, with Sweden on the left hand side and Sweden was all beautifully lit up, all lit up and the other side was all black, blacked up there was the, Norway which was under the control of the Germans, anyway, we, uhm, that was the last operation of the war and we, uhm, that was bombed successfully but on, if I check forward about fifty years, I was at a funeral and, uhm, of a lady who was of Norwegian birth and the ex-consul of Norway was there and I went and spoke to him and I said: ‘I’ve never been to Norway except on the air’. And he said: ’When were you there?’ I said: ‘Oh, I was there on the 25th of April 1945’ and he said: ‘Well, your aim was pretty good that night’. [laughs] Not at all, so I thought we did pretty well. He said yes. He said, but some of your bombers did bomb the shipyards, some of them went astray and they bombed some of the civilians and he said that all the people of Norway, the war was coming to an end, the 8th of May was the end of the war, the war was coming to an end, they are all thrilled, all happy because everybody knew the armistice was coming on that particular day and he said, now, all the people in the rest of Norway, he said, we were burying our dead and he was very nice about the whole thing and, you know, he is, I got him down as a likely speaker for whoever wants someone to speak about it but, they were very understanding and. So I must really go to France these days, you know, the people in France they were terribly bombed, you know, was, they are thanking you and thanking you and we did an enormous lot of damage but they realised that we had to, that we had to do that for, uhm, sake of winning the war.
AP: So, you mentioned that Messerschmitt, or the jetfighter.
DES: Jetfighter, yeah.
AP: And the corkscrew. So, you are the navigator. You hear corkscrew port go. What happens next?
DES: I have been difficult. Well, we gotta a set of pattern what you got to do the, if the plane’s coming in from the port, you corkscrew port go the rear gunner or whatever the hillside part will do his corkscrew and he’d go down fifteen hundred and he’d turn and he’d go up fifteen hundred feet and it’s quite a ring morale to do but you fly, if you do it properly you fly, you know, a certain course even [unclear] and so, you know, it didn’t do much damage to our [unclear] we didn’t have to make much allowance for an hour in our navigation, if you had to corkscrew port, you, you could just sort of forget about it and just there’s, as long as you weren’t [unclear] too long but generally speaking you flew a net course for this business, all designed to and it was very successful the corkscrew but I, I think we did this about three times I suppose.
AP: What does it feel like?
DES: Oh, I don’t mind, don’t forget we are nineteen years of age there, this was just, this was just wonderful, trusting the aircraft. Oh, of course you were worried a bit about where you were being shot down that goes into it, but generally speaking the corkscrew never, we thought if we did the corkscrew port we would be safe. You’ve got that feeling in your mind that you’d do that, I always remember Redge Boys [?] he was our hero, he was [unclear], he was our navigation leader at Waddington and Redge he did two tours and he said he never believed himself that he’d ever be shot down and he tried to, he despite the fact that the pilot was the chief, he always made sure the crew were all, you know, positive about what we were doing, they were all, they were always convinced that they were gonna get through this. They had this positive attitude that they, you know, and I think it helped, while you’re up there, [unclear], I tried to adopt that attitude that, you know, we all wanted to get home and see the people and I want to get home but, I must admit that, when we were on a bombing run, I used to see, a navigator didn’t have his parachute on, he, you couldn’t work on a desk when, cause we had a chest parachute that fitted on a harness on your chest and you had it sitting beside you. Now, uh, if I was to leave there at my desk, I’d always put my parachute on and I would go, if we were on a bombing run, I would remember the course you got to steer after we dropped our bombs and I’d turn the light out and I’d go up and stand behind the pilot, and watch all the, what was going on and I could then pop down to the rear gunner, near the rear gunner and say, could I have a look at the pilot [laughs] and you’d see the fires and all that sort of thing in the background. But, you know, I felt as if I wanted to be part of the thing so I wanted to see what was going on. Cause everyone else could see what was going on except the wireless operator and what’s the name because we were sitting [unclear] bomb’s gone, you’d have to wait a while, while the photo was taken, away was given course 270 and off we go. And, yeah.
AP: Yes, that’s unusual, most, uhm, most navigators I have spoken to would, you know come up and have a look [unclear] take the head and go, no, don’t ask me to do that [unclear].
DES: Oh, now, that’s, that’s another story. Well, that is. After, a lot of people don’t know about this. But after the war we disarmed, the war had finished and we were disarming with all our, [unclear] disarmed and we had to get rid of all the bombs on the station. So, what they did was we’d [unclear] might have been a couple of weeks, I could look that up but that’s been a couple of weeks, we flew out of Waddington with four bomb loads, headed to the North Sea, about two and a half hours and straight course out, dropped our bombs, they were dropped safe, they weren’ dropped armed but they were dropped safe, and there, I know what the Greenies [?] had signed out because they knew all these thousands of bombs now there was really thousands of us, there was not only our Squadron but every other Squadron was doing this. We go out there and then we come back and if you were above the cloud, we used to have a lot of fun with the pilot with going over the cloud, as if you were low flying. We had some lovely time so, but what I’m coming to is I thought this particular dive [?] was navigation record, no had Gee operator, [unclear], I didn’t done any, I didn’t have to do any strict navigation set up, I, cause I had near position indicators which told me, anyway, we, I thought I’d like to get into the rear turret and I saw [unclear] was the rear gunner and he could come up and sit in the navigation seat and I’d coming in here for a couple of hours, you know. So I trotted off down to the and the [unclear] showed me what to do and [unclear] I couldn’t have gone out of there, couldn’t have gotten there faster, was scared stiff, you know I’d never been because you’re away from the tires of the aircraft, when you are sitting back behind you, so, you are sitting out in the open. You know, you’re away from the aircraft so you feel like it and I think [unclear] having to sit [unclear] on our trip to sit in this thing, you know, you’d be, mind you, these, while our air gunners had had the experience of flying they knew what they’d, you know, they’d got used to it I suppose but me as a person I was scared stiff, I was more scared stiff getting into, getting out of that turret than I was, say, sitting out there in the navigation and bombs, looking down and looking at bombs going off and [unclear] I was scared stiff on that trip. And I had the greatest of admiration for our rear gunner out there, how they could [unclear], and [unclear] you know, I’m not necessarily claustrophobic but I thought oh, Jeez, I couldn’t do this. And I realised how well off I was, because the navigator was lucky I reckon because, as I say, on a ten hour trip you’d have, you had to get a fix every ten minutes or so and, you know, you no sooner that you’d got your fix, you’d plotted it, as you got your fix, you plotted it, you’d make the necessary course, the course change and so forth so If you had to make any change and it took time and the time went quickly this was what the beauty was the pilot was the same, he may be sitting around looking, you know, sitting out on the front [unclear] putting on a [unclear] every now and then, yeah, most of the time but he, and but the navigator had to do and the wireless op was something similar to, he had a lot of work to do, he had to keep the schedules and report back and we had our jobs and our logs don’t forget, as soon as we got back, were handed in to the navigation leader and you were marked as if you were at school and you get 60 percent, or 50 percent or 75. And uhm, you know but this is why we had, oh I must say this as a navigator, that we had marvellous navigator, the navigators were, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, they were wonderfully trained, they, don’t forget, they took as about eighteen months to get into operations, the Americans, I understand can get in as navigating, get in about six weeks training, you know, and that’s not exaggerating, I believe as I say, because some of the B-24s out of Darwin carried, the Americans carried Australian navigators if you look up your history, which is not widely spoken about, but we were well trained and, as I say, we strictly [unclear], we knew our work was big marked anyhow so you had to be, you really gave you a greater incentive to be [unclear] but above all, you know, a ten hour trip might have seemed by far, you know, then, yeah.
AP: VE-day.
DES: Ah, VE-Day. This is all vivid with me, I had wonderful times on VE-day but VE-Day I did three trips to France bringing home, I think it was on VE-Day, yeah, it was on VE-Day, I don’t know if it was three or two we didn’t the next day, you know I did three trips of bringing home prisoners of war, we’d go over in Juvincourt in France and load up twenty five, it was called Operation Exodus and we were out, we load up to twenty five British war, British prisoners of war, they’d been, some of them had been there since Dunkirk in 1940 and the first load we carried, oh, they sit, the twenty five of them sat in the fuselage of the Lancaster on cushions, not seatbelts, uhm, they just had to hang on and [laughs] they just had to sit there and there were thousands of them, we brought out prisoners of war with this Operation exodus by the way, but they were, uhm, It was a wonderful experience, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, you flew these guys out, they’d been prisoners of war all these years and they, uhm, the first load I carried they were all Sikhs, they were Indians the first lot we carried out. The next load we carried were all obviously from England and it seemed to be most obvious, I made sure that I went down and I got them to come up gradually when the white cliffs of Dover came, got them, and we ferried them up but it was nice and orderly and hear the tears was rolling down their cheeks, you know, was absolutely wonderful to see the, uhm, and they all shook hands when we, uhm, they all shook hands when they got off the aircraft and that was what I did on VE-Day. Now, shortly after VE-Day we had a lot of celebrations and I, you know, I can always remember smoking a cigar, having a few beers, I was Mister Churchill at one stage, you know, was a lot of hilarity and joyness and it was a wonderful feeling, they, you know, all the station was all together and we were all having, officers, ordinary, you know, the airmen, we were all together having a and they’d put on some wonderful [unclear] there and at that particular time and that’s my, I worked on the VE-Day there and we were so glad we were doing, and the guy that wrote our 463-467 book, Nobby Blundell he was a, uhm, he was a fitter, he was a fitter, uhm, an engineer and on a ground staff and he wrote our books incidentally, all the books on 464-647 fisher [?] books were all written by Nobby did a magnificent job but the uhm, was great the, uhm, he managed to, you know, get, gives us all the particulars that we wanted to know, I don’t know, and he was all of our flying set up, all of the, he’d used the, [unclear], is that called, the evidence of our doing your trip, he used to get all these information from the [unclear], he spend years on doing this and so we were forever grateful and he did this but, uhm, getting back to VE-Day, I was more than, more than pleased with what was happening and then of course we had to start thinking about what was gonna happen as it was after VE-Day.
AP: Uhm, how did you get back to Australia?
DES: Ah, that’s a good [unclear], you’ve got some good questions. They are very good, you know, [unclear], we uhm, the uhm, oh I made two efforts to get away. We were disbanded by the way, we were disbanded in August at, uhm, Skellingthorpe, I think it was Skellingthorpe, we’d moved to Skellingthorpe from the Squadron and they formed a Tiger Force for people that were gonna go out to fight the Japanese and uhm, we uhm, managed to particular Tiger Force the uhm, [unclear] you know just asking [unclear].
AP: How did you go home?
DES: How did you go home, yeah. Lost my train of thought. At my age you can.
AP: That’s one. That’s the first one in [unclear]
DES: No, I forget.
AP: Off you go.
DES: Oh, good. [laughs] I know you can scrub that out, yeah, but getting home. Yeah, but I wanted to mention about, we disbanded and then we were transferred to Brighton to wait for a boat and the [unclear] came along. Now, a lot of people in the Air Force know what happened there, there was virtually no, [unclear] but the conditions on the [unclear] which is the [unclear] boat, there was no P&O those days, [unclear] made all the newspapers that a lot of the trips walked off the ship at Southampton because of the conditions, I didn’t want to go twenty five days or so we gotta go and we went back through the canal and [unclear], well we didn’t stop, well we stopped in a few places, the uhm, it was, the, in Brighton we went from, we’d gone onto the ship on the [unclear], we’d got onto the ship and we sailed eventually, we sailed to half of it and wouldn’t you believe we broke down in the Bay of Biscay and the war was over, there was no submarines or so, the war had finished at this time, this was in August or September 1945 [unclear] and we, in between time we had been flying, we’d been doing, taking stuff out to drop the bombs and we’d been doing fighter affiliation and all, we then found work for us to do. Anyway, we set sail out of Southampton and we broke down, and we were flying the black flag, anyone knows it’s out of control and so we eventually we got, we slipped back to Southampton, the first time I have ever been sick was on that bay because we just it [unclear] and happened [unclear] it was about 20000 tons and was their luxury ship when the [unclear] luxury could have been made into a troop ship and we went back to Southampton we were sent then up to Millham. Now Millham is right up near West Freugh, up near Stranraer, right up on the North-West of England and [unclear] us all up to, it was the middle of winter. And we were in Nissen huts and we had to try and keep warm and they had to heat us there but ran out of coal, they couldn’t get, we were rationed the coal, so we smarty Australians [unclear], there was the coal, we got into the coal, [unclear] and pinched the coal, I caught a couple of sometime [unclear] about but we had to go and pinch coal to keep warm. And uhm, we eventually went from there, we were there about a week I suppose and then they found another boat for us which was the Durban Castle, it was a [unclear] ship which went from London, used to go from London to Cape Town and that was a nice ship was made up of air, the complement of going home was a lot of air force people, we had New Zealanders coming home uhm, was quite an interesting lot of people that were on board but we were in [unclear], I was a warrant officer then I’d got up to warrant officer and there under the normal chain, six months of flight sergeant, twelve months of, uh, sorry, six months of sergeant, four months of flight sergeant, then you’re put and made a warrant officer, that was the RAAF and so we’d became warrant officers and then was commission if you got a commission. And the uhm, we uhm, [pauses] [unclear] yeah, yeah, we’re back, we’re off from and, yeah, we were now on the Durban Castle, we’re on the, I forgot, the Durban Castle and the Durban Castle and we had a lot of, we pulled into Gibraltar, can remember Gibraltar, the conditions on the boat were good, the food was good, I put on a stain on the way back because, you know, we put a lot of potatoes, they had a lot of stuff [unclear] but they fed us well, it was a full ship really, but we picked up people on the way, we went to Gibraltar but that was to drop off somebody who was sick so we didn’t pull in, it was just off Gibraltar and we could see the place and if anybody is interested they oughta go to Gibraltar, it is one of the most interesting places to go there. Uh, you don’t expect to see what you see, so we, Gibraltar just a night, we dropped these people off and then we went to Taranto in Italy, in the heel of Italy and there we picked up the New Zealand war brides, that had married a lot of the New Zealanders, who were fighting in Italy, they’d either gone home or [unclear], but the war brides were on their own and so we picked up the war brides and that filled the boat a bit more and then we went from Italy to the Canal, went through the canal, and they wouldn’t let us off the boat in the canal and, you know, none of us would have been through the Suez Canal and so, that was working of course and so was [unclear] to Port Tewfik, Tewfik? No, Port Said, we went to Port Said and they, one of the guys in that was with me at the time, was called [unclear] and he had a DCM, Distinguished Conduct Medal which he had earned in the Middle East but he was in the Air Force, he was, he was a gunner in the Air Force but and he’d been to Port Said, you know, he knew all about this place and we had to get to Port, [mimics the gunners voice] so there was a ladder down at the back of the ship and so a few of us got out of the bumboats as they called them [unclear] and we went ashore, we went ashore, we didn’t take any notice of them people [unclear] we, most of the people were doing this but they were not supposed to. And so we were wondering around the town and the Arabs tried to come and sell us something, dirty postcards on sale [laughs], you know, and we were looking, [unclear] got out, went off and he hit one of these blokes, he hit one of these blokes, you know, because he was trying to do something wrong or I don’t know what it was but he knew what he can get away with, he slapped him on the face [unclear] we gonna get caught [unclear] being in a riot, anyway we got back to our ship alright and went up the gangway this time, no one said anything so. We went through the canal which was a great experience to go through and see how that operates, I’ve never been through the Panama but a lot of our fellows went through the Panama, which I would have liked to have done, uhm, then we went into Aden, and then we, that was near Yemen, and that was in Yemen where you nearly got a lot of troubles and then we went to, uhm, Perth, we went straight across the Indian Ocean to Perth and that’s where we dropped of the Perth blacks [?] and I remember carrying, not carrying but helping a bloke who’d had too much to drink in Kings Park and we were gonna miss the boat, cause you had to be up to Perth and the boat was at Freemantle, we had to get back by train and we had to get him back so [unclear] helped him back but he was not used to Australian beer cause the British beer was pretty, uh, pretty weak and this Australian beer was pretty, you know, pretty [unclear] anyway we got back, we came around the [unclear] to Melbourne, and was Melbourne we got off the boat and went to, uhm, went on the train, went on the train to Sydney, I don’t recall, must have been the train of the time, we sat up but we didn’t have sleepers, and no, we went up to Sydney and the Vietnam blokes all complain that they didn’t get a welcome home. Well, none of us got a welcome home but we were quite happy, cause we arrived at Central Station on platform number one, my mother and sister were there to meet me, they took me home and then a week later I was to report at Bradfield Park, I went to Bradfield Park, they gave me a dischargement home and I went back to work.
AP: That was it.
DES: That was it.
AP: Did you have any issues settling down again? [unclear]?
DES: No, no, no, I had no issues. The only thing is for a while so I went straight back to my job that I left at the MLC and I had been there eighteen months, for eighteen months so I didn’t know much about the business and so I got into, when I went to, I applied when I went back, this is in early 1946 I uhm went back to the MLC and they put me on, they had to put me on that was the law, they had to put you back on staff and they sent me to a department where I was the only fellow with a hundred and forty girls. I’d been in the Air Force all this time with fellows, we had the well WAAF around but generally speaking you weren’t used to mixing around with women, you know, and they put me there for, they put me there for a purpose, of course, and they put next to me the girl that spoke the most [laughs] she was a real gossip, she spoke the most, Shirley Reed, and Shirley, and I, the first two weeks I didn’t hardly, apart from doing my work I didn’t say anything but not because I didn’t [unclear], I was just out, I don’t know what to do, you know, I was just doing my work but I thought, and I wasn’t that good at conversation at that particular time [unclear] we had lunch at our desk in those days, we bought some sandwiches and had lunch at our desks, she kicked the chair from underneath me, I was leaning back and she kicked the chair it was dangerous, she kicked the chair, I went down under the [unclear], well, everybody laughed and I laughed and from that time on I was married [?] [laughs]. I was in that department for about two years and I was still the only fellow. And I have great memories of that, of that two years because I was single, I went to so many birthday parties and twenty-first birthday parties, to weddings, I talked to get a few other girls, my wife was one of them and well, became one of them and I went to work for her in the department and I made [unclear] she came to England for four years and then came back and I married her then but I don’t, was I was then move to, I went again they sent me to Tasmania to open up the office in Tasmania in Launceston and then I was there for two years and then I, they did that in those days, don’t do it nowadays, then I was sent to, I was in Sydney for a while and then I was posted to Adelaide in 1960 and I, I was in charge of the collector branch there in Adelaide and we had two children there, Dave and Jane and that was another wonderful experience and then. I’ve got to say something about the air force, don’t let me forget.
AP: [unclear] of course.
DES: But, we had, Adelaide was a wonderful place to bring children up, I became a fan of the, I was a rugby person, rugby union, I became a fan of Australian rules when I first went to Adelaide I was, uhm, every Monday we had lunch with a group in the industry, in the life insurance industry and I didn’t have much to, I didn’t have much to talk about because I didn’t know anything about the Australian rules, for all they talked about were the teams that played at the weekend so I thought, oh, the best thing for me to do was to join those, if we were gonna have, [unclear], I’d better join them, better go out with them, so, they were members, a few of them were members of the Stirling football club, Aussie [?] rules club, and, no, The Double Blues, I can sing you the song if you want me to sing it, but they are The Double Blues and I became quite a rugby, an Australian rules fan, I’m not forgetting me rugby cause I’m a rugby person still but the, I used to, family, it was a family setup, we’d go out on a Saturday and we’d go, we’d have the radio would be on at the eleven o’clock match and then we’d go on, we’d have lunch or something then we’d go up to see the afternoon, the main game in the afternoon and then we’d finish there we’d go and buy some beer and some food and we'd watch the replay of that game and then we’d watch the replay of the main game in Melbourne, that was our Saturday but all the kids were all around at home that particular day and they’d come to the game in Adelaide, then they got so much free bottle they could pick up and the kids used to go and pick it up and make a lot of money on a Saturday [laughs] and but I became quite a fan of that we won the premiership four weeks running and that was my introduction to Australian rules, what a wonderful thing to be, but it’s a wonderful game and I love Australian rules and I do follow the Swans, uhm, but I don’t go out and see nowadays, I don’t go and see the rugby except on [unclear] occasions again I go and watch the rugby but. And in Tasmania I played rugby union and my [unclear] was the president of the North Tasmanian rugby union, we had three teams and I played in one of the teams and, uhm, that was in Launceston and, oh I forgot, New Zealand. I was in, I was two and a half years in New Zealand and I was there for the Springbok Tour in 1956 and I saw quite a bit of the football there, I used to go to the football in those days but New Zealand was another great place to be I was married there but I came back to Sydney, married Dorothy and then came back to New Zealand when she came back, she came back to work at the MLC for twelve months and, uh, and then we came back to, and I had a wonderful time because I have got relations there In New Zealand, so, I had places I had to go, so, I’ve seen every city in New Zealand except Gisborne and I don’t know why I’m saying that but, uhm, it was a wonderful place for me and it was a good place to, uhm, yeah it was a good, I was the, I joined the Kendala Lawn Tennis Club and I played tennis and I became the treasurer of the Kendala Lawn Tennis Club and so I fitted into the New Zealand mob, cause New Zealanders by and large as a group don’t like Australians, you know, but they do like, when they meet individually we’re all great, you know, we might talk about the Anzac business but they have really odd, that’s only my observation of course, they don’t’ really and I’m a, I regularly go to funerals in New Zealand at the moment but you know I’m a great fan of New Zealand and they as a group, they are jealous of Australians, I think, cause we’re so big.
AP: Ok, could be something.
DES: Yeah.
AP: Yeah, worked with a few kiwis, anyway. Uhm, yeah, you were gonna say something [unclear].
DES: I was gonna say, I do a lot of this, you know, I’m gonna plug in for the Bomber Command Commemorative Day and I’ve been involved with 463-467 Squadron Association, I’ve been involved with, uh, the Bomber Command Commemorative Day Foundation but that’s just a little aside. Uh, I’m doing this really because [clears throat] I owe the Air Force something. [sighs] When my, when memoires bring us [unclear] when I went away on the Air Force, I didn’t know anything, I was a real greenhorn, I was a green eighteen, didn’t know anything cause mum, you know, we were never allowed to play cards on a Sunday as I’d never, we never had cards in the house, mum didn’t, mum was a bit, she was an Anglican and uh, but she wasn’t, she wasn’t an [unclear] or anything either but a [unclear] drink she might have been, we never had but grog in the place, I tried to have [unclear] sherry sometimes [laughs] she went [mimics and astonished expression] when she heard, she was a great mother by, a great mother by the way but our mum, I’m trying to get the message over that I didn’t know a lot about the world until I went to the Air Force and the Air Force made me and I feel I gotta make some contribution to the Air Force and the same thing applies to the office MLC, that they to me were absolutely marvellous and I only retired from there about two years ago when I, I retired in ‘84, I went back to do a job for three months, to set up the database, helped set up the database in the MLC and now twenty five years later I’m still there with two, with another guy, it was five of us who stayed on for a while, but then, three had died and two of us are still left. But the MLC were, they, you know, I was on a, I tell you I was on a two and half percent mortgage for a time at the MLC, and they didn’t pay as much as probably some of the other companies but you know, I never, you felt you had a real, uhm, you know, they never sacked anybody except if you pinched money [laughs] and that, it remarks the office that didn’t happen but the MLC were wonderful to me, the Air Force and the MLC were wonderful to me and a lot of my friends are not jealous of me but they would have loved to have had a job like I’ve got, working with the MLC until I was just on ninety and, uhm, and I was doing every bit as good a job as I was as the people beside me that I was working, I was doing all computer work and this sort of thing. Oh, when I say computer work, it wasn’t on a main frame but it was, was all the stuff was all set up for us to do but I did some work on the telephones and that sort of thing but there was a lot of sixty plus, sixty five plus fellows that could, they some of the companies could, instead of putting them off, give them extra time, you know, keep them employed on a, say, five days, four days, three days, because, you know, I was bored stiff for a while when I first retired and when I got this [unclear], I was a bit two-minded about going back and doing this and that was one of the best decisions I have ever made and so there for that, this is not wartime setup but the MLC they could have paid when I was in the Air Force but I was getting more money in the Air Force than I was in the MLC [laughs] so I didn’t much from it but. Had I not been in the aircrew I would have probably cause we were paid extra in the aircrew, not a lot but we were paid extra. And, yeah, so that was, I have a lot to thank the Air Force for and that’s why I’m doing, I do this work now with volunteering with doing various things on Bomber Command Association and the 463 business, anything to do with the Air Force I like doing, you know, and I meet a lot of nice people.
AP: Good. Final question. Uhm, what do you think the legacy of Bomber Command is and how you want to see it remembered?
DES: Uh, well, I don’t think we will ever see another Bomber Command, in these days we will never see another Bomber Command because the days of the, uhm, what do we call them? The, you know, the things that fly on their own? You’ll never see another Lancaster bomber bombing places, you will see atom bombs or, not atom bombs, but these other sort of, what do you call the little?
AP: Drones. Yeah.
Des: The drones, you see, just here in one of our Squadrons here now, the 462 Squadron in Adelaide, they are mixed up in drones, you see, and so, you know, I’m very proud of, uhm, joining and taking part in Bomber Command. I think they did a magnificent job; they’d had a rough trot until 1942, when they weren’t hitting their targets, [unclear] as things got better, they did the, I’m fully happy with all what the Bomber Command did. I think the world of Air Marshal Harris and I get, I get annoyed sometimes when people who want to criticize him. You know, every year I get a message from Melbourne about Dresden [laughs], which, you know, which annoys me, more than anything else, because Dresden deserved what they got, you know, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, London, Liverpool, Coventry, they all got a similar treatment and I don’t think, you know, there was a lot about Dresden that, and I’m sorry I brought that up but we know that there were a lot of people operating in Dresden which were military, they were hidden, slightly like the people today are putting, uh, children and some of these in where real targets are and there were definitely a lot of things in Dresden that deserved to be bombed and, you know, we’re at war, we had to do our best to do that but I’m quite proud of what we did in Bomber Command and I’m very, I think I finished my speech at the reflections at the Bomber Command thing in Canberra a few years ago and I was very proud and fine with Bomber Command and but I don’t think we will see another Bomber Command type of people, there will never be a group like us ever again, so I don’t’ think there is any future, but it will be done by the drones, what it’s gotta be done I think will be done by the drones and then that creates a bit of loss of life to civilians but I’m afraid when you are fighting a war it’s just, you know, it’s just the way it goes. Uhm, I don’t know, of [unclear].
AP: How do you want to see it remembered?
DES: How will I remember it?
AP: Yeah, how do you want to see it remembered, how do you want Bomber Command to be remembered.
DES: Oh, [unclear], oh, I just like the people here today to and that’s what we’re in the business with the Bomber Command Commemoration Day Foundation, we want the children of our people to carry on and thank the people of, like the 5000 who died, not us particularly but, ah yeah, the 5000 Australian airmen we hope you’ll remember them, you might forget them, as I hope you won’t forget the Vietnam people and the people who went to Korea and the people who went to [unclear]. We do remember them and I pray that they remember them on Anzac Day, uhm, but I think that, uhm, I would like to and I am amazed at, uh, the young people today that we have come into their [unclear] up to about four or five years ago and never heard of some of the things of their fathers and grandfathers had done. And I’m amazed by the number of people who came out of the woodwork to find out more about now and it’s up to us now, cause we are talking here now, it’s up to us to make sure that we get the message out to the younger people that their living today because of the sacrifice that the people made, that died over in the Bomber Command raids and that sort of thing, that they would be, uhm, might be leading a different sort of life, that they, uh, if it hadn’t been for the actions and the deeds of those who fought in Bomber Command. But I’d like them to think nicely of us and I think most of them do. I get, not amazed, but I’m really interested and pray that today for instance I’ve been talking to people that were involved and had involvements, you know, a lot of them didn’t know to a certain extent what things we’d done and how we’d helped shorten the war and that sort of thing, cause we did really and I suppose dropping the atom bomb bought us to and I’ve got no objections to the atom bomb being dropped either, it probably saved a lot of lives too. It’s a terrible thing but once, if I can say again, I’m amazed at the young people that are so interested and yet there are some families that they are not interested at all, not interested at all and parts of families, including my own, now, some of mine are not that interested, my son is and but, and I think [unclear] but one of my grandchildren is very interested. It’s on the other side but that’s their decision, we probably haven’t got the message over to them which is [unclear] and I am disappointed when I speak to some of my friends who don’t want to talk about it, it’s not boasting about these [unclear], people should know that these sort of things went on, that these, because of their actions, they’ve had fifty, sixty, seventy years of freedom here, even in Australia which might never have happened if those people hadn’t made the sacrifices that they did and volunteered and don’t forget, all the aircrew in Australia were volunteers, there was no, no one was conscripted, they were all volunteers. Yeah.
AP: Oh well, that’s the end of my questions. So.
DES: Well, that’s good. Yeah.
AP: You’ve done very well.
DES: [unclear] How long was that?
AP: That was one hour forty two.
DES: That was alright, well, that was [unclear]
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ASouthwellDE160424
Title
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Interview with Don Southwell
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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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:42:57 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-04-24
Description
An account of the resource
Don Southwell grew up in Australia and worked for RKO Radio Pictures and as an Air Raid Precautions Warden before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. After training in Australia and Canada, he flew nine operations as a navigator with 463 Squadron from RAF Waddington. He describes crewing up and everyday military life at the station, and gives accounts of his operations and being chased by Me 262s over Hamburg. He remembers ferrying liberated prisoners of war as part of Operation Exodus.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Canada
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
New South Wales
Alberta--Edmonton
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Brighton
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Leipzig
New South Wales--Sydney
California--San Francisco
United States
California
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Sussex
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
29 OTU
463 Squadron
467 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
fear
Lancaster
Me 262
memorial
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Waddington
RAF West Freugh
Stirling
superstition
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/332/3492/PSpenceMA1502.2.jpg
5a6657b4575a6396f0860cd494be921e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/332/3492/ASpenceMA151005.1.mp3
98a0fa42e0ca70873f8ca52ae247e6df
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
Spence, Max
Maxwell Alexander Spence
Maxwell A Spence
Maxwell Spence
M A Spence
M Spence
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Maxwell Alexander "Max" Spence (437564 Royal Australian Air Force), his log book and a photograph. He flew operations as a navigator with 460 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Max Spence and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Spence, MA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Digital, International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive, is with Max Spence, who is a 460 Squadron navigator. My name is Adam Purcell, we are at Max home in Montmorency in Melbourne, it’s the 5th of October 2015. So Max, we’ll start with an easy one. Uhm, can you tell me something of your early life, growing up, uhm, your family and what you did before the war?
MS: Well, uhm, we here, [pauses] uhm, I grew up in Briar Hill, which is quite close to Montmorency. I’m an only child, I went to, I was an original pupil of the Briar Hill primary school and then I went to Elton High, eh, secondary royal Elton higher elementary and then I went to Melbourne High and I finished at year eleven, which was pretty, eh, substantial in those days, that was in 19, uh, 30, or 34 or 5, I think. And then I went to work at Briscoes Limited, which was a wholesale hardware firm, and there were two office boys, I was the outside boy, and the other was the inside boy and we knew in 1938 that there was a war going to start soon, so, we both opted, we were going to join the Victorian Scottish Regiment. But when we found that the uniform was gonna cost us twelve pound, or twenty-four dollars which is about a three months, uh, wages that went out the door, so [laughs]. So, as I said, my dad, being a Gallipoli veteran, and he was an only son with eight sisters, and I’m an only child and no way was he gonna let me go, so, uh. Then, suddenly in May 1940, he changed his mind and said the Air Force would be alright and I applied for ground staff and the recruiting sergeant said: ‘You could apply for air crew’, so, which I did and got up to the selection board and one said: ‘You’re left-handed’, I said: ‘Yes’. He said: ‘You’re no good to us’, I said: ‘Ah, why?’. I was only just eighteen, so, and he said: ‘You couldn’t handle a Morse key’, uh, so I said, ‘but we will send you Morse lessons’, which they didn’t. So, I lost interest in the war altogether like they [unclear] run it without me and but in 1941 I was called up and I went to, it was I believe a signal, uh, the signals organisation, that took [unclear] , well it was a signal operation and then, uhm, [unclear] was separated and joined the 19th Machine Gun Regiment as a [unclear] and we went off to Darwin and were there at pretty close proximity to a lot of the raids there, which was a bit, you know, ordinary, uhm. And about October it settled off and the RAF came recruiting again and I applied, and they accepted me, they didn’t have any of this nonsense about left-handedness. And there was fifty-four of us I think, and only eighteen passed and they were mainly, uhm, excluded because of the colour blind test which was not the red, yellow and blue thing but it was a complicated business where you looked into this pattern and if you’re colour blind you just saw a colour and if you weren’t, you didn’t see it, and vice versa and funnily enough it was developed by the Japs. So, we came down in February and to Corfield [?]and eventually started ITS, the initial training stream, uh, which was a three months thing, and, uh, I think it finished around about May 1941 and I was lucky enough to get what I wanted, a navigators course, and I went to Edmonton in Canada and that was a five months course, so I spent eight months in Canada. And then I, following that, went through and eventually came to England, where I went to a British (or badge) flying unit which was navigation in a [unclear] Ansett, uhm, was largely visual and uh, where you took a visual line of sight and guessed what the distance was. Well, having finished that I went to operational training unit, uh, where you formed crews and very scientifically there’d be one hundred and fifty blokes in a room and they just said, sort yourselves out, so, I got, I saw this big black [unclear], I said: ‘Do you look like you could handle a big plane, could I be a navigator?’. So, we did operational training unit at Syreford, that’s in Midland England and then we went to conversion unit, we’re on Wellingtons at the operational training unit and then we went to the Lancasters at the conversion unit and then we finally joined the 460 Squadron in about, I think, early February, forget what the date was now. Uhm, and I flew eighteen operations in pretty quick succession, including the Dresden raid which has brought so much, misinformation [unclear]. We were then posted to Pathfinders, the war ended and the squadron, we all set off to another squadron that was, uhm, breaking up and then I went down to Brighton, which was the forwarding station, up to Liverpool we got the Andes, this ship I got on, I had been on this before and was the same ship I came from Canada to Britain on. And then I came home, and the war ended in Japan, I was discharged and I went back to work. That was about it.
AP: I only had to ask one question there and we just [unclear] covered the lot. Uhm, anyway, we will go back in a little bit more detail, if you don’t mind. Uhm, what, you said, you went back to work, what were you doing, as work, before you enlisted?
MS: What? What?
AP: What were you doing as work before you enlisted?
MS: I was, uhm, a clerk at, in a wholesale hardware, Briscoes, which is a very old, uh, is still operating in New Zealand but it followed up [unclear] about 1970. I was warehouse manager then.
AP: Before or between, between enlisting, as in between the air force coming to Darwin and then you signing the paper, and you started the ITS, uhm, can you remember roughly how long there was between the two and what did you do in the middle there?
MS: Ah, well, the recruiting mob came up about October in 1942 and but we didn’t leave Darwin until February 1943 and then we spend a few weeks down Laverton and then I suppose it will be, around about April 1942, 1943 that I had gone to, uhm, initial training school Summers [?] and that was a three-months course. There was no flying in that one there. It was just, uh, a number of subjects that, uh, which were, [unclear], was quite a lot of subjects, I recall meteorology, navigation, signals, I forget the other ones, been quite a number of. And then we got our postings and I was posted to Edmonton in Canada and so to do that we went up to Bradfield Park in Sidney, were there for about a fortnight and this big ship arrived and next thing we were on our way, uhm, to San Francisco actually. Uhm, it was the Mount Washington, Mount Vernon, they called it, uh, it was a big ship, 35000 tons I think and it went on a sound, so. And then we travelled up to, uh, Edmonton, we were stayed in the manning [unclear] for about a fortnight and then we started there a five months course, which was pretty intensive. Uhm, and then I was onto Britain on the same ship as I came home on, and as I said we were in Brighton at manning [unclear] and then we went up to a place called West Freugh in Scotland which was just near Stranraer and that’s where we did our advanced flying unit, which was pretty much the same as what we did at Edmonton. And then I was down to Syreford, there was a place called [coughs] I forget now but Syreford was where we did our operational training as a crew. Seven, it was six of them to stay on a Wellington [coughs] and then we transferred to Lancasters at the conversion unit and then onto 460 Squadron, uhm, I think it was just before New Year’s Eve in 1944 and we did one, I think a couple of, trains country [coughs] or cross countries [coughs] and, may I get a glass of water? And we started there operations and as I say, after the 18th we were posted to Pathfinders, but we never flew there. So, that was it and I came home [coughs].
AP: Can you tell me a bit about the first time you ever went in an airplane? Was that in Edmonton?
MS: Ever went in a?
AP: In airplane. The first time you went flying.
MS: Ah, yes.
AP: What memories, if any, do you have of that flight?
MS: What?
AP: What memories, if any, do you have of that flight?
MS: [coughs] Nothing but enjoyment. Edmonton was [coughs], I put in me memoires, [coughs] leaving Edmonton was like leaving home, I just accepted it as so. Well, we spent time in their homes and. But as I say, it was largely visual navigation we didn’t have much in a way, we had things to look at the stars with, [unclear]?
AP: Sexton.
MS: Sexton, but our aviation sexton was different from the normal and we used to take star shots and [coughs] that was about on Polaris, which was the north star. We saw the constellations align and everything. [coughs] And that was, as I say, was a five months course. So we left there in February ’44, uh, I travelled across Canada, my mate and I went, we had eleven days leave actually and we went to Chicago and then there to Halifax and boarded [coughs] the Andes [coughs] to Britain and then on up to say, advanced flying unit which was [coughs], [unclear], pretty much the same as Canada and that was only [coughs], uhm, when we got to Syreford that we got into the more sophisticated, uhm, navigation, machines [coughs].
AP: You’re alright?
MS: Yes.
AP: Yeah, ok. Uhm, what were your first impressions of wartime Europe, of wartime Britain, was there any, anything at all?
MS: Funnily enough was that the women smoked, although I never smoked. And, uh, I had an aunt in Scotland, so I used to go up there a lot, uh, but that was pretty frugal, we were alright on the stations we got fed well [unclear] [phone rings] excuse me. Yeah, go on.
AP: [unclear] England you were talking about. The women smoked?
MS: Yeah [coughs].
AP: And something about you were treated pretty well on the squadron, you got plenty of food on the squadron.
MS: What?
AP: You were saying you got plenty of food on the squadron. Where else [unclear]?
MS: Yeah, well. Was pretty ordinary food [coughs] but was food [coughs] a lot more of it than the general public got.
AP: What, uhm, so, we will go back or forward a bit now to OTU. You’ve picked your crew, you’ve crewed up?
MS: Well, we were picked out by ourselves.
AP: Yeah, so you now have the six people before you get your flight engineer.
MS: Yeah.
AP: With which you get to fly with. What did you do at operational training unit? What sort of exercises did you do? What sort of [unclear] did you do?
MS: Cross country, uhm, mostly in Britain but we did go to the coast of Holland once, uhm, which was a pretty long trip [coughs]. Uhm, yeah, was mostly cross country using the Gee which is, [coughs] was the, you can find it on the internet, was the, they used to send their signals and you saw the cross reference and that’s where you were and then hopefully.
AP: Hopefully you got it right. Where, uhm, where on the airplane was the Gee set?
MS: Uh well, it was beside the navigator’s table.
AP: The navigator’s table.
MS: On the Wellingtons sort of facing forward, behind the pilot from memory but on the Lancaster was the, there was the, uhm, bomb aimer used to take his place as front gunner, then the bomb, operating [unclear], and the flight engineer, he sat beside the pilot, then there was the pilot and then there was me and then the wireless operator and then we had the mid-upper gunner and the, uh, rear gunner.
AP: That was in the Wellington?
MS: There was seven.
AP: Oh, seven. So, we are in the Lancaster at this point?
MS: Ay?
AP: That’s a Lancaster you are talking?
MS: Yes, yes.
AP: Ok, that’s the other crew then. Uhm, I guess, what, when you’re in England, obviously you would have got periods of leave in between your, well, while your training [unclear].
MS: [unclear]
AP: You would have had periods of leave while you were training?
MS: Ah, yeah, we had six days every six weeks.
AP: Oh, this is when you were on operations.
MS: Yeah, yeah.
AP: What did you do?
MS: Well, they had a couple of schemes. There was the lady Rider[?] scheme, which, uhm, you could book a place and go to the land of the state or, I went to with a friend to a retired army major and his wife up in the, uhm, up sort of north of, east of England, that was, when you got there, that was the first sort of scheme. And then they had the Lord Nuffield, Nuffield was the, the Morris, he owned Morris cars and he used to [coughs], uhm [unclear] of various places [coughs] and if, and if you eventually met up with someone who got married, he would pay for the wedding and the, uhm, sort of honeymoon, he was very good [coughs].
AP: That’s what you did on leave. Uhm, what about the pubs?
MS: Eh? The what?
AP: The pubs in England and
MS: Yeah, well, they were a bit of a, the first time I went to Tommy Farr’s bar, he was the [coughs] British empire heavyweight champion. Now I ordered a beer, that tasted like tar and water, it was mild beer and so I [coughs] talked to a couple of other blokes who’d been here for a while, they said, oh no, start off on bottled beer and then gradually, uhm, move over to bitter, which we did, yeah.
AP: Next one. We’ll jump onto the, your operational aircraft. The first time you saw a Lancaster, what did you think?
MS: Was another aircraft, didn’t really have any thoughts about it. It was a lumbersome, or cumbersome aircraft [coughs] and that was a difficult one to get into, you had to climb up eight steps with all your gear, all your navigation gear and parachute and what. [coughs] Ah, bloody cough, and I don’t know whether is any [unclear], I don’t there are, couldn’t find any, uhm, and then you, fairly narrow near the, walk right up to the front and had a huge spar across the, that held the airframe together and you had to climb over that and then I had a little office, uh, and then I had to pull the cloth around me, cause we weren’t allowed to show any light.
AP: Can you describe that office? What was it like?
MS: Well, [laughs] it was only just, a curtain drawn around, just had a table and had the Gee-set and the Y set there and, uhm, I had the various instruments up to, you know, [unclear] the dividers and all those sorts of things but they weren’t very big, [unclear] wouldn’t have been any bigger than that, yeah.
AP: You said then the Y set? What’s the Y set?
MS: Well, that was a primitive Radar set, uh, which when it was put on, it picked up the outlines of towns by the people, intelligence people know that sort of, they gave a chart with the major towns as you were passing, [coughs] outlined and this picked that up and then you could give a bearing and a distance by the [coughs], by machine and you just plotted the thing.
AP: Navigation? Alright. Uhm, might as well go onto the squadron. Where and how did you live at Binbrook?
MS: Well, this is another thing. For an organisation [coughs] fighting for democracy, the services weren’t very democratic. When we got to the squadron, our pilot got a commission immediately and he went off to the officer’s mess and we actually had [coughs] pretty comfortable, uhm, we lived in a house actually, all in a unit, uh, but we were all together in one big room, we had comfortable, uhm, we had comfortable beds and then we used to go to the Sergeants’ Mess for meals. And then incidentally on the, uhm, conversion unit they were real snotty people, they. The permanent staff here had their own mess, uh, we weren’t allowed to go there, we had to go to our mess, they regarded us as second-class amateurs. But, yeah, the conditions were quite comfortable.
AP: What, uhm, what sort of things happened in the mess, in the sergeant’s mess in Binbrook?
MS: singing and drinking, and the [unclear]
AP: [unclear] [laughs]
MS: Writing letters and that sort of thing.
AP: Flying for Bomber Command would have been fairly stressful, I imagine.
MS: I can’t hear you.
AP: Sorry, flying for Bomber Command would have been fairly stressful, I imagine. How did you cope with it?
MS: Well, they keep, all the documentaries they do sort of emphasise the drama but largely it was just hard work. Cause I had to fix my position every six minutes and then dead reckon ahead another six minutes so, I was like an one-armed paper hanger actually, I was. So, the navigators probably had the best job, cause they were working, the rest were largely in a watching role all the time. And that’s another thing you said, they used to offer Benzedrine tablets, uhm, ‘wakey-wakey tablets’, we, I never took them, I had no problems staying awake. But sometimes a bloke would take them and then they’d call the op off, and of course we couldn’t sleep all night. And, yeah, it was, mostly hard work, I didn’t really, some of me mates did but I really didn’t feel any stress much.
AP: You say: ‘Every six minutes you are getting a fix and did reckoning again’. What can you remember much of the actual process, the actual method that you were doing?
MS: Well, it was, if we used the Gee machine as [unclear] sort of, uhm, things that flicked along and you got them together and you sort of isolate and that gave you where you were and with the, uh, Y, the radar which we were only allowed to use for a minute because the, uhm, enemy fighters could home in on us, uhm, we just operated it and got a bearing and a distance from where we [unclear] onto.
AP: There is something from that, uhm. Ok, so, you had eighteen trips.
MS: Yeah.
AP: Uhm, we will get to Dresden in a minute. Uhm, do any of those trips stand out particularly in [unclear]?
MS: Well, two of them do. We did Nuremberg, where we lost, I think, uh, nearly eight percent of the force. And a place called Pforzheim, which didn’t have any particular merit but they put it off twice and when they put them off, they always used to have to change the route [unclear] but they didn’t and the Germans had just reduced their jet fighter Me 262 and they got into a [unclear] on the way in, so obviously they’d been informed of where we were going and the route.
AP: When you said they got into [unclear] was that your crew in particular or [unclear] general?
MS: No, no, no, just general, we were pretty fortunate, I don’t remember, we only had one episode with a fighter and that’s right up near the back and we got hit by flak once but that was pretty much all of it.
AP: So, fairly, fairly uneventful tour.
MS: Yeah.
AP: Ok, so, the inevitable question comes up then, of Dresden. Uhm, what was your personal experience on the Dresden trip?
MS: Well, it was the longest trip we did, was nine and three-quarter hours in the air. I believe I didn’t have any particular, uh, memories of it, uh, as it was just another flight but funny, after the war we didn’t go home, we had a lecture from one of the education groups and he was talking about the phoney aspects of war and one of them was that the British shareholders in the Krupp ironworks at Essen were saving dividends up till the end of 1942. And then he got onto Dresden, now the major reason was given for Dresden that was to help the Russians, you know, but he actually [unclear] was to hinder the Russians, because they were getting into Berlin before the Americans and in fact we went to Dresden once, the Yanks went there six times. Twice before us and four times after us. The last one was about, was only three weeks before the end of the war so, there could be some truth in the hinder thing, because you know, they had to get to Berlin and cut it up, so, we’ll never know.
AP: You mentioned earlier about misinformation about Dresden. What [unclear]?
MS: Well, they were, they kept saying, well one [unclear] that the press council didn’t win, he said it was a war crime, you know, and because it was the biggest loss of life I think in any other raids were about 35000, it varies, 35000 seems to be the [unclear] death rate. It was just another raid to us but they kept hammer every year, [unclear] on February the 13th they were hammering this Dresden raid so [unclear]. So, I actually got a couple interviews, I think, in the [unclear], not sure which paper it was, about it, you know because it was all lies, [unclear] the historians giving the wrong story. There was the, a major historian in the Australian war memorial. Uhm, he wrote a book, he wrote a [unclear] book, Australia at war, was about Bomber Command. Well, his first mistake when he had a diagram or a sort of illustration, he had the navigator and the wireless operator in the wrong place and [coughs] he also had said that Dresden had not been bombed before. So, I wrote to him and pointed out his error in the book and I said that the Americans had actually bombed Dresden before we did and he wrote back and admitted his error in the illustration but he said that it was only a small bombing, but it was still a bombing you know, [coughs] and they were all, when I really got into it, they actually bombed a lot more, or dropped a lot more bombs than we did on Dresden but, cause Dresden had been virtually destroyed anyhow but they kept on doing it. Yeah.
AP: Why do you think that misinformation is out there, why [unclear]?
MS: Well, it happened with Darwin, they said that the Japs were never going to invade, the same bloke actually, and we, well, we will never know but I tell you what, we were pretty sure they were when we were there and they kept hammering this one raid all the time, as I say, they gave the Americans no press coverage at all. And yet, they actually did more to Dresden we did. It was just another, I mean, probably weren’t, were doing what they were just done, Harris didn’t want to go to Dresden but they overruled him. It was some sort of between Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin, I think, in ’44, late ’44, they had a conference.
AP: So, uhm, we’ll step back to a more general question. Your sitting there doing your every six-minute thing at your navigation table, and you hear over the interview, over the intercom, uhm, I got one of your gunners saying, fighter corkscrew port go. What happens next?
MS: Uh, what, say it again.
AP: You’re sitting at your table doing your navigation stuff and over your intercom you hear one of your gunners saying, corkscrew port go.
MS: Ah, yes, well that was, uhm, they had an evading process called corkscrewing, where the gunner who picked up the, uhm, alleged fighter would say that the pilot, uhm, enemy fighter, well he did this time, enemy fighter skip, skip, he was a bit, he said, prepare to corkscrew left, na na na, prepare to corkscrew right, na na na, he said, doesn’t matter, he’s gone past [laughs]. Well, that was one and I had another one where I was, oh, I think I had done five trips or something and one of me mates came to the squadron, he was on his first trip and he was coughing and splattering, I said: ‘That’s a bad cough you got there Butch’, he said: ‘As long as I still got it in the morning I’ll be happy’. [laughs] Ah, that was two sort of, [coughs] lighter moment.
AP: Excellent. Uhm, so, your tour ended, well your tour as such as it was, and eighteen trips it ended with the end of the war? Is that correct or is that before?
MS: [unclear]
AP: When you got to eighteen trips, you stopped?
MS: Yes, we went to the Pathfinder.
AP: So, you were posted to the Pathfinders, the, uhm.
MS: But we never flew there because the war ended.
AP: You said something in one of your emails to me about a disagreement about navigation methods. Can you expand on that?
MS: Don’t know whether, I, I’ve been operating quite happily on my own, the eighteenth trip, when we got there they set the bomb aimer behind me and he was having very little experience of the Gee and the Y. He was taking the information and passing it on to me which, I thought, lends itself for error for a start [clears throat] and took him away from his proper role of watching, you know, being the front [unclear] gunner and I, all I said, I am not too happy about it. Next thing they pulled me and the bomb aimer out of the crew and they sent us off on a forty-eight, two days leave or as we thought. When we came back, we were called up, or I was, called up before the stuffy pompous CO who wanted nothing but to stand to our attention and he said you’d be an AWL, I said no sir. Anyhow he obviously wasn’t sure, he checked us. If you’re charged with being AWL, it’s either a confined to barracks or it can a mandatory penalty. And if it was to mandatory penalty, you’re gonna ask for court martial, which is all, uh, bells and whistles and you get a defending lawyer and all that stuff. And he obviously wasn’t sure of his ground, so he sent us to a shorter tour of Sheffield that was and it’s, it was called an Aircrew Retraining Centre, there was lads, they were slobs of a military type, you know, probably never been out [unclear] a drill, but it was, so was quite interesting, it was. I did air force law and one bloke [unclear], I’ve seen it anyway together, this bloke was gonna go back and he put his CO [unclear] when he went back because of the information he got from the military law. But that was a three week course and actually the war ended while we were there and as I say, we were then posted to a squadron that was breaking up and I went to Brighton and, uhm, I was home in, uhm, August, just before the Pacific war finished, I was out on September the 2nd or 3rd or something I forget and I was back at work at 20th of September ’45, most of them didn’t get back till 1946. So that all worked out well.
AP: How did you find the readjustment to civilian life?
MS: Couldn’t cause me any problems.
AP: Just got straight back in, straight back where you left off.
MS: Yes, more or less, yeah. No, I got a, I was given a hired job, so. [coughs] But, now I, a lot of my mates had a break down and a few of them have suffered a post-traumatic stress as they call [unclear] they got [unclear] I used to drink too much, that was the main problem.
AP: Ok, uhm, this is usually my last question. How is Bomber Command remembered and what legacy do you think it left?
MS: Uhm, without a say, it was just a job and we had a job to do, we did it to the best of our ability, it was. There weren’t any special sort of. I get annoyed at the documentaries cause they emphasise the dramatic side all the time, you know, [unclear]. When we flew we flew long, this the other thing, people refer to what we did as missions and missions were what the Yanks flew. We flew operations, so, it’s only mine I think, but I get annoyed about that at. I lost the train of thought, [pauses]. As I say, these air flights were long but basically the last raid was the same because we were sending more planes at night and a lot of them banging into one another rather than and then the issue of the Me 262. They reckoned that if the war got another three months Germany would have had aerial supremacy but they didn’t have any fuel of course and but they certainly [phone rings] excuse me. Ok.
AP: So, how, yeah, how is Bomber Command remembered for you personally, I suppose and in the wider part?
MS: I don’t think about it [unclear] at all really, no. It’s, it just little, sort of personal episodes. As I said, it was just a job and I did it as best I could. Don’t have any special place in my memories.
AP: Did you ever fly again, apart from just getting on a passenger plane and going somewhere?
MS: No, no.
AP: No, that was it. Did the air force [unclear]?
MS: I got a , well, even then, now, when [laughs], when we were being discharged, uhm, they’d take your shirt in and they give another one and I noticed all these blokes going around the back picking up all our shirts, I got four shirts out of that lot and they, uhm, you know, bureaucracy is never far behind. I, uhm, first thing that happened was, uh, the WO there wanted to put us on guard at the Melbourne [unclear] guard so we didn’t turn up and he got us out on Monday, he said, if you’re not out [unclear] in half an hour I’ll put you on the charge so, but we managed that alright, that was our final episode there. And I went up, my cousin was royal [unclear] in the army and he said to me, I met him in town and he said, oh, he said to me, we got a good mess come up and you know we will have lunch together. So, I walked through the guard there and the next thing this WO came out and he said: ‘Where are you going, staff, I was a flight sergeant then, I said I’m going up to meet me with my cousin up at the mess, he said: ‘You are not allowed in there’, he said, I said: ‘I thought we were on the same side, you know.’ And then he started blustering, carry on and this Lieutenant came down, he said: ‘What’s the trouble, [unclear] he’s so bloody stupid, he said, carry on staff. You know, that was [unclear], you gotta try the other side of bureaucracy, anyhow.
AP: You said WO there?
MS: Yeah, warrant officer.
AP: Warrant officer, yeah, just for the tape. I’ll write that down. Uhm, what can I say, I guess just the one question that I skipped over earlier, when you heard, you said, I think you said that by about 1938 you sort of had the feeling [unclear] that war was coming.
MS: Yeah, you know, Hitler was flexing his muscles and we’d had Chamberlain saying no war in the near time and that sort of thing. I was just [unclear] and we could see it coming and we decided we’d be part of it but when it was gonna cost us 12 pound we decided we won’t [unclear].
AP: Can you remember when you heard that war had actually been declared and what were your thoughts?
MS: No, not particularly.
AP: Not particularly. Uhm, what else do I have here. I think, ok, the final question, is there anything else that you would like to ad, any other stories that [unclear]?
MS: I think I covered it pretty well.
AP: Covered it pretty well. [laughs] Covered it pretty well with one question. You’re off for ten minutes and that was the end. Alright, we might end the interview there, thank you very much.
MS: Ok, good thank you. [file missing] We got a special medal and they actually had one [unclear] guide but I never, my issues were the clasp in a little, piddly little thing [unclear] read the views of some of the British airmen on that, a sort of a second prize, you know. [file missing]
MS: [file missing] And yet, the aircrew Europe star were given to, uh, people who finished their operations in seventy or eighty hours, they did a tour of thirty. We had done eighteen, we [unclear] about one hundred and forty hours, so, well, I think that was unfair [unclear].
AP: Good.
MS: And that’s it.
AP. That’s it. Can I turn it off now? [laughs]
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ASpenceMA151005, PSpenceMA1502
Title
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Interview with Max Spence
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:47:51 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2015-10-05
Description
An account of the resource
Max Spence grew up in Australia and worked in a hardware store before he volunteered for the Air Force. He recounts his training in Canada and in England and life on an operational station. He flew 18 operations as a navigator with 460 Squadron.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Canada
Great Britain
Germany
Alberta--Edmonton
Germany--Dresden
Northern Territory--Darwin
United States
Northern Territory
Alberta
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
Gee
Lancaster
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
perception of bombing war
RAF Binbrook
RAF Syerston
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/341/3508/PTinningH1601.1.jpg
4d7e45a79160aa79382026fe9410ad61
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/341/3508/ATinningHW160314.1.mp3
00643b1db6bb18f53a1b33afa4d3184e
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
Tinning, Herbert
Herbert William Tinning
Herbert W Tinning
H W Tinning
H Tinning
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Herbert William Tinning DFC, his log book and three photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 51 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Herbert Tinning and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
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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Tinning, HW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: So, this interview of the International Bomber Command Centre with a Mr. Herbert Tinning, who was a 51 Squadron Halifax navigator during World War Two. The interview is taking place, at Herbert’s place in Preston, in Northern Melbourne. My name is Adam Purcell, it is the 14th of March 2016. So, Herbert, we might start at the beginning, uhm.
HWT: [unclear]
AP: It is a very good place to start, isn’t it? Can you tell me something about your early life, growing up, the education and first job, perhaps?
HWT: Oh yeah, I grew up on the other side of the river, mainly around Prahran and Toorak and Carnegie, I, I went to the, the Fawkner Park State School up until the sixth grade. Then I went to Toorak Central, seventh and eighth grade and then I went to Melbourne High for, to leaving. And then I went, I managed to get, no, I went to work first in a, no, no, I got an apprenticeship with the Victorian Railways as a fitter and turner, which a highly competitive job thing in those days and in waiting to go there I went and worked for a gasket maker called Ferrer, a company, that would be for about six months, and then I spent nearly three years in doing my apprenticeship at Newport during which time the World War Two broke out and I wanted to get into it but I was in a protected industry so I had to [unclear] quite big struggle but I managed to get a release providing I went into a technical trade which I, which I did do, I trained as a, what’s that called, a fitted away, which rear [unclear], I did that, then I was posted to a communication flight as a fitter and I again kept trying to get to [unclear] into aircrew, which I eventually managed and, uhm, and then I trained in Australia at, uhm, at Sale and Nhill and Cootamundra and then I was posted overseas and went to UK and ended up in Bomber Command as, I was trained as a navigator, bomb aimer but I was chosen to be a navigator and I went through the usual initial training et cetera and whilst I was at, what they called pre airview, which is because of the difference in map reading between Europe and Australia we had to get used to the greater quantity of identifiable objects and so we did a pre airview in Tiger Moths, would I tell you the story about that?
AP: Go for it.
HWT: Uhm, whilst we’re training, we used to do three, three day cross countries in flying in groups of three, big formation and I led this formation into Northampton and, as we’re turning over Northampton to, for another aircraft in which my mate was the navigator and the pilot [unclear] slipped under us too closely and wiped it up the main plane off on our undercarriage and we were in about 800 feet and he, they had to get out because the plane just went straight in and fortunately to this shoot [unclear] this happened in time [unclear] could land or crash land this thing so seemed so low, I straightened it and crash-landed it and that was that. Now, I tell you that as a preamble to we went on through training, we did our OTU on Wellingtons and we went to squadron, I went to 51 and he went to a different squadron and anyway I’m about, sometime later I heard that he is missing believed killed and I learned that on their fourteenth trip, I’ll tell you the, he went to 467 Squadron instead and anyway on the 8th of July ’44 he was on a French target, Saint-Leu-d’Esserent and he was shot down, it was night of course and they were on fire the Halifax navigator set out the forward straight patch so he tended to jettison the straight patch and he grabbed his parachute in his hand and he shot the [unclear] up because of his previous experience to just fall out and try to keep it on the way down but he clipped it, apparently he clipped it on a one clip and it held but he was ok and the only, the only one that could help was the bomb aimer, that was that I didn’t know anything about that at the time but he was missing believed killed. So the years went by and I finished my tour and I was appointed radar officer for the squadron and I’d been on leave and I was on my way back to squadron when we stopped at a place called Peterborough and just as the train was pulling out, the back wing doors on the bar, which is on the station, swung open as a fellow went out and I had a quick glance inside and I saw this, sort of head in silhouette, with this peculiar nose cause, in the bailout he’d, of the Tiger Moth he’d hit his nose on the tireplane [?] and it broke and he had mended it in a peculiar way. So anyway I grabbed my bag and I jumped out of the train and went back into the bar and, sure enough, it was Jim Walsh. He’d been picked up by the Free French and he’d spent the remaining years of the war until they were, until that part of France was, ehm, was occupied by the Allies, uhm, and he’d only been repatriated two days and there he was, you see. So, it was quite a good reunion, uhm, you have to believe in these units, I did you know, anyway I went on my way then and he went on his way and I’ve never seen him again. He was a Queenslander and in those days, it was much more expensive and difficult to travel into [unclear] as it is now of course and you get tied up with marriage, family, all the rest of it. So, that was that but I just tell you because of the incident that we had in the Tiger Moth and that [unclear] mine, uhm, we, that sort of saved his life in a way because if we hadn’t had the previous [unclear] he would have hesitated and try and put his shoot on, straight out of the escape hatch, it would have been too late. So anyway, that was that and then, as I say, I went to Waddington on 51 Squadron and there I did a tour with a mixture of French and German targets.
AP: Pretty good. Uhm, so you were working for the railways when you heard that war was declared. How old were you at that time? What were your thoughts? And how did you [unclear]?
HWT: Well, I must have been, I must have been, uhm, eighteen, because it was the age you could enlist and I was only, I always wanted to fly and a fellow who I knew was a pilot in the Air Force, he told me that you gotta get a speciality to, you know up until that, normally in the Air Force is a five year commission and you’re out. But if you had some speciality they would give you a more permanent job, you see, well, this fellow specialised in Photography and he was kept on as a aerial photographer. And because I was interested in engineering mechanical things, I thought, oh well, I’ll get an engineering diploma and then I’ll try for the Air Force. Instead I was on my third, in my third year, or just started my third year. But, it must have been during, it must have been, nearly in towards the end of my first year as an apprentice as the war broke out and I spent, you know, a year or so trying to get out of it, which I ultimately did and that was it.
AP: You, uhm.
HWT: Is that enough?
AP: Yeah, no, no, that’s alright, we’ll, [laughs] we’ll got plenty to cover, uhm, so I guess you’ve already answered the question of why you picked the Air Force.
HWT: I suppose I better finish it off and then, before I got an apprenticeship, I missed out that bit, after I’d finished with leaving, I went to Melbourne High and I was there for three years now, I’ll say it again, after I finished State School which is the eighth grade, then I went to Melbourne High and I finished there in my leaving year and went to the railways.
AP: Ok. Uhm, can you tell me something of the enlistment process for the Air Force? Did you have to do any testing, any interviews, any medicals, things like that?
HWT: Oh yeah, there were [unclear] interviews, there were, uhm, medicals of course, which sight was the main, was one of the principal things and [unclear] fine [laughs]. When I was, I got the notification to go and had my medical for remustering to aircrew, a couple of mates and I went out and had a bit of a party you know and anyway the next morning I had to do this medical test you see and, which I did but my sight must have been caught up to it because one eye was a bit weaker than the other. So, they, uhm, so I didn’t get the choice of a pilot, I was navigator bomb aimer and I always put it down to the fact that I’d perhaps had a bit too much booze that night but the, uhm, cause the thing is, post war when I was sort of older, I passed certainly a less stringent test but the eyesight test was just as stringent I think. Uhm, and I got the ok for a pilot’s license. So I think I’ve had a bit too much to drink at the wrong time.
AP: [laughs] pretty good. Uhm, were you on the reserve at any stage?
HWT: No.
AP: Because you went straight in as the trade of course.
HWT: Went straight in as a, as a trainee 2 A and well actually you didn’t do that as [unclear] but now they, you went in as an AC 2 and that’s we had a little white flash in our forage caps [unclear] to sending into [unclear] trainees and you did a three, four weeks of square-bashing down at Laverton and then you, during which time you, the selections were made and then you went to, in my time, Ascot Vale for engineering training and so, uhm, so I think I must have been about, almost nineteen when the war broke out.
AP: So, the white flash you are telling me about, I always thought that denoted air crew training specifically but it was
HWT:
AP: It was aircrew training specifically. Ok, yeah, that’s what I thought. Uhm, alright, so, you did, once you transferred to air crew, presumably you had to go to initial training school and do all the square-bashing again.
HWT: Yes, that’s right.
AP: Where was that? What happened?
HWT: The square-bashing was down at, uhm, at, oh god I must [unclear],
AP: Somers, perhaps.
HWT: Mh?
AP: Somers?
HWT: Yeah, Somers, yeah, that’s right, [unclear] bad, we did square-bashing then and pre airview at Somers. Incidentally it was, there was a well-known champion bike rider called Hubert Opperman, I don’t know whether you’ve heard of him but anyway he was, I came across him at Laverton first, where he was, a sergeant, no, he wasn’t a sergeant, I think he was DO, and then, when I went to Somers there he was again as an officer and he was doing, taking the PI training, organising and so on, nice bloke, anyway you had to gotta do that to. Anyway that’s where I did my initial training for aircrew. Then I went to Cootamundra and had training as a navigator. And then to Sale, training as a bomb aimer and gunner and then to Nhill, to do astronavigation. And then back to Ascot Vale, yeah, Ascot Vale for posting.
AP: So, I’m particularly interested in Nhill, I’ll tell you why later on, but, uhm, the first time you went into an aeroplane, presumably that was Cootamundra?
HWT: No, I had a passenger flight, you know, in a Tiger Moth, or was that a Gypsy Moth in those days, pre-war and while I was, fitted away, I had two Hawker Demons and a Lockheed Hudson in my charge, you see, and, anyway I used to, uhm, hit the odd flight [?] in a Hawker Demon, which we flew down over [unclear], anyway we flew down over to [unclear] anti-aircraft shooting, training, you know, and we, in a dive bomber [unclear] and so I got a, but then I fit [unclear] to it and I got a little bit of dual time on it, you know unofficially. So, yeah, that was, so I found a bit [unclear].
AP: [laughs] excellent, very good. Did you, when you were doing your training but particularly in Australia, did you see any accidents or anything like that?
HWT: Accidents?
AP: Along the way? Yeah.
AP: Or did you know of any accidents?
HWT: Oh, I knew, when I was at, when I was, just after I had been to Sale, I’m not sure which now, there was a string of accidents of aircraft going in and have a best strike and there were, I think there three of them, before they discovered what it was and what they were doing was torpedo bomb training with a damaged torpedo, see, and they had made the torpedo run which could have been made almost underwater and released the torpedo and [unclear] away you see, but I have been doing dry rounds without torpedoes and then I fitted them with these damaged torpedoes, which is the same weight as number one. And of course the pilots were used to unlighten [?] pulled out but, and because with the heavy weight they squashed a bit to say and that’s what they were doing, they were squashing into the sea and but they lost I think three before they discovered what the problem was. So, there were those and, uhm, [pauses], you know, you’d hear of accidents but they weren’t close to me, you know.
AP: Uhm, so, Nhill, oh my God, was talking about before Nhill also went through Nhill, and I actually went through there just about a year ago, we were coming back from Kangaroo Island and we stopped at Nhill on the way back, and turns out that the airfield, they’re opening up this Nhill aviation heritage centre, and they’ve got an Ansett there restoring very very slowly, which is really good to see. Uhm, can you remember much about Nhill in particular and what you were doing there, I know it was, I believe it was astronavigation at Nhill, uhm, what did that actually involve?
HWT: Oh well, we, we did the theory of it you know and then we did star identification, we just stand out and pointed out [unclear] to learn where they were and then you had to learn the theory side of using them, using sights to develop a fixed position and then of course sometimes that was over your head, you see, because flying over Europe was all dead black, not a speck of light anywhere and until you’ve done that, you don’t know how black the night is, you know. Uhm, and occasionally you’d have some, uhm, some guidance with, you know with the water get the reflection of the river, or a lake, whether you like it or not, although I didn’t experience this with the Gee, five lights around Berlin and they were a wonderful sort of fix for the aircraft, so the Germans were a very cunning enemy, they actually boarded out [unclear] a couple of them so there were only three lights, then they altered the shape of the other lights by boarding round it [?] you know, so none of the people would be certain [unclear] Berlin. Very cunning. But, what was I saying?
AP: We were talking about Nhill.
HWT: Ah, Nhill, yeah, uhm, now what I remember then it was very hot and the meals were good, we had no trouble flying out of there, at night we were flying in Ansons and, uhm, we were only a month there, four weeks, so I haven’t got much of a memory, I know, I’d been married by then and I know I missed my wife because she’d come up to Cootamundra, but Nhill was such a short stay. No, she didn’t come up to Cootamundra, she came up to Sale, where I did two months for bombing and gunnery. But, uhm, I know I got, you know, quite positive memories of Nhill, as a matter of fact I called in there once when I was driving, no, I flew in there once, that’s right, [unclear] to analyse, yeah, I landed there, just [unclear], was the last experience I had.
AP: [laughs] So, yeah, it is really nice to see what they are doing there actually at the moment, but anyway. Alright, so, moving on a little bit, we go up to Ascot Vale and then you embarked and you went to the UK. How did you get there?
HWT: I embarked, we went by a ship called the New Amsterdam, which went via New Zealand, cause it was taking, uhm, some of the New Zealand members of [unclear] back from Africa and were called from Wellington and then from there we went on to San Francisco. And from San Francisco we went by [unclear] car across to Boston. [unclear] car, they are still in pretty [unclear] condition and we had a black porter, made up our beds for the night, put a [unclear] chocolate on our pillow every five nights and anyway then we got to Boston, and we were waiting embarkation for England and we were embarked on a French liner, [unclear] something, wasn’t [unclear] to France but they had, they had several of these [unclear] and they flew, normally in peace time fly between Marseille, France, yeah, to Rio de Janeiro and that was a regular [unclear], you know. Anyway, we went to from Halifax in Canada to Liverpool unescorted so, they took us way up into the Arctic Circle to avoid the subs, which was interesting, and cold, and, anyway, [unclear] arrived at Liverpool and then we went by train to [unclear] out of Bournemouth.
AP: What did you think of wartime England when you first got there, particularly an Australian?
HWT: I liked England, I’ve been there since, I liked it better since but then during wartime it was, everything was severely rationed, there were no lights anywhere, blackout was very, very strict, uhm, and, I went to, I went to several stations, Bournemouth and from there we went to a place called Desford and then to, went to Lichfield and to Marston Moor for conversion and then to Snaith for, uhm, for 51 squadron. [unclear] We were actually posted to an Australian squadron but the day before we left, Bomber Command had raided Nuremberg and they had the heaviest losses of war, they’ve had 96 lost on the one trip and I think another twenty flying into high wind [?] when they got back. Uhm, so they were very short of aircrew so we were, uhm, then diverted to reinforcements to various squadrons and our diversion was to 51 Squadron.
AP: So, what did you have getting to that point where, ok, we’re going to a squadron now and you hear about Nuremberg, what did you think of when you heard about that?
HWT: Oh, well, you really got pretty philosophical about it, you know. As a matter of fact, you didn’t expect to live, you know, that’s probably more [unclear] a bit more than I should. And whatever, but we didn’t think about after the war, really, we just did what we were doing and, and uhm, did as best we could, I guess.
AP: Alright, We’ll back up a bit. Lichfield. I was talking just on Saturday to a WAAF, who served at Lichfield.
HWT: Oh yeah?
AP: Amazing lady, I interviewed this, [unclear] Mary Mccray, we had a wonderful chat. Uhm, the important thing that happened at Lichfield I presume is where you met your crew.
HWT: Yes, uhm, we met part crew,
AP: [unclear] of course, except for your flight engineer.
HWT: Pardon?
AP: Except for the flight engineer, of course.
HWT: We didn’t pick up our gunners, we, it was the, we didn’t pick up an engineer either. It was just the navigator, bomb aimer, pilot and wireless op. And we did our, well, we converted from, what the pilot did, we did to a point [unclear] from the Tiger Moths [unclear] previously flying in Ansett [unclear], no, we hadn’t, no, we hadn’t, we, uhm, [pauses] we must have flown, no, [unclear] I do recall flying in Anson but I don’t think that was in training, anyway we went to Wellingtons and we did the, the, what do we call it? [pauses] The, there was a pre airview I think they call it, anyway we flew the Wellingtons and actually I liked [unclear], I had no complain about any of the stations except, no, none of them, at Lichfield we had [unclear] they sent me to cross countries day and night, [unclear] a bit of a, a bit of a [unclear] there, see where we were, here you go, I went to 27 OTU which was at Church Broughton.
AP: Ah, that was a satellite of Lichfield, I think.
HWT: I think you’re right.
AP: Yeah.
HWT: We were flying Wellingtons there and I was West Freugh in Scotland and that’s where we were flying Ansons. I got it a bit wrong then before.
AP: That’s alright.
HWT: Pre airview at West Freugh
AP: A bit cold up there I imagine?
HWT: It was a bit.
AP: [unclear] at what time of year?
HWT: [unclear] was a bit [unclear], Stranraer was 7 Squadron you know. Yeah.
AP: Very nice. Uhm, when you were in England, what did you do when you weren’t on duty? What did you to relax?
HWT: On the station?
AP: Yeah, any of the stations that you were there.
HWT:
AP: Anything.
HWT: I played a fair bit of squash, most of the men, I know the, stations [unclear], we did a bit, we started [unclear] when we got leave, you know we went and quite often we stayed with people you were good enough to, you know, to sort of entertain, [unclear] your troops and I saw a bit of England that way, quite a bit really, underground and by you know they just we were on leave, we went some place which [unclear] short leave like overnight or a couple of days, you know, you didn’t go far but life on the squadron wasn’t bad, it was, but I initially went as a flight sergeant and there we lived in Quonset huts and that’s a thing I remember about it, the Quonset huts, oh, I suppose it might have been twenty or so, slept in them, and down the set of the bedroom on the side [unclear] down the centre and there were two or three potbellied cast iron heating stoves [unclear] and anyway it was cold alright because we stacked these things up and when we went to bed, the [unclear] of the [unclear] was cast on was red hot and was beautiful, you see, but then by morning there were icicles off the roof, from our hot breath, you know, the heating had gone out and other things, and it was cold, very cold, I remember that, but then I got a commission and we moved into a two bedroom unit in a big, where I was, in a big building at [unclear] which was much better than, I got no sort of unpleasant thought really of any of the stations I was on [unclear] I know the time has [unclear], but.
AP: [laughs]
HWT: But I think I remember something.
AP: Very nice. Alright so, when you are on squadron and you’re not on duty, I presume that you spend a fair bit of time in the mess, at the sergeant’s mess or the officer’s mess.
HWT: Play snooker, billiards, squash, sometimes I put on a cross country run and if you [unclear] you might decide to do it. And I had picture shows, pretty regularly at night and of course there was always drinking, always high drinks [unclear] appreciate. Some of the men [unclear] there and they used to get into the, particularly into the police time quarters where there were long corridors with, they’d get in there, ride round their motorcycle up and down along the corridor, you know, which in confined space was pretty deafening and then another friend I used to get up to was, and I only saw this once though, was they, they’d been drinking, and they got this fellow and they walked him over some soot and then they uphended him and hurled him against ceiling, across the ceiling, made him walk across the ceiling, you see, which looked pretty funny, you see, these black footprints across the ceiling [laughs], I remember that, [unclear] prank I remember, but no there was not, no boredom really, you know, you had, and we had [unclear] and all that sort of stuff, you know, and that was quite good. I’ll tell you a funny thing though, when I, during ops I was doing mechanical engineering and I liked engineering and I still like it and I intended to finish up as, with a diploma and working in like a designer that, you know, but during the war for some reason I changed my mind quite unconsciously and became interested in building, so when I was demobbed, I did a rehab course in building and construction and spent my working days in building administration and some on a building design on a side but yes, so I don’t know whether, whether unconsciously knocking building down through the war, unconsciously directed me towards, rebuilding, [laughs] interesting question.
AP: [unclear] more questions, isn’t it? yeah. Pretty good. Uhm, that sort of leads into the next thing, presumably an operational tour was not the most relaxing thing that you would have ever experienced, how did you cope with the stress of the operations, the stress of flying and [unclear] what you were doing. How did you cope with that on a daily basis?
HWT: Oh I think we had probably a bit more drinks than we should have drunk you know we had regular, you know, organised parties in the mess and they were fairly cunning you know, not that you weren’t aware of it, but, you know, you might go out on a ride one night and you come back and go through debriefing and you go off, have breakfast and go to bed. And when you were up in the morning, you know, you might have lost one aircraft say, [unclear] and you come out and you want to go out and do a, you know [unclear], usually only if you are doing ops really you had to do an air test and any way could be sitting there but you knew it was missing and what they did overnight went to remind you night, they flew an aircraft in from a, you knew, factory area, [unclear] the number, it was on dispersal and the only thing that was missing was the crew, and they sort of tried to make losses less obvious then they really were but I know some people had a lot of trouble, I, I don’t know why but I wasn’t, you know, I was concerned but I didn’t have any sort of shakes or anything like that, the only thing I got really was at the end of the tour I developed an eye tick, you know, you’d feel your eyebrow move but you weren’t sort of, you weren’t doing it, yeah, so yeah, they called it a nervous tic.
AP: And how long did that hang around for?
HWT: I don’t know, a few months.
AP: Alright, we were talking about drinking before. The local pub at Snaith, what was it called? What did it look like?
HWT: The local pub at Snaith was George and the dragon. And we drank, and it was a typical English pub you know, a nice atmosphere and all the rest of it. And of course we had our mess which we patronized, you know, fairly well because they had, you know you had your billiards or your snooker, your darts and the bar, card tables you know to play cards and that, so you had enough to do around the place.
AP: Were there any [unclear]?
HWT: There were concert parties and there were film [unclear] all that sort of stuff you know and they looked after us pretty well.
AP: Were there any, [clears throat] excuse me, superstitions or hoodoos, things like that, within your crew?
HWT: Very much, very much. And I remember some of the crew’s superstition, they are not my words, we always had to sit at the same seat in the way of going out to dispersal [unclear] aircraft. I think that was my only one. Yeah, I had to have that seat [unclear] but I know some that got some, well, the other thing too I suppose was, my wife, when I went [unclear] she gave me a white silk scarf and she’d sown a little, a little, uhm, what do you call, dice, a little dice in one corner of it, see, and I wouldn’t fly without that, I still got it, it’s no longer white, it’s now yellow.
AP: [laughs] it’s done you well then, it’s done you well. I guess we’re getting to the nitty gritty now. Do any of your operations stand out for any particular reason?
HWT: I remember D-Day, it just, you know, just for the amount of traffic on the Channel and we had, you know, on D-Day they locked all the [unclear] down, you know, so nobody went anywhere and there were armed guards with instructions to shoot to kill if anyone wanted to get out. And then when we went into briefing, I noticed, they told us, this was D-Day and our target was on the coast, [unclear], not [unclear], [unclear], something like that and that’s the first we heard of it, oh, no, we knew it was pending because the place was crawling with troops and [unclear] whatever but we didn’t know when and so we, so off we went and I just remember the level of activity and there was no fighter activity on that D-Day target, not where I was, there was quite a bit of flak and that was it but the, there is, thing I remember mainly is a mid-air collision of three pre airview, that’s opened your eyes pretty quick and we got shot up a few times, you know, may have taken out a bit of flak damage one night, we had one fighter attack [unclear] air gunner, I remember that, [unclear], you know, normally they were looking for someone who was asleep, you know, and because they were easy in sight but by the way [unclear] was in the time when they developed a thing they called Music, Schrage Music I think they called it and they equipped the Me101os with an upward firing cannon and they’d come in underneath [unclear] you see and stand in blind spot and [mimics the sound of rapid gun fire] and it’s gone, they aimed for the wing tanks and that was very successful and they did in the end on some of the aircraft, on the Halis or the Lancasters, they did put up a turret, or not a turret, but a gun in the, no, I’m sorry, they didn’t, no, they never did that, the Yanks did that, the Yanks did that with their [unclear], they put a belly gun in and the poor gunner had to sort of crawl in and, you know, he’s in a very uncomfortable position and but that was the Yanks, not us. No, we were, we did, part day and part night trips and by the time we were doing them, they were, by the time D-Day arrived, the Yanks had cut into the [unclear] pretty heavily with attacking their aerodromes and in air fighting, you know, by then they had the Thunderbolts and the Mustangs. And they got [unclear] in the bomber stream a fair way the Yanks [unclear] not us and of course they got into the German fighters a bit. Which is very good.
AP: [laughs] yeah. Cool.
HWT: But, oh, now we had, a couple of times we lost motors [?] and you get one time bomb hanger, but now we, when you’re, [laughs] when you’re being, when there’s a lot of flak, when you’re hit by the flak, it’s, you don’t have to [unclear] quick you’re in it, you know, but the no reason that the shrapnel, sometimes the noise that’s close to you when you caught a bit of shrapnel, it sort of puts you on edge but the thing that I know was my job, I was busy all the time, see, cause the safest way to get over a, uhm, an operation was to stay in the stream, you see, the head streams had five, six, seven hundred aircraft, you know, in a short space of time and if this stayed within the stream band was about ten hundred miles, you mind an individual on the German radar, you’re part of the mess which they couldn’t distinguish you from, but if you were outside that, you appeared on their screens as a [unclear] and they could [unclear] a fighter onto you, you see. So, the thing to do was, stay behind and you had to stay in that channel, then be one of the pack, so you were supposed to take a fix every six minutes, but of course you couldn’t do that with, you know, where the, your radar range weren’t, what do you call it? Interfered with, you know, which I have forgotten the word.
AP: Jamming.
HWT: And [unclear] otherwise you took them as you could [unclear] something on the ground or, a river or something or [unclear] started with the star sight, but they, the best took you about fifteen minutes to work out, [unclear] to work out.
AP: And you, you
HWT: And so you had to stay on it, you know, and if you concentrated on that but you’re not thinking about the threat, instead I was fortunate in that position.
AP: What was the navigator’s compartment like in the Halifax?
HWT: Good,
AP: If you’re sitting at your desk, what are you looking at?
HWT: It was, I haven’t got a photo of it, but it was quite generous, it was, uhm, the pilot was up on a slightly raised area and there was a lower deck but not at full height, you know, and then I was [unclear] accommodate the navigator and the bomb aimer and when the bomb aimer wasn’t up acting as a second pilot, he would be down in his prone position, you know, and when he was there, I had to let him in because I had a collapsible seat that folded back [unclear] and but I had a pretty generous desk probably about that wide I suppose and it was, we had, you know, the usual red light or amber light to light, which wasn’t all that good. But then you had an API in front of you, which was a box about so big on the wall and, you had the, forgotten the name of the thing now. You had this device over the table which carried star maps and that projected star positions down onto this chart, you see. And, in fact, I’ve collected navigation instruments since the war, you see, and might even down in the workshop.
AP: Yeah.
HWT: And not since the war, only since I’ve retired yes and anyway I got an API, I got a GPI and I’ve never been able to get one of these, whatever they were, because I don’t think they were common out here, I think they were common to Bomber Command in England [unclear]. Anyway, this is one thing I forgot but I’ve known now, I’ll look it up.
AP: [laughs] Pretty good.
HWT: But now, my space was pretty generous and the only, I had a fold down seat [unclear] and that’s about it, and we had to wear silk gloves under our gauntlets to give us feel [?], that’s one of the computers we used to use, that was, that’s just, you know, one I bought since you know, but they were between that and doing your chart work and then doing your sextant work, quite busy.
AP: Where in a Halifax, I know in a Lancaster you got that astroline [?] thing behind the cockpit, where in a Halifax did you take star shots from?
HWT: Same thing.
AP: Same spot the Halifax.
HWT: [unclear] position to it.
AP: Oh yeah.
HWT: To [unclear] I’ll show you.
AP: Oh yeah, we have a model here so I prepared earlier.
HWT: It was just alongside, just behind the pilot and I’m beside [?] the radio operator.
AP: Ok. Pretty good. Uhm, you were talking about being attacked by a fighter once or twice, or being chased by a fighter once or twice. Did you encounter the corkscrew or did you have to use the corkscrew at some point?
HWT: Yeah.
AP: And how did that effect your navigation?
HWT: Badly [laughs] it, everything I had on my desk flew up the roof, you know, scattered all over the [unclear], then I had to recover them when I got out of it and but it didn’t affect, like, navigation as far as [unclear] is concerned, they usually corkscrewed around the [unclear] they’re on, it only pictured as a one off anyway, you didn’t [unclear] you know it was [unclear] corkscrew and so it didn’t affect my navigation to any extent because whatever in the [unclear] you were picking up with the continued fixes you were trying to get, you know, so it didn’t grow and I’m frustrated you know, I kept a log and part of the chart of the trip I did to Stuttgart, which I was going to show you but I can’t find the damn thing!
AP: Oh damn!
HWT: I looked everywhere and it gives you a fair idea then of how the, you know, why you kept the record the fixes [unclear] you know.
AP: You have to let me know if you do find it. I’d like to see that. Anyway.
HWT: I’ve gotta find it.
AP: Yeah.
HWT: I don’t know whether it’s down in my workshop, I got stuff down there but I wouldn’t have taken it down, there is no reason for me to take it down there. However.
AP: That’s alright, no worries. Uhm,
HWT: And I’ve got, this is a map, a map case this,
AP: Ah, cool!
HWT: Which I made, when I was collecting maps, well, I still have and I’ve got, you know what a [unclear] is?
AP: What?
HWT: [unclear]?
AP: No.
HWT: [unclear] you hang the file.
AP: Oh, ok, yeah.
HWT: And that’s how I got the maps in here.
AP: Oh, fantastic! Uhm, alright, so, how many trips did you do?
HWT: I did forty.
AP: That’s alright.
HWT: I started off on forty two, but two of them we were recalled on. Went through all the briefing took off, were on our way when we were recalled. Because they got [unclear] information that the targets were, you know, clouded out [or up?] and even then the decisions varied you know because we were recalled on those two occasions but on other occasions, you’d, not very often though, you’d bomb out of a cloud [unclear] and now I bombed once on my H2S,
AP: Ah!
HWT: And the bomb aimer couldn’t see the target and when we were committed to it, so handed over to me and I took it over on H2S which where they landed but [unclear] aircrew there’s a bomb site.
AP: So, Ok, tell me something about H2S. Presumably that’s in your navigator’s compartment as well, it’s around your desk somewhere. What were you looking at and how did it work?
HWT: Well, you had curtains along the side of your compartment. You could find the light [unclear], so most of your time that’s where you were, except when you want to take, you know, star shots and then you turn your light out and go for [unclear] you come back and if you got [unclear] on the chart, that’s why I’m frustrated I couldn’t show to you, you know, you had to get a fix straight at target shot if you could on three stars and that gave you, you reduced your position to a small triangle, and you just took the centre of that then you had to, had a symbol for that which was a circle with a dot in the middle on the chart and then your air position which made you maintain a, what do you call it? An air position chart all the time so because your air position was always the thing you had to apply the wind to, which gives you a [unclear] position and the air position was always the triangle with the dot in the middle, so by the time you’re keeping your chart up to date and you’re writing up your log and you’re having taken the fixes, you’ve taken the shots to make the fix and then on some occasions you’re bitterly cold, you know, your hands are cold, so you don’t work as flexibly as you would normally, I remember one time before we got the Mark III [unclear] my oxygen mask was dripping onto my chart and make a little ice cream, you know, but you had to navigate through but [unclear] you know, so, you couldn’t, you wouldn’t work as quickly as you would if you’re sitting down here [unclear], you know, you had certain discomforts here so you are
AP: Pretty good.
HWT: That’s how anyway, but the navigator was pretty busy all the time and he looked like [unclear] interesting, I was [unclear] target when we went up to it and if there was, if there was a ten [unclear] black in the sky, if it was a day like one, I just keep the curtain pulled [laughs] not that you use your curtain as you could but that’s what you felt like
AP: Yeah.
HWT: But now, I was, particularly on the night targets as always busy, day targets were better because you had, you could take visual fixes, [unclear] you could have a radar range, you know.
AP: You used Gee a fair bit?
HWT: Pardon?
AP: You would have used Gee a fair bit?
HWT: Yeah, Gee.
AP: How did that work?
HWT: [unclear] I think I got a, no, [unclear] but the [unclear] chart was an [unclear] chart with a number of lines drawn on it, you see, and these lines, they weren’t straight, they were sort of, you know, what they call it, I forget now, anyway they were lines demarking the radiations from three different radar stations and each station had a different colour on the chart and say you’d, when you took your readings of the, of the Gee, you could prop them on against in relation to the station you were working, you know, and that was very good and very simple and then you got the H2S which and of course the [unclear] was able to, oh God there is a word for I can’t think of it, a [unclear] scrambled anyway the Gee transmission over the [unclear] so the H2S then gave you a radar unit that you carry in the aircraft and the Germans couldn’t, uhm, scramble it, ain’t that terrible? Anyway but you had the danger the Gee transmitting and the Germans took out [unclear] they could pick up your transmission and home on you, you see, so you didn’t want to, until that happened, it was great, you know, you could, all the cities had distinctive shapes on H2S screens which were the same on your chart, so it was easy and to maintain where you were but when the Germans tend to home on your transmission, you didn’t transmit all the time, you see, so then it was much harder because you hadn’t been on the thing all the time yet, you had to be, identify where you were, you know, or guess where you were in relation to what you station you were working. Bu they all had their, you know, plus and minuses.
AP: It’s one of the fascinating things I think, if you follow through the whole bomber war, the measures and the countermeasures and then the counter countermeasures and then the way that, you had this brilliant new technology that gave you the advantage for about two weeks and then the other side came up with a counter tour and you had to put the counter to counter and it just kept swinging [unclear]
HWT: [unclear] scientific war
AP: That’s unbelievable, yeah, I [unclear] read a couple of books about that. Uhm, alright, so forty two trips happen, uhm, how did your tour end?
HWT: Oh, it just ended.
AP: Just ended? [laughs]
HWT: It was forty, I did forty two, was the number I was set out on but how did it end? [unclear]there was another operation on Essen, two days before I’d had a day operation on Essen and the one before that which was two days before that again we were recalled by radio. Oh, it ended quite officially peacefully, [unclear] five hour trip, five hours, five minutes.
AP: Were there any, any particular celebrations when you got back or?
HWT: Oh yeah, we [unclear] on celebration, yeah, course, of course it has but in [unclear] long, you see, we were posted [unclear] pretty straight away but [unclear] was our pilot, he went to [unclear], no to [unclear] to conversion, I was, stayed on the squadron, they made me the radar officer which, you know, I had to assess all the bombing performance of the aircraft, you know, as recorded by H2S and I did that some months and then I was posted to a transport squadron 96, which was just forming and I did three cross countries to them [unclear] we were preparing to go on a route I’d established by then was down to Middle East, Cairo across to Bombay, then across to Chongqing I think, some Chinese place to take [unclear] squadron to them. And we were just doing our run up to that, I didn’t know which [unclear] I was gonna be on because, you know, you do the England-Cairo, we did the Cairo-Bombay, Bombay-Chongqing, a trip, be stationed on those but I can get to that, they posted me back here and I went back here and then I had my normal leave and I was posted, I was going to be posted to a squadron in New Guinea when the war was over, so that was it.
AP: That was the end of it. So, how did you find then are you in the Air Force for about five years or something now?
HWT: Yeah.
AP: How did you find readjusting to civilian life?
HWT: No problem.
AP: No problem at all?
HWT: No. I went back to Newport for six or eight months and then my course started at Swinburne and I did that. I did that for three years and then, then I got a job at the council as a building inspector and I was that for a couple of years, then I got, caught as a building [unclear], so I got the building [unclear] job and then that gradually grew to encompass the town planning and won a council work so started as the city architect [unclear] town planner [unclear] regional department for about fifteen [unclear] and couple of secretaries, you know. So it developed and so I had no problem, I got back into a quiet work and then I wanted to fly but my wife didn’t want me to fly until the kids had grown up a bit so I didn’t care for my license until 1968, then I got that and then, well, I still got it but and then during those years I did a lot of flying around Australia. I belonged to a group called the [unclear] aviation group [unclear] and I was the secretary, director for secretary for quite a while and so we had three aircraft and we had a Cessna 182, a Cherokee Piper 180 and a Victor and before we got the 182 we had a Piper Comanche, beautiful aircraft, I was standing in front of the aircraft but one of the [unclear] aviation group crashed the [unclear] and killed the four of them and [unclear] for me, I had to go up there and dispose of the airframe, and [unclear] took the engine and the retractable undercarriage and I had to very carefully dispose of the [unclear] which was the airframe and [unclear] back and forth which, you know, [unclear] terrible end of a lovely aircraft. Anyway and then the last trip I did, I flew clockwise right round Australia, coastal, right round Australia,
AP: Beautiful.
HWT: You know, took us three weeks, a good trip.
AP: Oh boy! [unclear] A country that lends itself to things like that. Very much the easiest way to cover the distance I think. Very nice, so, oh, I guess we’ll come to what is my last question, I ask everyone this. Uhm, what do you think is the legacy of Bomber Command and how to you want to see it remembered?
HWT: Well, I was annoyed and hurt so that affected [unclear] job didn’t but the way that the Command was treated after the war upset me, [unclear] a good two years the Command has carried the war and at the time we started was the time Bomber Harris really started his campaign we didn’t have any [unclear] gear, you know, we had normal just recorded all this stuff but and sextants but then, as a Command I’m talking about and then we got Gee, which helped us through a while and then we got H2S which helped us and then in between the, [unclear] this, they developed pathfinders to find the target and illuminate it, which made the job more accurate so and it was the Bomber Command and the government’s, the English government’s decision that we use carpet bombing because at the time we started, we had no better means to getting to and so, but they always picked an appropriate target which was bombed too but then there was always, you know, the weering skilled and the bomb aimer, all that sort of stuff come to it, so you had a spring but, but anyway Bomber Command was much blamed and the politicians particularly didn’t want to know [unclear] because you see in the bombing civilians were killed but civilians were [unclear] during the war because most people were working in something to do with the war, ammunitions, looking out, people in leave, all this sort of stuff, you see, so there was no real completely neutral person but that’s perhaps a modest justification but the, but anyway the thing I heard most was the fact that the politicians would give Harris a list of targets, see, the scientists worked them out, you know, factories [unclear] whatever, so they had collected the intelligence, then they gave the list of appropriate targets to the Parliament and the politicians nominated [unclear] you see, they normally give him [unclear], you know, the five was his choice, which one of the five his choice, depending on [unclear] and so it was [unclear] because the politicians didn’t want to know it, didn’t want to know about it, you see, because thinking that it was not very good because of people had, you know, the [unclear] of civilians being killed they didn’t know [unclear] and I think members of Bomber Command as a whole felt that way. There is one little last thought, but I don’t know whether you know about it but it was something like so long after the war I [unclear] have forgotten about it, but last year the French government decided to give the survivors of D-Day and Battle of Normandy a Legion of Honour and they presented them to them and which I got one was a nice medal but I think there were twenty five from Victoria and I think six from South Australia and I think there about twenty five from [unclear] I’m not sure but they [unclear] until the numbers were way down, you know, and I just mentioned it because it’s a very frugal [unclear] to
AP: What are your thoughts on the clasp? I see there’s not one hanging on your medal up there. There’s a little Bomber Command clasp.
HWT: OH yeah, good idea, I’ll show you.
AP: One of those as well [laughs].
HWT: [unclear]
AP: Yep.
HWT: This.
AP: A DFC as well I see.
HWT: Yeah, and that’s the
AP: Yeah, lovely.
HWT: [unclear] a nice medal, isn’t it?
AP: That’s a very nice medal, yeah.
HWT: And when you look at it, it’s clipped by the sides.
AP: Ah, wow!
HWT: [unclear] any good one side.
AP: [laughs] Lovely, yeah, there’s the clasp there. Very good.
HWT: That’s our crew, that’s me, that’s the rear gunner, that’s the wireless op, that’s the bomb aimer, that’s the mid upper gunner and that’s our pilot.
AP: [unclear] ground crew and a couple of WAAFs as well.
HWT: And, yeah, that’s the ground crew, that the ones who drive [unclear]
AP: Yeah. Fantastic, fantastic.
HWT: And that’s, that’s the rear gunner [unclear], the pilot and the mid upper gunner [unclear], he was killed on his fifteenth trip.
AP: Wow [unclear] that’s brilliant. Brilliant [laughs]
HWT: [unclear]
AP: Ah, very nice! Well, that’s the interview thing, so I’m gonna turn that off in a minute. So, thank you very much.
HWT: That’s alright.
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ATinningHW160314, PTinningH1601
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Interview with Herbert Tinning
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:19:54 audio recording
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Pending review
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-03-14
Description
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Herbert Tinning trained as an aircraft fitter but later remustered and flew operations with 51 Squadron as a navigator. After the war, he build a career as a town planner and later as an architect.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Great Britain
51 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
coping mechanism
crewing up
fitter airframe
Gee
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
mess
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Lichfield
RAF Snaith
RAF West Freugh
superstition
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/342/3509/ATrumanEG170315.1.mp3
3c4b3518135201b262200ffa6d7f24b8
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Title
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Truman, Ernest
E Truman
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Ernest Truman (b.1921, 418318 Royal Australian Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-15
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Truman, EG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
ET: I went to join, I tried to join the Navy one night and the bloke said, ‘We’re busy come back.’
JB: Did he?
ET: Yeah [laughs] So, I joined the Air Force.
JB: Where did you train?
ET: Oh, I went to [pause] they took blokes in and had them as aircrew guards and they did so much guard duty at various places and then they went in for training at Number 1 ES at Somers.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Somers camp. And that’s what I did. I was an aircrew guard. AC2 is what they called it at, in the Western District wouldn’t it have been?
JB: Yeah. I think my father was at Somers.
ET: Yeah.
JB: A lot of —
ET: He would have been. Somers is Number 1. Number 1 and ITS. Initial Training School.
JB: Yeah. And what did, a lot of blokes went over to Canada. Who were those blokes?
ET: They were no reason for going here, there or anywhere. They just did and they just sent them to Canada to train.
JB: Right. And so from training. So how long was training?
ET: Well, nine months.
JB: Nine months and I heard that —
ET: Nine months before graduation and then there was training and training and training and training.
JB: And did you want to be, did you, did you start off knowing the position you’d have in the crew or were you just —
ET: No. We weren’t, you were an individual.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I went to Benalla on Tiger Moths. Did well on Tiger Moths. Passed, and passed out ok. Then I went to Deniliquin on Wirraways, and I couldn’t handle Wirraways and they scrubbed me.
JB: Yeah.
ET: So, I said I’ll go as straight gunner and the, I was working in an office there and I got to know the sergeant there and the sergeant went to the chief ground instructor and was nattering to him and the chief ground instructor, ground instructor came out and says, ‘You’re not going to be a gunner. You’re going to be a navigator.’ No, sorry. ‘An observer.’ In Australia we were observers.
JB: Yeah.
ET: We did a three months course that were thereabouts at Mount Gambia and then we went to Gippsland. Did a gunnery course. And then we went to Evans Head, did a air, astro-navigation course.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Right. And then we came back and we was billeted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. We were, by then we were either sergeants or pilot officers. I was a sergeant and we, I was booked one night to be orderly sergeant and I said to the officer, I said, ‘What do I have to do?’ He said just, he told me. So I go in at the airmen’s mess and I yelled out, ‘Stand fast. Orderly officer. Any complaints?’ And no complaints [laughs] So, we were billeted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The best meals you’ve ever, you could ever imagine and we slept in the outer area near grandstands converted to a sleeping quarters and then we caught the Niew Amsterdam, a Dutch royal family liner out of Port Melbourne and went via Durban to England. Durban, South Africa.
JB: Did you stop off in Durban?
ET: For a fortnight.
JB: I mean, it would have been exciting to go.
ET: Pardon?
JB: It would have been very exciting.
ET: Oh yeah.
JB: The thought of going on an overseas trip.
ET: We had a ball. I was almost broke when I got to Durban because I hadn’t had much luck playing poker.
JB: So was that what you, all the way over everyone played poker.
ET: Oh no. There was two up school. We had the two up dice. Heads and tails dice. I think I’ve still got them somewhere and I wasn’t, look I wasn’t concerned with winning money on the ship. I played poker but if you’d got in to a job like Two Up or Ins and Outs, that was another game they had gambling or [pause] Crown and Anchor. Have you ever played Crown and Anchor?
JB: I’ve heard about it. I don’t think I’ve played it. No.
ET: Well, there’s a mat like that and there’s six squares. There’s hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades and a crown and an anchor and if you put your money on, on a heart and there’s three dice and you throw the three dice. If there, if no heart comes up you lose your money.
JB: Yeah.
ET: If two hearts come up you get two to one. If three hearts come up you get three to one. So you’d say it’s an even money bet but ahh there’s a trick to it. You see if three hearts come up the banker pays out on three to one on one square but he collects on five.
JB: So the odds are with the house.
ET: The other five you see. So the odds are with the house and after one the blokes said, ‘Go partners with me.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do.’ So we set up shop and I said two to one the treble two, sorry four to one the treble and everybody betted on us and then the silly buggers, I said this, the opposition said five to one the treble and had odds on the others, better odds and I said, ‘They’re losing odds. I’m not playing anymore.’ But we had a good night and —
JB: So, was the food, what was the food like on the ship?
ET: Oh, the food on the Melbourne Cricket Ground was the best food you could —
JB: Oh.
ET: Oh, it was beautiful. Yeah. You had to walk up about ten, right up to the top of the Melbourne Cricket Ground grandstands. The old grandstands. They’re not there anymore. And that was beautiful. Onboard the, we got plentiful going over on the, on the Niew Amsterdam. That was alright but and you got plenty to eat because half the blokes were seasick.
JB: And did you have to train on the boat or anything or did you just sort of play? Just gamble all day.
ET: No, we, they had, we had sports.
JB: Yeah.
ET: You know, but running on a boat that’s going like that is a bit a bit awkward but I had a, I had a go. Yeah. And we picked, we went to Durban and we picked up four hundred Polish WAAFs.
JB: Oh, that’s good.
ET: Oh, not four hundred. I don’t know. A number of Polish WAAFs. But they were watched. They were watched like a bloody hawk, you know.
JB: Hang on. I’ll just, make sure I’ve got it all. This is, hang on. So, I’ll just —
[recording paused]
JB: This is just such good stuff.
ET: When we got to Durban the only Australians that had been there before that apart from a ship’s crew was the 6th Division. Now, the 6th Division left Durban. Hello.
Other: Hello.
ET: They —
[recording paused]
ET: Central traffic area. Redirected the traffic in a different direction. They [pause] One woman was waiting at the, at the, for the traffic to stop with a pram and a couple of blokes walked out and stopped the traffic. This 6th Division soldier came back, picked up the woman’s pram and picked up the woman and took her across the corner. And she yelled off and smacked one of them. So, they picked her up and took her back.
JB: That’s fantastic. Yeah.
ET: And it was —
JB: So where did they go on to fight? The 6th Division. They would have gone in to Africa, wouldn’t they?
ET: They went to, went to England.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And —
JB: Yeah.
ET: I’m not an authority on that.
JB: No. it’s fine.
ET: I’m not an authority on that but they went up to, up to England. I know they had, a couple of them did work shearing in half a day. A week’s shearing in half a day but at any rate I had an uncle who was one of them and when we got there I heard somebody say, ‘These people are real gentlemen. Not like the last lot.’ [laughs] And you know they redirected traffic. They did everything. And we were taken for a drive. They commandeered the taxis and they took us for a drive into the Valley of a Thousand Hills or something like that and the taxi driver was a woman. She says, ‘I was taken with, we got the job of taking the Australian Army out,’ and she says, ‘I told them I couldn’t. I had to be back because I had to pick up my son from school.’ They said, ‘No, you don’t.’ They took, they took me to the school and I went and got my son and came back and then they said, ‘Where are we going?’ and she says well so and so. And they said, ‘No, you’re not. We’ll go somewhere else.’ And she says, ‘I had the best afternoon, best day I ever had with these Australian 6th Division blokes and my son had a whale of a time.’ And any rate, we went. We were there for about six days and we were, we went to the main hotel and one of the boys was Tully. I don’t know what, he was Tully’s. Have you heard of Tully’s whiskies and wines?
JB: Yeah. Yeah. And brandy.
ET: Well, that was one of, he was one of the sons.
JB: Cool.
ET: And we, we went there and oh, half a dozen, I think. More than, I think there was about nine of us walked into the pub and it was the same pub that the diggers before us took on the, took over and they got, we got, you know preferential treatment. Cleared the area. Got a big table out. Put the tables together and made it side by side and Tully he got hold of the head waiter and talked wines to him and we had a good meal. Yeah. And I, I bought a little trinket for my mum made of ivory. It was ivory. They make an ivory ball that you could see into and inside the ivory ball was an ivory elephant and I’m not too sure whether they’re ivory or bone but still and in all there you are. And then we, we arrived in the top of Scotland at a place called Crewe, I think. Crewe. And, no, it wasn’t a place called Crewe. We came down in a train and it happened to my uncle and to us exactly the same. We, we pull up at a place and one of, one of the blokes says, ‘Where the bloody hell are we?’ And a voice on the platform said, ‘This is Crewe.’ Just like that see. And then we came down. Went all the way down to, to Brighton. The RAAF bought one, two, oh at least four pubs in Brighton and a three storeyed house on the corner opposite one of the pubs and these pubs, two pubs. The Metropole. The Metropole and the, and the Grand I think was, were on the waterfront and the, and the other two in rear streets and we —
JB: The RAF, RAAF bought the pubs.
ET: Yeah. They bought them. And when the war was over people should say, were saying you were, you should let us have those pubs. They were, and the answer the RAF, RAAF gave was that when the, when we bought them they were sitting on the waterfront at Brighton and you look over the English Channel and there was Germany. All they had to do was to put a bomb under Germany and go straight in to the front of the bomb and go over the top and you were very very happy to get rid of them. Now, you’ll just have to wait until we’re finished with them.
JB: That’s fantastic.
ET: And from there we went to various training places. I went to Southern Ireland and they gave us all the warnings in the world about how to behave in Ireland. And that was a whole lot of bull.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Ireland was, you’d get in a, the first night we were there I bought three pots and three whiskies. And it was Irish whisky and the whiskies were oh bigger than any I’ve ever had before and there was three of us and we downed those and I paid. I gave him ten bob and he gave me seven and something change. So that’s not bad. And —
JB: And were the Irish people welcoming? Because it —
ET: We were supposed to stay. Oh, sorry I’m getting mixed up there. This is after the war.
JB: Yeah.
ET: This is after we’d done our ops you know and Symesy and I we were supposed to stay with the people named Lamb. Lamb’s Jam, they were famous for. But they had a death in the family so we fell on our feet. They took us out for a drive in their little horse and cart and very boring and very [laughs] lovely countryside and then they, they, they said, ‘Can you — ' we said. ‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll be right.’ So we went in to [pause] oh a pub. Booked in there and in the pub was all, lots of medical students. Doctors, you know. Trainee doctors and that and they immediately latched on to us and we were in civilian clothes because Ireland was still you know a a a non —
JB: Neutral.
ET: Neutral country. Yeah. Sorry. And so we, we put on these civilian suits and these couple of trainee doctors come in and said looked at our uniform and they went to the dance in our uniform so that and I, that was and yeah —
JB: So, then you, so —
ET: Then we came back and we were on the ship coming home.
JB: No. No. No. You’re in Ireland so you’re still training. So now —
ET: No. I’m sorry, I got out of, that’s this is the war is still going on but we’re, we were, sorry.
JB: We’ll start again.
ET: I was a POW.
JB: Sorry, but you, so you but you’ve reached England.
ET: Yeah.
JB: And you, and you get, how did you get in to 460 Squadron.
ET: Well, you see that’s where I’m wrong.
JB: Right.
ET: We, we, went to [pause] did go to Ireland.
JB: Yeah. Alright.
ET: But not, not the Ireland you mentioned. I got, that’s where I got side tracked. We went to Northern Ireland.
JB: Yeah.
ET: On a, on an Air Force base in Northern Ireland. The CO was about seven foot tall and he said, ‘You give me any cheek,’ he said, ‘You can come into the ring with me.’ Nobody gave him any cheek.
JB: Was he an Aussie bloke?
ET: No. No.
JB: No.
ET: No. No.
JB: Irish.
ET: Pom.
JB: Yeah. Pom. Right.
ET: Yeah, and we, I forget how long we were there but we were doing, you know routine training and then we came back and [pause] oh crikey. Can you tell me where are we?
[recording paused]
JB: So, you would have come back to [unclear]
ET: Keep going.
JB: Bombing. Bombing. Number 3 BAGS. I don’t know what that is.
ET: Keep going. Bombing and air, bombing and gunnery.
JB: Righto. Gunnery again. Astro-navigation. Oh rightio.
ET: That’s Queensland.
JB: Yeah, gee.
[pause-pages rustling]
JB: Broughton. Broughton. Church Broughton.
ET: Church Broughton. Now, that was —
JB: So that’s in May. May two thousand and oh two thousand, May 1944 it would have been wouldn’t it?
ET: Yeah. And Church Broughton was a, was a —
JB: So, you were still training then.
ET: Yeah. That was, yeah. But we were on —
JB: Wellingtons.
ET: On Wellingtons. That’s right. And we did, did oh various things. What did, what did they call it?
JB: Circuits.
ET: Circuits.
JB: Cross country bombing.
ET: Circuits and bumps.
JB: Yeah. Yeah.
ET: That right?
JB: Yeah.
ET: That was for the pilot. He was converting from ordinary aircraft to Wellingtons. Go on then.
JB: So you were on Wellingtons all that time and then, and that’s May and then June.
ET: What does it say? What are we doing?
JB: You’re doing, you’re doing cross country bombing. You’re training.
ET: Yeah. Alright. Go on. Keep going.
JB: And then solo cross country, solo cross countries and then in [pause] So then in September you’re at Lindholme.
ET: Lindholme was a, was a satellite drome from oh what’s the place? Anyway, go on. What am I doing there?
JB: And you got a flight. You’ve got Birt.
ET: Flight lieutenant Birt.
JB: Birt. Gardener and Birt.
ET: He was a, oh he’s a sergeant, flight sergeant. Birt. He was our pilot. He was a bloke. We’d crewed up by this time. We’ve got Birt, Symes, Truman, Benbow the wireless op and the two gunners, Wilson and O’Hara.
JB: So how did you, how did you find your crew? How did you crew up?
ET: They put us all together in a room. There must have been oh, about ninety or so. Anyway, there was a multiple of six.
JB: Did you feel nervous that you won’t be picked? Or —
ET: Eh?
JB: Do you sort, it’s like that old getting picked for the school footy team.
ET: Yeah.
JB: You feel nervous you don’t get picked. Or is it all sort of —
ET: No. No. No, you’re just all there in a hall like all individuals and a bloke comes up to me and says, ‘I’m a pilot.’ He had the pilot wings on.
JB: Yeah.
ET: He was a flight sergeant and he said, and I got the navigator badge and he said, he said, ‘Would you like to be in my crew?’ And I says, ‘Well, if you take me you take Spencer Symes.’ He’s my cobber. ‘Oh.’ And I said, ‘He’s a navigator. I’m the navigator bomb aimer.’ ‘Oh,’ so the first thing he said, ‘Alright.’ Symesy comes over and he asks Symesy. And Symesy said to him, ‘You any bloody good?’
JB: Oh.
ET: It’s typical of what you’d expect. He said, ‘That’s for you to find out.’ So, anyhow we got a pilot and then he went away and he got a wireless operator and he got, and we crewed up. We got six of us. And I remember I said, you didn’t know where you were going yourself see. So, I said, I prayed to God that I wouldn’t be, let my crew down. And well, that’s how, that was the case see.
[recording paused]
ET: So, and Symesy was a bloody good navigator. I relied on Symesy and I was a good mate to him. We, we had a bond that was something to be valued and I said to Symesy [pause] what was it? I’ve lost it.
JB: You’ve just, you’ve crewed up and you’ve —
ET: Yeah.
JB: Got your mate Symesy who was going to be the navigator.
ET: Yeah. He was a navigator. I was a navigator bomb aimer and that’s how we stayed and I I was quite happy with my position and I was quite [pause] then we start to do circuits and bumps.
JB: Yeah. Circuits and landings. Fighter affiliation.
ET: Yeah.
JB: That’s in October ‘44.
ET: Fighter affiliation where, where you get attacked by a friendly fighter and you take fighter —
JB: It’s when they you do that corkscrew stuff, is it?
ET: You do evasions.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And he, he chases you and we saw, we were at Hemswell, I think. I forget now when we saw a fighter and a Lancaster doing that and the fighter cut the tail off the Lanc and the rear turret landed in a football ground. The pilot landed, landed about from here to the house across the paddock and a, from the sergeant’s mess and the whole lot were killed plus the Lanc went in to the Gas Defence Centre and there were eleven or twelve bodies in that.
JB: Was that the first time you saw people killed in in, that would have been, I mean, yeah it would have been fairly frightening, wouldn’t it?
ET: I think it was.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I think it would have been the first. And anyway —
JB: So then in [pause] you’re at Binbrook with 460 Squadron.
ET: Binbrook.
JB: And you’re still, so —
ET: Binbrook was our squadron.
JB: Yeah. So —
ET: That was the head of the, Binbrook was the head of the, the Group. That means that it had all the high wigs there. The, the village inn was something to behold. The village, it wasn’t a village inn as you know it. Sorry, the officer’s mess. They called it that. And it was, the officer’s mess was something out of this world. Our CO was Hugh, H U G H, Edwards VC.
JB: Hughie Edwards.
ET: And VC was, being a VC everybody saluted him no matter how high the rank. All the high-ranking blokes, the whatsthename was there but everybody saluted the VC winner.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And he was, he was one of the boys, you know. He was. He, he was, he got in to all sorts of trouble. Low flying and all that. He he wrecked a couple of aeroplanes and he had a bad limp because of it. And —
JB: Was he well respected by everyone? All the —
ET: Everybody.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. He, he’d come to the sergeant’s mess dances. Never missed a sergeant’s mess dance. I never saw him get drunk but I understand that he used to before then because, well he had a wife. He had his wife on the station and they had married quarters in those days.
JB: Oh.
ET: Yeah. And he, you got a story about him.
JB: Yeah. In that —
ET: In that —
JB: Yeah.
ET: What’s the name book there. So, and the first, our first raid was when?
JB: One thing I, so 460 Squadron you’ve got raids happening and people and training at the same time so it would have been pretty busy. I didn’t realise that. I thought they were sort of you trained and then you went to an operational squadron.
ET: Oh, no. You were —
JB: Yeah.
ET: You were, you were flying all the time.
JB: Yeah. So, you’re first —
ET: Yeah.
JB: Sorry. Oh. I think your first raid was at a place called, was it Düren? Düren. Düren.
ET: D Ü R E N.
JB: Yeah.
ET: With a circle.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Fixed over the U.
JB: Same as in the Champagne.
ET: Yeah.
JB: Düren. That was the first raid. In November.
ET: Yeah. Well, Düren that was a, they got word from, you can guess that Düren was a [pause] was a rendezvous for a SS —
JB: Oh.
ET: SS, oh division. Squadron. You know. Panzer division.
JB: Yeah. Yeah.
ET: A Panzer division was in Düren waiting supplies because Düren happened to be a junction of the railways and there was trains stacked up everywhere. What are the [pause] Tanks.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And so really and we went there and as we were there we were approaching this cloud. Ten tenths cloud and the master bomber, the master bomber was an invention brought in later in the war to give direction to bombers as they approached their target. The, and what they did was they used to say, they spoke in code. ‘Pickwick,’ they said. ‘Come down to ten thousand feet boys. It’s lovely down here.’ That’s, that’s the sort of talk they did. ‘It’s lovely down here. Down to ten thousand feet.’ And I said, ‘Bloody hell, a kid would be able to hit us with a pea shooter.’ But in, in the event there was no anti-aircraft fire whatsoever. There was nothing and so we went across and this bloke in the, the Pathfinder bloke said, ‘Bomb Pickwick boys. Bomb Pickwick. Beautiful. Doing well. Bomb Pickwick.’ And Pickwick was code for the leading edge of the smoke. So —
JB: Righto. Yeah.
ET: And as you bombed, as bombed Pickwick like that the smoke crept right across the town. And then when we got back the, they were ecstatic over the result. Right. That’s that one.
JB: When you told me that was the biggest. What was it on? Nuremberg the biggest. Was it —
ET: Oh, Nuremberg’s another matter. Go on.
JB: Well, then you bombed. You bombed Aschaffenburg. Ashfreiburg?
ET: Aschaffenburg.
JB: Aschaffenburg. Yeah.
ET: I don’t remember much about that one.
JB: Freiburg.
ET: Freiburg. Oh, wait a minute. Wait. What’s, what’s, tell me the story of Freiburg.
JB: Freiburg. Yeah. No [pause] then Merseburg.
ET: Merseburg.
JB: Merseburg. Yeah.
ET: Now Merseburg was an oil refinery.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And the Yanks went to bomb it and in daylight of course. They don’t bomb at night time. They bomb in daylight and I’m sorry but the, that bomb, that raid I just previously talked about on Duisburg.
JB: On Düren.
ET: Düren. That was in daylight. We decided to do that one in daylight. The powers that be they know what they’re doing see.
JB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s —
ET: But, but Merseburg the Yanks had tried to go at that and it was an oil refinery and it was just about [pause] it was about to start producing synthetic oil. Now, that’s a prime target. No one, know that Germany’s in trouble with shortage of oil. Shortage of fuel for aircraft. Shortage of fuel for tanks. Shortage of fuel for anything. So, the Yanks went there to do it in daylight and they shot the leading aircraft down just like that and the Yanks said we can’t handle it, they said. So, we said, they said all right we’ll, so we went the first night and there was more anti-aircraft fire than you can imagine. I reckon that the version was that they threw up more. Even somebody said the sink, they saw the kitchen sink come up at them. And anyhow, we followed. A Lancaster, got coned by searchlights and we followed him across the target area, dropped our bombs, no good. So the next, we had to go back again. They said no, no matter how far, how long it takes that oil refinery has got to be done. So anyhow, the next time we did it we did another trip to Merseburg.
JB: Yeah. You did two.
ET: Yeah. Alright.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Well, the second trip to Merseburg. I’ll do the Merseburg over first and this time we, we were, we were all of a sudden the bloody hell of an explosion came up. I could have read that book it was so bright in the cockpit and we were up at oh about eighteen thousand feet I suppose. Somewhere in that vicinity and I could have read that and I thought oh beauty. And then in the light of the aircraft and the explosion I could see a Lancaster there. Two Lancasters there and I says, it said, it could have been any one of the four. Four or five of us. So that finished Merseburg off.
JB: Nuremberg on January the 2nd.
ET: Yeah.
JB: Merseburg.
ET: Let’s [pause] you, you I jumped over it —
JB: You went to Gelsenkirchen.
ET: Gelsenkirchen. Yeah.
JB: Yeah. Gelsenkirchen. Yeah. [unclear] St Vith. St Vith.
ET: Oh. Gelsenkirchen. I can’t remember that one. St Vith. Now —
JB: Yeah. St Vith.
ET: Have you ever seen the picture the Battle of the Bulge?
JB: Yeah.
ET: And you’ve seen Clark Gable and Lana Turner in —
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah, in one—
JB: Oh, that was there.
ET: That was always, that was, that was their story. The Yanks, they all told the story of the Battle of the Bulge and Lana Turner where Lana Turner gets, dies of her wounds or something or other with Clark Gable and, but all of that was on one side of the Bulge, the Battle of the Bulge and the Canadians and the British were on the other side and that’s where St Vith was and we couldn’t, we were grounded by lack of, by cloud cover and then it cleared up and we went in and bombed St Vith. And we had to had to take note of the angle of incidents whether the aircraft was up or down at any time because some idiots had bombed the Canadian troops. But in the end we bombed, and we bombed St Vith and they were quite happy. Now, what else is there?
JB: So, Nuremberg.
ET: Nuremberg. The worst raid. The worst raid of the war was on the beginning of, the end of March 1944 on Nuremberg when how many [pause] oh, there was eleven hundred, no. Oh sorry. A thousand and ten Lancasters and Avro, Avro Lancasters and Halifaxes went to bomb Nuremberg and it was the worst raid in the world, of the war suffered by RAAF, by the RAF Bomber Command. They lost a hundred aircraft over the continent. Four-engined aircraft. And another thirty two crash landed in England.
JB: Jeez.
ET: They, they estimated that they lost more airmen in that one raid than in the whole of the Battle of Britain. Anyway —
JB: Because was Nuremberg just so heavily fortified.
ET: Yeah. But see things went wrong.
JB: Yeah.
ET: They were. But anyway we went back to Nuremberg and by this, at this time they had, and I was on the second raid on Nuremberg. I think it’s in there.
JB: Yeah. 2nd of January.
ET: Right. We, we went there and I was on that and I think we carried four long delays.
JB: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, yeah. Yeah. I can’t, I don’t know the coding but —
ET: What is it?
JB: It’s 1..4000. 12…500 DCO.
ET: Yeah.
JB: I don’t know the [pause] so it’s 1. 4000.
ET: I can’t read it any bloody way.
JB: [unclear]
ET: Any rate, we carried, Nuremberg was a long long flight. The more petrol you had the less bombs you carried. So —
JB: And, and Nuremberg it sounds as though everyone Nuremberg was a, was a, everyone was particularly scared of Nuremberg because of what had happened. Is that —
ET: Nuremberg was one of the places where Naziism started.
JB: Yeah. So it was a significant one.
ET: So Nuremberg Stadium there. I went past it in the train.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And they had the Nuremberg Stadium there and so and they had later on, after the war they had the Nuremberg trials there if you remember with Spencer Tracey in it.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And we, any rate we had the four thousand pound cookie. We always carried a four thousand pounder.
JB: That’s the —
ET: And we had, I don’t know what else we had.
JB: Four five hundred pound bombs.
ET: We had four five hundred long delays.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And well, the long delays they, they have a fuse in the tail. The bomb does. They screw this fuse into the tail of the bomb and when it, when it, when it hits on impact the, the it breaks a container of oil or acid that works on a, on a washer that’s holding back the firing pin. And it takes a minimum of six hours to, to dissolve that washer and release the firing pin and the bomb explodes. A minimum of six hours and a maximum of twelve hours. So, if you, after you drop your bombs you go, you’re back to England and a bit of supper, debriefed, put your flying gear away. Up in the contact. And your bombs are still sitting there waiting to be detonated. If they, and the fact that they don’t, delayed means that they, if they hit a building they penetrate the building and they’re right down in the guts of the building. If they’re in the guts of the building if somebody finds them if they try to unscrew that that fuse out of the bomb it automatically explodes. So I don’t know how many poor poor Jerries, and the bomb disposal people they they had that job in in Germany, in England. In every other place where there was bombs. It’s not a job you’d like is it?
JB: No. No.
ET: So any rate, there you are.
JB: So, then I suppose so then you bombed Stuttgart and you failed to return. So, what happened? You —
ET: Yeah. I blamed that to a certain extent on, oh you can always get, see that’s a lot. Yeah. You can, you can, you’ve got to [pause] when we were shot down as I think I told you earlier there was a, oh I can’t think of his bloody name. I know I had an argument with this. I had an argument. The bombing leader. We did, we did a few more daylights and I would tell the pilot to shut the bomb doors immediately I saw the bombs leave the aircraft. You see the longer you have the bomb doors open the least manoeuvrable your aircraft is and that, not much but enough. And that was what my pilot wanted and my pilot was my boss. And the flight, and the flight lieutenant was a rank higher than my pilot. That didn’t matter a bugger. The pilot’s in charge when he’s in, in the air. And I had an argument with this flight lieutenant. He said, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ I said, ‘You can tell me what you like but I do what my pilot tells me.’ ‘Your pilot is wrong.’ I said, ‘That’s in your opinion. In the air he’s the only man in charge.’ And it was getting a bit heated and the [pause] oh what’s his name? I can’t think of his name but he came over and said, get it, get it stopped you know. Poured oil on troubled waters if you’d like to put it that way. But we were right. We could, you know. The quicker you got your bomb doors closed the quicker you could get away and that and I could see the bombs go and I could. No. You can’t do that at dark time. At night time because you can’t see. It’s dark. Anyway, how’s that?
JB: So then you were shot down over Stuttgart.
ET: Yeah. Well, we, when we were at Stuttgart we, we did the stupid bloody thing and everybody can say that when they’re shot down I suppose. Before there was a squadron leader came up to us and said, ‘You’ve got a load of incendiaries.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, and that was the first time we carried incendiaries. We’d always carried high explosive and that was just how things worked out and he said, ‘Well, just to make things more effective could you fly at over twenty one thousand feet?’ And I said, ‘But our bomb sight’s only made to bomb from twenty thousand feet.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, but —’ he said, ‘You could make allowance for that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I suppose I could.’ So, the navigator and the pilot were there listening to him and it was ok. We did that but you know that’s exactly where a night fighter would be. Just over twenty thousand feet and that’s where we copped it.
JB: And —
ET: Yeah.
JB: So you lost four crew, three crew.
ET: The pilot and two gunners were killed.
JB: In the, in the by the night fighter.
ET: Yeah. By the night fighter.
JB: So, how did your, how did the plane stay stable for you to bale out?
ET: I don’t know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I, I’ve often thought by the sacrifice of the pilot.
JB: Yeah.
ET: But how do I know that? I was, I was up in the nose of the aircraft. Therefore, I was the first man out.
JB: So, what’s it like parachuting out of a —
ET: Oh, I’m happy to get out.
JB: Yeah. It would have been a pretty —
ET: The bloody thing’s, we got the port inner engine windmilling. Windmilling means it’s out of control.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And anti-aircraft fire going. Circuit, there’s a, I can see the, see anti-aircraft shells explode. They explode if they don’t hit the aeroplane and you can see a load of explosions and where the aeroplane is. It makes it so you can see that and you go there and you know and so the, your pilot says, ‘Get out,’ and we got —
JB: So, he told you to bale out.
ET: Oh yes. He gives you the order to bale out and that’s it.
JB: Yeah. It would have been pretty lonely parachuting. Can you see the other crew members? Or were you on your own.
ET: No. I was happy to get out.
JB: Yeah.
ET: No, I [pause] I landed, when I was got out of the aeroplane I, trying to be cunning I got a, I put my hand over my head like that, knelt down at the opening, put me foot out and that tossed me, tossed me out but it also lost me a flying boot.
JB: Yeah.
ET: I lost a flying boot out there. So, I landed in the, in snow covered country and I’d never had any experience. I hadn’t seen snow in my life before I went to England. And I went there and I went walkabout and I walked in the snow until I got to [pause] until it got daylight and I turned in to the, in to the forest and walked a good distance through the forest. Got under a tree where, a pine tree and crawled under there and was sat there massaging my bare foot.
JB: That’s got to, yeah.
ET: And when it came daylight I was right at the edge of another bloody road and there was a bloke, a German bloke speed past and I could have [laughs] yelled out and shook his hand. And anyway, I I go on that road and I don’t take, I don’t take, oh more than [pause] don’t walk more than a hundred yards when I can’t feel my foot below the knee and I wake up then. I’ll have to knock on some bugger’s door which I did. And they, I said, there’s an older elderly couple there with a young girl. A young German girl. Rather nice looking. I said, I said to her, ‘Go and get the Luftwaffe.’ And she did. She got the Luftwaffe and they came and got me and painted my foot with blue purple dye.
JB: Why the Luftwaffe? Because you didn’t want to fall in to the Gestapo —
ET: I don’t know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: But, the Luftwaffe I go to the Luftwaffe’s camp. I asked for the Luftwaffe. I thought that was the best shot.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And I —
JB: I think you’re right too.
ET: Yeah. No, it proved to be right and they, this bloke comes to me and I throw a packet of Camels. I had a packet of Camels. I pulled it out my pocket and threw it to the old bloke and they took me and painted my left foot with purple dye. And —
JB: And did they treat you well?
ET: Couldn’t have done better I don’t think. Well —
JB: You’re lucky you got the Luftwaffe, I think.
ET: Eh?
JB: I think you were lucky you chose the Luftwaffe.
ET: Well, I, yeah. I don’t know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: You can answer. You can answer that question if you like but I, they took me in to Luftwaffe’s, they put me in a bunk and painted my foot and the young, young German girl came in and went crook at me [laughs]
JB: For what? For what? Because you were, you were in Bomber Command.
ET: I’m bombing their town.
JB: Yeah. Righto.
ET: Yeah. Yeah. ‘Why you bomb? Why you bomb?’ I said, ‘Well, you know it’s a, it’s a two-way street,’ or words to that effect and then I was picked up by [pause] we were marched. Oh, I get hazy on this. It’s a long while ago. And we went down and I can’t, they can’t walk me to the Interrogation Centre. The Interrogation Centre is on the banks of the Rhine. Oh, what’s the name? What’s the town on the Rhine? It’s the biggest town there is on the Rhine?
JB: Not Stuttgart. No.
ET: No. Not Stuttgart.
JB: It doesn’t matter.
ET: Anyhow, back on to the Rhine and we on a week’s solitary confinement and that drives you bloody nuts but —
JB: Could you, had you seen any other aircrew around or were you just absolutely on your own?
ET: No. On the first night I was there I met up with Doug Benbow. Our, our wireless op.
JB: Ah yeah.
ET: And that was, I was given a blanket and, I was given a blanket and he said, ‘Blanket?’ I said, ‘He’s cronk.’ That means I’m crook [laughs]
JB: Oh yeah.
ET: You don’t get one [laughs]
JB: Oh really [laughs] Yeah.
ET: And it was a good blanket though. And —
JB: So then you go off to a POW camp after the weeks’, so the week in solitary was pretty tough.
ET: Oh yeah. That drives me nuts. I wouldn’t have, there was, I understand there was a German officer [pause] sorry an English officer there. They were keeping him more than a weeks’ solitary confinement because they think he might have known something. But the interrogations officer oh, if you got Conrad Veidt, do you know Conrad Veidt? The actor. If you got him down and made him a little bloke he’d be a dead ringer for this bloke. He walks in, monocle [laughs] plus fours.
JB: Oh, like [laughs] —
ET: He just tosses a book on the table, ‘You can have a look at that if you like.’ So I said I liked and I remember, and I saw a photo of a fella I knew. They’d have known that any rate. And oh yeah, if you talked you were there for more. The longer you, the more the talk the more you stay there I think but any rate I was there, I was there for the standard size. A week. A standard time. And they gave me a pair of American Army boots. They were peculiar boots. They had wooden insert instead of using leather and I couldn’t work that out. But that’s, they were boots about that long. Yeah.
JB: So, then you go off to a POW camp.
ET: Yes. They took us to a train and they gave us a lovely cooked lunch. I said, ‘Oh, this is alright.’ So, I promptly ate it. Everybody else did the same. But that’s all we got for three days. Oh crikey. Yeah. That’s all we got for three days.
JB: So, what was life like in the POW camp? Boring. Or things to do all the time? Or —
ET: The Germans had finally woke up that if you keep, if you make a man hungry all he can think of is food. Any sort of food. But he, that’s all he can bloody well think of is food if you’re hungry enough. And there was one golden rule. You weren’t allowed to give, buy food with cigarettes. Like if there was a bloke who wants cigarettes he’ll even give food away to have one. But you never ever bought a man’s food from him.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And they gave us, they said we’ll have a shower. We go there. I had a towel that long and that wide. That’s all I had and that was filthy but I went to the shower and they, all they did was wet us. Then they turned the water off. No. They turned the cold water on and that was, I thought they, that was bastardly really because we were all wet cold. Worse, dirtier than we were before we got. Black water was falling down the fellas faces like that you know. And any rate, we, I was absolutely buggered. I mean a young bloke of you know, in my younger, a better half of twenties and I mean absolutely exhausted and get back to the hut and that’s it.
JB: You, the story about the commandant coming out in the morning and the bloke in the line saying —
ET: Yeah. Oh. There was a lot of funny things like that. This, we were standing there and we were cold, we had no, we, we our flying gear was warm but it wasn’t as warm as [pause] it kept us warm but we had heated, heated aeroplanes, you know.
JB: Yeah.
ET: It wasn’t cold so when we were on the ground in the snow we were bloody well shivering and we were kept waiting for them. There was about six or seven hundred blokes all in this one and this tall bloke, I understand he would have been in the Russian front and got back and he came back and so one of, one of the boys said, ‘He’s a great big dumb bastard.’ And the German behind me on the fence said, ‘I agree with, I agree with you emphatically.’ That’s exactly what he said. ‘I agree with you emphatically.’
JB: And he was a German guard.
ET: Yeah.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And that’s exactly what an Australian would say wouldn’t he?
JB: That’s right. Yeah.
ET: Eh? ‘I agree with you emphatically.’ Oh yeah.
JB: So, then you got, who liberated, who liberated the camp?
ET: Blood and guts.
JB: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
ET: Yeah. I didn’t see him but they tell me he walked, he walked around there. I saw the German front line going back there. They had nothing except, you know their fighting gear. Overcoats down to their bloody ankles and that and they had rifles and when they, our, our prisoner guards were all lined up ready to surrender to Patton when he came and they shot a few of those. Then they kept going past me.
JB: Who? The German front line did.
ET: Yeah.
JB: You’re kidding.
ET: Well, they were, they were surrendering you see. And these people are, are fighting. And the Germans fought. Fought. Fought. Fought. Fought. You’ve got no idea that they’re, if you want a soldier you go and get a German.
JB: So the German front line you could, like were marching down the road or —
ET: No. They’re, they’re running backwards.
JB: Yeah.
ET: And firing you know and but there there’s they got no. I didn’t see any mechanisation and they went past and that, you know and they weren’t firing at us. I was standing there watching them go past.
JB: And they shot some of the guards.
ET: And they shot, shot in to the guards standing outside the prison gates, you know.
JB: Gee whizz [pause] So, nice to be, I mean nice to be liberated. It would have been.
ET: Not bad.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. We, we walked out.
JB: So, the way that operates they just open the door and off you go, is it? Or —
ET: Oh no. On the 4th of, the 4th of April they marched us out and they wanted, I think they wanted to march us away. I don’t know. It might have been a Geneva Convention arrangement or something like that but they did it everywhere. They opened, they marched the allied prisoners away from the advancing Russians and at least that was our theory. And on the 4th of April 1945 we marched out of Nuremberg prison and got on the road. And we start—
JB: Towards the advancing Americans or the —
ET: Towards the advancing Americans.
JB: Away from the Russians.
ET: Away from the Ruskies. A couple of interesting things. The, what was it, what was I going to say? Oh yeah, there was on the side of the road there was a, we saw them laying there. There was a couple of blokes and they had a great big quantity of German, German booze and they were handing it out to the people [laughs] And I went in to the town. Went in to this, it wasn’t Nuremberg but it was some sort of, some town on the road and I walked in there, in to this hardware shop trying to look for something, you know I can use because we had no tools or anything. And I got a, a cold chisel and then a bloke walked in the other door and I said, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ And walked out. He was a German owner of the shop. It makes you sick.
JB: What? What —
ET: He was still living there.
JB: Yeah.
ET: Yeah. The German front line had gone past him but I walked in to his hardware shop. The bloody hardware. The hardware was terrible, you know. And I walked in there. I picked up a chisel I think it was and, ‘I’m sorry.’ All I could think of was saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ Yeah.
JB: For pinching the chisel basically.
ET: No. For intruding in to his premises.
JB: Oh, yeah.
ET: I had no right to be there but I thought it was empty.
JB: Yeah. Sorry.
ET: Yeah.
JB: What’s, anything else? Oh, and then how long did it take to get back to Australia?
ET: Oh. We went to, they took us down to Brighton and we were given, we had a, we dressed [pause] my foot was better or just about and I’d got these bloody heavy boots on. Right. And we were in Brighton and there’s the dome and there’s two, two big dance halls there. And my cobber Murray Walsh he, I met up with him again. He’d, he’d fought four rounders in the stadium in Melbourne so he was handy. And they, a couple of sailors picked on him and he dropped them both. Then walked, walked in to the manager of the dome, the dance hall and said, ‘I’m sorry sir but I’ve just knocked out two sailors who’d picked on me.' And the bloke said, ‘You don’t have to pay a penny to come in to this place.’ [laughs] ‘From now on.’ Murray Walsh. Yeah. And —
JB: So just, when you got home how long did it take you to get home? Back to Australia.
ET: I was, when I was, we were marching back. I, just for curiosity I went up to a German couple. They [pause] they marched us from the 4th of April. They started to march us towards the Yank, advancing Yanks and I got, I was going past this German house and there’s folks walking everywhere and I said, ‘Good evening.’ And they, they could speak English quite well. ‘Good evening.’ And I asked them about the, the major raid on, on Nuremberg you know. And this was where I was of course. We were in, we just walked out of Nuremberg on the way home. That’s where the camp was. And they said there was oh sixty odd thousand killed. They had no electricity. No tap water. They’d no water. Therefore they had they had no sewerage. They had no wherewithal to bury the dead. And you can imagine you know how terrible that was and she, they said they had lots of homeless people. People who were living in, living in a building that’s collapsed and they were living, burrowing in to, in to the rubble of it and living there and that sort of thing. So, it’s not a very nice thing to happen.
JB: No.
ET: And any rate, I said, I said, ‘I will be home in Melbourne by Christmas time.’ And as it turned out I was home for the Melbourne Cup.
JB: Ah.
ET: Comic Court won, I think.
JB: Great horse.
ET: Comic Court. Forty to one.
JB: Ah.
ET: Yeah. We, we got to Wellington and we’d been in Wellington drinking in the pub. The first thing we do we go to the pub and I said to the Pommy sailors, I said, ‘Don’t, don’t treat this beer like English beer.’ It’ll probably be twice the strength. And a bloke comes up to me and says ‘What are you blokes doing?’ I said, you know, definitely a local Kiwi and he said, ‘Come with me.’ I said, ‘Why would I want to go with you for?’ And so I said, ‘All we want is a beer.’ And he said, ‘Come with me.’ And he said, ‘Come on.’ So we went with him and he went round gathering blokes. He took us to the Commercial Travellers Club up on the third or fourth floor and they turned on free beer and food and everything you could, whatever you could want. But they turned it on. That’s not bad is it?
JB: That’s fantastic.
ET: Yeah.
JB: And so you got home by, was your mum pretty happy to see you? She would.
ET: Yeah.
JB: They would have been.
ET: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My mum was. Yeah. My [pause] and before I left England I, we could get Yankee cigarettes so I filled up a box about that by about that deep and by about that. A wooden box and I said what have I got to lose and I put a, tacked a card notice on it. My home address in Yarraville. 10 Canterbury Street, Yarraville. And took the cords out the window. That wasn’t, that wasn’t damaged because we were going to rebuild these places anyway, and tied it all up and you know a bloke got a, I got a phone call from a bloke in the Yarraville station and he said, ‘Come and get this bloody wooden box that’s here addressed to you.’ It arrived in my door and there was a box of Prince Albert pipe, pipe tobacco and my old man said that’s, that made some beautiful cigarettes.
[recording paused]
JB: Rightio. I think [pause] I reckon that’s —
ET: Did you get all of that?
JB: I think so. That’s fantastic. I’ll, that’ll be for me.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ATrumanEG170315
Title
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Interview with Ernest Truman
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:18:56 audio recording
Creator
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John Bowden
Date
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2017-03-15
Description
An account of the resource
Ernest Truman completed his initial training in Australia as a navigator before arriving in the UK he was posted to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook. One of his ops was to destroy the oil refinery at Merseburg and he recalls the explosion was so bright he could have read a book by the light. His plane was shot down on one operation by a night fighter. The pilot and two gunners were killed outright. Ernest lost one of his flying boots during his descent and knew he had to seek help. He knocked on the door of a house and told the young girl to, ‘Go get the Luftwaffe.’ Which she did and he began his time as a prisoner of war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Stuttgart
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Temporal Coverage
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1944-03
1944-05
1945-04-04
Contributor
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Julie Williams
460 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
navigator
observer
prisoner of war
RAF Binbrook
shot down
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/349/3518/PWhiteRR1601.1.jpg
fe069536c41a571ddb9dd906a128148a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/349/3518/AWhiteRR160607.2.mp3
8a1d50dfd1e1ebd27540c7db00715556
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
White, Ralph
Ralph Robert White
Ralph R White
R R White
R White
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Ralph Robert White (1923 - 2021, 427630 Royal Australian Air Force), a training report and four photographs. He flew operations with 192 Squadron from RAF Foulsham.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
White, RR
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Ralph White. A 192 Squadron Halifax skipper. A Special Duties squadron he tells me. The interview is taking place at Ralph’s place in Burwood in Melbourne. It is the 7th of June 2016. My name’s Adam Purcell. Ralph, we might start from the beginning.
RW: Yes.
AP: If you don’t mind.
RW: Not at all.
AP: Can you tell me something of what you were doing before the war and where you were when you heard that war had been declared?
RW: Initially I was employed as a junior clerk or office boy at the Melbourne City Council. From there, when the [pause] when I turned eighteen I wanted to join the air force. But my parents were not signing forms. So I then made a very silly mistake and joined the army and I spent eighteen months in an infantry battalion. Which — when the, when the Americans came into the war 7th of December ‘41 the unit I was with got, were sent to Western Australia. So while spending my time in Western Australia I got up as far as Geraldton and they were looking for aircrew trainees to join the air force. So I volunteered as an air crew cadet in from Geraldton starting off with recruit training in Busselton and then sent as an aircrew guard while we were waiting to start ITS training. Poor aircrew. You were made aircrew guards which didn’t, didn’t worry us, being out of the army. The guard duty was ok except that when we got to Pearce which was the air force main ‘drome in those days — located nearby was petrol dumps. Forty four gallon drums of petrol in the bush and it was our job at night to guard the petrol dumps because light fingered Perthites were coming out and stealing forty four gallon drums of petrol. But once, not — I didn’t do it, but someone caught someone or someone had pulled up in a car so they felt suspicious and they fired a shot and we were never troubled with them again. So that was the start of my aircrew career as a cadet. From there, once initial training started after we’d done our duties as air crew guards we were sent to Victor Harbour. ITS at Victor Harbour. EFTS at Benalla. Went solo at Benalla on Tiger Moths. Over to Mallala on Ansons. Got my wings at Mallala. Came back to Point Cook to do beam studies and from there was sent to the UK to start with the RAF.
AP: How — alright tell me about your first solo.
RW: First solo. Oh God I wish you hadn’t as a matter of fact [laughs] At Benalla. Yes. Went about, it was about seven and a half hours I think that was there and I had a very good instructor. The instructor had four pupils. One of them was scrubbed. That meant three of us. But when it was my turn to do the solo trip Mr, Squadron Leader Kinnear was a very big man. And squadron leader. And I did the solo test with him which was the usual things. Loops, slow rolls, stalls and just little areas before we did the circuits and bumps just to pass the pilot’s test. And then coming in to land I really didn’t take into account that he was a very big man in the front cockpit. Which, when I came into land it sank too quickly on me and I bounced across [laughs] across the aerodrome which wasn’t the right way to go. However, I said to him there, I said, Oh, you know, ‘I’m sorry sir but I reckon I can do better than that.’ He reply was, ‘I wouldn’t fly with you again. Too dangerous.’ So I got, I got my wings. So that was that. So I wish you hadn’t asked me because it was not done in glory.
AP: It very rarely is. What was a typical day like at EFTS? What sort of things were you actually doing?
RW: What? At Mallala?
AP: EFTS. So Benalla.
RW: EFTS. EFTS would be — each time you’d practice something different. First was familiarisation. Just on there. With an instructor. Practicing stalls and spins and recovery. And from then on you were sent out to practice by yourself. Every couple of days they might give you a taxiing test or something of that nature. But it was just a matter of going up, practicing yourself and coming back. Stall turns. You know some aerobatics you did better than, or I enjoyed better than others. But as a slow roller I was impossible. The, I’d lose so many feet, about five hundred feet every time I tried to slow roll. It was never done graciously. But that was about it. It was a matter of getting, I think, eighty hours. I think I had to get eighty hours up before they’d pass you on to the next unit at Mallala.
AP: And what did you think of the — what did you think of the Tiger Moth?
RW: I loved it. I think it was great fun. It was more or less a joy ride really. Really. It was responsive. It never let you down. If you did the right thing the old Tiger would do what you told it. But apart from that it never gave me any trouble.
AP: An instructor of mine once said, ‘A Tiger Moth is easy to fly but hard to fly well.’
RW: Well yeah. Well, I can remember an instructor once saying to me, ‘No matter what way you fly as long as you do it smoothly,’ which was fair enough but they won’t let you down. The funny side in all of it really when you’re saying about Benalla, thinking back we had similar weather to what we’re experiencing at the moment. That, the first flights in the morning that took off this particular day when we, when we were coming in from whatever shift we were going to do the flying the afternoon there were five Tiger Moths all with their nose in the ground. All sitting up. They had landed but the ground was boggy and they all tipped over. All you could see across the field was Tiger Moths.
AP: I was, I was actually going to ask you about accidents in training. Were they common? Did you see a lot of them?
RW: Not really. No. The only trouble was that sometimes before you were told to do something I’d go out and say, practice stall turns, practice fancy slide slipping. I can’t think what other ones we were, but at one stage we weren’t allowed to, we weren’t allowed to do a loop until we’d had a few more hours up. And one of the boys tried to do the loop. Stalled at the top. Spun in. And actually he got out of it which was lucky. He didn’t get killed but just badly shaken up but showed him that, you know, when you get to the top of the loop you just have to have sufficient speed to get out at the top.
AP: Nothing has changed. The laws of physics are exactly the same. Yeah. Very good.
RW: But you can’t help enjoying flying a Tiger Moth. It was just pure fun.
AP: I would agree exactly with that. Absolutely. What sort of things happened at Mallala?
RW: Mallala was modest flying. The old Anson. It wasn’t a good, I don’t think it was a good aircraft to train on because with the coming in to land with an Anson you were given a speed. I think it was, from memory, sixty. I think we still operated sixty with dual aircraft. Flying two together. Two pilots. We were usually flying together so one would do one hour as pilot and you’d sit back and do navigating. And then the other chap would have a turn of his hour flying. And they were very bad because as you might remember from the Tiger Moth you don’t pick up a stall with your ailerons. And with an Anson you could pick up a stall with your ailerons. You’d have to pop out and kick the wing and it’d come good. It was that placid. It used to stall at forty seven. It was nearly stopped. So I, from that area, a lot of the chaps we were with that went solo at Mallala, from Mallala, and stayed in Australia they went on to Beauforts. And I often, I often put down to the fact that so many of our lads went on to Beauforts and spun in. And I think it was picking up their wings with their ailerons. But that was some of the things. Very awkward to fly solo. You had to do solo flying in an Anson but it meant getting out of your seat and changing petrol tanks and they were sliding ones. Ones that you slide up and slide down cutting off and they weren’t ever maintained very well. But you had to get out of your seat, get over to the side of the aircraft and try and change tanks and get back to the seat again before you hit the ground. Very rough. It was all good training. ‘Cause when we got to Point Cook after we got our wings we didn’t know we were alive when we got on to the Oxfords at Point Cook because they were comfortable. Automatic undercarriage and flaps and all those sorts of things. It was good.
AP: Moving up in the world.
RW: But learning to fly in Australia was very easy compared to going over to the UK. Picking up the practice of flying there that they were more precise. When you got to the UK in the RAF initially we had to wait a while before we could start flying. And I did something that you’d be familiar with. We had to learn aerodrome control. Which was, was good fun at the time but the practice then of course was the way you approached it you approached the landing and did your circuit before you landed each time which made it a bit of hold up when you were trying to land. The queuing up to get on the ground particularly if it was two squadrons on one station was a bit, a bit tricky. But the Ansons never gave us any trouble as I can recall really. The, the second pilot in an Anson used to set up as a single pilot but the co-pilot had to plunge his control in with, you know, a ratchet to get the controls picked up. And quite often it would jam and wouldn’t do it so you were left to hang on ‘til the co-pilot could do change over and change pilots. But they were very old fashioned. Lovely old things. They had no vices. That’s why a Lancaster has got no vices. I think they learned a lot from that.
AP: Avro. Avro. Yeah. Background coming through I suppose. Can you remember much of the process of a beam approach? You were saying you did beam approaches at Point Cook. Can you just tell how they worked and what they were.
RW: Well beam approach. Beam approaching the point, that of course, you understand that the beam approach is a beam. A signal that you’re getting and once you get on to a beam it’s a single note until you drift off the beam. If you go to the left well you get dit dit dit dit dit so you know you’ve come off the beam. Steady note and your, and the other one would be a dash, dah dah just to try and get you back on the thing. But the beam set up in Point Cook was what they called a four degree beam that went out in that. The further you got out the wider the beam was. And when we got to the UK of course, we said yes we’d done beam work. ‘Righto. Off you go and do beam work on Oxfords.’ But their degree of signal was point four — not four degrees. It was point four of a degree. So you really once you got near the control that was sending out the beam you had to be spot on. Which was good. Once again good training. But to be truthful when you think back on it we didn’t use the beam that much. Occasionally with the fog you might try and put it on but you were never left to go around training too long while the fog was coming in and you couldn’t find the approach.
AP: So beam approach though — you trained on them though.
RW: You trained on them but you never, never used it.
AP: Not usually used in anger.
RW: Well, I don’t remember. Maybe some other people did. I can’t remember. At Foulsham, when I, when I finally got to 192 the, the aerodrome there at Norfolk was on low lands but it was fitted with FIDO so we had the approach shown with the burning the old FIDO so we didn’t really need the beam.
AP: That’s, that’s one way of getting around it I suppose. Fair enough.
RW: I never used it anyway because each time, coming back we were usually in the mornings and it was ok.
AP: How did you get to the UK?
RW: Oh the UK. From Sydney. There on an American vessel. I think it was nineteen days to San Francisco. Across the States by train to New York. And then from New York to Gourock in Scotland on the Isle de France. A big French liner that eventually was sunk in the harbour. At New York — sabotaged. Sabotaged but we got there. It was big but very rough getting there and what I liked about it — when we landed in Gourock which was just up north of Glasgow I read the notice in the train. It didn’t say if there’s an air raid. It said when there’s an air raid you do — [laughs] so it was just a difference.
AP: That was, that was going to be my next question actually. First impressions of wartime. Of the UK in wartime.
RW: That surprised me because we got down to Brighton there. Once we got off the boat we went to Brighton to wait. To wait to start our training again. Flying training after doing the aerodrome control. But it [pause] very close. Brighton’s not that far. It’s only twenty two miles, I think, across the channel to, to the occupied France at that stage. And every now and then a 109 would come over and particularly on parade mornings. He’d come up, rip up to Brighton and try and catch us, you know if we were on the parade ground and things like that. That’s what you got used to it. And then of course going to London occasional raids coming across until — you know the raids really stopped and then started again with the buzz bombs and that sort of thing but we got used to it there. The people sort of take it naturally. I can remember even going down Brighton this 109 used to come across at regular intervals. But people would be queuing up for something. Old ladies. You know. Civilians. And blokes going to pubs. And as the warning came out that he was coming again people would just drop on the ground. Once he flew over they’d all stand up again. So that took a bit of getting used to.
AP: Just a part of life I suppose.
RW: It was really.
AP: Yeah.
RW: And particularly going in to London. To see them sleeping on the underground tube stations.
AP: Yeah. I’ll be there in a minute. So you mentioned aerodrome control. Tell me a bit about that.
RW: Well it would be so different from yours. The girls did it all. It was just that we were standing by in case we were needed. But originally the idea was you would ask for permission to land which was always cheating because within ten miles [laughs] ‘I’m number one.’ Everyone dodging their position, but the idea was you came over, identified yourself over the ‘drome. You went on the, about at a thousand feet straight down the runway, to the crosswind. You’d go cross wind and tell them when you were turning cross wind. Go across wind. Come down wind. Down wind, middle of the down wind you’d let the tower know that you were downwind. Then you were turning in to crosswind again and then once you were in the funnels you said, if you were in funnels you just notified you’re in the funnels and you were given the ok to land. But that’s all it was. It was just an acknowledgment and then you had each one doing it and then turn. And you spaced yourself out. Now, does that make sense to you?
AP: Yeah I can, I can understand. I’ve got a vague idea.
RW: It’s none of this coming straight in [laughs]
AP: No. No. Of course not. No. Of course not. Just sort of moving, moving forward a little bit.
RW: Yes.
AP: To, to operational life.
RW: Yes.
AP: You said, you know, when two squadrons arrive at the same time. How did they sort that out?
RW: Well, they just, as you, as you called in. Whichever your call sign was. They’d give you a spot. In other words you know, when you were overhead. If you were overhead you told them you were overhead. If you said you were approaching then they’d give you a situation. If you got too many there that, around, that they were, you were starting to stack them around the aerodrome which was a bit dangerous then they’d send you off on a cross country. Give you a, you know —
AP: Come back.
RW: Anyone short of fuel would be happy but being on special duties we didn’t carry a bomb so we only carried overloads. So at any time we came in we were always sent on cross-countrys. They knew we weren’t and of course cunning ones that had lost a motor you know they would say, ‘I’m approaching on three.’
AP: On three.
RW: Or something like this. To get priority. Feather his motor.
AP: One veteran I have interviewed for this programme said — he was a wireless operator and he said he patched in the more powerful power supply in to their RT.
RW: Yeah.
AP: So that they had a range of thirty miles.
RW: Oh yes. That’s it.
AP: Instead of fifteen.
RW: He’d be saying he was overhead and he could be thirty miles away.
AP: That’s right. Sneaky.
RW: And I think after a while the, I think the signal would come in and then they realised they were weak and you’d say, ‘Stand by,’ and if you could understand he was cheating a bit because we [pause] normally, on special duties, they were very secretive. And of course we only would, sometimes only use two out of the squadron and things of that nature and wherever you were sent was a little bit off key because instead of being through Bomber Command you went through Air Ministry. Which was rather unusual. Now, now you might have to correct me here but I think our instructions came through Air Ministry. From department A14. That doesn’t mean a thing but it was out of Air Ministry. It wasn’t out of Bomber Command because old Butch, he can’t stand — unless you were dropping a bomb you’re no use [laughs] but we were given that and would have been given the — I’d better not get too far ahead of myself.
AP: That’s alright. We’ll, we’ll —
RW: But that was the idea. There was always a little bit of a give and take with the approaching.
AP: Very good. Alright. After Brighton what happened next?
RW: After Brighton, went back on to Tiger Moths. Of all things at a place called Fairoaks but it was really Windsor Castle’s —
AP: Take a couple.
RW: With Fairoaks and we were given, and we were now sent to Smith’s Lawns. Smith Lawn, which was Windsor Castle’s own private airfield. So we did our flying from Windsor Castle. Smith’s Lawn it was known as. And that was just, just routine. Getting familiar with English conditions and flying the Tiger Moth. We weren’t particularly given any aerobatics to do. It was mainly cross-countrys and things of that nature to get us used to the countryside really. Because as we, as we went there you got a bit sick of just doing cross-countrys because I remember once that they’d taken all the street names down. I shouldn’t say town names so it was always a cunning move if you were ever lost was to try and nip down to a railway station to see what the [laughs] where you were. And they didn’t have that there so I was going in and out doing this cross-country. So many hours up and back on different courses they give you. And I’d put, “Crossed road. Crossed railway. Crossed road.” I couldn’t mention, I didn’t know a town. Any there. When I handed my navigation papers in the instructor very sneeringly said, ‘What did you do? Go by road and come by rail?’ [laughs] But no that was the sort of training we did there and from there on I don’t know how many hours we would have done there. It was very interesting being at Smiths Lawn being Windsor Castle. We had one of the lads on flight with us. An English lad. Or English Czechoslovakian. He was royalty from — Prince, oh I know, he was Prince Peter. And he was from Yugoslavia or somewhere. One of those states over there . And as a result with the prince there the RAF were looking after him a bit. So when it came Sunday we were all invited to go to the chapel at Windsor Castle with the royal family. And it was interesting too. He of course went off and sat with the royalty. The ones he knew. But we, the lads we all stood at the back there of the chapel just having a good look around. But of course it was Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth were there with the King. King and queen. And afterwards we went for a bit of a tour around the, around the castle and we got to their own home garden and of course the royal family were interested in growing food for, for the sake of wartime restrictions. And we noticed that Princess Elizabeth’s garden, she had a plot of her own, it was perfect. You know beautifully done. And I thought, oh I know what’s happened here. You know they’ve got the gardeners to do it for her. Then we were taken [laughs] then we were taken to see Princess Margaret’s garden and it was a shambles [laughs]. Weeds and everything. So no she obviously did her own gardening and so did the king and queen. We presumed. We didn’t look at theirs. But that was just one little thing.
AP: Yeah.
RW: That was Smith’s Lawn. While we were waiting then to go back to, to go on to Oxfords. Our next.
AP: What particularly made England different to fly in than Australia?
RW: The, the amount of flying from Tiger Moths and the Ansons we had there was that here we have set towns. You know you’d go to Benalla. You know you’d hardly, I’ve forgotten half the towns up there now. Wangaratta, and the different, Winton Lakes and things but in England there were villages and towns and little bits and pieces here, there, everywhere. Like a patchwork quilt compared to an expanse. And that’s what we got used to. One of the things that the aerodromes, usually — not like ours you know. Benella was miles away and there wasn’t another aerodrome anywhere near it. But if we were in England there was an aerodrome somewhere near you somewhere so you had to watch your pick. In fact, it got to the stage of, really in the UK that on the approach to the different ‘dromes — like Foulsham would be FU. You’d see FU up there so you’d know you were heading for Foulsham. But there would be five or six ‘dromes all around that you could jump into if, if you knew who they were. But you had no identification really from small towns. In other words I’m thinking of when we got to South Cerney when we did proper navigation we flew at Bibury which was a little village say a couple of miles away. Then further north was Cheltenham and Gloucester and places. Not Gloucester. Oh, Cheltenham. See I’ve lost track of the towns but they were bigger towns heading towards Manchester and the Cotswolds and places like that. But it was different flying. You had to get used to the difference of finding out where you were. But eventually that was while we were just flying on AFU. Just on, we were virtually doing solo in the Oxfords.
AP: Alright. What happened after that?
RW: After that. That was beam. Once we got on to Oxfords you went and did the beam course again and then you did advanced flying. Even to the extent of, a lot of the instructors you had at AFU were ex-operational pilots having a rest from operations. And the, it was just a matter of flying around and getting used to things. One of them even said you know who we were flying around with the instructor would get in and say oh we’ll go in flying here, there and everywhere and go down towards Bath or some place like that. And he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’s too nice just to be sitting here doing nothing.’ He said, ‘How would you like to try a roll?’ And I thought, my God. A roll. I was rotten in a Tiger [laughs]
AP: Rolling in an Oxford.
RW: He said, ‘Let’s do a roll.’ I’d do the roll, but of course he did the roll but it meant that we had to stay in the air for ten minutes because all the gyros had tumbled [laughs] So that was, that was your training for not using your instruments all the time. You couldn’t use your instruments for ten minutes. But that was it. He was a Canadian pilot but he didn’t, he did the roll alright but it was a barrel roll. But I thought I’ll do it when I’m not seen.
AP: A bit flak happy perhaps.
RW: He could have been. Yes.
AP: Yeah.
RW: I think he was actually relaxing after operational stuff. I don’t know what he, I can’t remember what he came off to start with but a lot of them weren’t staff pilots there. You had a lot of staff pilots on these places to beam courses.
AP: Alright. And the next step was Operational Training Unit.
RW: OTU. Yes. OTU was good. That was on Wellingtons. Wellington 10s. I did pretty well on, on Wellingtons except the aircraft we were flying. They were clapped out. We had to do, you know, cross countrys at night and this sort of thing to imitation targets and that type of training. Getting used to it. Getting used to night affiliation where you’d get attacked by a fighter aircraft with cameras to see how you go. But on one occasion there the aircraft I picked up was u/s. It was u/s. You couldn’t fly it that night. So we had to get out of that, go and get another aircraft and then pick up with a dummy raid. But it meant I got attacked left, right and centre but halfway through it I lost a motor. And then I had a fire in the, a fire in the wireless ops room. He put the fire out. I said, ‘Righto Lin.’ They were always grizzling they never came out front to have a look out. So I said to Lin, the wireless op, I said, ‘Come up and have a look out now. Now that you’ve put the fire out.’ No sooner got him sitting up front there than the motor went. And of course — had to go home. So we came home and of all things had to do a, I had to a left hand circuit instead of a right hand circuit because I’d lost the port motor. And it came in on one and put it down beautifully, I say it myself because It was a perfect landing and the crew reckoned it was only perfect one I ever did [laughs] But that was, that gave me a, I think that started off why I finished up on special duties because I got reassessed as above average and then, well volunteered for required, didn’t require, ‘Would you volunteer for Pathfinders?’ ‘Yes,’ and was accepted for Pathfinders. And the crew. And that was at OTU so that was on Wellingtons to then, and got, and got a commission. I was commissioned from OTU and then finished up joining, doing heavy duty conversion to the big, to the Halifax 3s and eventually a squadron.
AP: Tell me how you met your crew.
RW: The old — everyone in the hangar [laughs] Yes. Now, the, the hangar there. There was twenty pilots, nineteen navs because I had, I had a navigator with me that I wasn’t satisfied so I had to leave him behind to do more training. Bomb aimer, wireless op and forty gunners. And when I went in to the place there a little bloke came up to me and said, ‘Have you got a crew yet?’ and I said, ‘No. Would you like to be mine?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And he was the wireless operator. In the meantime he’d gathered a bomb aimer and one gunner. But that was, it just sorted out. Eventually the navigator was replaced because he would have been a sick, a navigator gone sick the previous course so he was a spare and I picked him up as a spare and I used him all the way through.
AP: What — what sort of things did you do when you were on leave in England to relax?
RW: We’d go to Lady Ryder’s billets and things. I didn’t have a girlfriend or anything like that. I was sort of a bit keen on the flying and all that sort of thing and a bit more, I was interested in, you know, I wanted to be a pilot and that was it. But a lot of the boys had girlfriends. The crew. OTU there was an Australian pilot. We jumped up together. We’d flown since the time we left Australia till we came to OTU and he and I would probably go to a different billet as they were called in those days. Staying with different people and enjoying the peaceful side. Go to Edinburgh for a trip up to see what Edinburgh was like. Glasgow. But that’s about all on leave. There was, I didn’t have any relatives over there to visit but that would be about all I can recall really what we did on leave. Go and get, go to — you’d mix with different courses you were on. Perhaps you’d get someone a bit familiar when you were at AFU. There would just be pilots only so you were more or less stuck with pilots. Perhaps if you met a mate there you would go and have a few drinks and go into town for a night. That business. Have a drink up.
AP: What was, what was the local pub like? What sort of things happened?
RW: The local pubs. The AFU was Cheltenham and you got to know how to get over the back fence. And that rationing had come in and every now and then they ran out of beer so you had to know which fence you have to go in. A lot of the beer in the pubs in, particularly in Cheltenham, very posh towns there. Very lovely towns really. And to go into the pubs in our dark blue uniforms quite often they had, instead of beer they’d have ciders and you got used to watching your step there. I was leaning on the bar, with my elbow on the bar, sort of, say drinking and with that the barmaid come up and said, ‘Love take your elbow off the bar, it’s in all the drinks.’ And I said, ‘Oh sorry.’ She said, ‘No. It takes the dye out of your uniform.’ [laughs] So I had better watch this. You did meet the locals in the pubs. They’d quite often take you on. Or they’d be playing darts and they’d be all over the place like madwomen on scooters. You know they’d be throwing their — and whatever game they’d challenge you to a game. And of course immediately they challenged out came their special darts. You’d play them. You’d play. They’d beat you and you’d have to buy them a beer. But they were cunning. They conned us [laughs]
AP: What, what was your first impression of a Halifax?
RW: The Hali I thought was lovely. I was very impressed. Actually when I did the aerodrome control it was Halies then but of course they were the old Hali 2s and 5s when I was doing that. And once again when you’d done Conversion Unit. They’d all been all clapped out. The aircraft we were flying had been ex-French squadrons we were using but when I got used to her she was beautiful. I loved the Hali. She was good to fly. She was responsive. Never gave me any trouble. The only thing I’d say that was wrong with the Halifax I think everybody had the same trouble — brakes. The brakes weren’t effective. You know, you’d have full brake on and you’d still keep going. But I liked the Bristol Hercules. They were very powerful engines so she could climb like a homesick angel as we’d say. They were good. They were comfortable. They were responsive to fly. I had no complaint with them.
AP: Alright. Now you’re getting towards your squadron at this point. Where was that?
RW: Squadron. Yeah. 192.
AP: Where was 192 based?
RW: Hmmn?
AP: Where was the squadron based?
RW: This was in Foulsham in Norfolk.
AP: Foulsham. That’s right. Cool. Right. So where and how did you live at Foulsham?
RW: Lived there as, once again an officer at that stage so that was in billets mainly. Mainly pilots together because the crew was still — the flight engineer was, he had done a special tour. He had already done one tour, the flight engineer. Which we picked up at Marston Moor when we did the conversion. So he was, he would be in the officer’s mess with us and and the rest of the crew would be in NCO quarters. But we were usually two to a room perhaps. That would be — mostly if you got a room on your own you were lucky. But they’d bunk you in with someone else. And 192 of course had, as I’ve showed you that photo with, they were all the Halifax pilots but we had a Mosquito flight on 192 because when you, when you accepted special duties we weren’t bound by the thirty, thirty trips for a tour. We had to do forty five straight. And once you were forty five straight you were tour expired. They never wanted you again on that. For that reason. So you were a little bit different from Bomber Command itself because we had our own set up there. And it was comfortable. Good living. It’s just someone that spoke to me the other day. In fact it was Laurie Macpherson? Laurie. Laurie Larmer?
AP: Oh Laurie Larmer. Yeah. of course.
RW: Laurie. We were talking to him and he said, ‘Whitey, can you remember when we got the bacon and eggs before we went on a trip?’ And I said, ‘Oh yes.’ He said, ‘What time did you get it?’ And I said, ‘We used to get it about, I don’t know, depending on what time we were going out. 11 o’clock. I don’t know. 12 o’clock. Depending on when we were going to fly out. Yeah.’ He said, ‘Ah. We used to have ours in the morning.’ And I said, ‘What?’ Then I didn’t realise. He was doing daylights.
AP: Oh of course.
RW: Because we were all, we were still doing night work so it was just one of those things. You forget little things like that. The same old thing. People could never get used to it. Telling you about, you know how the Benzedrine tablets were there to take, you know. These days we would have had so many druggies we wouldn’t have known what happened [laughs] But that was, I didn’t realised that the Benzedrine tablets were to keep you alert whilst — I never used them which I was lucky to say. But some people did. They’d sort of get their Benzedrine, they’d take the wakey wakey as it was called and of course then all of a sudden the op would be cancelled and they were bright eyed. They’d sit there playing billiards half the night because they were awake [laughs] I learned that but I believe the idea was you took your Benzedrine tablet when you were coming in to the target and of course — so as far as we were concerned we found that very often we didn’t have targets. We, most of the time if it was a special we were escorting a bomber group out you’d got the track drawn in. I think with operational units the track was in the, the navigator didn’t have to alter course for as long as it was in the ten mile bracket that they gave for the ten. Now we were, one of us would be on one side and one, the other from 192 would be on the other side checking on the counter measures. It was all radar. Radar. Radio and radar counter measures. Basically with the special operator. And of course depending on which operator you had, he wasn’t a regular one. When you had to there were two waves going in. We had to hang around the target area whilst the next wave was coming in which was usually two minutes and two minutes and two minutes. So it was always hang around waiting and not very often we would change over. We wouldn’t be in communication with the other 192 bloke and just hang around. The big thing was that when we did go out because normally we would just wander. They’d give us so many set courses to go and fly and we were just flying with the, with the RCMs listening in to what they could do. If they, if they went on a target then the German speaking one would — with 192 they can tune into the, we could tune into the Germans talking. And of course no good for us but the German translator he could chip in to give them the fighters the wrong info which was a bit sneaky [laughs] But no the funniest thing was that on one of the ones that we were in just out of Oslo. Norway. Tonsberg. When we came and the bombers had done their two minutes and we were hanging around waiting for the next wave to come in and while we were doing and whilst we were there we were having a marvellous time. We could see the lights of Sweden in the distance so we were busy. So busy were we looking around not being alert. We were looking at the lights of Stockholm or wherever it was and over us — we were here and over like that, it would have been as high as this ceiling an 88 went right, just over us like that. Here I am down sitting here. We’re having seven or eight blokes all supposed to be looking out for it and he just went. In fact I can see, I can still see the dirt on its belly to this day and I ducked [laughs] But it one of those things that only goes to show you, you know a moment’s lack of concentrations. Everyone’s gazing. And I think the German bloke was doing the same thing. I think he was looking at the lights and wasn’t looking because after a while our operators could pick out when, when we were being tabbed. And the Germans were very good at your height. The flak bursts were pretty well spot on with the height but they couldn’t find you just where you were. And the rear gunner was always very much aware that if he saw two flashes coming very close to his tail he’d let us know when to divert and get away from it. But that’s about it really. About the only excitement we ever had. Except that while we were cruising around, and before all this aircraft where the 88 went over us the crew said, ‘How about,’ because we had money. We carried the gold sovereigns to give to the patriots, ‘Why don’t we have a forced landing in Sweden, spend the money, wait for them to rescue us and we’ll go home and perhaps the war will be finished.’ Which it wasn’t at that stage. And I was the most miserable man you’ve ever met. ‘I said Martin. Mark. You won’t do it. You won’t do it,’[laughs] It was just a bit of a joke but that I think was why we were, I can say messing around arguing about whether we should make a forced landing in Sweden just to get rescued.
AP: A very, very forced landing.
RW: Where was the honour amongst thieves I don’t know.
AP: So what, what sort of things— you were talking about the German speaking operators.
RW: He was special, he would come in once we’d — we didn’t know what they were doing really. We had no idea. They, they’d come and get on board. They were always known, as far as we were concerned they was a co-pilot. Just a squadron bloke learning to, if you got, if you were forced down he was Milner. I only knew him. He just joined us to do an experienced trip. You know. You knew nothing about him because you couldn’t let on that he knew how to speak German if you were forced down. But that’s about it really. I don’t know really what else I can tell you.
AP: What I was just trying, I have been reading a little bit about the radio counter measures.
RW: Indeed.
AP: And the sorts of things that were done.
RW: Initially we were told about the idea. Because, you know we thought oh bloody hell, you know. We want to drop bombs when you go there and special duties were ok but it was just special duties on what we were doing. Just fiddling around with the special operator. And it was initially told to us that the Window was cut to a certain length and it had to be cut to the length of whatever the radar, or the radios were working on. So that the window would be effective against jamming the radar. But I don’t know if that’s right or not. That’s my recollection of what we were told we were doing. And the idea was that if you, no matter where were just floating around in a — going up to Norway you know. It was still active so far as the Germans were concerned because at that stage we’re now getting there that France had been occupied up to Paris at that stage. So there’s nothing, we didn’t have to be required to go to Italy which we were initially sent to get to know, you know, what was wrong with the Italian radar. But it was all German so it didn’t make much difference I gather. But it’s, we had to, we had to take a photo of where we’d been though. You must remember that no matter what, what jobs you did you still had to take a photo of something to prove that you’d done your trip. Which evidently at times certain blokes would get the twitch. All they’d do is go out and wander around the North Sea, drop their bomb and come back. And so then you had to take a photo of your ,where you’d been to prove that you’d done a trip.
AP: How, how would you time that as a special operator? Without a real target. You just go somewhere and say that’ll do?
RW: With the real target you’d just go and bomb him. If, in the case of the one I just mentioned. Tonsberg there. That at some stage of the game you’d go over the near target, let go of the photoflash and go home. But until, until you’d got your trip because obviously there would be a timer on your camera because we were supposed to stay there for always for the second wave to come in so they’d have to. You’d have to prove your point.
AP: So, so your tour essentially was just go flying?
RW: Go flying.
AP: In random directions.
RW: The only.
AP: And then come back.
RW: The only thing we had that, I’d say that JU88, I would think that he’d been sent. Because he was almost the same height as us, you know, just over the top of us, that I think he’d been sent to find us and he didn’t find us thank God because otherwise, it might have been a different story.
AP: So —
RW: That’s about the only excitement I can give you, Adam.
AP: It sounds like an ideal tour for someone who just wants to fly an aeroplane.
RW: The only thing is if you had to fly you’ve always got the twitch. No matter where you are you’re supposed to be, you know ready and willing and able to do evasive action. Because every time we did there because when the war finished they even sent us out to do [pause] oh God. Simulated attacks. I can’t think of the word. Affiliation. Fighter affiliation. You had to do fighter affiliation and then do corkscrews and that sort of thing. So you were always on the tip of your toes. It wasn’t relaxing flying.
AP: Of course not. What —
RW: The only part that was relaxing was the fact that the Bristol Hercs were a very reliable motor. Hardly coughed.
AP: The — you were saying before about doing aerobatics in an Anson and they toppled the gyros.
RW: Yeah.
AP: How did a corkscrew —
RW: Oh no, the Oxfords
AP: The Oxfords, sorry. Oxford. Anson.
RW: The Oxford. Yeah.
AP: They’re very similar [laughs] but how did a corkscrew affect the gyros in the Halifax?
RW: Oh the, well we didn’t go out. We didn’t. You had a certain a certain limitation on what we could do. With the gyros were of course actually in the cockpit. They were in the Sperry panel there and the gyros were set up in the thing. Whereas in the Halifax the master control was down the back end where you had the gyroscope down there which was in a cradle. And a bit like a centrifuge I suppose it would be called. But it didn’t affect them at all.
AP: Ok. So it was sort of more designed for —
RW: Because really we didn’t, you know, with all due respect to the Hali a thirty degree you very seldom would put her wing down to forty five to do it. But as long as you were giving your gunners maximum deflection that’s all you had to do. And of course when you do your corkscrew and of course up top you were a sitting beauty for any [laughs]. Anyway, but you didn’t really throw her on her back. No.
AP: Right.
RW: But the old Sperry panel, I think it was the gyros were fitted in the panel. I gather that they were. I could be wrong on that.
AP: Not a, not a technician so I don’t know. How did you, how did you cope with the, I guess the stress of these operations? Was there stress?
RW: I think there was. I think you slept well. I think you were actually six, eight hours. See the minimum you would do would be six and a half and otherwise eight. Eight hours. By the time you’d done you were tired really and you went to sleep. I think we, we only had to operate once every three days. It gave you time to recover from the stress because I think once you were where you’re going and you’re going over enemy territory no one’s very friendly to you if — whatever’s happening. There will always be flak around you. Not intensive as the target. To be truthful I’m not too sure. I think we were young and stupid. [laughs]
AP: Fair enough.
RW: I don’t think. I think it must affect people differently because up until that stage, you know, until we got to squadron it was just joyful flying. Whether you were doing a conversion on to a four engine aircraft you were still just practicing over England. But once you went over the enemy coast you really felt you, instead of relaxing you really would hang on and I presume that’s what it was. And I think as a captain of the aircraft you’re inclined to get a bit snappy with people and I think that at that stage you got on well with your crew but you very seldom complained to them about it. They crew would complain. The navigator would always complain that you weren’t flying, you know, true course that he wanted. And this and that and all the rest of it and, and of course the bomb aimer had nothing to do and he was our second nav. And they used to always be, we had the friction between the navigator and the bomb aimer in jobs to do. In other words it was a bit useless having a bomb aimer on but he had to be on there to say it was an ordinary bombing aircraft.
AP: Ok.
RW: And that bit. My navigator had, the navigator I got was a very good one. Thank God I did because as I say I had to lose the first one and, but he was always late. Once, you know you’d go to the briefings for whatever we were doing that particular night and he would always be the last one to get in, you know. He’d always be dawdling to get in to the briefing. And it used to irritate me a bit and I’d tick him off for not getting there on time. And eventually I thought I had to teach him a lesson because we were, the boss, or the flight commander said to me would I go down to Woodbridge. You know, it’s an emergency ‘drome down there. Evidently someone had left something down there and so they decided to send an aircraft down to pick it up. A table or whatever it was [laughs] but I went down to Manston to, I said, ‘I’ll go down and pick it up for you.’ So I told Derek and the gang to, you know, ‘We’ll go off about half past ten. We’ll go down to Manston. Pick up this table they want us to get.’ And of course I’m waiting there. You have to pick up your ‘chutes and all that because you were going out and Derek’s not there. So I said to Terry who was the bomb aimer/navigator, I said to Terry, I said, ‘Could you navigate me down to Manston?’ He said, ‘Oh yes.’ I said, ‘Right. We’ll go.’ So we all marched out, went out to the aircraft, picked up the aircraft less a navigator. And went down there and when I came back of course there was a furious navigator [laughs] ‘How dare you take off without me.’ I said, ‘Just to show you you’re not essential.’ But you know it’s one of those silly things. One thing that you can find that you get a bit snappy with them but the — when you’re taking off with, well you’ll probably see on those pilot’s notes where the controls are very far apart and I haven’t got a very big hand. So taking off, and with four, four Bristol Hercules all pulling in one direction your aircraft wants to weathercock and quite often you’d let two go. Let two of the throttles go and just keep going with two. And your engineer would be standing behind you and he would be watching his gauges which he was supposed to do because when you’re taking off your fuel pressure goes down. And anyway, he was supposed to carry on just when I got full bore, then he’d bring the other throttles up to me and once we were taking off and it was on this Manston trip I think that he must, the fuel pressure lights were blinking like hell because I could get a reflection from them and I thought it was trouble. And he had shot the two throttles up and locked it. Locked the throttles on, which is grip. And of course all of a sudden I started doing a mighty spin so I had to unlock it and take them back and I ticked him off for not watching what he was doing. But he was really watching the pressure gauges. But you can get a bit crusty with them I’d say. If I was under tension. I don’t know. I think so. I think probably the tension caught up with me in later life.
AP: How did your tour end?
RW: The war ended.
AP: The war ended. Oh fair enough.
RW: I only got twenty two in so had I, had I got a full trip tour to — it finished on the — the last op I did was the 25th of the April which, the war was still going, but you know, it was knocked off. And initial thing was when I said that we were only going to do forty five trips. We were going to do thirty on Halifaxes and fifteen on Mosquitoes. So the final fifteen I would have been transferred from the Halifax flight to do fifteen on the Mossies. So that, I missed out on that. So that just finished. After the war we then did [pause] it was called Operation Post Mortem where we took English radar operators over to the German side of things for them to operate the German equipment and we then put on a mock raid in daylight so that they could see the effectiveness we did. We did a mock raid with Lancasters. The whole lot. In daylight. Over to [pause] I can’t think. Gjol. A place called Gjol in Denmark. We did that as a bombing trip and it showed us, you know where the faults were in the British equipment and where the faults were in the German equipment. It was quite an interesting exercise. But after the Post Mortem then the squadron disbanded and that was it. And I came back at Christmas time.
AP: How did you then find re- adjusting to civilian life?
RW: A little bit ratty I think, then. I think I was getting stuck into the grog too at that stage in the game and I think that might have been a little bit of an indication of what it was but that was when we came back home. And as you can imagine I said I started off as an office boy in the Melbourne City Council. And it, you know it was a pretty dead sort of existence after [pause] after the flying days. And then I didn’t settle so I went off and went into insurance broking. And that was what I finished the rest of my days as. I only flew once. In 1953 they called us up on the reserve to train as instructors and we’re back at Moorabbin on Tigers. So I got some flying in again. But I tell you what. I wasn’t the brave boy I was at Benalla. When, you know — I think we had to finish, at Benalla we had to finish our aerobatics by three thousand feet and I’d get to three thousand feet — too bloody cold. This’ll be fine. Another thousand [laughs]
AP: That’s —
RW: So there it is. It caught up with me eventually. That’s about it I think unfortunately.
AP: So how [pause] my last question then.
RW: Yes.
AP: How is Bomber Command remembered? What’s its legacy? I mean, how do you want to see it remembered more importantly?
RW: I think what you’re doing now is ideal because being an odd bod which was the only thing left for us originally when we came back in so far as the Air Force Association which we, you know, we kept up straightaway through ourselves and odd bods there, But I think what you’re doing at the moment is something peculiar, special –not peculiar. Special to Bomber Command and the Bomber Command boys and seeing you’re part of their group then that’s the place I find it’s more comforting. And I think that now we’ve started to take it there I think quite a few bomber boys including myself were very disappointed with the RAF not giving us the bar for the odd bods. For the area we did. And eventually John [Frayne?] and Laurie — I think we both complained to John [Frayne] that nothing was done to remember Bomber Command and I don’t think we actually had a day declared which now is taken as been either the 30th of June or the 1st of July. I take it. Would that be right?
AP: As in the one we’ve just done?
RW: Yeah.
AP: So it’s yeah. The first Sunday in June is the day.
RW: 1st Sunday in June.
AP: Yeah.
RW: I had an idea it was either going to be the 30th no, the first Sunday in June.
AP: The first Sunday in June.
RW: Now, that’s, that is ideal. I think it’s just what we need there. Because Anzac Day really doesn’t mean as much to us and now that we are just going to travel in a motor car I don’t find is it’s like a parade really. But I think what we did yesterday was worthwhile and just feel that though yesterday was unlucky that the weather didn’t give us much chance to talk. Plus that bloke pinched my umbrella [laughs] so if it’s raining there you’ll have to blame whoever it was. I don’t say pinched but he obviously took it by mistake. No. That was I think full marks to Jan Dimmock and the rest of you good folk on the committee now as I know. I thought you were doing it by yourself at one stage of the game.
AP: Not quite. We’ve got some good help.
RW: No. But you did a sterling job but you were battling by yourself for quite a while weren’t you?
AP: I wasn’t. There was, it was Jan and Ed Robbin set up the first one.
RW: Yes.
AP: I came on board about three years ago.
RW: Did you. That was round about the same time as —
AP: So I’ve been involved with about three now.
RW: I took an interest in Bomber Command then.
AP: It’s been, personally I moved to Melbourne about five and a half years ago so.
RW: And you came down from Sydney?
AP: I did.
RW: Three years ago did you Adam?
AP: A bit more than that but I so my background is Sydney. So I was in Canberra on Saturday night.
RW: Yes.
AP: At that gathering.
RW: At the gathering.
AP: And then came down early for our one on Sunday.
RW: Are they in each state?
AP: Not quite on the same day.
RW: No.
AP: There’s a few different days around the place.
RW: Ok.
AP: But yes. Except for the Northern Territory each capital city has a ceremony.
RW: I was just going to say yesterday we didn’t realised that there was that RSL thing was on at the shrine as well.
AP: Yeah. Yeah.
RW: Has that affected our attendance?
AP: I think it affected some of the dignitaries.
RW: Did it? Oh yes. Because there was quite a few apologies.
AP: Yeah. I think it kept their numbers down a little bit.
RW: A little bit.
AP: Yeah. And it meant that we had to sort of rush through a bit and get out quite quickly afterwards but —
RW: Was that, were they before you?
AP: They were after. They were at 4 o’clock.
RW: I wasn’t aware of that.
AP: Yeah. Neither were we when we booked it.
RW: Serve them right.
AP: Yeah. Oh well. But yeah it all, It worked out quite nicely. We’re looking forward to the next one.
RW: Yeah. Looking forward to the next year. That’s good. And thanks Adam.
AP: Any final words before I turn the tape off.
RW: No. Just to wish you well and whether you find as I say I have no memorabilia that I can really give you that is of value because a little thing that actually happened there. When I was getting commissioned I had a month off or something. They did all the commissioning in the UK. And I was down — staying down in London whilst I was getting measured for my uniform I think. Something like that. And I had a bike, a kit bag and a suitcase, and I was going to Earl’s Court which was where we stayed overnight on leave. And whilst I was booking in I had three things to get inside. So I left my suitcase, took my bike and kitbag in and someone pinched my suitcase from outside. And in it was all the, all the papers. Quite a lot of bombing atlases and maps I had there but someone pinched it and eventually when I got back I found out that he got six months for pinching it. But did I have this Halifax book there.
AP: Yeah. I think it’s in this pile.
RW: Halifax. There was just something to read. That’s something that you don’t really see. We used to call them H sheets. That was [laughs] there was my perfect landing. I had to keep it [laughs]. The little bit down below.
AP: That’s commission of — yeah. Very nice. Perfect single engine landing. You’re, you’re not the only veteran who has told me flying a Wellington and something —
RW: Goes wrong.
AP: Engines stops or something like that. You’re about the eighth.
RW: Eighth. Really?
AP: It happens a lot.
RW: Mind you the poor old things were clapped out.
AP: Yeah. Of course they were.
RW: The very thing that happened with that there — the Halifax that I ended, the Wellington that I changed over to and took the one that the engine broke down — the reason why it made such a fuss is that ten days later that Wimpy was out on a cross-country in daylight because that was at night time, but daylight, and it went in. Killed the lot of them. And it sort of brought it to light the fact that that particular one because it played up with me because I had a fire and the engine and the throttle, actually it was the throttle connection that vibrated out so it must have been vibrating terribly to ruin it within ten days from being —
AP: It happened again.
RW: Previously being done.
AP: Yeah.
RW: So it was a bit of a shame.
AP: Yeah. Who was the last bloke? Someone told me a very similar story as well. How they flew. And it was a Wellington and it had a problem and then a couple of days later someone else flew it and in they went.
RW: Well, that was it. You just couldn’t.
AP: Yeah.
RW: You know, you can’t, you couldn’t tell and that happened and that’s happened when you finally got there. You said what did I think of the Halifax because all of a sudden I’m not flying a 2 or 5 at Con Unit but I’m flying a brand new 3.
AP: Yeah. Like me driving a brand new car.
RW: Yes there you are. That’s right. Everything’s right. But thanks very much.
AP: No worries. I shall turn this off.
Dublin Core
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AWhiteRR160607
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Interview with Ralph White
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:09:52 audio recording
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Adam Purcell
Date
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2016-06-07
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Description
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Ralph White grew up in Melbourne, Australia and originally joined the army. He later volunteered to become aircrew and undertook initial pilot training at Benella and Mallala in Australia before sailing to the UK via San Francisco and New York. He flew operations with 192 Squadron from RAF Foulsham and recounts and attack by a Ju 88. After the war he took part in Operation Post Mortem. English operators went to Germany to test their equipment while his squadron mounted a mock operation. This was to see how effective the British and German technology had been.
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
New York (State)--New York
Victoria--Melbourne
Victoria
New York (State)
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
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Julie Williams
192 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
crewing up
Halifax
Ju 88
pilot
radar
RAF Foulsham
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/353/3524/AWoodsL150428.1.mp3
0442bb8095618fa67e2185dba5c8075c
Dublin Core
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Title
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Woods, Laurie
L Woods
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Laurie Woods DFC. He flew operations as a navigator with 460 Squadron.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-05-01
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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Woods, L
Transcribed audio recording
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LW: This is a recording of my time in Bomber Command and my name is Flying Officer Laurie Woods, I hold an AEM an Australian medal, which has recently been awarded to me for significant research and writing of five books on my time in Bomber Command. I also hold an immediate award of the Distinguished Flying Cross, having flown home to England on my last trip in a Lancaster, and thus saving crew of seven and a Lancaster. I was born in Deloraine Tasmania, in December 1922, I grew up in Tasmania, and at the age of sixteen I made an attempt, or I asked my parents to sign for me to join the Royal Australian Navy as a cadet bandsman. They refused and so I carried on in my civilian life in working in the Tasmanian railways. Then at the age of eighteen, there was talk of conscription being introduced in Australia, and I talked with my parents and said if I volunteer in the air force I will not be conscripted other wise, I’m afraid I told them a lie, because I was in a reserved occupation, but I thought that I should serve, and it could, if I survived be possibly beneficial in my later life. So I persuaded them to join the air force, and when my mother found out that it was aircrew, she kept on telling, writing to me and saying please fail in your exams, and I wrote back and said ‘if I fail I would end up in the cookhouse, and I don’t want to be a bloody cook’ so when I was just, approximately one month before the Japanese entered the war I volunteered for aircrew in the RAAF, The Royal Australian Air Force that is. Then I was placed on, successfully accepted, and was placed on the reserved force for six months and I had three nights a week educational [hesitation] assistance to bring me up to the level that was required. Several times I said to my instructor I don’t think I can make it, but I carried on and finally I was taken into the air force on the 19th of June 1942. First it was to an initial training school in Victoria, it was the first time I had been out of Tasmania, and I was horribly seasick because it was the Bass Straight, it was one of the roughest sections of water in the world, and it took me about three days to get over that, and then we settled into a place called Somers for initial training school, which lasted for three months and unfortunately I got eighty seven percent in my final maths exam, so the aircrew allocation board decided I should be a navigator, or an observer as it was then, despite the fact that I had asked, or when it was offered to me, [inaudible background] I was asked what I would like to be, of course everybody wants to be a pilot, so I said I wanted to fly as a fighter pilot, and then rather a silly question I thought, ‘what sort of planes would you want to fly?’ And I said ‘well the fastest you’ve got’ and they said ‘well would you mind being a navigator, bomb aimer, gunner?’ and I said ‘no if I’m selected that way that’s the way I’ve got to go’ So because I had the eighty seven percent in maths I was made an observer. We spent three months at the initial training school, three months then on navigation, during the navigation exercise we did some cross country flights, and the Japanese were reported in Spencers Gulf which was off Adelaide, and we spent three days searching in Anson planes for these Japanese submarines, unfortunately we pointed it out that if the wind was blowing quite hard as it does in that area, we could end up going backwards. We didn’t have any guns if we spotted a submarine, what do we do with it? So they sent a squadron of Beau fighters to be fairly close so that if we did report, these Beau fighters would come in and deal with the submarines. Then following on I was, I received my wing a half wing, the observers wing and I was promoted to Sergeant. Then I was selected to go to England and we left the training section in Victoria, travelled to Sydney we were five days in Sydney and then we travelled north to Brisbane, and we sailed from Brisbane in an American cargo ship, and we were four hours passed the hospital ship Centaur when it was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of two hundred and forty seven lives, just off the coast of Brisbane. We crossed to America, crossed America by train and we were then two months in camp Myles Standish waiting for shipping to come to England, and on the 5th of July 1943 we left New York [hesitation], yes we left New York in the Queen Elizabeth, twenty two thousand troops on board, a lot of Negro soldiers from the American army were sleeping in the enclosed upper deck, and then there were probably about 240 Australian airmen, and some sailors who were coming over to England to return home on the HMS Shropshire, which had been granted to the Australian Navy.
Halfway across the Atlantic we were almost tipped out of our bunks at midnight, by the ship taking a ninety degree port turn, and then clapping on all speed, the ship was shaking from stem to stern, and for twelve hours, we found out we had been doing approximately forty three knots in the Queen Elizabeth, which was pretty fast for a big ship. But they thought we had run into either a pack of whales [?] or a pack of submarines. Anyway we finally got to England we landed at Grenoch, and overnight we travelled to Brighton by train, we were passing through London just as the sun was coming up, and the amount of damage that we saw made us pretty determined that the sooner we got over Germany and dealt out some of this to them, the more satisfied we would be. Anyway we settled in at Brighton, and the first night there Lord Haw Haw had announced that he knew that the Australians had moved from Bournemouth to Brighton, and they could be expecting a visit from Goring’s fighters. Anyway the attack came, and it was quite exciting we were hanging out of the Hotel Grand’s windows watching, and got very excited when we saw some tracer bullets out over the, the water, not very far out, and suddenly saw this explosion and presumed that it was a German fighter or bomber that had gone down. Anyway during the course of our time, we went to Whitley bay where we did a commando course, and then from there we went to West Freugh flying in Ansons, then to operational training unit flying in Wellingtons, there we did a leaflet raid on Paris, and after we left the target area, we were attacked and these tracer bullets seemed to follow us along explode, and then follow along a bit further, explode follow along a bit further, explode, and we came back and reported to intelligence that we thought they must have been magnetic or something because they seemed to be chasing us, and he told us we were perhaps a little bit stupid, that there was nothing like that, we found out many years later that it was the, probably the beginning of the heat seeking missiles that the Germans had developed. From Lichfield we carried on and we converted to Halifax, we did two diversionary raids out to round about two degrees east and then we finally arrived on 460 squadron the senior Australian Lancaster squadron, flying in Lancasters. Lancasters to us were just like going from a T Model Ford into a Rolls Royce, they were a marvellous plane, very responsive to controls, and of course they carried a terrific load of bombs. So we started off on our first raid approximately a fortnight after D day, and it was to a village in northern France, and things were going ok it seemed, well we were a little bit excited because we had been assigned to K2 ‘The Killer’ and it had a swastika on the nose, and it also had about thirty four trips up at that stage, and we hoped that it might last and keep us safe for quite a few more trips. Anyway we were sailing along and suddenly the rear gunner reports enemy fighter, dive left, so down went the nose, and being as I had volunteered to do my tour as bomb aimer, because they were a bit short of bomb aimers at that time, and I found very quickly that I was spread eagled on the roof of the plane because the nose had gone down so quickly, and so we did our first corkscrew, we were attacked by three fighters on that particular trip and it was quite exciting, but we got home safely. So from, that was the first raid we had been briefed for 21 raids in the first 7 days we were on the squadron, but we only flew three of them, and we went on raid here, raid there, raid somewhere else, and there were seven crews arrived on 460 and replacement crews for the raid on Mailly le Camp in France, where it was one of the heaviest percentage raid losses during the second world war, and we were one of the replacement crews. Now of those forty nine fellows five months later on the 9th of November on the last trip, there were only 6 in our crew left, and two other people, so it gives you an idea on how severe the losses were at the time, because we were flying in support of the British army after D Day and many of the raids were on troop concentrations, railway, railway stations or railway yards and then oil installations in the Ruhr Valley which was known as death valley by the crews because of the number of people who had been lost there. On our seventh trip we were assigned in, to fly the trip to Gelsenkirchen, and everything was going ok coming up on the target ahead it was just like a hailstorm of flak, and it got me a little bit worried I started to shake and shiver all over, I was that frightened that I didn’t think that I would be able to do my job, and this carried on for probably a minute or more and then suddenly there was this terrific explosion, and a Lancaster, we found out afterwards had blown out, blown up just above us and took half the pilots canopy out, and from the moment of that explosion I was as cool as a cucumber, you could say, carried on and did the necessary job, and we got through without too many holes, I think we had about thirty four individual holes from that trip, and I found out afterwards the navigator of Group Captain Edwards plane was Burt Uren [?] and he said that Group Captain Edwards, the first man to win the Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross, in the RAF he was seconded to, [hesitation] yes he had been seconded pre-war to the RAF, and he said that Edwards just flew straight on through all the debris that was coming down and had not tried to dodge anything at all, as an experienced flyer I suppose he thought that in flying straight through he had just as much chance of getting through as what he would if he tried to dodge -, that, that was group captain Edwards, he was a pretty reasonable sort of a man and he was very much admired by the people operating on the squadron, he was their hero as a matter of fact. Excepting on one occasion, he always took rookie crews and he would fly around the target after the bombing. On one occasion on one target he went down to about fifteen thousand feet circling the target he was about forty five minutes late getting back to the squadron, everybody thought he had gone in, but he was [hesitation] he was, credited with probably about eighty to ninety raids, but he did probably another tour, with these rookies and although there were nine squadron commanders under him who were ordered a DSO, he did not get another decoration during his term, later he was of course a commander in chief of the, in the Suez crisis, and then he became governor of Western Australia and died about 1985. But, we carried on and everything was going ok, some raids you had trouble other raids were comparatively quiet, but in each case over the target it was just a little bit of bedlam, in Gelsenkirchen for instance they estimated there were five hundred ack ack guns and approximately three hundred searchlights, over each of the Ruhr targets that is Cologne, Essen, Stuttgart, we did nineteen trips altogether into the Ruhr, so we were fairly familiar with what to expect and what it was like over the Ruhr. But, we, on one occasion we were to fly to West Brunswick and drop a load there that's getting over towards the Russian side, and on the approach as soon as I opened the bomb doors our four thousand pound cookie dropped off and of course it was photographed, when we came back we reported that and they, the squadron people thought we might have dropped it in the North sea, as that had happened in several cases where crews had dropped their cookie over the north sea, because that was the most dangerous bomb we carried, and after several investigations during which time they were going to court martial me for doing that, or for dropping the bomb illegally before we got to the target, and finally I demanded a review on the plane and the bombing leader came with me and we had the engineer leader underneath the plane and I went through the procedure of dropping the bombs, and suddenly as the wiper wound round over the bombing station the engineer officer yelled out quite loudly, we checked with him and he had put his hand up on the the release station for the four thousand pounder and in doing so he received quite a bad shock. So they checked and they found that the wiring through he floor had frayed a little bit, and when the release was activated, or when the bomb bay was opened, power went through and fired the cookie station and dropped it away, they checked the planes on the squadron and there were about twelve Lancasters were in the same condition, and they had to renew the wiring, so they didn’t even say sorry about that but anyway we carried on. The last trip we had was to Wanne-Eickel in the middle of the Ruhr once again a oil, [hesitation] oil plant, and being the senior, one of the senior crews and the last operation for us, the, we were given the right flank and A flight commander was in the middle, and C flight commander was on the left flank, and we led Bomber Command through the target. We were flying at eighteen and a half thousand feet and had just dropped the bombs, when there was a terrific, quite a sharp explosion and then ‘Laurie Laurie quick’ and of course I shot back, I knew it had come from the pilot and I found him slumped over the controls and we were going into a dive, and he had a shell splinter had gone in just under the left eye, and it would be about two and a half to three inches long, and almost the size of an ordinary finger, and anyway I pulled the stick back so that we weren’t diving, and then the engineer and the navigation leader who was our navigator on that particular trip, lifted him from his seat, and laid him on the floor just beside the pilots seat and I took over. He had given me a ten minute [hesitation] shall we say a go at the controls, ten minute flying to see if I was able to fly a Lancaster, and from that he designated me as the, if he was in trouble that I was to be the one to take over. So on this particular occasion, so I took over with ten minutes flying experience, the one compass had been damaged, one had been toppled, and having been a boy scout I knew how to get a bearing from my watch, and fortunately we were still above cloud, and by lining the watch six and twelve in line with the sun I was able then to work out from my watch a course to fly back to Manston in, on the heel of England, so on the way back it was necessary to get the plane down below oxygen height so that [coughs] the engineering leader could, and the [hesitation] flight engineer, [corrects self] the navigation leader and the flight engineer could patch up the skipper, and so they stopped the bleeding as much as they could, he was bleeding out through the wound, through the mouth and through the nose, and I suppose because the shell splinter had been white hot when it went in, it seemed to seal off the bleeding because the bleeding stopped almost instantly, and so despite very rough flying conditions, and thoughts of whether I would be home or not and then telling myself to knuckle down I had a job to do, we carried on and the, to get down below height I had to select a break in the clouds, and so when one came up I put the nose down and we went down through a little bit of cloud, and then it thickened up and we were icing up very badly and the mid upper gunner was telling me, were icing badly we’d better get out of it, so I pulled back on the stick and we came out of the cloud, instead of flying straight and level we were practically over on one side, so I wasn’t going to circle or anything like that to try and get down through the cloud to a lower height, so I waited for the next break and then I put the nose down before we got to the break, sort of estimating that I would come into clear air about half way down, which did happen but once again the engineer [corrects self] the mid upper gunner got very excited because we were icing up badly and of course with a whole lot of ice on the plane you just crash, there is no way of keeping the plane flying, but we broke into clear air fortunately and then getting down towards the bottom, I had to go into cloud again and once again heavy icing but it was, in my opinion I just kept going and we broke through the cloud, and we were very close to the French coast flying under the cloud at fifteen hundred feet and I asked the navigator to take a fix half way across the channel, and that was the first, first input from the navigation on how we should be flying or what course we should be flying and I changed, or he gave the position, change course five degrees to starboard, which I did do and then as we crossed the coast the runway at Manston was directly underneath us, or directly ahead of us, so I had been thinking about it, worrying about the crew and so I spoke to them and said I am going to try and save Ted try and land and if you want to bail out I’ll take the plane up to minimum bailing out height of three thousand feet, firstly the rear gunner came on and said he volunteered to stay, and then the others one by one volunteered to stay. So with the aid of the engineer coming into land we got down to about a hundred feet with the fifteen degrees of flap, and everything all set and then he lowered the under cart, and as it went down of course the plane shakes and the pilot got the idea that he wanted to, by that time he was conscious, he had been unconscious most of the way because the navigator had given him on my command a hmm [hesitates] an injection of morphine, and many years later he said he couldn’t do that [slight laughter] and I remember quite distinctly saying when he said he couldn’t do it, I said ‘you bloody well do it because I’ve got to try and fly this plane and I can’t get down to do this injection too’ anyway we lifted him back into the seat and he made a perfect landing and then, but then halfway down along the runway in the landing, he collapsed over the controls so the engineer and I closed the motors down and turned everything off, we ran to a standstill and the ambulance people came and took him out to the hospital , where two eye specialists and a bone specialist operated on him next day and removed the, the [hesitation] shell splinter and for the next six months he slept with his, his left eye open and he recovered ok. We were flown back to Binbrook, by a Flying Officer Woods who was a new pilot on the squadron, and then I was sent down to London to be measured for my uniform, and after I came back I had two days leave and was recalled to do an air sea officers rescue course at Blackpool, and there it was when I was there a few days, when word came through that I had been awarded an immediate Distinguished Flying Cross, and of course the station there was commanded by a lieutenant commander from the Royal Navy so he spliced the main brace and great celebrations and they had sent a ribbon of the DFC for me and I took it home and, put it away in my bag and next day I went back to school, and he was waiting at the front door and he said ‘where’s your decoration ribbon?’ and I said ‘its home in the bag’ and he said ‘ well, from here on that’s part of your uniform, and if you don’t wear it next time you come here I will put you on a charge’ hmmmm, so I thought, didn’t think much of Royal Navy fellas you know, but I didn’t realise a decoration had to be worn as part of your uniform once you were, [hesitation] once you knew or had been advised of it. Then after the course was finished Runstead, General Runstead, had made the breakthrough almost to the coast and been turned back, so it was decided that the squadrons would not be having an air sea rescue officer because at that stage of the war, they, the powers that be decided that it wasn’t really necessary. So then I was sent to the aircrew allocation at Brackla, where we did a six weeks, sort of investigation whether, how we were placed and how we were, and all that sort of thing and they offered me a six weeks, [hesitation] sorry, they offered me a six year navigation course at Cranwell, and, or repatriation to Australia and as the Japanese war was still going on I said ok repatriation to Australia. So I returned to Australia, we did not get very much of a reception there were no brass bands to meet us and we found that it was a little bit of resentment against those returning from the European theatre, and we were very conscious of the fact that during our time on the squadron there had been a lot of fellows who had received white feathers signifying cowardice because we had not been fighting for the Japanese, and there was one case in particular a fella by the name of Ren Stobo who was a bomb aimer and the bombing leader had asked me to mentor him on the squadron and for maybe about six weeks he and I were together all the time we took his skipper on his first familiarisation trip over Germany and then on a trip, we came, when we came back just after this, we came back and the fog had closed in so we were diverted to another drome and then we were diverted to Water beach, a Liberator drome there they had wonderful food compared with us, the food that we were having, and the problem was they didn’t have any beds so we slept on the floor in the mess, some of the fellas who were lucky enough to get an armchair they were a bit lucky, we, the rest of us slept on the floor, the next morning when we came out, after breakfast to fly back home, the yanks could not find where to put the fuel in the Lancasters and of course we had the bomb bay doors open to check that everything was ok there, and the yanks were quite amazed they were saying, oh the Liberator carried eighty, eighty, one hundred pound of bombs how much was there? and only a hundred and seventy five thousand pound of bombs, which was a bit more than double the Liberator, anyway when we were taking off I’ve never seen so many cameras in all my life there were probably two or three hundred of them all lined up round the, [hesitation] the approach to the runway taking photographs of these battle scarred Lancasters. Anyway we got back and this Ren Stobo and his crew was reported missing, and they got down too low and they crashed into a hill very close to the drome and the mid upper gunner who had been injured over the target and was unconscious was blown in his turret a half a mile, and landed in a tree, and when he came to, he thought he was still over Germany and had to be careful, so he didn’t realise he was up the tree and he got out of his turret and of course dropped to the ground, hurt both his ankles, and it was daylight and he saw a two story house over a little way and there was an old fella digging some potatoes in the field, and down inside our boot we had a razor sharp knife that was used to cut the top off our boot to make it look like we had peasant boots, and so he cut the top off his boots and then he hobbled over and he grabbed this old fella put his arm round his, put his arm round the old fellas neck, held the knife to his throat, and because we had a little card that had German and French written on it, he asked in German ‘where am I?’ and the old fella didn’t answer, and then he asked him in French ‘where am I?’ and the old fella still didn’t answer so, Jack Cannon, was the mid upper gunners name, he was a sports writer on the Age in Melbourne, and when he hadn’t received an answer he said ‘ I wish these old bastards could speak English’ and the old fella sais ‘thee be in Norfolk lad, over yonder is Kings Lynn’ so they got the police and others and they thought he might have been a German spy dropped into the place but they, after interrogating him they cleared him ok, now Jack Cannon returned to Australia and about 1985 he went back and there was a young lady who had been there and knew all about him from his original landing there, she showed him where the parachute was buried, and looked after him and that’s how they discovered that he had blown half a mile in his, in his turret. Anyway I left Tasmania in 1956 and I went to Northern New South Wales and I was there till 1980 then I moved to Brisbane, in 19, 1990 the, they were having a reunion in Brisbane and I had joined up with 460 squadron, and Christmas morning of 1989 I suppose it would be, I got a phone call and a fella says ‘is that Laurie Woods?’ yes, ‘were you on 460 squadron? Did you fly in K2 the Lancaster K2 the killer? Yes ‘Ah was Peter O’Dell your engineer?’ yes ‘ well I’m Clive Eaton his son in law’ and I said ‘oh, where’s Peter O’Dell then?’ he said ‘oh he’s right here’ so for the first time in hmmm, 45 years I spoke with Peter O’Dell our engineer, and I during the course of the conversation, I said to Peter ‘why don’t you and your wife come to Brisbane in a couple of months time to the reunion’ so Peter said he would think about it, a couple of days later I got a phone call to say yes he and his wife Lorna, were coming to Brisbane, so they came for six weeks attended this reunion and we renewed our mateship I suppose you could call it, as we had been flying together for around about 8 months, and back home they came, just after that they had a, our annual meeting of 460 squadron for Queensland and the president said would someone else like to take over he said ‘I’ve had this reunion over and I feel someone else might like to take over’ so I put my hand up, and I was appointed as the 460 squadron president for Queensland, the Queensland branch, and so up to that date I hadn’t talked about, I couldn’t talk about my war experiences and I, because I was asked to go to schools and talk to school children and various other places, I gradually got that I could talk about it, and several times I got asked questions that I couldn’t possibly answer, it was, it just seemed to upset my whole system and so. G for George the Lancaster in the Australian war memorial in Canberra had been re-furbished and was being, going to be put back into the war memorial in 2003, December 2003, December the 6th 2003, so I had helped in organising a reunion in Sydney and I said to these fellows ‘What about a reunion in Canberra for the re-introduction of G for George?’ So they thought it would be a good idea but they couldn’t do it, and Western Australia couldn’t do it, South Australia couldn’t do it, and I said ‘ well I will’ and the reunion at that stage was about 330 people, members of 460 squadron and wives, and I approached this the cheapest way, and the most satisfactory way was to approach the Dutch ambassador because of the Manna drop of food to the starving Dutch people in, [hesitation] in the end of March 1945, when a thousand Dutch people were dying every day because of lack of food, and so the Dutch ambassador said ok, luncheon engagement, and of course we had to talk, and the minister for veteran affairs who organised a dinner and a visit to the memorial hall in parliament house in Canberra, and then we had a welcome dinner which was attended by the minister for veteran affairs, and I had a phone call from Group Captain at that stage Group Captain Angus Houston, and he was the commander of the Australian air force at that stage. He came and he enjoyed it so much, but he couldn’t leave until the minister for veteran affairs left, so I asked her when she would like to leave and she said ‘oh it depends on Angus’ so it depended on both of them, and they stayed till after 10 o’clock, which was quite a feather in our hat, but Angus during the course of the evening told me that his father had been taken prisoner, he was in the British army and had been flown back to England by a Lancaster, but he wasn’t sure and he never ever came up with an answer what squadron, anyway Angus was going off to the middle east the following day and they left a bit after 10 o’clock. The Lancaster of course, we had a preview of it, we were the first persons to go in there and see the Lancaster and it was pretty terrific to catch up with the Lancaster once again, its something that the, I think all the aircrew of bomber command who flew in Lancasters think that the Lancaster was such a wonderful plane, and its very moving to go and see, and just stare, well as a case in point we, my wife and I came to England, and we stayed with the engineer and his wife and we went to one of the museums where there was a Lancaster, and we were standing there, we walked all round it and we’re standing there looking and I don’t know for how long and then our wives came along and said ‘when are you two fellas going to move we’ve been here long enough’ but it was just [hesitation] well, I don’t know what you would say, but it was such a moving experience to see another Lancaster, Wonderful! However after writing that book, and I kept on getting questions I had a website 460 squadron RAAF.com, after getting all these questions on the website, and whenever I gave a talk I thought well there’s a lot of, a lot of interesting stories, wonderful stories really, and so I decided I should sit down and I wrote a further three books on the bomber command, and this is one reason I suppose the government have awarded me Australia medal which is the equivalent of an OBE, and I return to Australia because one week from today on the 8th of May 2015, I go to government house in Queensland to be presented with my award. But I find that it is very much a closure for a lot of people, I have been kissed, cuddled, squeezed by the women, fortunately not by the men, but the men have shaken my hand that many times and I’ve had my photo taken, I don’t object I think that people, if they want to take my photo, ok, I always wear my medals for the book signing but, I was at a book signing shopping centre, and a person came along and they said ‘ah, do you know Joe Harman?’ no I don’t ‘well he’s got an interesting story you should look him up’ so I [inaudible] pulled out this one book at opened it up, I said ‘is this the fella you’re talking about? Joe Harman’ ah yes, he got a DFC but he was one of the smart [laughter] smart pilots, they’re all smart [laughter]pilots, and he had given the order, they were on fire over a target and he’d given the order to bail out and after the last fella had gone he reached for his parachute just as the plane blew up and he was blown out without his parachute into clear air, and he’s coming down and he felt something so he immediately grabbed and it turned out to be his mid upper gunners legs, and they both come down on the one parachute together, almost unbelievable that anyone would risk their life. And then I was at a reunion, at this reunion in Sydney, and a fella Harold Joplin who was there his, were talking and of a particular target and he said ‘we were over there’ I think he said first over or second over and I said ‘ I don’t think, I think we were in front of you’ so we had a bit of an argument and I said to him ‘well what do you, what was your most memorable experience in the air force?’ he said ‘ well on that target we were shot down’ I said ‘what happened?’ and he said ‘well they, we were hit and we were on fire so I gave the order to bail out’ and he said ‘everybody had bailed out’ and then the mid upper gunner tapped him on the shoulder, and said ok skipper its time to go, and the mid upper gunner Don Annett turned round and he walked back through the, the plane on fire to the door where we entered the Lancaster, and picked up the pilots parachute went back hooked it on him and he said ‘ ok now skipper we can go’ so they jumped and on the way down of course the plane was circling on fire and crashed, and Harold Joplin the pilot landed in the middle of a street, just as a German patrol came through looking for him or looking for any of them, so he had dumped his parachute and he joined in on the back end of this German patrol looking for himself, one of the German soldiers said something to him and he said ‘ya ya’ and that sort of satisfied the German fella, came to a little side street and Harold shot down this side street and there was a field of corn at the end of it, he hid, he hid in there for 3 days and the resistance people found him, and he joined them then on a couple of the raids, and a couple of them said to him ‘if we had a gun carriage or tank or something like that we could probably do a lot more damage’ so next morning Harold disappeared, a couple of days later he turned up again, riding a tank down the middle of the main street, and so he joined them in another couple of raids and then they, he said he wanted to get back to England because once you’ve been flying you want to keep on flying, and you had six weeks on and then six days off in that six weeks on of course it was all on, six days off no matter where you were you would see bomber command going out and the first 3 days I personally found, I thought oh, good luck fellas, the next 3 days I’d see them going out and think I should be there with them helping them, I should be still flying, anyway, Harold decided he wanted to get back to the squadron back to flying, and so three Belgian girls went to the check point where there were German guards and they flirted with the German guards while Harold went through behind them, and he got back to England and he reported to the squadron and they said, he said he wanted a decoration for Don Annett for what he had done, he thought it was absolutely fantastic that a man should go back through a plane that’s on fire, all the others had bailed out and get his parachute and bring it forward and save his life, and they said well were there witnesses? And he said ‘well I told you everybody had bailed out and Don came forward to bail out, he and myself were the only two left in the plane’ well, sorry about that we can’t do anything without a witness, and we cannot accept your word that he was there as a witness. So that was that, but that is, a couple of the stories that stand out in my mind there is of course many many stories like that and well in writing five books you can imagine there’s a lot of stories like that I came across that I could not believe that these fellas had survived, and yet they had done so, and I found that it was very much a closure for a lot of people to be able to come along and just talk to me or buy a book and, or have their photo taken with me, and so it has been a dedication of my life for the past [pause] hmmm 25 years on preserving the name of 460 squadron, Bomber command association might not agree with me, but on the records 460 squadron Australian Lancasters was the top squadron in bomber command, unfortunately we were the second highest in casualties but, we were commanded by Group Captain Edwards the VC man and out motto was, ‘press on regardless’ and I suppose his actions on that Gelsenkirchen trip would be enough to pass on to anyone, as Burt Uren [?]said he flew round afterwards and he was saying ‘come up here you bastards, come up here you bastards, let me get at you come on, come up here and have a go’ but that I think was the attitude of a lot of Australians, when we lost fifty percent like everyone else, but the survivors were very very happy that they had done, what they had done, and I think it was pretty universal that the majority of them would not talk anything of their actual fighting experiences, but anything like any fun that was top of the bill, we had a pilot who decided he wanted to go and use the toilet or as it was called the Elson down the back end of the Lancaster, so he put one of his crew into the seat to fly straight and level while he went back, he got back there and don’t know whether it was a little bit of roughness or a bit of movement by the non skilled pilot, he sat down on the seat and at forty degrees centigrade, [corrects self] minus forty degrees, if you touch metal with bare skin you stick to it so he stuck to the seat and he had to get three of his crew to haul him off and left a ring of skin of course, on the toilet seat, so for one month he was eating and drinking or whatever off a shelf high enough, like a mantle shelf or whatever, and he was continually asked how is the decoration going [slight background laughter] I’ve just forgotten what it was called but everybody knew this pilot could not sit down, and that he had lost a ring of skin off his bottom. All part of the game lot of fun, flying in bomber command was fantastic, the Lancaster was fantastic, it was a part of a job that we had to do we had volunteered to do it, and I think most of us afterwards appreciated the fact that we had survived, and that we had done something worthwhile in our life, I think, that after the war I had a pretty good time up until the, I turned about [hesitation] ooh about 1968, 46, I had a breakdown, and I was taken into hospital and they gave me shock treatment, and then fed me I class them as suicide pills, I felt like I wanted to end it all, but I had a wife and daughter that I needed to look after and a friend came by and he said ‘ why don’t you throw those medications they gave you into the river?’ I thought about it for a couple of days and I threw them away and for about one month I suffered withdrawal system [corrects self] symptoms, and I think that in many cases the medications that are given to fellas who are suffering from, oh what do they - PSD, or whatever they call it today, medications are the wrong type of medications and my advice to many of the fellows has been, write it down on a piece of paper and then, even if you throw the paper in the bin afterwards at least you’ve told someone and it does relieve a lot, because I found writing these books has taken a lot of that out of my mind and I have survived quite ok. And in doing the work I have it is only this Australian medal like an OBE, has been very satisfying and has helped me a lot in my life, I had just recently, a fella came up to me at Carandale and he was carrying his little girl on his shoulder, and I said ‘ when I came back from the war, my daughter was two years old and I carried her on my shoulder just like that’ and he said ‘I don’t like shopping centres’ and I thought that’s a strange thing to say and I said ‘ why don’t you like the shopping centres?’ and he said ‘well I’m just back from Afghanistan and everyone is coming toward me, or most of them, I think I wonder if they’ve got a knife or I wonder if they’ve got a gun’ and he said ‘ I just want to get her away out of the shopping centre, it just sends me completely’. Well I dunno I think I’ve said enough and so my name Laurie Woods of Australia of ex 460 squadron RAAF bomber command thank you for the opportunity of speaking with you.
MJ: This is Michael Jeffery at the interview with Laurie Woods on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre I would like to thank him for his recording on the date of the 1st of May 2015 on the time of 12.30, thank you.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AWoodsL150428
Title
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Interview with Laurie Woods
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:06:17 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-01
Description
An account of the resource
Flying Officer Laurie Woods DFC was born in Deloraine, Tasmania, in 1922. He grew up in Tasmania, and at the age of eighteen, despite being in a reserved occupation, he volunteered for Air Crew in the Royal Australian Air Force. Initially training in Victoria, then Somers, he achieved high scores in his maths exams and was put forward for Navigator or Observer. During training flights over Spencers Gulf in Anson aircraft, they were tasked with spotting Japanese submarines. He received his Observers wing and was promoted to Sergeant, then selected to go to England. He travelled from Victoria on an American cargo ship, via Sydney and Brisbane to Myles Standish, America, awaiting transportation to England. He eventually arrived at Brighton via Grenoch, just as Lord Haw Haw announced an operation on Brighton. He was then posted to West Freugh flying Ansons, then to operational training units flying Wellingtons. His crew were allocated the Lancaster K2 in 460 Squadron. The operations included, leaflet drops over Paris, Mailly le Camp, railway and oil installations in the Ruhr Valley, Gelsenkirchen, West Brunswick, and his last operation Wanne-Eickel. On his last operation he took over from the pilot who had been injured and flew the aircraft home. The pilot recovered sufficiently to land the aircraft and Laurie was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also talks about being afraid going on operations, and how, many years later he suffered a breakdown because of his experiences. Laurie is President of Queensland 460 Squadron Association and has written a number of books about his experiences. In Australia he has been awarded the Order of Australia.
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
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Linda Saunders
460 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Lancaster
memorial
navigator
observer
propaganda
sanitation
submarine
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/275/3824/PHughesAM15020005.1.jpg
df2cb2acad161eddc4998ddc0397fcb3
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
Hughes, Angas
Angas Hughes
Angas M Hughes
A M Hughes
A Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
29 items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Angas Murray Hughes (b. 1923, 417845 Royal Australian Air Force), his logbook, prisoner of war identity cards and dog tags, two memoirs and 21 photographs. Angas Hughes flew 32 operations as a bomb aimer with 467 Squadron from RAF Waddington. One of the aircraft he flew in was Lancaster R5868, S-Sugar, now at RAF Hendon. He was shot down in September 1944 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angas Hughes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Hughes, AM
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Angas Hughes family
Description
An account of the resource
Two airmen both wearing tunics with observer brevet and sergeant stripes stand either side of a woman and a young girl in the entrance-way to a building. The woman has her hand on the shoulder of the left hand sergeant and is wearing a dress and glasses. The young girls is wearing a dress and is standing on a white wall. In the background a small wall attached to a brick building. Angas Hughes is on the left standing next to his mother.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PHughesAM15020005
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
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.
aircrew
observer
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/275/3825/PHughesAM15020006.2.jpg
4a1a64f1f73d90039b220e8c633696b5
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
Hughes, Angas
Angas Hughes
Angas M Hughes
A M Hughes
A Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
29 items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Angas Murray Hughes (b. 1923, 417845 Royal Australian Air Force), his logbook, prisoner of war identity cards and dog tags, two memoirs and 21 photographs. Angas Hughes flew 32 operations as a bomb aimer with 467 Squadron from RAF Waddington. One of the aircraft he flew in was Lancaster R5868, S-Sugar, now at RAF Hendon. He was shot down in September 1944 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angas Hughes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Hughes, AM
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Angas Hughes and family
Description
An account of the resource
Two sergeants in tunic with observer brevets stand either side of a woman and a young girl. In front is a wheelbarrow filled with kitbags. The woman in dress and wearing glasses stands behind the wheelbarrow. The young girl wearing a dress sits atop the kitbags. In the background a rush fence and the side of a brick building. Angas Hughes is on the left next to his mother.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
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PHughesAM15020006
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 Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
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.
aircrew
observer
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/275/3836/PHughesAM1506.2.jpg
b555e05e54942e0a8807550d5728d11f
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
Hughes, Angas
Angas Hughes
Angas M Hughes
A M Hughes
A Hughes
Description
An account of the resource
29 items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Angas Murray Hughes (b. 1923, 417845 Royal Australian Air Force), his logbook, prisoner of war identity cards and dog tags, two memoirs and 21 photographs. Angas Hughes flew 32 operations as a bomb aimer with 467 Squadron from RAF Waddington. One of the aircraft he flew in was Lancaster R5868, S-Sugar, now at RAF Hendon. He was shot down in September 1944 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angas Hughes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
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. 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hughes, AM
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Leaving Home to go overseas
Angas Hughes with his mother
Description
An account of the resource
Two sergeants in tunics with observer brevet stand either side of a woman and a young girl. In front is a wheelbarrow filled with kitbags. The woman in dress and wearing glasses stands behind the wheelbarrow. The young girl wearing a dress sits atop the kitbags. In the background a rush fence and the side of a brick building. Captioned 'Leaving home to go overseas, No petrol car up on blocks. No Taxis, Wheelbarrow to carry bags to train station, My mother & myself, Ken [....] DFC [....]'.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
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One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHughesAM1506
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 Australian Air Force
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
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/358/6094/AHayleyCA160224.2.mp3
24880b7e4d452a04df441ffcc72a2c71
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
Hayley, Jack
Jack Hayley
C A Hayley
Cecil A Hayley
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Collection consists of a log book, an interview and other items concerning Flight Lieutenant Cecil 'Jack' Alison Hayley DFC. Items include photographs of aircraft and people, a letter concerning his Distinguished Flying Cross and well as newspaper cuttings concerning operations, his wedding and the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. After training he completed tours on 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern, then 170 Squadron at RAF Hemswell before going on to a bomber defence training flight flying Hurricanes and Spitfires.
This collection was donated by Jack Hayley and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hayley, CA
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-25
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the, Thursday the 25th of February 2016 and I’m sitting here with John Longstaff-Ellis talking to Cecil Alison Hayley.
JCAH: No.
CB: Otherwise known as Jack and his wife Barbara about Jack’s experiences in the war but can we just start in your earliest recollections Jack?
JCAH: Yes.
CB: Of family life and -
JCAH: Yes.
CB: And how you came to join the RAF.
JCAH: Yes. Yes. Well, I was born in Caterham as I say. My father had an ironmonger’s business in the Croydon Road, Caterham it’s, ‘cause there was lower Caterham and upper Caterham. We were in the lower, lower Caterham and I was I was born over the shop, over the ironmonger’s shop. So earliest recollections I was the youngest of three boys and I was five years younger than my eldest and three and a half years younger than my, the middle one. Harold was the eldest and Leslie was the middle one. I have very few recollections of life before primary school which was at Caterham Board School they called it. It’s on Croydon Road, Caterham which I suppose I started when I was, I don’t know, five I suppose and then, well while I was there I, my interest in those early days, well when I was old enough was Scouting. I started off as a Wolf Cub and went on to Scouting but can I just I stop there.
[machine paused]
JCAH: The thing is my secondary school, ok. So if we could start again. Are you ready to start again?
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: Ok. Right. I I went to my secondary school which was Purley County School which, when I started there was near Purley but they had, had to extend the school and make a completely new building and the new school was built at Chalden and I used to cycle from Caterham up, because it was up on the hill, I had to go through Caterham on the hill and I was interested in rugby, I used to play rugby. I wasn’t very interested in cricket but I did join the school cadet corps when I was at Purley County School and I learned to play the bugle there in the band. So that took me up to the age of eighteen when I left school which was 1938, no, seventeen, that’s right. 1938. And my first job was with a small insurance company in the city and our offices were in the Royal Exchange and I was on the mezzanine floor looking out of the window right across to the Bank and Bank Square, the Mansion House and the Bank of England. It was a beautiful position to be in. Anyway, I suppose I was there until, where are we, ‘39, probably 1940, the office, oh no it was before the war they, in 1938 they obviously decided they would move out of London and we moved to Aylesbury and the offices at Aylesbury and my wife happened to be the secretary to the district manager at at the branch there at Aylesbury and she managed to fix me up with accommodation in Stoke Mandeville, Moat Farm and I was well fed there during the war. It was a lovely place to be. Anyway, we, my wife and I, her parents were farming in Weston Turville and I used to enjoy going over to the farm and taking part in the farming activities and eventually, well we got engaged so now we’re coming up, I, of course, I was eighteen when war broke and, but it wasn’t, for some reason or other it wasn’t ‘til 1941 they started taking any interest in me and my service and I had interviews and I, at that time I hadn’t any great ambition to go flying because my family history was in, in the navy and I assumed perhaps I would go in to the navy. But then they were desperate to get young, young chaps to join as air crew so I was persuaded to join the air force and my first, I had to report to the Lord’s Cricket Ground at St John’s, St John’s Wood which was the, what they called the Number 1 Air Crew Receiving Centre which was abbreviated as ACRC and in typical RAF slang became marcy tarcy [laughs]. So, yes I was probably there for probably two or three weeks getting kitted out and being introduced to RAF life and from my first part of training was Initial Training Wing at Newquay in Cornwall and there I did our usual square bashing and getting training in aircraft recognition and Morse, all these sort of things before, so I was probably there four or five months I suppose in Newquay and then yes I heard that I was being, of course by this time of course I knew I’d been selected for air crew training but then we had to go through what they called a grading school which was at Cliffe Pypard near, near Lyneham. Up on the top of the hill. A little small airfield and I think we flew Magisters there and we had twelve hours in which to go solo and if we didn’t go solo, unless there was any other particular reason, you continue pilot training then we were selected for pilot training and of course the alternative was trained as a navigator. So Cliffe Pypard. Yes. Could I just stop a minute there?
[machine paused]
JCAH: So from there we were sent to Heaton Park in Manchester which was the Air Crew Disposal, Dispersal Centre and eventually we were allocated to a convoy going out from Glasgow to take us across, across the Atlantic to Canada. We actually landed in New York and took the train up to Monkton in New Brunswick where we were held pending being sent on to our first training station. So I was there about a couple of weeks and then we took a train journey from New Brunswick across to Calgary and I think we started on the Monday and we got there on the Friday [laughs]. The only main stop we had was at Winnipeg where I think we changed trains and the local ladies were very good to us and came along with all sorts of goodies and they treated us very well and from there we went on to Calgary. I think it was the Friday we arrived and of course the steam trains then were fired by, by wood. Wood fired steam trains, and we used to wake up every morning covered in wood soot. Not a very comfortable journey. Anyway, so having arrived at Calgary we were posted to the 31 Elementary Flying Training School at De Winton where we flew Stearmans mostly. Boeing Stearmans during the day but we also flew Tiger Moths. The American, the Canadian Tiger Moth which had the luxury of a canopy above us instead of being an open cockpit and we used, we used to fly those mainly to introduce us to instrument flying but the main training was on the Stearmans so that took us from September ’42 to, yes to the end of November ‘42 when we were, I was posted to Number 38 Flying Training School at Estevan in Saskatchewan in the middle of the prairies in the middle of the winter. It was pretty harsh but it’s surprising how we coped really and of course the accommodation was all centrally heated you know. Anyway, so we were flying the Anson there. The Canadian Anson with the Jacob engines and it had the luxury of hydraulic undercarriage instead of, you know the British Anson you wound up as well. I don’t know. About eighty winds. So that was, but it’s interesting as well of course a lot of the time we were landing on snow which was very, you had very little references to judge your height and it was a good, good training. And well we did all the normal things. Cross country training of course, instrument flying as well as all our ground training in navigation. Did a lot of Morse code training, aircraft recognition, those sort of things and eventually we completed, I completed my training in April ‘43 and qualified for my wings which I was very proud of and then we were returned to Monkton to the dispersal centre at Monkton for our return journey across the Atlantic and while we were there there was, I remember this, Jimmy Edwards had been training out there and he and a few others managed to get together and produce a show for us which was good fun. Anyway, so we, I was going to say on our outward cruise we had a bit of a panic because one of the ships was torpedoed and it wasn’t ‘til after we got back that there was a news item in the new New York papers of the torpedoing of this ship, it was a cargo ship who managed to struggle into New York so that was interesting. But of course I, whilst I was at Monkton I was commissioned before I came home and so the journey home was far more luxurious in the Ile de France. It was, had been converted into a troop ship so yes we were living in luxury. A little episode, if I could go back to the outward cruise. We were in an American convoy and the sister ship of the one we were in had been, gone down with fire so there were very strict no smoking rules on deck, no below deck. You could smoke above deck and I was caught smoking below deck and my punishment was to work in the kitchen which, this was the officer’s mess and it was nice to pick all up the titbits, the luxury titbits such as oysters, fried oysters. So it wasn’t a bad punishment. Anyway, returning, the home trip was as I say very comfortable and so we, let’s see, we, the first posting was to Harrogate which was another personnel receiving centre and then on to Bournemouth for some reason or other and then we started, we went to Little Rissington which is a suburb of, of the big flying training station. No. Yes. No. That’s right we went to Little Rissington and then we were posted to a satellite of Little Rissington at Windrush and there we were flying Oxfords to get acclimatised to a different type of flying in this country as compared with Canada with the wide open spaces and roads that went either north west or east west. North, east, south and east, west. It was quite different and then of course coping with the restricted areas and so on in this country and during that time I, we did some instrument flying training at the Beam, what they called the Beam Approach Training Flight at Docking where we, they had an approach system which was pretty primitive. Anyway, we were only there oh about ten days and then I finished my training at Madly in September ‘43 and was then posted to a radio school at Madly, west of Hereford on the River Wye and there we were flying radio cadets. I was flying the Domini, the RAF version of the Rapide and the other flight was flying Proctors and single aircraft, single engine aircraft. I must say the old Rapide was very reliable and quite nice to fly. The only snag was there was no seat as such. You were just sat on a cushion with your legs stretched out in front of you which after an hour or so could be pretty, you could get a bit stiff. Anyway, it was an interesting period and we could just choose where we flew just as long as getting practice of operating in the air there, the radio equipment and I got to know the area quite well. The Black Mountains and going north to Cheshire and out that way. So that was, that took me up to March 1944 and at that stage I was about to start my operational training but a little incident. I, my wife and I had arranged to get married in November ‘43. Let’s see, ’43 perhaps and but, that’s right, I was at Madley and a week before we were getting married I was told that I was going on a course and it was they called a junior commander’s course and this was up in Inverness and I thought if any course I was going to go on I thought it was going to be an operational course but to spend, to, prior to my wedding arrangements for the sake of a stupid administrative course was, there was no way I could talk them out of it. Consequently our honeymoon arrangements went by the board and so we got married on the Saturday, yes and that Saturday night we spent in a hotel off The Strand. I think it was the Surrey Hotel if I remember rightly and most of the night was spent in the basement because of the air raid [laughs]. So that was my honeymoon night and the following day I, we had to get, I had to get on a train all the way to Inverness which in those days was it was impossible to find a seat on the train so we just had to squat on our kit in the corridor. So all in all that was a bit of a disaster. So having done that I was then posted in March ‘44 to 83 Operational Training Unit at Peplow. That’s in, in the Midlands. And there I flew the Wellington and I was there for about three months. I forget how many hours we flew but one little incident. The Wellington is infamous for its brake pressure. You had to watch your brake pressure all the time and the dispersal areas there were pans, dispersal pans and the land just dropped away from around the dispersal pan and I suddenly discovered I was out of brake pressure and I had to lurch over the side and down the slope, which I got a red endorsement which was eventually cancelled but that was an unfortunate incident. It learned me a lesson. Taught me a lesson. So Peplow [unclear] Park. Air crew. Yes. So having completed training on a Wellington I then went on to the Heavy Conversion Unit at Sandtoft which was in the Hull area. That sort of area. And I suppose we did about thirty or forty hours on the, on the Halifax and then on to the Lancaster Finishing School at Hemswell and that was October ‘44. I was there only for just over two weeks and I had my first training, first appointment to a squadron which was 625 squadron at Kelstern and I was there for nearly two months when 170 squadron was reformed. It was previously a reconnaissance squadron beginning of the war and was disbanded and was reformed at, at Kelstern and I was, we were first of all at a little place called Dunholme Lodge. It was very much a wartime station and it was right alongside, on the, from Scampton on the opposite side of the Ermine Street, the main road to the north and I suppose it was only, I don’t know, might be four miles separating us from Scampton and consequently we had to have a common circuit around both airfields and this all got a bit fraught and I think they decided it was bit too dangerous and we were, I was posted then back to Hemswell and I, well finished my training, finished my tour on 170 squadron on the 15th of April ‘45. If we could just stop there. Yes. Just -
[machine paused]
CB: We’re talking about Lancaster and Halifax so -
JCAH: Yes.
CB: How, what, what were the differences between those then Jack?
JCAH: Well I mean -
CB: And which did you like?
JCAH: The Halifax was quite a heavy aircraft to fly and quite difficult to land successfully. It was quite hard work but the Lancaster was quite different. It was so easily controlled. The controls were more positive but not, not heavy and the manoeuvrability was so much better than the Halifax and the, I suppose as far as the air crew positons it was the same, similar. It simply, you had a Perspex canopy over you as pilot and of course no heating. You just relied on winter clothing to keep warm. So, no, the experience of training, going on to Lancasters was quite remarkable really. The sheer manoeuvrability and particularly when it come to using corkscrews to avoid fighters. Giving maximum deflection all the time. But no so as far as -
CB: What about rate of climb? Was there a difference in that?
JCAH: Yes. I think probably it was better. I think, I think with the four Merlins I can’t remember what the Halifax had in the way of engines.
CB: Well the early ones had Merlins and then they went to -
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: The Bristol Mercuries. .
JCAH: Yes. Hercules.
CB: The Hercules. Yes.
JCAH: Yeah. No. I think it had a climbing and of course I suppose the maximum ceiling was around about twenty thousand feet. We were normally operating, I suppose, about eighteen, eighteen thousand feet. That sort of height. So going back, going, talking about actual incidents during my ops I suppose I’ll just of give a summary of -
CB: What was your first raid?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: What was your first raid?
JCAH: Yes. It was with another crew to introduce me to what was, what happened during a bombing raid and this was an operation on Le Havre in daylight. Yes. So 625 squadron I had, I did twelve sorties with 625 before going on to 170 squadron and I did nineteen sorties with 170 squadron. Making a total of thirty one sorties all together and total flying time during my operations was a hundred and eighty one hours. By that time I had just reached a thousand hours altogether when I finished my tour. But I suppose one particular incident comes to mind when we were over Dusseldorf and we were coned by searchlights and of course you’re a sitting duck then to all the ackack anti-aircraft fire in the area and I simply stuck the nose down and called to the engineer for full power and I shall never forgive him saying, ‘What?’ when I was wanting immediate power [laughs] and you see he was questioning what I was saying. I said, ‘Full power,’ and so we just stuck the nose and just got out of the area as quick as possible. But on return we’d no, had no injuries in the crew but the aircraft was pretty well peppered and on landing I realised that my starboard tyre had burst and that was obviously lurching down. I kept it as straight as I could for as long as I could and then I just veered off on to the grass to clear the runway for the other aircraft coming in but looking at it the next morning was, it was out of commission. That, my aircraft was TCD. Our squadron letter was TC and I, I was D-Dog. I don’t think we had a P. TCP [laughs] Anyway, I suppose in about three or four days it was back in working order and I successfully finished my tour. So -
CB: Just -
JCAH: Yes.
CB: Go back on a couple of things.
JCAH: Yes. Ok.
CB: The crews. So you crewed up.
JCAH: Oh yes.
CB: At OTU. How did that work?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: You crewed up at OTU.
JCAH: That’s right.
CB: How did that work?
JCAH: They were just, well we had, no we didn’t have an engineer I don’t think.
CB: No.
JCAH: No. No. Just pilot, navigator, signaller and I think we had one gunner. That’s right. But then going on to the heavy aircraft we were, we were seven. Pilot, flight engineer, navigator, radio operator, bomb aimer and two gunners. Mid-up and two guns. Seven. No. It’s amazing how crew selection, we were just left to mix with each other and somehow we gelled and and I I was very successful, very lucky with my crew I think. My navigator in particular. He was, he was excellent. There was one occasion when we had no aids at all from the target, I forget which target it was and we were completely on dead reckoning radar based on past information on winds and so on but he got us home safely and we managed to recognise landfall on the English coast and got in safely but no, I was, and I was glad that I was eventually awarded the DFC and he was awarded the DFC as well. That pleased me no end because he was a great cont, made a good contribution to the operation of the crew. So you just -
CB: So you got, got a crew. Sorry.
JCAH: Sorry? Yes?
CB: Yes, just, you got a crew at OTU. Normally there was six on the Wellington.
JCAH: We didn’t have a -
CB: Yeah. But some flew with four.
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: Was there a shortage of gunners and bomb aimers?
JCAH: I’m just trying to think whether we had two gunners at that stage. That I can’t quite remember. We certainly didn’t have a second pilot but then again -
CB: They were probably -
JCAH: I suppose, did we? I think we must have had a bomb aimer because we had to practice bombing.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: Yes. We must have had a bomb aimer so that was at, on the Wellington.
CB: So when you were at, when the crew selection took place who was, were they gelling on you or how -
JCAH: It’s difficult -
CB: Or had some of them already got together? What happened?
JCAH: We got chatting to one another. I mean they had no means of knowing what my performance as a pilot was like and it was all a question of trust. But as I say it worked out very well. Yeah.
CB: So when you got to the HCU you then got the, a flight engineer.
JCAH: Yes. Flight engineer.
CB: And was he allocated to you or how did that happen?
JCAH: No. I think much the same thing happened. Of course we had a crew then to decide amongst us who we liked really, or who appealed to us.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: So that made it easier so, so -
CB: How many of the crew were commissioned other than you?
JCAH: My navigator was commissioned and strangely enough my mid-upper gunner which was unusual for a gunner, to have a commissioned gunner. And the rest of them were non-commissioned.
CB: And how did the crew get on in the, in flight and -
JCAH: Yes. I think -
CB: In the evening.
JCAH: You had to avoid being too familiar on the operations and you had to be strict on your intercom identifying each other as a pilot and not by name, that sort of thing so there was no misunderstanding. But yes my, yes my radio operator, he was Australian. A young Australian but he gelled very well. In fact we had a Bridge crew on board, the radio operator, the navigator my, the mid-upper, all four of us played bridge and we always had a pack of cards with us when we were sitting around waiting for something to happen which was good fun. So -
CB: Socially? So in the time off did the crew do things together or did there -
JCAH: Oh yes.
CB: Tend to be factions?
JCAH: No. Not at all. Of course we were in separate messes obviously but we were, certainly at Dunholme Lodge, we were billeted as a crew in old nissen huts with a coke boiler in the middle and the fumes that used to come off that boiler were quite, well sulphurous put it that way and not very, but anyway, we survived that but of course our messes, we used separate messes but we used to, in the evenings we used to obviously go out to the pub together and relax.
CB: So you were married. Were any of the others married?
JCAH: My engineer I think was married. My navigator wasn’t then I don’t think. No. No. I think my engineer and I were was the only ones who were married.
CB: Where was your wife during the war?
JCAH: She was in Aylesbury and -
CB: With her parents.
JCAH: Yes. On the farm at Weston Turville. Of course you had to be careful in those days just what you said on the telephone. You couldn’t really say anything about your operational activities at all but no we kept in touch and obviously an anxious time for her. But -
CB: How did you manage to get time together?
JCAH: During the tour I think we only had one occasion when we were, had a period of two or three days leave when we could get together. But I do remember when we were on OTU my wife managed to come and join us. She stayed at a local hotel and she managed to meet my basic crew at that time but that was the only time really we got together. Yeah.
CB: You didn’t manage to get loan of a small plane to fly in to Halton.
JCAH: [laughs]. No. No.
CB: Or Westcott.
JCAH: Yes because my father in law’s farm actually bordered on to the airfield at Halton at Weston Turville and just before the war an auto Gyro crashed.
CB: Right.
JCAH: On the airfield and in their hall they had the joystick from the remains of the auto Gyro I remember. Anyway that’s all a bit irrelevant.
CB: So you finished your tour.
JCAH: Yes.
CB: So that was when?
JCAH: It was February 1944.
CB: Yes. ‘45. ’44.
JCAH: ’45.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: I beg your pardon ‘45 and then there was an extraordinary posting was on to 1687 bomber defence training flights flying Spitfires and Hurricanes if you please. Coming off Lancasters this was quite, quite a different experience but we used to do, practice fighter affiliation.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: On the squadron bombers.
CB: Where was that?
JCAH: That was back at Hemswell strangely enough. Actually yes actually they were at Scampton when I first joined them and then they went back to Hemswell and as I say we used to fly Spitfires during the day and the Hurricanes at night.
CB: Oh did you? What were they like?
JCAH: Well they were, I mean they didn’t compare with the Spitfires. The handling and manoeuvrability. It was a steady, steady old aircraft but the Spitfire was great fun to fly. So manoeuvrable. Mind you there were times when I really didn’t know what I was up to. In fact it was in 19, where are we? ’47. We had the first open day after the war. Hemswell open day and part of the programme was the three of us were doing a tail chase and supposedly bombing a target in the middle of the airfield and the cloud base was only around about a thousand feet and we, all three of us winged over and I suddenly realised I really hadn’t got enough height to pull out of this dive and this hangar was coming out on my right and I was literally [stalling all around this dive?] and I honestly thought that this was it. Anyway, when I taxied in after this flight I had about twenty yards of telegraph wire on my tail wheel which shows you how close I was to the ground.
CB: It thrilled the audience.
JCAH: Oh yes. You know. Highly delighted.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: But I never heard the result of the loss of telephone communications in the area [laughs].
CB: Yes.
JCAH: I never did hear.
CB: What was the significance of having the fighter, the Spitfire for day affiliation and the Hurricane for night?
JCAH: Well really the Spitfire with the narrow undercarriage it was quite tricky to land particularly in a crosswind. It was very, you were sort of teetering all the time whereas the Hurricane the undercarriage went outwards, that’s right and so you had a wider wheel base and they were more stable in the landing process. Apart from that, I think that was the main reason why we used to fly Hurricanes at night. But there were times. The Lancaster used to have little blue lights on the tail side of the wing tips and there were times when I thought I was chasing these two blue lights only to find I was chasing a star. Got into all sort of peculiar situations. So I wasn’t a great night fighter pilot. [laughs]
CB: How long were you there?
JCAH: Let me see. Hurricanes. ’45. Well, I have it in here. Yes. [pause] Yes I was there about eighteen months. Yeah. Yes.
CB: End of ’46.
JCAH: Yes. October ‘46 I finished my tour there.
CB: Then what?
JCAH: Well it disbanded. The unit disbanded and I I was put on to headquarters duties I think. I was, when the chaps were demobbed they had what they called a release book which gave a little history and I had to make a little summary of the person’s history but really not knowing much about them at all but I used to make up some complimentary remarks but that was the main thing I was doing there.
CB: Where was that?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: Where?
JCAH: Still at Hemswell.
CB: Right.
JCAH: As I say Hemswell took up a very big part in my RAF career at that time because then Lincolns were brought into Hemswell and I joined 83 squadron on Lincolns. The intention was they were being trained for operations in the Far East against Japan.
CB: Right.
JCAH: And of course that didn’t come off and so I finished on 83 squadron in March 1949 and it was then that I was posted to Defford. What they called the Telecommunications Flying Unit doing, flying the equipment from the Radar Research Establishment, airborne experience and that really was quite a remarkable unit because they were using aircraft which weren’t required for their original duties. Consequently while I was on the heavy flight, what did I here? So I was flying Lincolns, Yorks, a Tudor 7 and a Wayfarer. This was on the, we had a heavy flight and a light flight, you know, flight and when we had a slack period in heavy flight I used to go across to fly some of the lighter aircraft which included Meteor, Meteor 7, Mosquito, Vampire, Firefly, Canberra, Brigand and we had had some communication aircraft. Valetta and the, the Devon, the service version of the De Havilland Dove which we used for communication flying but I mean on one month I had nine different aircraft on my logbook.
CB: Amazing.
JCAH: But that -
CB: So you enjoyed that.
JCAH: Pardon?
CB: You enjoyed that.
JCAH: Well, it was, it was good fun and it was amazing you used to go across to the light flight and you’d get the handbook out and just chat with the chaps because I mean, well a Mosquito did have two pilots but I mean, the others, the Meteor and the Canberra and the Vampire had all single seat and you couldn’t get any dual training and you just had a chat with the chaps who were flying and read the pilots notes and off you went.
CB: So was the Meteor the first jet that you flew?
JCAH: It was either the Meteor or the Vampire. It looks as though, yes.
CB: And did -
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: And did you go in a training version of that for your first flight in jet?
JCAH: No. I think probably not formal training but went along with one of the other chaps who was flying it regularly. Yes that was quite an experience.
CB: Because the Meteor 7 is a T7 isn’t it?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: The Meteor 7 is a trainer. T7.
JCAH: Oh right.
CB: And –
JCAH: Yes. And, yes, and the Meteor 4 if I can remember. Yes.
CB: Was a single seater.
JCAH: Yes. So that’s the way we went on.
CB: So when did you finish that?
JCAH: Where are we? Yes in May 1952.
CB: What was your wife’s name?
JCAH: Noreen.
CB: Noreen.
JCAH: Noreen.
CB: How is that spelled? N O R E E N.
JCAH: N. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And did she come up to stay with you then at that time? Were there quarters?
JCAH: Yes. Now we’re talking about 1947 and it was only then that we were allowed to make arrangements to live out locally. We were with our wives and families, if you had them and I found a little cottage. It was, well it was attached to a bigger, still a cottage but we were just one up and one down and this was in Kirton Lindsey which was just north of Hemswell and it was about, yes, about seven miles. I used to cycle from there to Hemswell but the extraordinary thing with this little cottage was that the downstairs floor was wooden and the bedroom was a concrete floor. It was quite extraordinary and of course we had a little scullery, a little small scullery which we used as a pantry and an old coal range which we used to cook on. So it was all rather primitive but we were so pleased to be living together and, yes it wasn’t ‘til, yes, that was Hemswell. It wasn’t until I got to Defford that we had official married quarters but being a wartime station there were just single bed accommodation and I think where we were used to be the WAAF area when WAAFs were there and as I say they were just single brick quarters but we had, I think we had two bedrooms and a kitchen and bathroom so it was comparative luxury from our original -
CB: But that was an air force -
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: That was an air force building.
JCAH: Yes. Actually at Defford the, it was a Ministry of Supply station and it was just the aircrew who were the service, RAF element. So the interesting thing was as my, as I say my grandson is in a practice in Malvern.
CB: Malvern.
JCAH: Malvern. Yes. And living in Worcester and we, it was about a couple of years ago we paid a visit to them and I said I would like to go back to the Defford area and see what’s left because the flying discontinued there. They went to, moved to Pershore but there was still they had these big aerial discs on the airfield but I discovered they’d got a little museum there because Defford during the war was a very important station developing all the radar stuff and they’ve got a little exhibition there and my grandson introduced me as being, being there just after the war and they were very interested in this and they were talking about this road, Swimming Pool Road and of course the airfield was built on the Croome Estate, the Earl of Coventry’s estate and the entrance to our mess area was one of the big arches from the estate and the road leading from the arch up to where our mess was was known as Swimming Pool Road and they couldn’t understand this. Anyway, I was able to tell them we had a fire reservoir outside the mess which we took advantage of and used it as a swimming pool and we knew it as well that’s how it got its name but I was able to tell them the origin of the name which is quite interesting. So we’ve diverted a bit.
CB: We have. But after Defford, so May ‘52 where did you go from that?
JCAH: Yes. I went, for my sins I was posted to Germany as a station adjutant at RAF Celle. This was in August ‘52 and it was a big station. We had three flying squadrons with Venoms. They had Vampires and then Venoms and three RAF regiment squadrons and various other [unclear] so it was a big station and a lot of activity of course. Not being au fait with administration it was very daunting to say the least and not only that, one of the subsidiary jobs was married, married quarters, I was responsible for married quarters and the problem of allocating quarters to people who were desperate, you know, to come back from England and get quarters and that caused all sorts of problems but fortunately I hadn’t been there long when they posted a WAAF officer who took over that. That part. But what else? Oh yes I was responsible for the station police and there were some police dogs there and that was all part of my responsibility. So really it was two and a half years but I made some very good friends there at the time. Particularly amongst the RAF regiment squadrons and two particular families I stayed with them until they died. All four of them died now. But as I say, we had, it’s surprising when you’re away from home, posted away from home you make your entertainment in the mess and we had a lot of fun with fancy dress balls and all that sort of thing and there were compensations.
CB: Now this was a former Luftwaffe station.
JCAH: Yes.
CB: So the facilities were pre-war Luftwaffe.
JCAH: Yes. The accommodation -
CB: What was that like?
JCAH: Was very good. Yes. The mess. The mess accommodation was excellent and we had, you know, properly built married quarters. Yeah. That side of it was, was excellent you know. And of course I, I’ve got a, I haven’t mentioned my, the birth of my granddaughter, sorry, my daughter Anthea. Yes we were at -
CB: When was that?
JCAH: Yes, we were at Defford when she arrived. She was originally supposed to be born at a nursing home at Upton on Severn but she was an awful mess. She was upside down and extended and they decided they couldn’t cope with her at the nursing home and I had to take her into Birmingham. This was mid-winter and we’d had a lot of snow and it had thawed and then frozen and I had as my first car was an old standard 10, pre-war standard 10 where the suspension was almost nil. My poor wife driving over this corrugated ice all the way to Birmingham was quite extraordinary. Anyway, she arrived safely on the 5th of June, sorry the 5th of January 1951 and of course I had to wait, when I went out to Germany I had to wait probably three or four months before married accommodation was available but anyway she was, I suppose she was about two. Yeah, ‘53 and we, in those days in Germany you were, you were provided with a housekeeper so, and Renata, our housekeeper she also acted as a nurse to Anthea and they got on, she loved my daughter and it meant that we could go away and leave her with her and go on trips down the Rhine and this sort of thing. So -
CB: So when did you leave Celle?
JCAH: Celle? Yes. It was, my records run out. It was in about March ‘55. Yes I had just about two and a half years out in Germany and I was then posted to Transport Command and –
CB: Where was that?
JCAH: I did a conversion training on Hastings at Dishforth and then I joined 24 squadron at Abingdon on Hastings. I suppose at the end of ‘55. Yeah. The conversion training was only about forty or fifty hours and that was the beginning of another interesting period in my flying career because as I say I was on 24 and we used to say in brackets C Commonwealth squadron because it, they posted quite a few Commonwealth people on 24 squadron and our squadron leader, he was a squadron commander was an Australian and there were various other people from the Commonwealth but most of my experience on Hastings was flying out to Australia to send, fly supplies and personnel to the Woomera guided weapons range and also to the, oh dear, [unclear] they, they were just preparing for the atom bomb going up there.
CB: Christmas Island.
JCAH: Well no. That was the H bomb. This was the first atom bomb. Actually I think they had blown up one. Well this was a big preparation and of course we spent a lot of time, flights, we used to bring supplies and personnel to, we used to fly out of Edinburgh Field, the RAF base near Adelaide and it so happened I did have some relations living in Adelaide so it was quite convenient to be able to look them up but I, we were actually there. Maralinga, that’s right, was the, where the bomb went off and I was actually there when they exploded the atom bomb. That was quite an experience and everybody, every individual had to be accounted for before they set off the bomb and we were told obviously to face away and we were told when we could turn back and see and well it was pretty hefty sound when the bomb went off but the interesting thing was all the, they sent up rockets which left tracers going in different directions to indicate the direction of what was happening to the air following the bomb and the next day, I think it was the next day or might have been the day I was, I had to fly some samples from Maralinga up to Edinburgh. What am I saying? To Darwin. A civil flight to take them back to the UK and I was told how low I could fly. I could fly over the area but it was just like the face of the moon. All arid and, but to see these white clad figures walking across there was quite remarkable and of course the radio just went berserk to some extent and I had a strange feeling of saliva drying up in my mouth. It was quite definite and whether it was the effect of the radio activity, I suppose it must have been. Anyway, that was that and then of course then the H bomb came along and we were supplying, flying supplies out to that out to Christmas Island. Yes. That, let me think. Yes I’ve got to try and recap.
CB: We’ll have a break.
JCAH: Yeah.
[machine paused]
JCAH: Early ‘57 when we were flying out to Christmas Island.
CB: Right.
JCAH: To prepare for the –
CB: You were still on Hastings then.
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: But we used to, while we were on Christmas Island we used to take flights up to Honolulu to fly supplies for the station there. It was mostly boxes of whisky [laughs] but all sorts of things we used to go up to Honolulu to keep the Christmas Island supplied which was quite a nice diversion. So, yes, by then, we started off, 24 squadron started off at Colerne and then they moved, sorry at Abingdon and then we moved to Colerne near Bath and eventually we finished up at Lyneham and by, and then of course the Britannia came along so I joined 99 squadron at Lyneham in August 1959 and started training on the Britannia. So that was 1959. Lots of interesting flights. I know we took the Cranwell cadets out to, I’ll have to see if I can find it, the equivalent, the American air force equivalent of Victors. I wish I could find it now. Anyway, that was quite interesting and we were well looked after by the American air force in, it’s on the east side of the mountains in America. And my mind is beginning to go blank.
CB: Ok.
JCAH: So well that’s all sorts of interesting flights on the Britannia.
CB: So how long were you flying the Britannia?
JCAH: Yes. Let’s have a look. [pause]. 1960 [pause] ‘61. Yes, I finished flying the Britannia in February 1962 and they wanted to make way for the young second pilots coming on to become captains so they decided the older ones would stand down and I then went to Benson on the, at the, in the operations room at Benson which would be ‘62. I’m running out of – and I was there ‘62 to ’64 and I was told I was going to Aden on a year’s unaccompanied tour and, well, I was expecting to retire within the next year or eighteen months and I said, ‘No but I’m retiring shortly.’ And I obviously wanted to do a bit of preparation before leaving the service but no they wouldn’t be moved so I had to spend a year on my own in Aden and that was at the time just before we pulled out and it was getting pretty uncomfortable out there. The bombs being dropped all over the place. In fact we had one occasion where we were in, I was at headquarters Middle East at Steamer Point and on one occasion where a bomb went off in the mess and the chap who was laying it made a mess of it and blew himself up and fortunately nobody else. It was intended to go off later on in the day. And another occasion we were entertaining, it was dining in night and this, I was sitting with some nurses, RAF nurses and this grenade landed on this, this girl’s soup plate and it didn’t go off. Oh dear. And so, but that’s the sort of life we lived out there. It was pretty uncomfortable that year. I did manage to get home, I think for a week, at one period. So that was ‘65 and then my final tour in the RAF I was at Odiham in the ops room there which was then headquarters of 38 Group which was a part of Transport Command. And I always remember watching England win the World Cup on television there while I was there and then I finally retired in 1967.
CB: From Odiham.
JCAH: From Odiham. Yes.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: And, yes, I was just wondering, I mean, I was looking around for some civil appointment and I got to hear about the CAA wanting ex RAF people as operations officers and I managed to pass an interview for that. So, well, that was ‘67 and I started off with the accident and investigation branch, in the Adelphi I remember, in London and then I was, I used to go to court cases where there were people being summoned for low flying and all this sort of thing and I used to be the operational advisor to the legal people but that was only for a short time and then I went in to the licensing department. Of course it was, let me think, yes it was air ministry I think still when I was there. Then it became the Department of Trade and Industry, no, no, became Board of Trade and then finally Department of Trade and Industry. This was the time when Heath was trying to cut down on civil service and he decided that he wanted to offload the air ministry side to another separate authority and that’s when the CAA was formed. So, yes, I was, yes it was quite interesting [flight?] licencing and I eventually chaired ICAO. You know, the International Civil Aviation Organisation was in Montreal and I was put on to a group in, at Montreal to update the licensing aspects of what they called Annexe One of the international convention and this was the, what did they call it? Anyway the licencing aircrew, licensing requirements for the various licenses. There was the commercial pilot’s licence, the air and transport licence and eventually I did chair this committee and we finally produced amendments which I never saw implemented but I gather later that they were, I heard that they were implemented. What was the other thing?
CB: So when did you retire from the, from that?
JCAH: 1984.
CB: 1984.
JCAH: ’84.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: Yes. Yes, it was. I used to get quite a few chaps from the service that I knew who were coming along and I had one chap in particular he, there was the Air Registration Board Examination to qualify to fly a particular aircraft and they had this qualifying exam and he was trying to give me past papers but they just didn’t publish them and he was one of these chaps, you know, he was trying to be clever to try the easy way out. Anyway, that was a minor incident. So I retired on my, virtually on my birthday April ‘84 and I’d been retired about four weeks and my wife died.
CB: Ah.
JCAH: Yes and obviously we’d made all sorts of plans.
CB: Oh dear.
JCAH: And of course I haven’t mentioned how I came to Wokingham. How, to live in Wokingham. It was when I’d finished my tour in Germany we decided we would put our, try and to put some roots down somewhere because my daughter was coming up for schooling and I was going in to Transport Command and be away a lot. Anyway, we went up to the Ideal Home Exhibition and saw these houses and liked the look of them and were told they were being built in Wokingham. I’d never heard of Wokingham. Anyway, we came down and had a look where they were building and the town and we liked it and so that was in 1955. December ‘55 we actually moved in. Where are we? Yes, that’s right, come back, 1955 we actually moved in and I’ve been here ever since in Wokingham but, so having, my wife having died we were living in rented accommodation at the time because we were intending to move to -
BH: I thought you’d look at me. No. I can’t remember.
JCAH: It’s silly. I know the place so well. The name is not, just not coming. I’ll think of it.
CB: Right. Around here was it?
JCAH: Sorry?
CB: Was it around here?
JCAH: No. Up in the Midlands.
CB: Ok.
JCAH: Near Leicester.
CB: Ah.
JCAH: I know the place.
CB: But not in Rutland.
JCAH: Yes. In Rutland and the capital of Rutland was.
CB: Oakham.
JCAH: Oakham. Thank you very much and we’d actually put a deposit down for a house in Oakham. I wasn’t all that keen on it but my wife had become disenchanted with Wokingham and we’d had friends at Cottesmore who we used to visit regularly and of course Rutland Water had been developed then. It was all very nice in that area but in, of course my wife then died while we were still negotiating. The people we were buying from hadn’t got a house and they were trying to find a house. It suited me because I hadn’t actually retired when we, but anyway my wife having died I wasn’t going to move up there on my own and I sold the house and during that period when the prices were really escalating and it did me a good turn financially by this period while we were waiting. Anyway, I was, so I was then looking around for somewhere to live and I came down here and I didn’t know this existed and I thought well this is a nice place. It would be nice here. And I walked down the bottom of the road here and a retired clergyman who used to help us at All Saints Church, he saw me and I told him, you know, I was looking for a house and how nice it was. He invited me in. I walked back up to Wokingham and I met a lady who was my next door but one neighbour in my first house in [Frogall?] Road and she asked me how I was getting on. I said I was getting on alright but I was just looking for a house and I’d just been down to Milton Gardens and how nice it was. She said, Well I’ve just had lunch with a lady and she told me, and who lived in Milton Gardens and told me she was putting her house on the market the following Monday so I immediately got in touch with her and we settled it without agents or anything and that’s how I came to number eleven over there. So that was, where are we in dates?
BH: It was about ‘90 wasn’t it?
JCAH: Yes.
CB: Well, you retired in ‘84.
BH: I was still working –
JCAH: Well -
BH: I was still working when you -
JCAH: Yes, it was the end of ‘84 that I actually moved in.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: So I knew Barbara before through the church and she used to play tennis with my wife so we knew each other but I know we were neighbours for seven years and I used to be in the kitchen over there getting ready to go out and play golf and I used to see Barbara going, and poor girl going out to work and here I am going off to play golf. Anyway, it was, it took seven years before we, well we did one or two things together didn’t we? And went to concerts together and one thing and, well I used to have Christmas parties, I was chairman of the Residents Association and I used to have a Christmas party and Barbara always used to come over and help me clear up afterwards. It gave me a good impression anyway. So in the end -
CB: Got all the ticks.
BH: You waited until I retired -
JCAH: That’s right.
BH: Before he proposed.
JCAH: And I said, ‘This is stupid, why don’t we get together?’ And I came over here.
CB: Very good. Smashing.
JCAH: So there we are.
CB: That’s been great.
JCAH: The end of a fairy tale.
CB: Well the whole thing -
JCAH: The fairy tale ending.
CB: Worked very well didn’t it?
JCAH: Yeah.
CB: Thank you very much for that. There’s just one thing and that is fast backwards to your promotions. So you started as an SAC because you were well educated.
JCAH: Yes and I was commissioned.
CB: And then how did it go from there?
JCAH: I was commission at the end of my training when I got my wings.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: I was at Monkton. I, I, yes. I was because I remember going and buying my uniform.
CB: Yeah.
JCAH: In Monkton. In the town. And then of course while I was at Defford the first station commander there I didn’t get along at all. I had a dispute about the married quarters and somebody else wanting the same one. Anyway, I wasn’t very popular there and he didn’t recommend me for a PC. And then the next chap came along and I got on very well with him and he recommended me for my permanent commission and I’d taken promotion exam and I’d taken the Staff College Qualifying Exam and did all I could and, well this would be 1951 and they decided that they’d put an age limit of thirty on appointments to permanent commission and I’d just gone over, over the thirty so that was the end of that but I was quite keen to stay on in the air force and I settled for this limited promotion one. Commission.
CB: So you were already a flight lieutenant.
JCAH: Yes. Oh yes. Yes. I finished up the war as a flight lieutenant.
CB: Yes.
JCAH: And that was confirmed. I was an acting flight lieutenant at the time.
CB: Yeah because you were acting VR.
JCAH: Yes and I was eventually confirmed and I stayed as a, as a old flight lieutenant but as I say I enjoyed my RAF career and a lot of interest.
CB: Well Jack Haley thank you very much indeed.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Jack Hayley
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-24
Contributor
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Julie Williams
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.
Format
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01:27:23 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHayleyCA160224
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Hayley was born in Caterham and worked for an insurance company before he joined the Royal Air Force and trained to be a pilot. He trained to fly in Canada and after going through an Operational Training Unit in England, he was posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern. And after completing twelve operations he joined 170 Squadron where he completed a further nineteen operations. While waiting for operations he would play bridge with other members of his crew. After his tour he was posted to 83 Squadron and served with Transport Command in Germany, Australia and Aden. He was present during the testing for the Atom bomb and also flew supplies to Christmas Island in advance of the hydrogen bomb test.
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
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Germany
Great Britain
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Christmas Island
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Düsseldorf
Yemen (Republic)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1940
1941
1944
1945
170 Squadron
625 Squadron
83 OTU
83 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Dominie
Flying Training School
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
love and romance
Magister
Meteor
military living conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
Proctor
RAF Clyffe Pypard
RAF Defford
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Madley
RAF Peplow
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Windrush
RCAF Estevan
Spitfire
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/376/7301/PHouriganM1804.1.jpg
710d60d65d0d6dc0948b05c33ec1e73c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/376/7301/AHouriganM180416.2.mp3
e72ccdc7eb2d57d68e893377766b8057
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
Hourigan, Margaret
Margaret Hourigan
M Hourigan
Description
An account of the resource
158 items. An oral history interview with Margaret Hourigan (1922 - 2023, 889775 Royal Air Force) and 156 target photographs taken by 50 and 61 Squadron aircraft during 1944. Margaret Hourigan served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a plotter with Fighter Command before being posted to RAF Waddington and RAF Skellingthorpe with Bomber Command.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Margaret Hourigan and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-04-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Hourigan,M
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So, a quick introduction, this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. My name is Dan Ellin, today I am interviewing Margaret Hourigan nee Parsons it is the 16th of April 2018, we’re at the IBCC Digital Archive, Riseholme and also present in the room is David Hourigan. So, Margaret, could you start?
MH: Start yes.
DE: Start by telling us a little about your life?
MH: Yes, my childhood. If I start, I remember 1926, I remember the Great Strike. And my father was a miner when he came back from the War, the only job he could get, he was very badly wounded in the first World War. And I remember the, standing on the front step of our little house on Lowmoor Road and a man ran in toour front door. And the police outside, was it police or a soldier? On a black horse reared up and the man ran under the horse’s legs into our house and out the back door. And I don’t know what happened but police everywhere. I think the miners were striking, maybe they were being a bit angry, I don’t know. But my Dad was a safety man and so he was down the pit so it was OK. I remember that very plainly, I think it was 1926. I would have been four. And then, my Dad was very, very ill after that he got badly burnt at work. I remember [unclear] to think he was going to die. We were too little to know that. Anyway, he didn’t die, eventually he recovered. And I can’t remember moving but we moved to another house and my Nanna and Grandpa left and they had a fish and chip shop which we took over so my Dad worked there. He also worked at the pit, he also worked as a gardener for a doctor, and he also had his own allotment. So, he repaired our shoes and cut our hair when we had no money. And we were always well fed through the Depression years but I remember terrible scenes of children with no shoes in the snow. Awful things we saw at Kirkby. And I think then the miners didn’t get any help if they were injured at work. I think they went home and had to suffer. I can’t, I know we were all very Labour, when the Daily Herald paper came out we all thought we were in heaven, and all very Labour. I’m not now [chuckles] we were then. And we used to go to, when I was a little bit older, we used to go to Hucknall Air Display. There was a little aerodrome there, and they had Tiger Moths. I used to think ‘One day, God I’d love to fly them.’ And every year we visited until I went to work and then I decided that I would join up as soon as war was declared. Oh, belonged to the Labour Party League of Youth then and we were very hostile little bunch and when Mr Chamberlain came back from Berlin waving his bit of paper we all went mad and got very angry. And the Labour Party said they were going to disband us if we didn’t shut up. One of our trips was to go to the pictures and we sat down when they played God Save the Queen or King or we walked out according to our mood. Anyway, soon as war was declared whoosh we all joined up except one poor man who was a true conscientious objector. He never did join up and he had awful struggle, but he never gave in. We were all wimps, as soon as war was declared.
DE: What happened to him do you know?
MH: I don’t know. I know he was penalised and punished and treated like dirt. I don’t know. He didn’t die because one day David answered the telephone, somebody in Canberra saying ‘Anybody from Kirkby in Ashfield?’ And David rang up and said ‘Yes, my mother is.’ So he chatted I said ‘I remember his Dad he was a conchie.’ We never heard from him again. I mean I didn’t mean to be derogatory, I thought he was a wonderful man.
DE: Um. But you, you, you joined up?
MH: We joined the WAAFs yes. And I went to stay with my Auntie Margaret. She had a shop on Highson Green at Basford in Nottingham. And early hours of the morning I trotted off to Nottingham station. I went to St Pancras, how I got across London I don’t know. I’d never been before and I went to Kingsway and there was a male clerk there and a doctor. And they talked to me all morning and then the male clerk took me to the pictures at lunchtime. You know they had those newsreel places then, and I shut my eyes the whole way through because I thought if I can’t see, if my eyes aren’t good enough, they won’t take me I was sitting there [chuckles] [unclear] a right nutcase. Anyway, took me back to Kingsway afterwards and must have had a cup of tea or something. And the doctor said ‘You’ve got a heart of a lion.’ Always remember that.
DE: Um.
And then I had a medical, went home and I think it was very early January 1940 I got the call up. Freezing cold winter. I don’t know how I got to London, I suppose I did. And went to Watford, think it was Watford. And it was freezing cold there and a dirty, dirty billet the men had been in, and nobody had been in for months, anyway it was really dirty. And the water froze in the pipes, we couldn’t have a wash. The girls had water bottles that froze in bed. I woke up the next morning and I went to the sick bay, and I was covered in big red blobs. And the doctor said ‘Haven’t ever seen flea bites before?’ I hadn’t. Anyway, they must have gone away because we started marching up and down, up and down, and round and round, got our uniforms and then I was posted to Leighton Buzzard. I found I’d been enrolled as a clerk,special duties, so I must have talked well and got a very high classification. And went to Leighton Buzzard, started plotting. And then one day they said ‘You and two other girls are posted to Bawdsey Manor.’ It’s down near Felixstowe where Watson-Watt invented the radar. [unclear] arrived late at night, remember crossing water but it actually wasn’t an island, it was just a little inlet to get across to the house. And a man rowed the boat over and somewhere I met some soldiers. I don’t know how because they said would I ask the girls at the base if they would like to come to a dance? I thought they’d all be too posh to go but they ‘Oh yes.’ So, we went to the dance with the sailors, the soldiers and it was a huge house. Lots of rooms, lots of cockroaches. And in the morning I woke up and they had kedgeree for breakfast. I’d never seen it before. I was just used to cornflakes or porridge and they had this great big thing of kedgeree. Anyway, the Indian educated girls all loved it. A lot of girls had been brought up by their families living in India, they thought it was wonderful, I didn’t. Anyway, we started on the radar and we had a green screen, like a television screen, with a green line wavering line that went across it really quickly. And echoes, a big echo would be an aeroplane, and wiggle, wiggle so many in the group. I couldn’t do it, I hated it, made me feel sick. Anyway, I persisted and the other girls just had a little green handle, they could turn it and illuminate the echo and say ‘Twelve plus’ and ‘twenty thousand feet.’ I could not do it. So, I went to the WAAF officer in the end and I said ‘I hate it, I can’t do it.’ And there was a man in the office with her. He said. And she said ‘Yes, yes.’ I couldn’t go, he thought I knew too much. Anyway, outside was the big pylons, you know?
DE: Um.
MH: And one interesting day before I left we were walking, a WAAF and I, were walking along the edge of green grass and the Channel was here in front of us. And I could see ships out at sea and big black birds flying all round it. And I thought they were big huge seagulls. And as we were walking along we saw the Coastguard. He was dancing up and down, waving his arms at us. We thought ‘Oh, he’s gone mad.’ And when we caught up with him, just as we caught up with him, a low flying German aeroplane went over. It would only be a hundred feet, we could see the pilot laughing. And he said ‘I was trying to warn you.’ Well where could we go? Nowhere to lie down and hide. Anyway, he was laughing. The German pilot must have thought it was a bit of a joke. We were both in uniform.
DE: Um
MH: Anyway, he flew inland for a little while and he came out further down the coast, we could still see him. He wasn’t laughing when he came back out. And he went back. The black birds were the first attack on a convoy.
DE: I see.
MH: So that was that. Nearly written off before I started. And then I went to Fighter Command Headquarters at Bentley Priory in the ops room there, started plotting.
DE: And what was that like?
MH: Huge, and down, down, down underground. We lived in huts opposite and I remember I Winston Churchill coming in. I remember King George coming in, looking down on the plots. And must have started bombing. I remember Dunkirk about that time. I asked, anyway I got a bit lonely, the girls were all very posh shall we say. One girl’s father signed the pound note, I know that. If you told me who it was I’d tell you that was so but I can’t remember. But I know her father was high in the Government. They all came along with their gold braid to pick their daughters up in big cars and here’s poor little me from Kirkby. I had nobody to pick me up. And I decided to have my photograph taken. So, I went along to this photographer and I had a black velvet dress I remember and I said ‘Would you take it with me smoking a cigarette?’ He said ‘Indeed I won’t!’ I thought I’d be a film star. He said ‘Indeed I won’t!’ He did a lovely ‘photo. Anyway, I asked to go to 12 Group, I went to 12 Group headquarters then in Hucknall and I stayed there all through the Battle of Britain and the night bombing. I was plotting the night Coventry was bombed and there were so many plots on the table but we couldn’t relieve each other. We used to take time off, two people standing beside each other plotting and grabbing plots off. You plotted five minutes red, five minutes yellow and five minutes blue. Then you snatched the red off and started plotting red again and they knew the time upstairs, they could tell how old the plot was. And when they were over land the Observer Corps did all the plots. Out at sea we got the plots from the radar.
DE: Um.
MH: And the men who were plotting that night from Coventry, not one of the them left their posts. All of their houses were bombed, not all badly but all stayed with us. Thought that was rather wonderful. Didn’t get much praise at all really when they talk about the war now nobody remembers the Observer Corps do they?
DE: No, my grandfather was in the Observer Corps.
MH: Was he?
DE: How did, how did it feel then seeing, watching the plots of the German aircraft coming in?
MH: We were too damn busy to bother. We wrote a poem about it. I wrote it down somewhere I know. ‘A bloody raids coming roaring in, kicking up a bloody din. Who can spot their bloody game? Bloody seven, two and four, these and bloody thousands more. Across the bloody coast they came, bloody Jones is up above , he a bloody man we’d love. No bloody smoking says the cad, enough to drive us bloody mad.’ Because we knitted or sewed or read but the men got so bored they cracked up.
DE: Um.
MH: In the end, when we started we’d be half and half. By this time, this time, they’d might be two men left who were C3, they couldn’t go anywhere else.
DE: Right.
MH: So then after all that bombing I had trouble with varicose veins and I was going to hospital, hilarious story. Going to hospital for treatment. And one day I woke up, I didn’t know, somebody knocked on the door, I’d stripped my nightgown off, standing there stark naked and a big policeman walked in the door. And I stood there [exclamation noise], and I stood there and he shut the door and went out. I still stood there. And he came in again and I hadn’t moved. And I ran. He said ‘I’d never seen anything as pretty in all my life as your little bum waddling down the hall.’ He didn’t know it was me but I went to get the bus to go and have my injections for my varicose veins and he was there and I cut him dead. He said ‘I knew then it was you.’ Otherwise he didn’t. So that was all over the camp. ‘A WAAF’s been caught in the nude.’ And it was me. He said ‘Why didn’t you put some clothes on?’ I said ‘I couldn’t think.’ Anyway, Wing Commander Woods was the CO there and he said ‘Why don’t you put in for Bomber Command, there’s a sergeant’s job going there?’ So, I did and took me to Grantham for the interview and I marched in, polished up to the hilt, [unclear]into the hall, turned round and they were sitting at the table there. Whizzed round, slipped on my bum. And I tried to carry on, I couldn’t. Anyway, we all started laughing then that was OK, we were all at ease. And I got accepted and I was posted to Swinderby and then I went to Waddington. And then 44 Squadron left Waddington, the Rhodesians. We had no squadron there we had put in concrete runways. I don’t know why they keep saying that there were squadrons there, there weren’t. They put in a concrete runway.
DE: Yeah it was closed for a while.
MH: It was closed for quite a while.
DE: We interviewed a chap who was there when they were putting the runways in.
MH: Yeah, yeah. We had Irish labourers come in. They were awful, we hated them. I damn near got raped one night. They were so drunk luckily they couldn’t catch me. But we had to walk home from Waddington. I was with an Aussie sergeant, Bill. That’s all I know. And we walked up the hill, you know you get to the top of the hill? All the nice houses were. Over the top was flat. That side’s green,this side’s airfield. And we heard these men saying ‘No, no, no you hold her, you hold him and I’ll have her. No, no, no, no, you hold him and I’ll have her.’ I thought ‘What’d they say?’ And I said to Bill ‘There going to rape me!’ and as we were passing by, I don’t know if it was an ack ack army unit but there was a five barred gate and a shed. I knew there were soldiers in there, and I put my hand on top of that gate and I cleared it. And I ran into the hut, the men were all in the ‘jamas, laughing and talking, and I said ‘Those men are going to rape me.’ And a couple of them got dressed and then Bill arrived. He said ‘I couldn’t get over the gate.’ But I cleared it. Olympic runner honestly. Anyway, they took us back to camp and that was that. But we had lots of trouble with the Irish then, always drunk, always fighting. Anyway, I trained as a watchkeeper and then sometimes I went to Bardney, sometimes I stayed I went to Skellingthorpe. The first time I was at Skellingthorpe I was under flying control, little tiny ops room. All the room was full of men. Officers, group captains everybody. And the raid was coming through on my little telephone . And I never learnt French at school and the route was coming through in French. I couldn’t do it. I know what, one was [unclear]. On one of those photos we’ve taken upstairs. I can remember that. Anyway, I struggled and did it and you know your degrees, I put in sixty three degrees and all that. And I made, I did it alright. Anyway Flight Lieutenant Williams said ‘You did a good job Maggie.’ He helped me, sorted it all out. But that was my initiation Eventually, we moved to a big ops room at the Doddington end of Skellingthorpe and had a great big table in the middle. I had a little office and Squadron Leader Quinn was at that end in his little office. He was a station navigation officer. And intelligence there in another little room. Daddy, Squadron Leader Dodd, we called him ‘Daddy Dodd’ ‘cause he was in his thirties. Daddy Williams was in his twenties and I know Daddy Quinn was twenty-nine. We thought he was old. And I worked there from then on. I remember a Lanc’ crashing at the end of the runway and blowing a great big hole and all the windows in Lincoln High Street were broken. And this air gunner was still sitting on the hole. He must have been mad, never, ever heard of him again.
DE: Um.
MH: But that was, we used to go to the end of the runway and watch the boys go. Not so much coming back ‘cause they came back early in the morning. But I’d walk round the perimeter track and they’d be lying by the aircraft on a nice summers day waiting to take off. I never dared say ‘Good luck or God bless you.’ Thought they’d think I was putting a jinx on them, but I wanted to say something, but I daren’t, never did.
DE: Um.
MH: But in the, when we went to lunch mess at lunchtime they’d all say ‘What’s the petrol like Mag?’ It worked out, you know long or short trip. Or ‘What’s the bomb load?’ they’d know if that was a big one that was a short trip. Or a little one was a long trip. And they knew I knew. I knew they knew I knew but I couldn’t say anything to them. And we had Group Captain Jefferson there who was a very, very posh gentleman. It was all ‘Do, do, do,do you think Maggie. Do you think you could?’ I can’t tell you what he said, it’s too rude. But he always sat with me at night when they were off flying and Daddy Dodd used to go to Lincoln and stay at the hotel with his wife and we had a code that I had to tell him, if somebody was coming back early or something like that. He’d ring me and say, I can’t remember what the code was but ‘Yes, come back’ or ‘No, you don’t need to.’
DE: Right.
MH: We had a great rapport. And that’s pretty well it I think. I often went to Bardney and worked there. And I remember meeting the nicest man I’ve ever met in my life. A Flight Lieutenant Dennis Irving. He was a very Catholic gentleman who went to mass, said the rosary, prayed. Everybody knew, we all knew and yet he wasn’t a bit shy about it. Was a real Christian gentleman. And the funny thing was they all had to wear civilian clothes when they went home to Ireland. I worked with a WAAF who had to go home in civvies. And yet when my husband went in Ireland he said that he had to wear civvies there were U boat men in the pubs in full uniform. They weren’t happy.
DE: No, I can imagine.
MH: Anyway, I pretty well went along like that was escorted to station dances and pictures. I remember once going to the pictures, Casablanca. We all sang ‘You must remember this.’ The whole theatre was singing and really the rapport, you can’t imagine and the friendship. It was just something.
DE: Um.
MH: Sometimes I’d go to a meal and they’d be one sergeant sitting there, I can remember him. And I thought ‘I should talk to you.’ But how do you talk to a stranger who’s looking a bit grumpy? Anyway, I thought you’re not going to come back. And he didn’t. Sometimes things happen like that. I remember being madly in love with a boy. And I was hanging around the flying control and in the end the girls said ‘For God’s sake Maggie, clear off.’ [unclear] I had to go home. Anyway, he did his tour and went back to Australia. That was that. He was killed afterwards anyway. And one day Daddy Quinn said to me ‘Maggie, I’ve got good news for you. Mentioned in dispatches.’
DE: You were mentioned in dispatches?
MH: Um.
DE: What was that for?
MH: I suppose because I was a good girl, did my work well. I lost the citation, I’ve got the box, the packet that it came in but my son that went to America took everything, I never got it back. I’ve got the envelope and I’ve got the thing it came with.
DE: Right.
MH: It said.
DE: Well we could probably look it up and find it [unclear].
MH: That’s what came with it. You can’t look it up, it’s all gone.
DE: No, we can look it up in the Gazette. It says it’s dated the first of January 1946.
MH: [Rustling of paper] What this is? That’s what the citation was with.
DE: Yes.
MH: Yes, they said you could look at the what’s its name? The magazine.
DE: The Gazette?
MH: Yes, the Gazette. It’ll be in there. That’s what we did, a plotter.
DE: Yes. So what was your job like?
MH: In the operations room?
DE: In the watch office. What was your job in the watch office?
MH: Oh the – the ‘phone would ring in the morning. We had to get to work at nine o’clock. I was always late. And the ‘phone would ring and a voice would say ‘Ops on tonight, maximum effort.’ Or they’d say ‘Nothing on tonight.’ Soon as they said ops were on I rang the group captain and I rang both wing commanders from the squadrons and then flight commanders and then the bombing leader and engineer officer, flying control, intelligence. And they all started their work then and then we had teleprinters bringing all the information later on in the war so Groupie Jefferson used to come in and read it and the route and Squadron Leader Quinn would come in. He’d plan the route from that we were going to fly. Height, target. Then I had to look up the colours of the day and they had to fire those across the coastal path the naval ship or whatever when they were coming in.
DE: Um.
MH: And eventually they’d have to announce they briefing times and would have to announce the meal times. And then I would go off duty at five, five thirty. Would go down to the runway then and watch them going. And then one time I went off in the morning and it was terribly misty like it’s been here for the last week. Very low cloud. And Jock McPherson was in the control in his little black and white van at the end of the runway firing a Very cartridge. I said ‘Can I have one?’ He gave me one, we were doing one each. And fire it and the Lancaster would come out of the mist. Over the waafery, down to the end of the runway. If it had been three foot short we would have been killed. But nobody did they all landed, bang on the runway.
DE: Wow.
MH: I think they had a bomb load on too, I think they were coming back with a bomb load.
DE: Crikey.
MH: Anyway, they were hilarious things.
DE: Ah ha.
MH: Another time we were sleeping naked outside. There was a little garden, I think it was an officer’s garden, somebody lived there. A nice little garden of roses. We used to go out then take our clothes off and a bit of low flying went on [chuckles]. Anyway that was that I think. When the invasion was on that night I went out to the toilet, about five o’clock in the morning, or six. It was just turning light. The sky was black with aircraft. Couldn’t, could not believe so many aircraft and I thought ‘I’ll remember this as long as I live.’ Which I have.
DE: Did you know what it was then when you saw?
MH: Well, I knew when I saw it what it was. I didn’t know, didn’t know it was on until then. But we had two accidents. Another time a bomb went off in the dispersal. All of the Lancs were loaded and windows again went in the High Street. But the people were lovely to us. One of the girls that, a big store, don’t know what it was. Just above the Stonebow she always gave me silk stockings. They were very hard to get.
DE: Um.
MH: Um. And then one day the war was over. And 50 and 61 just disappeared. Groupie Jefferson just disappeared and a Group Captain Forbes came. And he was a very nice man, we always thought about him. He’d come back from Japan and his wife was interned. We could never work out how that happened, not Japan, Singapore.
DE: Um.
MH: Anyway, 463 came and they were being briefed to bring the prisoners back from Europe. And I was on, I went early and WAAF said ‘’I knew you’d come early tonight when they were here.’ All the officers were in the ops room being briefed. And I saw this blonde one leaning on the table at the back. I thought ‘Oh, he looks alright.’ I can’t remember him coming up to me but he must have ‘cause I went out with him that night and I married him. (chuckles). Two months later I married him and went to Australia.
DE: OK. Well why not?
MH: Um. It’s silly. Silly, silly, silly. I didn’t know if he had a job, didn’t know if he was a layabout or what. I mean they were all handsome in uniform, I never looked further than that. Anyway he went to uni, the Government paid for them all to go to uni if they wanted to and they’d matriculated, so he did. Did an economics degree and a commerce and he worked in the Government all his life. And I got presented to the Queen Mother when she came and had a good life.
DE: So, you met him after D-Day?
MH: After the war was over.
DE: Yeah.
MH: He was on 463 Squadron.
DE: And did you marry him in the UK?
MH: Yes I did.
DE: When did you both go to Australia?
MH: He went back that Christmas. We married in October, October the 30th He went back to Australia then Christmas and I went back the next August on the Orbita.
DE: What was that like?
MH: They divided all the first-class cabins for in about six. And there was hardly any water to wash yourselves. We were taking all our clothes off and going standing in a draughty doorway it was so hot. And when we were going down Suez Canal we were passing all the British ships coming home with all the troops. And they were ‘Where are you going?’ and the Aussies were shouting ‘We’re going to Australia, we’ve got all the girls.’ And the Englishmen ‘ Have they really got all the girls?’ We felt miserable then. The Aussies were awful. When we got to Port Said the people came along the boat, beside the boat, hauling up handbags and things for us to buy.
DE: Um.
MH: And the Aussies put hoses on them.
DE: Right.
MH: I know my husband said when he arrived back in Australia all the big dignitaries came out to meet the ships coming in and cheering the boys. My husband always called them ‘The Cheer Company’, cheer you when you go and cheer you when you come back. They put the hoses on them as well. And anyway then I had a horrible time. My mother in law hated, me she was Irish and blamed me for all the stuff going on in Ireland. I’d never heard of it. We were never taught at school anything about that.
DE: Um. So where did you live in Australia?
MH: We lived in Enfield, it’s not a terribly good area really. But they lived there, my mother in law lived there with her second husband. My husband’s father came back from the first World War with a, what did he have? Military Medal, and I think he was a bit shell shocked. He cleared off and left his family and never, ever heard what happened to him again.
DE: Um.
MH: Anyway, we’ve got his medal and he got a write up on. You know you can look it up on David’s mobile and he’s got all his citation.
DE: Yes. Never, ever heard from him again. Shame wasn’t it?
DE: Um.
MH: They had lovely grandchildren. I had eight children, three sets of twins, and two single girls. David’s a twin. I’ve lost three.
DE: Oh dear.
MH: Um. Anyway, that’s that. I think that’s told you everything.
DE: If it’s OK I’ll ask a couple more questions?
MH: Yes.
DE: What did your husband do after the war in Australia?
MH: He was an, he started off as an auditor and then he worked for the Leader of the Opposition who was a Labour man. Mr O’Halloran Giles, he worked for him. And then Mr O’Halloran-Giles.
DH: Mr O’Halloran?
MH: Um? O’Halloran Giles. Mick O’Halloran that’s right. And then he died and Frank Walsh was the second one. My husband worked for him and they were elected into office but my husband couldn’t go with him the Public Service wouldn’t let him transfer to the Premier’s office. So he stayed in the Public Works Committee and he worked for them for thirty odd years.
DE: Right, OK. Did you have a job?
MH: No.
DE: No.?
MH: Too busy. I beg your pardon I did have a job when I first went to Australia. My mother in law insisted that I went to work. And I was pregnant with twins, sick as a dog, morning sickness. And I went to work at [Myle?] Emporium, which was a bit like [TJ’s?] sort of place, and they were so sorry for me they put me in bed every day. They said I was the worst saleswoman they’d ever had. How could I go from my job to that?
DE: Quite.
MH: And [Lloyd?] used to meet me at the railway station on his way home and take me home. I couldn’t face his mother. And they drank and swore and called all the English ’Pommies bastards.’ And it was after the Bodyline cricket series when Ray Larwood was there, who was born, lived near where I lived in Nottinghamshire.
DE: Um.
MH: And were all Bodyline killers. She used to go on about it. Anyway that was that, eventually they left and sold us the house and left. We could never afford to move anywhere else then ‘cause all the children went to private schools. We had some nuns opposite our house. I had a knock on the door one day and they said ‘Can David and Diane come to school?’ I thought ‘Go to school with nuns, no.’ I said ‘No, we’re moving.’ Couldn’t think of anything else to say. I thought afterwards said to my husband ‘They looked, had nice faces.’ ‘Cause he was a Catholic, I didn’t know. Anyway they knew and anyway I went and said ‘Yes, they can come.’
DE: Um.
MH: They started off. And David and Diane went to school. Sister [unclear] had about a hundred children didn’t she David? All in one room. When I went there [hissing noise] they all had their front teeth missing. ‘Mrs Hourigan’s here, Mrs Hourigan’s here.’ Anyway I heard them talking one day and teaching them saying about Jesus and Jesus was God when he came to earth. And I said ‘What’s she saying? Jesus wasn’t God.’ So I said to her ‘Don’t agree with what you’re saying.’ So she said ‘Well the mother sets the religion, if you don’t like it.’ She said ‘Have to give it up, but.’ She said ‘Before you do that go for a retreat,’ I went for a retreat at Canberra College and I fell in love with it. What they were telling me, and the singing and the hymns and the incense. I was in heaven and I converted in 1954.
DE: Right, OK.
MH: Never regretted it. And with losing three children I can tell you I needed my faith.
DE: Um.
MH: David’s my right hand man. And when I came here for this reunion I had these photographs to give all these years. I’ve rung Bomber Command time and time again in London and they took a message once and I said that bombing photos and no idea, absolutely no idea what I was saying and then it’d only be a couple of months ago I rang my daughter who lived in Dorset died and my other daughter moved into her house. And I was telling Elizabeth and she said ‘Mum I’ll fix it.’ So she rang and she got Nicky Barr, is it Nicky Barr? Who said ‘I’m thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. We’re opening the memorial.’ She said ‘I’d love your Mum to come.’ So Nicky rang Annette who’s done the Australian contingent and Annette rang me and said ‘Do you want to come with us?’ I said ‘Oh, I’d give my right arm to come with you.’ So I did. And then when we were at? We were David, where I fell in love again?
DH: Coningsby.
MH: Coningsby. I saw the Millikin name on the wall. I said ‘I knew a Millikin.’ And Wing Commander Millikin’s in 61, 619 now.
DE: Ah ha
MH: And he said ‘You knew my, that would have been my grandfather.’
DE: Wow.
MH: He hardly believed me at first but when I told him things I knew about his grandfather he knew I was genuine. And he said ‘Did my grandfather kiss you?’ I said ‘I wish he would, he didn’t, he was married.’
DE: Well.
MH: But anyway he was really happy. And he was a lovely man his grandfather was. A happy one like this one, happy and kind.
DE: Um.
MH: We had all those events, I could tell you hundreds truly, things come back to me. I’m lying in bed at night, cor. Is the lake still at Skellingthorpe?
DE: Um, I’m not sure. Skellingthorpe has changed an awful lot because –
MH: I know it’s a town, village now.
DE: It was built on virtually all of the, all of the old RAF station yeah.
MH: I know the school’s Lancaster school isn’t it?
DE: Um.
MH: Where the watch office was they said, and the waafery was in the rookery.
DE: Oh right, yes. What was the waafery like?
MH: Oh, a few huts. I had to walk across an empty block to get in have a bath. Get your clothes off. You can imagine in the middle of winter going to have a bath?
DE: Did they have plugs in the baths?
MH: No, took your own plug. We found that everywhere we travelled, it all went to Ireland, there was never a plug in the bath.
DE: So what did you do?
MH: Put a plastic bag over it.
DE: Aha.
MH: And that sucks in stops the water flowing away. There was plenty of hot water.
DE: But it was a long walk from the?
MH: Not really a long walk, a cold walk.
DE: Cold?
MH: And being an NCO I had a room at the end of the hut. So all the girls were there, open beds, but I had a little private room. And a little stove and I used to fill it with flowers, from the. What’s those flowers David?
DH: Cinerarias??
MH: No, those big bushes, rhododendrons. Rhododendrons.
DH: Rhododendrons.
MH: Yeah.
DE: OK. Did you have any trouble with the girls in the rest of the hut?
MH: Never, never, no. One girl surprised us. She was sitting knitting baby clothes and suddenly they said ‘She’s gone.’ We didn’t know. Was pregnant. She’d gone. We had, some of the English airman used to be a bit snobby. When the Aussies came and the Rhodesians they were really, and the Canadians, they were really you know, didn’t care whether you were a sergeant or what. They were officers there agreeable but some of the British. One man I met, and he used to come in the ops room. They all came in the ops room at night when ops weren’t on and I had a kettle and a toaster and the NAAFI used to send me over a big lump of butter and a lot of bread and make toast. And anybody would turn up and have a slice of toast and a cup of something. And this man used to, flight lieutenant somebody or other, used to come and have a cup of tea and toast with me and Bill. Familiar yes, ‘Maggie fa, fa, fa’ and a couple of days later I went into town and I was walking up towards the Stonebow I remember on the right hand side. Met him with this civilian woman and of course I chatted to him like I had in the ops room the night before and he just cut me as dead as dead. I thought ‘You pig.’ The next time he came for cups of tea I tell you he didn’t get it. Hung his head. I thought ‘Don’t bother coming here.’
DE: I can’t say I blame you, that’s –
MH: No, no. But I found that, and they used to call the WAAF’s ‘camp bikes’ or ‘officer’s ground sheets’ was the pet one.
DE: Do you think that was justified or?
MH: No, [emphatic] no, no, no. When I look back and think how hard the girls worked. The MTT, the girls in the mess, and the equipment. And my friend used to drive the bomb trolley and people in the office, and teleprinters, telephone exchange, intelligence, meterology. We all worked so hard and we all believed we were shortening the war.
DE: Um.
MH: I never heard anybody say anything else. And David will laugh. I meant to tell you this story about David’s friend. When they were about eighteen, they were at Uni. And the man remembers to this day, he’s a professor now. Monash University but he knows Mrs Hourigan was angry with him. He said, what was it we were talking about? Bomber Command, we talk about Bomber Command the whole time my husband and I when we got back. We lived what had happened. And we were talking. And he said ‘Oh, they all went off.’ He said ‘They thought kill a few Germans tonight.’ And thought that of Bomber Command, and I said ‘Nothing of the kind.’ And David saw him recently and he said ‘Your mother still remembers then does she?’ He said ‘Yes, she does.’ I’ll never forget, I was so upset, so angry. And when I was in hospital last year the doctor said to me ‘I’ve heard that when they woke up in the morning they threw a dart at the wall. Wherever the dart landed they said ‘That’s where we’ll bomb tonight.’ I said ‘Nothing could be further from the truth.’
DE: So do you think in Australia Bomber Command has got an odd sort of reputation?
MH: I think it, I thought it was general because here for a long time we were wanted for being war criminals weren’t we?
DE: Um. Some people think that yeah. I just wondered if you thought it was different in Australia because you know I think.
MH: I think in Australia a lot of the people thought that the Bomber Command boys had been having a good time in England and they were being bombed by the Japanese. And when they went back it was ‘Oh you’ve been having a good time overseas, we’ve been suffering the Japanese.’ In fact when the War was over the squadrons were ordered to come back to fight Japan.
DE: Um.
MH: Only lucky that the Americans dropped the atomic bomb in August or they’d all have been coming back for that.
DE: Um.
MH: But I don’t think that they understood the War ‘cause they hadn’t been in it. ‘Cause when we’re lying in bed hearing the doodle bugs going round, buzz, buzz, buzz, and then the engine stop you think ‘Oh God, where’s it going to land?’ They had none of that.
DE: Quite, no.
MH: I remember being in Nottingham one night when Nottingham was bombed and I was with my Auntie. And she was a little way out of Nottingham and remember seeing all the incendiaries in the fields. We could see the bombs going down. And one night, we used to hitch, when we were in Fighter Command, we used to hitch hike to London on our days off and one night I remember being on top of a building and mines were coming down on parachutes. How I got up there I don’t know and the men were running around. What do you call them? Air raid wardens were running around with buckets and hoses and we’re up there laughing and dancing about, the WAAF’s and me. We never were in any danger ever when we were in uniform. Except those Irish men. Never forget them. But nowhere else, we went in, we were wandering around looking for a pub we could get a drink. [unclear] some places I can tell you wouldn’t go in. We’d open the front door awful, people with black eyes and black and they’d just look up, we backed out again. I don’t know what sort of den on iniquity it was, didn’t even know where we were.
DE: Um.
MH: But we’d hitch. And when we met the Canadians we cut all our buttons off and swapped with them. We came back to Nottingham without a button on our uniform. And they went off without buttons on theirs. I’ve still got Canadian buttons on mine somewhere. Don’t know where it is, my uniform is now. Think Michael took it to America
DE: Aha.
MH: So, that’s it I think.
DE: Okey dokey
MH: Are you happy with that?
DE: I’m absolutely very, very much so. I’m just having a look to see if I’ve got any questions I wanted to ask. Just going right back to the very start when you joined the.
MH: Um. WAAF’s.
DE: Did you, did you volunteer or were you?
MH: I volunteered.
DE: Why did you choose the WAAF’s? Why did you volunteer?
MH: I liked the air force. I used to read the Biggles books when I was a little girl.
DE: Um.
MH: You know Biggles and his second pilot was Algy and his engineer was Ginger, and I lived those books. And I just wanted to join the air force, thought it was wonderful.
DE: I was just wondering how volunteering during the war sort of fitted in with your early political beliefs?
MH: Forgot all about them. Voted Liberal ever since I came out, out to Australia. No, I remember in Hucknall a man, some officer I’ve forgotten who it was, he used to pick us all up, bit of a ratbag I don’t know. And he took us, this bunch of WAAF’s up to his house, he was filling us with gin I remember that, we were all merry. And he was asking us questions about politics and we were slamming the government, slamming this and that and he couldn’t believe his good fortune. We were telling him everything that was going to happen after the war. What we were going to do, burn the place down I think and start again. And then the next night he asked us to go back to his house again, we didn’t have any gin, he had another man there. He said ‘Tell him what you told me last night.’ Of course, we were all dumb, needed a gin to get us going again. He was very disappointed. We wouldn’t be wound up.
DE: Who do you think the man was?
MH: I don’t know who he was, he was some somebody, some politician I bet you. But when my husband worked for the Labour Party I was happy with them. Then we had a man who was a bit nasty, but he was openly gay and he was a nasty man as well. Had nasty habits and my husband had to work with him. Some of the time he really didn’t like him and I sort of went a bit off the Labour Party. And then I changed my mind.
DE: OK.
MH: And I thought in Australia the unions were running the show and my daughter’s husband, married a sailor, who was in Vietnam and the waterside workers wouldn’t ship any arms or food or anything over, and that put me off.
DE: Aha. OK.
MH: And one of the men asked me the other day, on one of the interviews what I thought about when people died. I didn’t always react you know, you saw missing, missing, missing, missing, missing. I know they were all terribly upset when Dambusters went and Henry Maudsley was a man from 50 Squadron who everybody loved. Oxford Blue and very educated. Lovely young man. And when we went into the chapel in Lincoln the candlesticks and crucifix are dedicated to Henry Maudsley, supplied by his family. So yesterday we put a poppy on him on the memorial. I forgot should have done one for Guy Gibson, I couldn’t think. ‘Cause I didn’t lose anybody.
DE: You didn’t?
MH: No.
DE: No.
MH: Not personally. But it was hard, I mean you knew that they’d been shot down. You knew the worry that they were going to be shot down. And some of them you looked at them and you knew they were going to get it ‘cause they were a bit –
DE: Bit shaky?
MH: They had a twitch or. And you always thought ‘Oh they’re going to cop it.’ And they did. And the mad ones, the ones you thought ‘You’re going to die.’ They survived ‘cause they were realistic, ‘We can’t possibly live.’ So.
DE: Um. Did anyone ever talk about lack of moral fibre?
MH: One man, one man, lack of moral fibre. It was awful. Ripped everything off him, all his ensignia, in front of the whole camp. I was reading about Group Captain Cheshire yesterday on David’s mobile. I saw ‘Group Captain Cheshire – Unknown Story.’ And read about him and he said with lack of moral fibre he had to be very strict because it could taint the whole lot of them.
DE: Um.
MH: He said he was very strict with it.
DE: So did you, did you see that actually happen with people having their?
MH: It did happen. It did happen.
DE: Where was that? Can you remember?
MH: Oh, I think it was at Skellingthorpe we had one. But they got sent away quickly because they’d taint everybody else. I know my husband said when he was flying his bomb aimer said ‘I can’t press the tit, I can’t press the tit!’ My husband said ‘You’ll faffing well press the tit or you’ll go with ‘em!’
DE: Your husband was a pilot?
MH: Yeah.
DE: How many ops did he do?
MH: About fifteen. He only came at the end of the war, he was only eighteen in 1942. I was two years older than him.
DE: Um.
MH: Never let me forget it. I was a cradle snatcher. [chuckles] But they looked so old the Bomber Command men, they all had grey faces. And there hair seemed to get colourless somehow they looked. Fighter pilots always looked gay and young and laughing. I know in the Battle of Britain I bet they didn’t but otherwise they were always gay and young. But the Bomber Command pilots always looked old.
DE: Why was that do you think?
MH: I don’t, because in the morning they’d know, ‘I might die tonight.’ And friends, people all around them were dying and I think that they knew how dicey their life was. And they’d live in a hut and come home and half the beds would be empty.
DE: Um.
MH: And sometimes when they took off in the morning they’d go to Germany and come back at say midnight and they’d be an intruder in the circuit. And one time was dropping bombs on the Waddington bomb dump. We thought it was hilarious at Skellingthorpe, bombing Waddington. They had Air Commodore Hesketh, we hated him. And he was a very bossy man, all his gold braid. And we didn’t have any of that at Skelly, only had the Groupie. They didn’t go around polishing boots and looking and making a parade and all like they did at Waddington.
DE: So do you think there was a difference between the permanent stations and the wartime stations?
MH: Yeah, I reckon. Well the Aussies were very casual. I remember one raid when the war began they handed, not when war began, when the D-Day began they handed the air force over to the army. It was the silliest thing they ever did. The army would call up, ‘Come and bomb this.’ And they’d get the bombs on the ‘plane. ‘No, don’t come now, we don’t need you.’ And then ‘Come and bomb this.’ They’d all get ready again, ‘No, don’t come we don’t need you.’
DE: Um.
MH: And in the end they said ‘Either take us off or the bombs sink in the ground.’ Anyway one time they said ‘We don’t need you, stand down but don’t leave the station.’ Course all the Skellingthorpe mob stayed around but the Waddington mob all shot into Lincoln. And within half an hour they called ops on again. And the police and SP’s were racing around trying to round the Aussies out of the pubs. We were all ready but they, they were very undisciplined like that.
DE: What was Lincoln like? Did you go out in Lincoln?
MH: Oh, incredible. At night when the bombers had taken off you just heard this roar, you can’t imagine. Well we had thirty six take off at Skelly, there were thirty six at Waddington, sixteen or seventeen at Bardney and Scampton and Woodhall Spa and East Kirkby all of them. All take off, all go over. They used to meet at Beachy Head and, or Reading sometimes and amalgamate there and then start flying out to Holland. But they’d just all roar over. Massive noise.
DE: Um. And of course working where you did you knew before they did where they were going?
MH: Absolutely. And when they did the Berlin run, I think it was 1944, they went to Berlin about five nights in a row. And Nuremburg was another one, they lost about ninety ‘planes that night. None of them liked going up the Ruhr, Cologne or. Some of them, I know they had fish names for targets and we had a [unclear] ‘phone scrambled if you wanted to talk privately you pressed the scrambler.
DE: Yes.
MH: I remember Air Commodore Hesketh rang one day. I didn’t know it was him. I picked up the ‘phone, I said ‘Hello, hello, hello.’ [loudly] ‘Air Commodore Hesketh here.’ ‘Oh,[long drawn in breath] beg your pardon sir .’ ‘I want Group Captain Jefferson.’ I suppose he said to Groupie Jefferson ‘She’s a right one in there.’ He would have defended me. I know he would. But we had a lot of fun, used to laugh a lot. And I never, ever worked out the bomb load. I could not do it.
DE: OK.
MH: I had to have one cookie, one thousand pounder, twelve SPC’s of incendiaries. And each Lancaster carried that. We had thirty two, thirty six whatever and I couldn’t do maths at all. I always rang Waddington the girls and said ‘How much bomb load have we taken off?’ And she would tell me. And I had to phone 5 Group and say ‘This much has gone.’
DE: Um.
MH: Once Groupie, Daddy Quinn came in with his slide rule. ‘Just do this Mag, just do this.’ I told him not to bother me. Can’t be bothered. I couldn’t cope, my little failing.
DE: You found a cunning way of getting round it.
MH: [laughing] We had, one night we had a camp concert. I was with this sergeant sitting there and a man who did tricks. What do you call ‘em? A conjurer. And he said ‘Two come up on the stage.’ He spotted us two sergeants sitting. ‘You come up.’ I had to get up and hold ropes and get things and next thing I kept dropping mine. Everybody was cheering, it was awful. Oh dear.
DE: Was that an ENSA concert?
MH: Yeah, yeah. And once we had some old ladies come, oh they were terrible. You had to sort of play a little tea thing in the afternoon. Fancy getting a bunch of airmen and airwomen and these old, fat old ladies with a cello, a big thing, and a piano and they’re all big stout old things in [silk?] dresses. We had to sit and listen.
DE: Not the sort of entertainment that you were after?
MH: No, no. No, no, no, no. Sometimes they were pathetic. I remember when I was young one of the WAAF’s in Skellingthorpe, not Skellingthorpe, [Waddington?] and this girl was singing. A pilot was sitting there she was singing at him and he was looking at her. Oh, they were so in love and she was really singing at him. She had on a pretty dress. All WAAF’s. We were slightly envious because in Fighter Command we didn’t see a man.
DE: Right, so Bomber Command was an improvement then?
MH: Bomber Command wall to wall men. But in 5 Command and 12 Group and Bentley Priory were just headquarters and Air Commodore um, you know the man who had his big wing and was always fighting? What was his name? Oh, can’t think. Anyway 11 Group fought with 12 Group because we had Douglas Bader and he wanted the big wings and [unclear] aeroplanes taking ten minutes to get off. He said ‘it goes in formation then.’
DE: Um.
MH: You could shoot them down. And he said, he said ‘if they drop after they drop their bombs it doesn’t matter.’ And 11 Group mostly were dropping them on my airfields. Anyway I can’t think, can’t think of the name. There was um. It’s gone, gone, it’s gone. It’ll come back to me, float back to me. My mind’s like a computer [unclear]. Anyway they had a lot of arguments about that. [unclear] once Douglas Bader came into the ops room we nearly all swooned away.
DE: Really?
MH: Um, um. See somebody with wings and young.
DE: Right. Yes.
MH: Never did get posted to ops in Fighter Command. I had this poor lover. David will laugh. What was his name? [unclear] and he followed me everywhere, he was a Canadian, and I did not want him. I never went out with him and they kept saying ‘He’s at the guardroom.’ And I wouldn’t go and talk to him and if I ever met a group of Canadians they’d say ‘You’re not Maggie are you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh, awful person.’ And in the end I asked one of them what happened to him. Killed, he flew into a hill.
DE: Oh dear.
MH: I had to pray for him all my life.
DE: Um.
MH: I didn’t want him though. He was about six foot six, he was, and I was only little. And this great big thing standing beside me. Only a little thing. Anyway that was, would have been about 1944 I suppose.
DE: Ah.
MH: Look at it now, 2018. He’s still on my conscience. You can’t make yourself fall in love though can you?
DE: No. And for you it happened with your blonde Australian from 463 Squadron.
MH: Um. All my babies were premature. I had nobody to help me. No mother, no sister, no aunties. No sisters, nobody. [rustling of papers]There’s my MID thing, is that good enough? Defence Medal, yeah MID. Ha, ha, ha.
DE: Well unless you can think of another anecdote to tell me?
MH: No, don’t think I’ve any more.
DE: I’m sure.
MH: We used hitch hike and sit on the tanks and drive to London. Never got into any harm. Just hop in the truck and it’s ‘Hop up love.’ And take us to London and drop us down, we stayed at the Waterloo Bridge. There was a Sally Army hostel nearby, we used to stay there.
DE: This was when you were on leave?
MH: On leave or weekends off. We worked night shifts we’re on, have a couple of days off. And what were those, Lyons Corner Houses then, they had like a restaurant. And they used to wheel a big trolley full of jelly cake, sort of like layers of cream and jelly. Could have a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Like being in heaven, used to have a slice of cake and a cup of tea.
DH: What was the story of your flight down the Ruhr after the war?
MH: Oh yes, yes.
DH: Oh, OK. Tell us about.
MH: Oh yes, we did a cook’s tour after the war. And I had two flights. I had one flight with a person just flying around over Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. And when we got back he said that he hadn’t filled his logbook in because I’d been sick on his log, which was a dirty lie and I was really angry about that. And then we did a cook’s tour down, what they call a cook’s tour, down the Ruhr when the war was over. Oh, the damage was awful. And we were going round Heliogland and the ‘plane was going like that. [chuckling]
DE: You felt a bit airsick [unclear]?
MH: I felt sick.
DE: How many people went on an aircraft trip, cook’s tour?
MH: Oh, I think a lot of people went on if they wanted to.
DE: Aha.
MH: And you were lucky enough to get someone that would take you.
DE: So where did you stand on the aircraft?
MH: I stood behind the navigator some of the time.
DE: Aha. So you could look out and?
MH: Um.
DE: Yeah.
MH: I was scared though. I was really scared.
DE: Of flying?
MH: Um. To say I’d wanted to be an airman all my life I was really frightened.
DE: Um.
MH: Once we got in the thick cloud I remember flying over Nottingham in what they called cumulus nimbus, real thick black cloud. And I thought ‘If anybody else is in the cloud with us what’s going to happen?’ But there wasn’t anybody in with us.
DE: No.
MH: And then when you’re going down, to [makes vomiting noise] I don’t mind now, I fly on all the big ones.
DE: Yeah. They’re a little bit different aren’t they?
MH: Absolutely. We flew home in the, what’s it David? sleeper. It was non-stop.
DE: The Dream Liner?
MH: Dream Liner, non-stop from Perth to London.
DE: Um.
MH: Horrible, too long.
DE: Yeah.
MH: Can you think of anything else I’ve told you David that I’ve forgotten?
DH: I just noticed you said you flew home on the Dream Liner but your home’s in Australia.
MH: Oh I forget yeah [laughs]
DH: Her heart’s still in England.
DE: Fair enough.
MH: My heart’s always been in England.
DE: Um. Well thank you very, very much for coming here and telling me these stories.
MH: Thank you. Thank you for listening.
DE: No, my pleasure.
MH: Um.
DE: I shall press stop. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Margaret Hourigan
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-16
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.
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHouriganM180416
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Format
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01:13:32 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Margaret Hourigan grew up in and around Nottingham. Despite holding Labour principles she volunteered for the WAAF’s as soon as War was declared and was called up in January 1940. She Hourigan served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a plotter with Fighter Command before being posted to RAF Waddington and RAF Skellingthorpe with Bomber Command. She met and married an Australian pilot, and emigrated to Australia after the war. Margaret and her husband had eight children.
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
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
44 Squadron
463 Squadron
50 Squadron
61 Squadron
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
control caravan
control tower
Cook’s tour
entertainment
faith
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
ground personnel
lack of moral fibre
memorial
military ethos
military living conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
operations room
perimeter track
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Bentley Priory
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Waddington
runway
service vehicle
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/247/7522/PDorricottLW16010001.1.jpg
4488f7cec27f500cd7f8be976668d749
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
Dorricott, Leonard William
Leonard Dorricott
Len Dorricott
L W Dorricott
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Dorricott about her husband Flying Officer Leonard William Dorricott DFM (1923-2014, 1230753, 1230708 Royal Air Force). Leonard Dorricott was a navigator with 460 and 576 Squadrons. He flew 34 operations including Operation Manna, Dodge and Exodus. He was one of the crew who flew in Lancaster AR-G -George, now preserved in the Australian War Memorial. He was a keen amateur photographer and the collection contains his photographs, logbook and papers. It also contains A Dorricott’s First World War Diary, and photographs of Leonard Dorricott’s log book being reunited with the Lancaster at the Australian War Memorial.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Dorricott and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-07
2015-11-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Dorricott, LW
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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/.
Format
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One colour photograph
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PDorricottLW16010001
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
Royal Australian Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Australian Capital Territory--Canberra
Australian Capital Territory
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Half length portrait of Dr Brendan Nelson standing and holding Len Dorricott's log book open at the front page. Behind is Lancaster G for George at the Australian War Memorial.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dr Brendan Nelson with Len Dorricott's log book
Lancaster
memorial
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/247/7523/PDorricottLW16010002.1.jpg
15053a73f84d6494c68a744922260e80
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/247/7523/PDorricottLW16010003.1.jpg
6d0e3963caadb9c02b988e4f60bc93fc
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
Dorricott, Leonard William
Leonard Dorricott
Len Dorricott
L W Dorricott
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. An oral history interview with Rosemary Dorricott about her husband Flying Officer Leonard William Dorricott DFM (1923-2014, 1230753, 1230708 Royal Air Force). Leonard Dorricott was a navigator with 460 and 576 Squadrons. He flew 34 operations including Operation Manna, Dodge and Exodus. He was one of the crew who flew in Lancaster AR-G -George, now preserved in the Australian War Memorial. He was a keen amateur photographer and the collection contains his photographs, logbook and papers. It also contains A Dorricott’s First World War Diary, and photographs of Leonard Dorricott’s log book being reunited with the Lancaster at the Australian War Memorial.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rosemary Dorricott and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-07
2015-11-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Dorricott, LW
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One colour photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDorricottLW16010002, PDorricottLW16010003
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
Royal Australian Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Australian Capital Territory--Canberra
Australian Capital Territory
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
Half length portrait of Dr Brendan Nelson standing and holding Len Dorricott's log book. Behind is the nose of Lancaster G for George. On the reverse
'Dr Brendan Nelson
Australian War Memorial
Sergeant Len Dorricott's Flying Logbook
Donated by Mrs Rosemary Dorricott'.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dr Brendan Nelson with Len Dorricott's log book
Lancaster
memorial
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/7943/PCuttsE1501.2.jpg
b81f69f5aacc75bf4ff13137f2939d09
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/7943/PCuttsE1502.2.jpg
e57de654fc56b2f01437a700ae4212fa
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
Cutts, Ernest
Ernest Cutts
Ernie Cutts
E Cutts
Description
An account of the resource
14 Items. One oral history interview with Ernest Cutts. Ernest Cutts enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, and trained as an air gunner in Australia. He flew on 34 operations as a rear gunner with 466 Squadron from RAF Driffield, flying Halifaxes.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ernest Cutts and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
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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Cutts, E
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
Course 39 Gunners No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School, West Sale.
Description
An account of the resource
A group of 20 men arranged in three rows in front of a corrugated iron clad building. They are wearing fatiques with side caps or berets.
On the reverse:
'3 B.A.G.S. West-Sale Course 39 Gunners
Back Row L to R Coxhill. Cutts. Ferguson. Blythe. Ellis. Arnold.
Centre Row L to R . Coventry. Hall. Bladen. Ayres. Brew. Crosbie. Hodgeson .
Front Row . Baker. Flood. Hamilton. Heatly. Fitzgerald. Griffiths. Griffiths.'
Format
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One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
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PCuttsE1501, PCuttsE1502
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 Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Victoria
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
air gunner
aircrew
Bombing and Gunnery School
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/7953/BCuttsECuttsEv10001.2.jpg
efd6c6244bd70f679977b58a17f2c2af
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/7953/BCuttsECuttsEv10002.2.jpg
cb5fb39899b13bf72e40fba56f0147e4
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
Cutts, Ernest
Ernest Cutts
Ernie Cutts
E Cutts
Description
An account of the resource
14 Items. One oral history interview with Ernest Cutts. Ernest Cutts enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, and trained as an air gunner in Australia. He flew on 34 operations as a rear gunner with 466 Squadron from RAF Driffield, flying Halifaxes.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ernest Cutts and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
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
Cutts, E
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Ref No. - 43 stands for the year of enlistment, 1716 means I was the 1716th person
to enlist in the R.A.A.F Air Crew,. in that year.
I was the youngest of a family of seven (4 boys, 3 girls) from the small township
of BIRCHIP, in the MALLEE district in the North West of VICTORIA. When I turned
18 in 1943, my three older brothers were already serving in the Armed Forces,
one in the army in New Guinea, one in the Middle East in the army one in
the Air Force in Darwin, also one of my sisters was serving with the Australian
Air Force Nursing service. My two older sisters were married to service personel
serving overseas. Therefore as soon as possible after I turned 18 on 2.4.43,
I enlisted in the R.A.A.F Air Crew, seemed it was “the thing to do”, and because
The youth of Australia, felt it was their duty to defend their country.
My first posting was to No.1 Recruit Training School at Somers, Victoria.
6 weeks.
From Somers I proceeded to West Sale, Victoria , 3 B.A.G.S. (Bombing and
Gunnery School) – 3 weeks – My first flying experience took place on 24 Nov.
1943. At conclusion of this school, I qualified as an Air Gunner, and automatic
promotion to the rank of Sergeant on 9.12.43.
Dec. 43. Embarked on troop ship NEW AMSTERDAM, (pre-war flag ship of the
Dutch Merchant Navy) A 6 week sea voyage to Scotland, via Durban and Cape
Town, South Africa, Freetown capital of Sierra Leone, around the west and
north of Ireland to North Scotland, near Glasgow.
Like all Australian Air Crew, we proceeded to No.1 Personel Depot in Brighton,
South England, spent two weeks in this Holding Depot, waiting for allocation
for further flight training.
Posted to 27 Operational Training Unit in Litchfield, county of Staffordshire,
central England., where I was allocated to an Australian Air Crew as one of
Aircraft gunners. Introduction for all air crews to medium sized bombers.
This was where we were first welded together as an aircraft crew and underwent
first operational training for all air crew members. April to June. During
this time D DAY took place, and though not fully trained, we were on “ Alert
Readiness” if required.
I then had my first leave in War Tim England., awaited posting to Advanced
Operational Flying School at 1625 H.C.U. (Heavy Conversion Unit) at Marsden
Moor, Yorkshire. Were introduced to Halifax Mark II Heavy 4 engine bombers.
This training took approx. 6 weeks. Jul to Sep. 44.
Pre –operational leave, then on 26/9/44 we were posted to No. 466 R.A.A.F
Squadron. (In England all R.A.A.F Bomber Squadrons were designated with prefix
“4”) at Driffield, Yorkshire, England.
Whilst serving in this Squadron our crew completed 34 operational bombing
raids over Germany and occupied Holland. Some of the cities are listed below.
DUISBERG _ RHUR VALLEY. 1057 aircraft participated in this raid.
HANOVER, ESSEN, COLOGNE, GELSENKIRCHEN, MAINZ, CHEMNITZ, WAPPERATAL.
I completed my 34th tour on 15th March 1945.
If Aircrew survived 30 operations, it was normal practise for that crew to
be withdrawn from further bombing raids.
[Page Break]
-2-
After completion of active service with 466 Squadron, I was posted back to
27 Operational Training Unit (O.T.U.) at Litchfield, as an instructor until
V.E. DAY (Victory in Europe) 3 months later.
The Commanding Officer of 27 O.T.U. was selected to form a new squadron of
R.A.A.F. personal, currently serving in England, to return to Australia,
with the very latest bomber aircraft “ The Lincoln”, to instruct R.A.A.F.
personel in Australia, in the use of this aircraft, for the purpose of bombing
Japanese mainland. The Commanding Officer of this squadron, requested
that I join his crew.
While waiting for this operation to take place, our new crew were employed
flying to Berlin in Germany and Bari in Italy, bringing home British prisoners
of war. After three such trips the war against Japan ended.
WORLD WAR II HAD ENDED.
Shortly after, along with all Australian Aircrew, I returned to Australia,
on the British troop ship, ATHLONE CASTLE, via the Suez Canal and Bombay,
India, arriving at Port Melbourne in Nov. 45, aged 20 years and 7 months. My
family and many other families were waiting to welcome us home.
Thereafter, I was quickly demobilized and returned to my pre-war occupation
with the Post Master General’s Department.
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
Ernest Cutts' memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Two typewritten pages detailing the life of Ernest Cutts. He was the youngest of seven children, born in NW Victoria, Australia. He enlisted as aircrew on his 18th birthday and was posted to No 1 Recruit Training School in Victoria. Next he went to RAAF West Sale to learn air gunnery. On completion of this in December 1943 he sailed to Scotland.Then he transferred to 27 Operational Training Unit at Lichfield after which 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit, Marston Moor. Operationally he served with 466 squadron at Driffield. He completed 34 operations by 15th March 1945. He was then posted to 27 Operational Training Unit at Lichfield as an instructor. Whilst waiting a transfer to Australia he did three trips as part of Operation Dodge bringing prisoners of war back to Britain. On demobilisation in Australia he returned to work at the Post Master General's department.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ernest Cutts
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999-09-01
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCuttsECuttsEv10001, BCuttsECuttsEv10002
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
Italy
England--Yorkshire
England--Brighton
England--Lichfield
Victoria
England--Staffordshire
England--Sussex
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
Royal Australian Air Force
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
Sally Des Forges
1652 HCU
27 OTU
466 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Driffield
RAF Lichfield
RAF Marston Moor
recruitment
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/83/7964/EMullinsRNCochraneDH451109.2.pdf
97075e7f6f78b7cc4cb7abb51dc507a0
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
Cochrane, Donald Harvin
Donald Harvin Cochrane
D H Cochrane
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
13 Items. The collections concerns Donald Harvin Cochrane DFM (1926 - 2010, 1395422, Royal Air Force) and consists of his log book, letters, service material, photographs and a memoir. Donald Cochrane completed 29 operations as a wireless operator with 460 Squadron <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Pamela Ann Staffel and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Colin Farrant. Additional information on Colin Farrant is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/107397/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-12
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. 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cochrane, DH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[postmark]
[postage stamp]
Mr D H Cochrane
No 8 Raydean Road
Barnet
Herts
England
[page break]
R.N.Mullins
c/o Qantas Empire Airways
Shell House Carrington St
Sydney NSW.
Colombo [indecipherable word] 9/11/45
Hello Don!
I was very pleased to recieve [sic] your letter recently, I often wonder how all you chaps are getting along, of course I hear from Jock occasionally and I have heard from your Ted on one occasion. I thought you would probably be married before this. I may beat you to it yet, I hoped to be back to marry Pat before now but things have been in a mess with us. I have done [indecipherable word] trips from Aust to Karachi but never seem to be able to get right through, however I’ll manage it one of these days and will do my best to let you know so as you can come to the wedding, I would like to have you and Jock there also any of the others if we can let them know but then I don’t know just when it will be. I rather think now
[page break]
that it will be about next Feb.
I’m still a second pilot on these bloody Lancastrians and I’m not terribly keen on the job although the money is very good, it will be much better later on of course when I get some promotion. Most of the wops are pretty dim, they are always blaming the set for their mistakes, I feel that some of your RAF boys who have had plenty of experience on the equipment could do a better job, these civil people are very jealous of R.A.F. types you know, but we won’t lose any sleep over that will we Don!
Yes Don. I sometimes long for the old days we spent on the Sqdn, they were wizard days weren’t they?
I suppose you will soon be a civvy again, I hope so Don as I think you have had your share of service life.
[page break]
Re the girl back home whom you mentioned Don, that finished last August when I fell for Pat, I’ll never be sorry about that as Pat is a wizard kid.
Cyril Woolmough is still in England, he married a WAAF from Surrey. I hope to see him home early next year.
I suppose winter is setting in over your way now, the weather is very hot in Australia at present.
Each one of these trips takes about 15 days Don as we stop off for three days rest at each halt then we get about 16 days off in Sydney before commencing the next trip so you can see that we’re really not overworked.
Well Don, that’s about all for now. I’ll let you know when I’m coming over in the meantime all the Very Best From Your Old Pal Reg
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
Letter to Donald Cochrane from Reg Mullins
Description
An account of the resource
A letter written by Reg Mullins to Don Cochrane. There is a discussion on wartime colleagues and getting married. Reg is a co-pilot on Lancastrians but misses his time in the RAF.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Reg Mullins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-11-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Handwritten two page letter and envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EMullinsRNCochraneDH451109
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
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Sri Lanka
Pakistan
Pakistan--Karachi
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Emily Jennings
Lancastrian
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/244/8008/LCuttsE431716v1.2.pdf
fb84db501a7189fd67ea6f530cf410ac
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
Cutts, Ernest
Ernest Cutts
Ernie Cutts
E Cutts
Description
An account of the resource
14 Items. One oral history interview with Ernest Cutts. Ernest Cutts enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, and trained as an air gunner in Australia. He flew on 34 operations as a rear gunner with 466 Squadron from RAF Driffield, flying Halifaxes.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ernest Cutts and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
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
Cutts, E
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
Ernest Cutts’ air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Air gunner's log book for Ernest Cutts, rear gunner, covering the period 23 November 1943 to 21 September 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations and post war flying. He was stationed at RAF West Sale, RAF Litchfield, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Driffield and RAF Metheringham. Aircraft flown in were Oxford, Battle, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster.Included are photograph of the types of aircraft flown on the relevant pages, plus a photo of an Me 410 which they shot down. He flew 34 operations, 14 Daylight and 20 Night, with 466 Squadron. Targets were, Sterkrade, Kleve, Bochum, Duisberg, Essen, Domburg, Cologne, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Soest, Dortmund, Hannover, Hanau, Saarbrucken, Stuttgart, Mainz, Wanne-Eickel, Goch, Kamen, Chemnitz, Hemmingstedt, Wuppertal and Bottrop. His pilot on operations was Flying Officer McCallum. He also flew Operation Spasm to Berlin and operation Dodge to Bari with 467 Squadron.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LCuttsE431716v1
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
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Soest
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Bari
Netherlands--Domburg
Victoria
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-09
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-21
1944-10-23
1944-10-25
1944-10-29
1944-10-30
1944-11-04
1944-11-06
1944-11-30
1944-12-02
1944-12-05
1944-12-18
1944-12-30
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-14
1945-01-22
1945-01-23
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-04
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-26
1945-02-27
1945-03-02
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-11
1945-03-12
1945-03-13
1945-03-15
1945-09-12
1945-09-13
1945-09-18
1945-09-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
1652 HCU
27 OTU
466 Squadron
467 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Battle
bombing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Me 410
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Driffield
RAF Lichfield
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Metheringham
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/8275/ERaettigMERaettigDW[Date]-010001.jpg
b6c4f6d1b182f1fd8b2ba44d0f99678d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/319/8275/ERaettigMERaettigDW[Date]-010002.jpg
15ff6d1bac0f1346dfe39deeb94c55e3
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
Raettig, Dennis
Dennis William Raettig
Dennis W Raettig
D W Raettig
D Raettig
Description
An account of the resource
72 items. The collection concerns the wartime service of Leading Aircraftman Dennis William Raettig (b. 1920, 1136657 Royal Air Force). Joining the Royal Air Force reserve in 1941 he trained as a flight mechanic (Engines) before being posted to 104 Squadron (Wellingtons) at RAF Driffield. This squadron number was later changed to 158 Squadron flying Halifax at RAF East Moor, followed by moves to RAF Rufford and Lisset. The collection consists of a memoir, correspondence with family and acquaintances, family history, service and personal documentation, lucky charms,personal items, cap, boots, squadron tie, research on bombing in Hull as well as photographs of air and ground crew and aircraft. It also includes an oral history interview with Joan Raettig (Dennis Raettig's wife).
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sue Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Raettig, DW
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Scalaria
Alas Strait
Dear Dennis,
I have three letters here from you I got them at Balikpapan, so am answering at once. I think your League of Nation club, will do better than they are doing at Geneva, at least you wont waste money. Its a pity you cant get a nice line in blue silk L.O.N. undies, what are the lady members to wear, they cant wear a tie. I think Mrs Canary is a bit of a nuisance with her eggs. I wonder what she would do if you put a sparrows egg with hers, I bet she would be amazed when it hatched. If we had a house of our own we could build a small aviary & have a few birds, like Mr Saloniki tell mama. I am surprised that they allow John Howlett to broadcast, he isnt very good . I wonder if you will keep your new year resolution to write to me every fortnight. You bet right on Jack Peterson didnt you. I am [underlined] not [/underlined] thinking of buying a movie camera, when you all get jobs, and mama gets a house of her own, a dog is the first thing I want to buy then I want to come home & have a holiday & take the dog out. It will be
[page break]
nice to go to the new Grammar school, maybe your sons will be at the opening ceremony. I am glad you are writing after jobs, Jack looks as if he is waiting for one to come & hit him. I have a big snakeskin here, but I dont know how to get it home. I got it in Brisbane, it had swallowed some animal & was asleep when my friend nearly stood on it. He let bang without taking aim & killed it. Ive got to be up nearly all night tonight going through this strait & I dont like going through a place where there are no lights, on a dark night. I bet the Capt of the Rampura is very unhappy just now, he will get the sack I expect. The sea is a very harsh career, if you have bad luck & bump, its finish. We ought to be in Fremantle a week today D.V. I want to see the new Chaplin picture I saw the Mutiny of [sic] the Bounty & heard Clark Gable keep telling the Capt, O.K. I wonder if you get any of the jobs you were writing after. The sooner you start the quicker you'll get on. We havnt [sic] a pet on board at all in Australia I have to sign a bond for £50 that no cats, dogs or birds are on board so we dont have them. Well Ill close now & get on with your mamas letter. Bye & best of luck in your job, Daddy.
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
Letter to Dennis Raettig from his father
Description
An account of the resource
Written at sea. Starts with some humorous banter. Mentions that the first thing he will get when they settle and but a house is a dog. Writes story of obtaining a snakeskin in Brisbane and that he will be up all night going through the strait where there are no lights on a dank weather. He mentions that the captain of the Rampura will get the sack for some unmentioned event. States that he will be in Fremantle in a week and talks about films he has seen or would like to see. He concludes talking about his son's possible future jobs and that no pets are allowed when docking in Australia.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mr Raettig
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ERaettigMERaettigDW[Date]-01
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Indonesia
Pacific Ocean--Alas Strait (Bali Sea)
Indonesia--Kalimantan
Indonesia--Balikpapan
Australia
Queensland
Queensland--Brisbane
Western Australia
Western Australia--Fremantle
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Margaret Carr
David Bloomfield
animal
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/462/8344/AAdamsT160616.2.mp3
f9bd5882560371415b633ba85a023cb1
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
Adams, Tony
Antony Hill Adams
A H Adams
T Adams
Antony H Adams
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Adams, T
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Tony Adams
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DG: OK we're all set to go, I'll just have to, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, my name is Donald Gould and I'm interviewing Tony Adams at his place in Lingfield, a suburb of Sydney. The interview is taking place on Thursday 16th June 2016. Can you tell me your name please Tony?
AA: My name is Anthony Adams, I'm known as Tony Adams.
DG: And how old are you Tony?
AA: I'm ninety two.
DG: What, where were you born?
AA: I was born in Roseville one of the northside suburbs of Sydney.
DG: And what did your parents do?
AA: My father was an engineer and my mother was home duties mainly except during the Depression, she had to earn extra money and she did what they called Batik work, B,A,T,I,K it was dyeing clothes and so on.
DG: A bit unusual in those, in those days batik?
AA: Um.
DG: Yeah, and where did you go to school?
AA: At Roseville public school, and then after that I went to Sydney Grammar.
DG: And what, what, how old were you when you left school?
AA: I left school a few weeks after World War II began I was fifteen years of age.
DG: And what did you do, after, after when you finished school, what did you do after that?
AA: I studied accountancy, I went full time to a, a college, an accountancy college for one year and then I got a job as a junior clerk in a, in a company in the wholesale chemist area and I was there 'til I turned eighteen and then I went into the army, before, before the air force.
DG: OK so you were, you were, in Sydney when the War broke out?
AA: Yes.
DG: And why did you, why did you, what prompted you to join the air force?
AA: Well really two reasons, I'd heard all the stories of the first, first War and the terrible conditions and how soldiers, Australia diggers, had died and I was a very squeamish boy and I thought if I'm going to die I'm going to die quickly.
DG: [Laughs].
AA: But I really didn't think I was going to die you didn't put your name down for that reason, a lot of my friends where I lived were going into the air force and sounded more exciting than being in the army or the navy, [chuckles].
DG: And where, where did you enlist?
AA: Er, right here in Sydney at Willoughby actually.
DG: And what, what training did you, did they give you? What did they select you to do?
AA: Are we talking about the army or the navy?
DG: Oh no, that would be the air force.
AA: Oh well, after six months in the army I got my transfer to the R, double A, F and after initial training, rookie training, I was selected to be, to wireless training, radio training and I spent six months at Parkes in New South Wales doing that and having completed that course I then was sent to Port Pirie in South Australia for six weeks doing flying training there, air gunnery flying training and at that stage I got my wing so I was ready to, I graduated.
DG: You mentioned, you mentioned the army, how did you, how did you come to be in the army first?
AA: Well it was conscription in those days in Australia.
DG: Ah right.
AA: And you had to, you had to, as soon as you turned eighteen, you had to go into the service, aircrew R, double A, F aircrew you were all volunteers, but anyway it was I was called up into the Army within a few weeks of turning eighteen.
DG: And you asked to go to the air force and you did?
AA: I, I previously put my name down for the air force and, but there was a waiting list in a way and the Army grabbed me before the air force did.
DG: And what, you'd completed that training and when did you go overseas?
AA: Um, June 1943, 15th of June actually, I'm pretty good on dates [laughs] and that was by ship, an American troop ship across the Pacific to San Francisco, I was a sergeant then and then they transferred us onto a train at San Francisco, a troop train and a very, a very palatial troop train too 'cause we had a porter on each carriage who made up our beds.
DG: Oh boy.
AA: And shone our shoes even though we hardly got out of the train [chuckles] but anyway we went right across the other side of the US to a huge US army camp which was really for embarkation of American troops.
DG: Where was that?
AA: And it was.
DG: Can you remember where it?
AA: It was called Taunton, Massachusetts, nearest, near Providence and not far from Boston.
DG: Right. And then were you, you were only there a short time before you?
AA: About three or four weeks I think, yes.
DG: Right. And then, and then you embarked to Britain?
AA: Yes on the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were going backwards and forwards to Scotland to the Clyde mainly with American troops building up prior to D-Day it was the year before though but the ship I went on, the voyage I went on as it happens I found out was the one when they carried the most number of troops onboard, there was about nearly fifteen thousand troops and a thousand crew.
DG: Oh crikey. And so you'd have been in Britain around by June, July, August or something in '43?
AA: 1st of August.
DG: 1st of August?
AA: Bank holiday. [Laughter].
DG: Right and when you got to Britain what did, where did they, where did they send you for further training?
AA: [Unclear] We were in a contingent of three hundred Australia and New Zealand airmen, we picked up the New Zealand airmen over Auckland on the way over across the Pacific and we landed in Scotland in the Clyde, and by train down to Brighton Sussex, south of England and the Australian and New Zealand air force had taken over the two big hotels in Brighton, the Grand and the Metropole, and we, they'd ripped the luxury hotels to bits and crammed us in there.
DG: And how long, how long were you there?
AA: Um, I think only perhaps six weeks, four or six weeks or something.
DG: Right, and what, what happened to you after that?
AA: I and about nineteen others Australians, who had to be, were going to be wireless operators in Bomber Command, were sent to do a further course flying on Avro Anson's at a place called West Freugh, F,R,E,U,G,H near Stranraer Scotland on the west coast and we'd do further training there, 'cause when we arrived there in England they said 'oh the radios that you used in Australia, trained on in Australia, no we use the Marconi sets here you've got to have further training'.
DG: Oh right.
AA: So we used to fly out from there over Northern Ireland and down to, down to Wales, England and I think we were there for perhaps two, perhaps two to three months.
DG: And then what happened to you after?
AA: Well then.
DG: You did that further training?
AA: We passed all the tests there and we were then sent, or some of us, we were spread out
to different places to what they called an operational training unit, OTU, and the one I was sent to and I think only one other of that course of twenty went to the same OTU which was in Bedfordshire.
DG: Which one of that? What number was that?
AA: It was called Wing, the village of Wing but nothing to do with air force.
DG: Right yeah.
AA: And we flew from the satellites round there called Little Horwood, H,O, R W, double O, D. And it was interesting that Little Horwood was about a twenty minute bike ride from Bletchley or Bletchley Park.
DG: Oh golly.
AA: And I knew a girl who worked at Bletchley Park I met her there and she was my girlfriend for the duration of the war while I was there.
DG: Did you know anything about Bletchley Park and what was going on over there?
AA: We had no idea what went on we knew there was a lot of, we saw in the local pob, pub, The Park Hotel at Bletchley, we'd see all these officers navy officers, air force and army officers but in those days you really didn't make any enquiries.
DG: Were you aware that it was something pretty Top Secret or was it just another, another?
AA: Yes, we believed it was Secret.
DG: Yes, yes. And then when did you go to a squadron after that?
AA: At that stage, that is where you formed up in your crew.
DG: Right.
AA: And through a process within a day you arrived there, the I think it was the CO came and gathered us all together and said, and there were about twenty pilots, twenty wireless operators, twenty navigators, twenty gunners, 'right oh you fellas you've got about three or four days to form yourselves up into a crew' and I did see a fella that I, I didn't know him except of course there were Canadians, New Zealanders, English men, Australians, I didn't know anybody except the fella that I went with and I looked and then after a day I saw a fella called John Faile[?] who was a year or two years ahead of me at Sydney Grammar. And I went, and he was a pilot, and I went up to him, 'Johnny do you remember me?' and he said 'oh yes Sydney Grammar?' and he said 'yeah you were the opening bowler in the third eleven weren't you?' [laughter] and he was the star from the first eleven but I said ' have you got a wireless op?' and he said 'look', he said, 'I was only just been yesterday talking to an English fellow and he, ah I've asked him to be my wireless op and he was somebody else [unclear] so I asked him, he said he'd come back to me later on today, I think so' he said 'I'd love to have you but I' said 'I'm but I'm perhaps committed to have this chap'. And anyway he did come back to me later and said McKay[?] the other fella is going to come with me, the English chap, luckily I didn't, it was luck there because a few weeks after D-Day that crew was shot down and all killed.
DG: Oh.
AA: Over France. But nobody else would ask me it was mainly the pilots were going round asking people and I was a bit of a wallflower [DG laughs] one Australian pilot did say, came to me and approached me, would I be interested and and I said 'yes, I'm not crewed up, thank you very much, would love to be in your crew' all our unit was Australian and quickly in talking to each other we said you know, 'oh where do you live?' he lived in Sydney and I lived in Sydney and 'where do you live Wal?' and he said 'Greenfield' and 'where do you live Tony?' 'Roseville', the next suburb but I didn't know him and we then formed up into a crew and in due course we acquired another gunner and a, and a flight engineer but we were a crew of four Australians and three English men.
DG: And presumably the flight engineer would have been English?
AA: Yes, the flight engineer was English.
DG: Yeah, yeah.
AA: And the two gunners were English.
DG: Oh right. And were you sent to a squadron after that once you paired up?
AA: No the next step was because we were going to be on four engine bombers mainly for the pilot at the OTU we were flying Wellington bombers, a twin engine bomber, so we had to do, went to a place called Stradishall, which was called a conversion unit, it was mainly for the pilots to learn to fly a four engine as against a twin engine bomber, and at that stage we then got an extra gunner, a mid upper gunner, and a flight engineer.
DG: And ah did you, what happened after that, after that conversion?
AA: Well we're ready to go to a squadron then.
DG: Right.
AA: But prior to that they went in training in case we got shot down, we went to a, what is called I think, a battle course, that was for a couple of weeks where we were instructed on all the procedures if we did get shot down how to get back, how to evade capture and things like that.
DG: Right.
AA: And we did exercises in relation to that.
DG: And what happened after, once you'd finished that?
AA: When we finished that, and that was at a place called Methwold, we were ready to go to a squadron and we went from there to Lakenheath which was an RAF establishment it was pre-war I think and we were there within a few days of arriving there we did our first operation.
DG: Can you remember what, when that would have been that you, you first joined the squadron?
AA: Ah.
DG: Any idea when that would have been?
AA: Yeah it was May 1944.
DG: Right. So that's [unclear] nearly a year after you'd got to the UK.
AA: Yeah that's right.
DG: A little time after.
AA: Yes.
DG: And what was the, what was the daily life like at the base? Just your daily routines and life in general how did you find that?
AA: Well, they would post up if you were flying on operations that night or later that day they'd post up in the operations room all the crews and that were to fly at that time, all their names and give you the instructions as to the time of briefings, the navigator and the pilots used to have a briefing first and then the rest of the crew would come in for an hour or two later to the main briefing and so that was what happened, they told you the time the meals were going to be, the time of the transport to your aircraft, because of course there were aircraft dispersed right round the aerodrome and your aircraft, you were allocated an aircraft, ours happened to be C Charlie and er [unclear] what [unclear] make of aircraft or sometimes they'd switch them around but anyway ours was C Charlie, we had our own ground crew at the dispersal and I think there were five in the ground crew crew and we'd be transported out there during the day if it was going to be a night operation we'd be going out and checking our equipment that sort of thing.
DG: And what, and what would happen then if you, if you were flying that night , after you'd checked the aircraft out and what would happen? Presumably you'd be going on a mission after your evening meal or would you or?
AA: Yes, yes but later on we did more daylight operations than than night operations. That was our, because that was our squadron. Now I haven't told you the aircraft we were then flying when we first joined the squadron was Stirlings.
DG: Right.
AA: And the Stirlings at this stage of the War had been taken off the bombing of German targets. The Lancasters and the Halifaxes were the ones being used for that sort of operations, the Stirlings couldn't get the height and didn't have the speed so the, we were what, we were called a Special Duties Squadron, and as soon as we got there it was realised, we realised, were told [emphatic] it was very secret what we were doing. It was in all Bomber Command squadrons to a degree but ours was more secret [laughs].
DG: Right.
AA: And because the operations we were doing that were so secret was supplying the French Resistance movement with supplies.
DG: Ah right.
AA: And we weren't allowed to keep a diary.
DG: Um.
AA: Actually our mail, outward mail, was censored I think, and so that was the sort of thing. So we were doing that sort of operation and, and dropping mines at the entrances of the ports there where they had the German, the German fleet, submarines and warships who were attacking the Atlantic convoys would try to keep them hulled into those ports.
DG: You were dropping the supplies to the French Resistance, obviously that was in France?
AA: Yes.
DG: Have you any, do you know what parts of France that you were doing it?
AA: Yes, we didn't do that many of them.
DG: Um.
AA: Erm, about in the area of Dijon.
DG: Right.
AA: I do remember one town called Digoin. Which was not far from Dijon, D, I, G, O, I, N. To, would you like me to go on and tell you a bit what the operation was [chuckles].
DG: Yes, certainly, yes.
AA: Because they were rather, you know?
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: Um we had to find a clearing in the forest, we only flew on very bright moon light nights because we flew at very low altitude under the German radar.
DG: You had all the co-ordinates and everything and you had to find that little spot?
AA: Yes.
DG: Yes.
AA: And the navigator and the bomb aimer had to be, co-operate very much. The bomb aimer would lie down in his, in his part there and would map read with a torch and say, 'tell the navigator we are over this river' or [unclear] 'tell', and then when I said Degoinge I remember they would go to a small town and then be given, at a certain speed, in a certain direction, to find that clearing in the forest. Um, going out there OK you find the thing, the place, no bigger than a football field.
DG: You're obviously at a fairly low altitude to be able to find them?
AA: We were flying at five hundred feet.
DG: Would that avoid radar at that height?
AA: Yes.
DG: Oh right, OK.
AA: Five hundred feet, you'd perhaps go, anyway we had loaded in the bomb bay canisters of supplies.
DG: What were they made of?
AA: Well we were never told but it was arms, ammunition.
DG: No, no but the canisters. What were the?
AA: Oh metal and they had a parachute.
DG: Oh right, OK, yeah yeah.
AA: And the bomb aimer to had to identify that we were dropping at the right place, to the right people they had to flash to us on the torch the letter of the day, the agreed letter of the day in Morse Code and then they would then the French men, or French women too I guess ,would put out flares and we would do a, virtually a bombing run, probably at a thousand feet or lower and the canisters then would get released and float down, full moon, and they'd come out with horses and carts from under the trees and load these canisters onto their trucks and onto their carts and disappear back into, into the trees.
DG: And how many canisters might you have?
AA: Oh, I couldn't really tell you.
DG: No, no that's absolutely, that doesn't matter.
AA: Yes.
DG: And what, and um, did you ever meet with any resistance when you were doing those? Any flak or fighters or did you get a pretty free run run having been flying in such clear weather?
AA: Pretty, yes pretty free, I think it was entirely free as I can tell you about one occasion.
DG: Um.
AA: As as I said I was, I looked after the radio and before we took off we all checked our equipment and I'd go out my radio was working perfectly. Then, er we took off they had what they called a group broadcast, we were in Bomber Command's No3 group, there was a number of squadrons in that group most of them going and bombing German targets. But we had this different sort of operation and you had to, my job was, every half hour on the hour and half hour listen in to a group broadcast where instructions may be given, to some of us or all of us, such things as you're diverted to another aerodrome because there's fog over yours where you're going back to or all sorts of things. Um, especially for those on the bombing German targets the wind direction had been changed and things like that. But anyway, we'd been going a while we were probably over the coast of France by this stage and my radio went absolutely dead and I reported it to the skipper, I said 'my radio's out of action' and he said 'alright just let me know when it's fixed ', it wasn't something that would stop us proceeding on this operation and I was quite a good operator but I was hopeless at fixing things and my wife will bear you out, I've never fixed anything in my life [laughter] but anyway I fiddled around in those days radios had valves before transistors [laughs].
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: And I was pushing and pulling and I couldn't get it to work and so I, somehow then the next half hour broadcast was coming up and I'm getting a bit frantic, I pushed it in and just as I pushed it in came, a message came through it started to work for the group cast, the message was for our aircraft, our call sign or one of them.
DG: Oh dear.
AA: You recognise your voice as it's called out, well you recognised your call sign just as clearly.
DG: Yeah, yeah.
AA: Um, this, the message was return to base. I said to Wal the Skipper, in the aircraft you didn't go on first names, or very rarely 'Wireless Operator to Pilot I've just received a message, return to base' and he said 'what's the trouble are all the Force going back?' 'I don't know, just me, just us 'he said 'are you sure?' so well I was a bit er, radio reception at five hundred feet is not that good.
DG: No.
AA: But I'm sure. He said ' Tony you're in trouble [chuckles] if you've got this wrong', and anyway he took my word for it so back we went and landed probably midnight or 1am, I can't remember and a British major who we sort of knew who co-ordinated these sort of operations on our base he came out to our aircraft and we said 'what's up major?' and he said 'well after you got took off and got to the other side we got, we got' I remember his words, 'we got word from the other side, a message from the other side, that the Frenchmen there had been captured and they had installed 3 [unclear] and 2 Bofor's guns awaiting your arrival'.
DG: Oh right. And you might have gone into that if your radio hadn't come back on the line again?
AA: I wouldn't have been talking to you now.
DG: No.
AA: If I hadn't got that message [unclear].
DG: Unbelievable,
AA: My radio was.
DG: Before, just getting backtracking a little bit, you mentioned the airfield you were at, I don't know whether I asked you your squadron number that you were in?
AA: It was RAF Squadron 149.
DG: RAF 149. And what field were you flying from at this stage?
AA: Ah, it would have been Methwold.
DG: OK, OK, and you did a number of these operations dropping?
AA: Not very many.
DG: Right.
AA: Er, one of the first ones we did was with the CO, our pilot was second pilot on this occasion so he could learn the ropes a bit, I think we only did about six of them.
DG: So you did those and dropping the mines.
AA: Dropping the mines.
DG: Did you have any interesting situations with those missions?
AA: Well, no they er only one and this was after D-Day and we were dropping mines at the entrance to Bordeaux which is on the west coast of France, the river there Bordeaux's on is called the Gironde, G, I, R, O, N, D, E, Gironde, it has a very wide estuary or mouth and we had to drop the mines there for the entrance, and we did that again at low level because it was after D-Day we weren't allowed to cut across France. We had to, came from Methwold up near Cambridge, we went right down to Lands' End and then went down the west coast of France, dropped our mines and then had to go back the same way, not cutting across France at all and we're coming up the coast after we'd dropped our mines, suddenly I'm standing in what is called the astrodome which is a perspex bubble on top of a fuselage, where I'm, if I'm not having a radio duty I'm keeping a watch out for anything and suddenly I see fazer coming up towards us from a light machine gun and I understand it was a flagship.
DG: Oh.
AA: Anchored off the coast and I would swear that those bullets [unclear] were going for our rear turret, but we weren't hit at all.
DG: And what was the reason for going, not going over France, going around after D-Day because of the hostilities was that?
AA: Yes, that's right.
DG: You wanted to keep out of the way?
AA: The anti aircraft were all around so that's what we did.
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: And by this stage because we had to, I then started getting messages, radio messages on Morse Code that our, Methwold and round there was fog bound I think, or the weather anyway and they kept sending us a different message to divert to another aerodrome, and then they'd say 'no don't go to that one' but finally we landed a Coastal Command base in North Devon called Shivenor, or Chivenor, and sat there the night, rest of the night and went home the following day.
DG: And after your operations what did you, there were some fellows who had problems with nerves and they were accused of having a lack of moral fibre. How did you, how did you feel about these fellows?
AA: Well I, I never struck, all the time I was there I never knew anybody that, didn't hear anybody, I'd heard that some had sort of been just quietly removed.
DG: Right.
AA: I, I didn't have any direct contact with anybody like that.
DG: And when you, how, how did you feel, how were your, how were your nerves, you knew you were going to fly a mission, how did you, how did you feel?
AA: Um, usually it's not going to happen to me.
DG: Right [laughter].
AA: And I must say the times we were flying the casualty rate was not as high as it had been, I can't say I'm a very brave person but it didn't, wasn't too upset. There was only, we haven't got on to the stage yet of when we, the Squadron converted over to Lancasters.
DG: Right.
AA: And we were then bombing German targets more.
DG: Right.
AA: Er, about three nights in a week, in one week, we had daylight, I think daylight, we had to go to a place called Honsberg in the Rhur Valley and, near Dusseldorf, and the anti aircraft fire was very bad [laughs] terrific.
DG: Right.
AA: And I saw aircraft shot down and so on and when I we went to briefing that day they looked up on the map on the big map of Europe on the wall it was Honsberg again, oh gosh and I think I was very, very touchy then that day, is this going to be my last flight? But generally speaking you just had a job to do it didn't, I wasn't terribly concerned.
DG: How did you feel once you were in the air, did that?
AA: Well you had your job to do and.
DG: Did that change your mind?
AA: I was fairly calm but if you saw, as we did on one occasion, an aircraft flying right alongside us, got anti aircraft fire in seconds it hit the wing and the blazing fuel from the wing spread backwards in seconds and the tail plane was alight and they circled away, we didn't see any parachutes, it would have crashed. That was a New Zealand squadron aircraft we, I found out in recent years.
DG: So you were, you were dropping the supplies from the Stirlings?
AA: Yes.
DG: Right, and er then you went to Lancasters, you got Lancasters?
AA: Yes.
DG: And ah you mentioned that that mission, what other missions did you, did you fly in the Lancasters? This is after D-Day is it did you say?
AA: Yes well we were still on Stirlings right through 'til September which was three months after D-Day.
DG: September '44 yes?
AA: September 1944. We were bombing in Stirlings we did some bombing raids on German targets [clears throat] Le Havre, the Canadians had the Germans troops surrounded in Le Havre and we were bombing the troops virtually, they the Germans had set up flying bomb bases or launching sites on the coast in France, lobbing them towards London and things..
DG: Oh yes.
AA: And we were bombing those sites, I think that was the main things we were doing on the Stirlings besides and doing minor operations of St Malo and other other ports.
DG: And what, what missions did you do in the Lancasters?
AA: Well they were virtually, they were all bombing of industrial targets in, in Ruhr Valley, Cologne, Essen, Bonn [coughs] more in daylight than er [coughs], excuse me, than at night time actually.
DG: Now when you were bombing, bombing these targets there would of course there would always have been civilians somewhere around, how did you, how did you feel when you were bombing these, that there were no doubt somewhere along the lines civilians were going to get killed.
AA: I virtually never even thought about it. We were given a target.
DG: Yeah.
AA: I don't know if it ever really crossed my mind very much. Er, just as a quick example, when I, I mentioned that I was, my virtually first job after the, when I left school or did, started doing accountancy training was with a chartered accountant only for a few months, and he was an auditor, and I'd go with him to the various places, companies to be audited. One of them was called Babcock and Wilcocks, at Regent Park in Sydney, and I'd go out there, didn't have a clue really what I was doing but I had a green pen to tick things, and what was some three years later this was when we were on the Lancaster Squadron, Lancasters we went to briefing, it would have been in November 1944 some three years later. 'Gentlemen your target for tonight is the Babcock and Wilcocks works at Oberhausen [strong laughter] but we were given a target.
DG: Yes.
AA: Now our squadron or most of the squadrons in No3 Group Bomber Command at this stage were, usual targets were bombing synthetic oil plants.
DG: Oh right yeah, yeah.
AA: And so that's what we were doing right through to the very last one we did..
DG: How many missions did you complete?
AA: Thirty six.
DG: Thirty six. So you did your, did your [unclear].
AA: [Unclear].
DG: Was that classified as, at one stage I think there were certain, there were certain, certain targets that weren't considered as dangerous as the others so you had to complete more, more missions to complete your tour, was that had you completed a tour?
AA: Yes.
DG: Yes.
AA: When we joined the squadron and were flying Stirlings [unclear] the standard was thirty. But then at some stage later, and I can't quite remember when, they said 'no you've got to do thirty five', and so eventually I did thirty five but one, I can't remember which one it was, we did what was called an air sea rescue mission, we went looking in the North Sea for RAF crews shot down during the night ditching. I think that may have been the one that we, they said 'oh you're near the coast' or something, I don't know and so they added on officially I did thirty six [laughs].
DG: Oh golly. And so then that pretty much, once you, that's pretty much the end of the War at that stage?
AA: Er, we did our last operation on the 6th of December 1944, that's five, five months before the end of the War.
DG: Right.
AA: Er yes.
DG: And did you, you've talked about a few things that happened, was there anything else any other particularly interesting things that you, that come to mind, that you might have been involved in?
AA: No er, [pauses] no really it was, I didn't realise until recently, I was looking at my log book, you imagine RAF Bomber Command is flying out every night and the US Army Air Force were flying and bombing sometimes the same targets by day.
DG: Right.
AA; But on adding up in my log book we, on Lancasters, we only did six at night and about, I don't know, fifteen or twenty or something in daylight.
DG: Right, right.
AA: Yes.
DG: And so what, when the, that was in November '44 you flew your last mission?
AA: 6th of December.
DG: Of December?
AA: Celebrating the pilot's 27th birthday.
DG: And what happened, what happened then, after you'd flown your last mission the War was still going on though?
AA: Oh yes, yes. Well at this stage they had aircrew too many aircrew really and I and other Australians but not only other Australians the majority, the flight engineer also came with me to a non flying station up at the north of Scotland near Nairn, where they were, we had various tests, what are we going to do with these people next sort of thing. And so we had aptitude tests and so on and it was once thought that I might become a wireless operator on a Walrus amphibian plane based in Northern in France to fly out and rescue people who were shot down in the sea but that didn't eventuate. And then I was, er said 'you won't be required as aircrew you'll probably be an intelligence officer'. And then we were virtually on leave on and off and really we were then based back at Brighton and word came through 'all you Australians are going to get sent home'. So I think it was at the end of April, around about the 20th of April 1945 I was on the ship on the way home, and Anzac Day 1944 er we were somewhere been going a few days.
DG: 45?
AA; And Anzac Day and I've still got the menu, I was in the Officers' Mess in this troopship, the New Amsterdam, I've got the menu that Anzac Day.
DG: Anzac Day 1945?
AA: Yes.
DG: On the, on the way home? Oh great.
AA: And then 2 weeks later it was VE Day and we were still on the water on the way home.
DG: Right.
AA: And a week or two after that we arrived in Fremantle for just a day refuelling and then round to Sydney and.
DG: What happened to you after the War?
AA: Oh well I was discharged well actually I [unclear] to the service, others got the discharge, I was transferred to R, double A,F reserve so theoretically they could call me up at any time I think [laughter] but anyway we'll call it discharge, and that was of course the War was going on against Japan, atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered and within two or three weeks of War against Japan ending I was discharged from the air force.
DG: Right.
AA: And quickly back to my accountancy studies, I was half way through, I finished those and then started working as a commercial accountant in various, various companies throughout my mostly in accounting jobs had about four different companies I think I worked for, three or four, some well known companies, mainly it was Grace Brothers, and the final one was Brambles where I ended up for the last ten years as company secretary until I retired on my 60th birthday in 1984.
DG: And when, when and where, did you meet your wife, sometime after you came back?
AA: Yes, that was, I was, I was down on the south coast over a long weekend, the October weekend down to a seaside resort called Austinmer down near Woolongong, and I was there with a few of my mates and she was there with a few of her girls at the same guest house and we met on the beach and I asked her if she'd come out with me after we, after we got back to Sydney and within six weeks we were engaged.
DG: Right.
AA: [laughs].
DG: And you're still married? Great.
AA: Been married for sixty seven years.
DG: Did you, how many children did you have?
AA: A son and daughter.
DG: Oh great,great. And after, after um after you got back from the War how were fellows that came back from Bomber Command treated, how did you feel you were being treated?
AA: I think, I've heard a lot of stories where they said, you know, 'why were you over there, we were fighting it out here and the Japanese', I never heard a single thing [unclear] who come back from Vietnam being shunned and so on but er, I never got that impression they were, we were welcomed back and got a good job and which I think we had we were, we were, I don't know, I think we all well slotted into whatever we were doing before.
DG: Yeah.
AA: All my mates in the Bank, and they went back to the Bank, and.
DG: Do you still keep in touch with some of the fellows from your time in Engl[and], your time in Bomber Command?
AA: Er yes just a few.
DG: Yes.
AA: Just a few most of them have passed on really but.
DG: Do you ever?
AA: The navigator of our crew was Australian, he and I are the only two surviving members of the crew now.
DG: You and your navigator?
AA: Yeah.
DG: Right.
AA: Well I think that's er, that brings us pretty well up to date. Thanks very much for talking to me Tony I much appreciate it. Thank you.
AA: Right. Cup of tea now?
DG: Thank you.
AA: Or coffee would you prefer?
DG: Coffee but that's.
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Interview with Tony Adams
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Donald Gould
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-06-16
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00:56:07 audio recording
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AAdamsT160616
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Pending review
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Tony Adams grew up in Australia and was studying accountancy when he was conscripted into the army at the age of 18. He later transferred to the Air Force. He trained as a wireless operator and was sent overseas to the UK in June 1943. After training he flew 36 operations in Stirlings and Lancasters with 149 Squadron stationed at RAF Methwold. After the war, he completed his accountancy training before retiring as Company Secretary for Brambles in 1984.
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Dawn Studd
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
United States
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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1943
1944
1945
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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.
149 Squadron
3 Group
air sea rescue
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
Lancaster
mine laying
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Methwold
RAF West Freugh
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/659/8932/BAndersonRJAndersonRJv1.2.pdf
ec9e1bb95758e7ae0310e8c3d9401ca5
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Title
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Anderson, Robert
Bob Anderson
R J Anderson
Description
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One item. An unpublished memoir by Flying Officer Robert Anderson.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by
Christopher Nash and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-06
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Anderson, RJ
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Transcription
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[Drawings of Australia shoulder flash, RAAF pilot’s brevet and medal ribbons.]
[page break]
1.
This is not written as any kind of record of facts, neither does it include any of the finer detail. It is only a vague outline of my own experience of a relatively short, but crowded period, while I was involved in surviving a war as one of many aircrew. No doubt many other people have much different ideas, mainly because their experiences would have been different, some better, some worse, I had no experience of injury to myself or crew, either through enemy action or just plain accident, but there were times when we put that down to our better than average good luck. Not once did we even have what could be called a crash landing. My crew would disagree and say they were all far below the average safety level, but could still grin when they said it, so there were times when I accept that as almost praise, they still hoped for some miracle, even if it didn’t happen.
But back to the beginning
[signature] R J Anderson
[page break]
2.
At the beginning of the war in Europe, all of our age group were called up for home service in the army. A referendum for overseas conscription having been defeated. However P.N.G. was a mandated territory at this time so it was included in home territory.
I joined the 3rd Div. sigs as a despatch rider because I had an interest in motor bikes, but the army didn’t ride the way we did. Of course you had to take your own bike along as the army only had a few, mostly antiques.
They soon managed to acquire every side valve model in the country to make up the numbers. Mine, being OHV, I took home again, the army thought these were unreliable.
The courses here were very simple, internal combustion engines, Morse code, sig by flags etc. plus the usual armaments. The rest was pack drill and physical exercise.
Went OK, until our selected officers turned up to take command straight out of school. Perhaps they could count to ten without using their fingers, but they didn’t know one end of a gun from the other, let alone what went on in between. They also had the greatest ability to get lost once they were more than 10yds (3m) from the main road. So a few of us decided we would be better off somewhere else. We all thought, perhaps if we could fly, we may have some hope of getting away from the stupidity (just do as you are told we are never wrong) how could anyone achieve anything that way.
Not that we thought air force officers would be any different, but if you were flying by yourself, you should have some chance of making some of your own decisions, be they right or wrong. So, as the camp period lasted only three months, we then returned to normal work until our next call up for another three months.
At this time we just signed on, not as pilots as we had hoped, but just as aircrew, the airforce [sic] then sorted you into whichever they considered you most suitable for.
Of course there was a very tough physical examination to pass, and then back to school three nights a week to catch up on maths, etc. it was then left up to the airforce to claim us from the army. As they had first claim because we were already partly trained. However I managed to get my release two days before the next camp was due to begin. So I carried on the night school until called up for the airforce. By this time the empire air scheme was getting well organised. Ours was No. 23 course at Sommers. Accommodation was mostly huts, but some tents, just to make up until they could build more huts.
It was the day after our arrival in camp when the Japanese entered the war, of course this must have added to the need to speed up the training, but it still took nearly four months of solid study. Subjects included - all maths, alg, geom, trig, etc. Morse code, send and receive minimum 17 words to minute. Met, Navigation, theory of flight, internal combustion engines, carburation, super chargers some physical and structural stresses, and a lot more interesting junk that you would never hope to use in practice.
As it had been a few years since I had left school, it wasn’t easy but some of these were new subjects anyway.
Four of us from the army course had arrived for this intake, so I wasn’t the only one with strange ideas. (I was later told that the 3rd div. was almost wiped out in New Guinea, perhaps they didn’t have time to learn).
A lot of time was put into physical training too up and down the sand dunes etc. as many of this intake were league footballers, rugby players from N.S.W. and some of our better known athletes in other sports, the competition was always pretty keen.
[page break]
3.
I remember being told off by a W.O. because I let one chap beat me at something I said “yeah, but I could have beat him if I have to”. He said “My boy, you only come second once in a war there is no second chance”.
He was so right.
Here too, were the first of the assessment boards, you marched into a room, when called, to face 4 or 5 officers, ex-school master types, seated behind a long desk, each with a list of questions to fire at you.
The questions would be on all strange unrelated subjects, often overlapping before you had time to complete your answer to the previous question.
There must have been a reason somewhere as these were regular up to ops squadron, but at the end of the course we were divided into groups, pilots, navs, wops etc. and sent to different camps for further training in our selected fields.
I was lucky enough to be selected as a pilot. Our mob went to Western Junction (Tas) to start on Tiger moths.
Our quarters were unlined gal iron huts with no heating which was not a lot of protection from the snow on the hills outside. I think most of us slept with our clothes on plus a few spare news papers tucked between the couple of issue blankets, but no one complained too much, after all, we were doing what we had set out to do.
Between the flying we still did plenty of ground courses, Nav, Morse, theory of flight etc. Met became a very important subject now to learn the types of clouds and try to read the winds and weather conditions that went with different types at different heights.
The link trainer is the first introduction to practical navigation using instruments only with no possibility of map reading from sightings on the ground, however the main aim at this time was to learn to fly instruments only.
The “link” is a little dummy aircraft fixed to the floor, fitted with a complete set of instruments, controlled entirely by the pilot. It is capable of doing all turns, climbs, dives, spins, variations of speed and heights, flying any compass course etc. in fact anything a plane can do without going anywhere, but always the instruments register everything the pilot does.
You climb in the same as in a plane, a cover goes over the trainee so you cannot see anything outside your little cabin. All instruments have repeaters on the instructions desk, along with a pen on wheels, as on a recording graph, this plots your track you actually fly on a map. Speeds, height etc. can be read off along the track by the instructor.
A map of a chosen area is fixed to the bench top, with North corresponding to your compass North; and the pen set at your starting point. You have a similar map with your track, turning points, heights etc. marked on it, so if you can fly the correct courses you have worked out, at the correct speeds, then the pen on the desk will trace the correct track on the map, but I think most of us went off a bit. The only to tell when to turn is when your calculated time for that track is up. Trouble is, if you go off track, or flown too fast, or too slow you are no where near where you should be when you turn, and the error increases as time goes on. Hard to believe when you see the results on the map on the desk. However the instructor can talk to you through the intercom, so he does put you right now and then. It’s easy to go into a spin at the beginning, if you are good enough you can, get out again, if not you crash without getting hurt, but either way it’s a good way to practice.
[underlined] Tiger Moth [/underlined]
Basic trainer for R.A.A.F. in fact most of the Empire air training at the time. This is a simple aircraft, very stable in flight, fully aerobatic, speed about the top speed of my motorbike, but no trees to miss.
It has no flaps, no super chargers, only one petrol tank, fixed propeller, with a strong head wind it can fly backwards relative to the
[page break]
4
ground, open cockpit, no radio, only a tube speaking system between the seats. There are no brakes either, which makes it hard to taxi. Only method of steering is by use of the rudder, but with a strong wind from the side, it can be greater than the airflow from the slipstream, which means the aircraft automatically turns into wind, only correction is a burst of throttle against a full rudder, but the stick must be held hard back or this will lift the tail and smash the prop into the ground.
Tiger Moth DH 90
Engine 130hp Gipsy Major Inverted
Span 29’ 4”
Length 23’ 11”
Height 8’ 9”
Take Off [deleted] Height [/deleted] W/T 1825 lbs
Max Speed 109 mph
Top Ceiling 13600 ft
Range 302 mls
Fixed prop No brakes No flaps
A fairly high drop out rate at this time considering the already carefully selected personnel, mostly through lack of co-ordination etc. most of these would be able to fly quite well but there just isn’t time to teach them. This was my first experience of hearing of someone freezing (mental & physically) one chap on final approach pointed the tiger at the end of the runway and just kept going until it hit.
He was unhurt, a tiger lands rather slowly, but he stayed in hospital a couple of days before the shock came out. Most of those who failed this initial course were changed to other aircrew ratings usually wireless ops or gunners.
Obviously a tiger is a very easy aircraft to fly, obviously I was not very good, because it took me a long time to go solo. It seems there was a lot to learn and my trouble was I could not accept anything without trying it first, so I wasted too much time just doing the same things over again. Little things like crabbing or skidding on approach or side slipping to lose height because I started too high.
It would have been hard to get lost here, because we only flew in good weather, never far from the drome but I guess we managed to fit all the essentials in and gradually built up our confidence.
Provided you did the routine checks before take off and landing everything worked out OK. They said of the tiger, if it was properly trimmed when flying and you got into trouble, you just took your hands and feet off and it would get itself out but I didn’t try that one.
[page break]
5
It was still very cold flying in the open cockpit between the snow covered hill tops, so most of the trips were pretty short. This has advantages too because it gives more takeoff’s [sic] & landings for the total hours flown.
One of my instructors had been an instructor in civvy pre-war. He had joined the airforce hoping he would be put into fighters and sent to New Guinea, but the airforce needed good instructors rather badly and obviously knew he was far more valuable as an instructor.
This was very good for us but rather frustrating for him. Just about the end of my course his frustration started to show, but this was even better for me because it did teach me some of the things to watch in low flying. Low flying in civil flying is anything below or about 500ft, low level flying in the airforce is just above to just below the tree tops. In daylight this is not too bad, in moonlight it is rather worse, add in flak and searchlight – you need a lot of luck.
He picked a day with a fairly strong wind, but once we were airborne he said “I want to show you a few things, unofficial of course so you will have to forget they happened OK?”. I said “OK” and began to wonder what this was going to be.
We drifted away from the drome to one of his paddocks where he took over control and said “ hands and feet off and just watch”, he then dived down to grass level at full speed and went charging along with the wheels just touching the grass until he spotted a hare running in our direction, he tried to hit it with the wing tip, of course this is very hard to do because the wing hides the object from view when you get close to it. Then climbed and turned towards our starting point, but he couldn’t see the hare again.
His next effort was to pick two trees spaced a little apart, he obviously knew his paddock. We were now going in the same direction as our first run so he built up speed again and dived straight through between two trees with not a lot of space either side. We then returned to our starting point again, he then said “right you’ve got it, I want you to fly between those two trees like I did, but don’t go low enough, stay just above the tops OK?”.
Well-it’s just as well I stayed above the tops because I would have gone straight into the tree on the right hand side. Not so good he said.
Next we went to the left of the paddock and again turned towards the trees. He managed to do a steep turn to the left just before we got to the first tree. Back to the starting point, and as before, it was my turn, but again above the tops. Back to the routine exercises..
When we landed back at base he explained why he had shown me these effects. He said he had picked a day when he knew the wind was strong enough and in the right direction for his paddock. What he wanted to show me was the effect of wind drift on the aircraft relative to the ground. If the wind is head on, you go much slower relative to the ground. When you fly with a cross wind your aircraft goes sideways at the same speed as the wind is blowing regardless of the speed you are flying at. If the wind is from behind you, you go that much faster relative to the ground.
The reason I would have hit the trees on the first run through was simply because I had not allowed for any drift. The reason I would have hit them on the second run was slightly different, partly because the wind would again have blown me into the trees, but also, when an aircraft or any object is travelling in a straight line at speed and you try to change it’s direction it tends to continue in the same direction.
In the case of aircraft you change the attitude of the aircraft, but it’s kinetic energy carries it on it’s original direction for some distance, so the trick is to learn to allow for this.
[page break]
6
The one thing he did say is a good idea for beginners was to practice on the clouds, but always remember the clouds don’t move, but the trees and houses always move.
He was so right.
His object on the first crossing was not to chase the hare, it need not have been there, it was only to check the wind drift while we were clear of the trees.
This later proved to be a very valuable lesson.
At this time the Japs were well involved in our war getting closer to our north every day, but some of us were still chosen to go to the U.K. I for one tried to change it but it seems big decisions like that can’t be changed. So a few of us were posted to Sydney. The crossing from Tas. to Melbourne in that little tub must rate as one of the roughest, being the only time I was sea sick. Our trip from Melbourne to Sydney must have been one of the worst too. Anyone who travelled on this trip pre-war must have really needed to go. We were all unloaded at Albury to change trains. It was a different gauge rail in N.S.W. at that time. Then packed into N.S.W. trains like squashed sardines, we were supposed to sleep that way, I’m sure we didn’t.
We camped at Bradfield park in Sydney waiting for our ship, but the Japs had sunk it somewhere so we all came back to Melbourne to wait again for the next one.
This was the Klip Fontain a 10000 ton Dutch freighter that normally carried a few passengers. The only armament was a singly [sic] little cannon mounted directly aft., but it was a fairly modern motor ship, cruised at about 18 knots. So there was no escort and we went far to the south from the usual trade route.
Not much out of the ordinary on this trip except for one incident where we almost had a head on collision with another ship at night, no lights of course, our little ship almost dived under when turning to starboard. The idea was to run directly away so that the gun on the aft deck could be used but it must have been one of ours, so we just continued on our way.
We had some rough weather which was unfortunate, because a table came loose in the temporary mess hold. It must have spent the night bashing everything to pieces because the next morning there was only a great pile of match wood left and thereafter we had to stand up to eat.
Three of us volunteered to be guard Capt.’s on this trip, against our principles really but it gave us full access to the cook house which is not a bad idea. The duty of the guard Capt.’s was only to check on the odd guards who were posted at different points around the ship 24 hours a day. No problems really until I went to check on one guard stationed in the hold one night. This was a pretty terrible position. It was an empty hold but the previous cargo had been a load of cow hides, they had removed all the hides but the smell in this closed area was most noticeable. There was also one steel door that swung with a creak all night, perfect ghost atmosphere, no one knew what was being guarded either. Anyhow I had just opened the hatch at the top of the stairs (not ships talk) when the poor guard pulled the trigger of the rifle. The bullet went crashing from wall to wall to wall making no end of noise in the confined area, but he did not manage to shoot himself so I wandered down and talked to him, but I did hold the rifle. It only delayed the inevitable, he was scrubbed in Canada and sent home.
It is essential to get some exercise on board ship, so our mob had to do the usual drill. One of the chaps job pre-war was a pianist at the Tiv” [sic] for the ballet more for a change than anything he taught us to do some different steps, like the about turn and change step etc. quite spectacular for the ballet, but it was just exercise for us.
Eventually arrived at San Pedro USA and made a slow trip by train up west coast to Vancouver, then across the rockies [sic] to Edmonton which was our base camp until we once again sorted into our respective groups for training purposes.
[page break]
7
We were rather worried about this train trip after our last experience, but there was no comparison, these trains had all the mod-cons including a porter to look after you. The porter didn’t get paid by the company, but had to tender to the rail company to get the job, his only pay was a from tips collected from the travellers. He had to clean all the carriages as well as look after his passengers, also the seats had to be made into beds every night, including the ones that folded down from the top, very comfortable too. We couldn’t afford to tip him on every occasion so we all put in and paid him at the end of the run. He made far more than we did that week. Travelling up the west coast changed our ideas of American life completely, we had looked to America as Gods country but that was only for the few. The people we saw were extremely poor. The farm houses would not have passed for decent pig pens in Australia, but the one big difference was the cars they drove, all late model yank tanks, petrol at that time was 3 pence per gal, in Aus it was about one shilling and eight pence.
The contrast in the farms was very similar to the desert and Mildura, which turned out to be typical of all the parts we saw, either they had the lot or nothing at all, not what we were used to.
The Canadian Pacific Rail, over the rockies to Edmonton was perhaps a little better than the Yank train. The railway paid their porters but you still had to tip some times. The scenery on this run must be some of the best in the world. The rivers are magnificent, often packed with Oregon logs floated down to the mills, then held by booms across the river until ready to be used.
Probably the one reason for such scenery is the fact that at the higher altitudes the air is so cold you can see even small detail for miles.
Continued across the rockies to Edmonton, which was our base camp until we were once again sorted out into our respective groups for training purposes. Edmonton at that time was a fairly big camp, but mostly for new recruits, so they were trying to teach discipline in a big way.
This wasn’t part of our deal. They were not very interested in us. There was nothing for us to do, so they kicked us out of the gate each morning and were not all that happy to see us back each night. Sometimes they held a roll call so a few of us would roll out and answer for everyone and everyone was happy.
Eventually posted to camp Borden, an RCAF camp about 60mls north of Toronto to continue our flying training. Our party have been divided into two groups, some to train on twins on dromes further west and our crowd to train here on fighters.
We were taken over by a French Canadian flight sgt who’s job it was to march us from place to place as required. English was not always his best subject so we used that as best we could. Probably one of the best scenes while doing drill was, first to march with our thumbs straight up. He stopped us all and said “non non non” took a long time to learn to keep our thumbs down, next we did the change step we had practices on the ship, then the about turn, he was very patient, perhaps he was use to idiots.
He had his laugh in the end though, once the snow arrived. We were marching down to the flight one day and coming back the other way was a group of Canucks, as they went behind a hut from us we all broke ranks and quickly made snowballs, when they were clear of the building we threw everything we had at them, but we didn’t know much about snowballs and they had spent their lives at it. They killed us in no time flat and the sgt thought it wonderful. Unfortunately they had a keen type officer with them who may have copped a snow ball, because he was very much in favour of putting us all on a charge of some sort just on principle. Their local basket ball team decided to challenge us to a game, so we said OK even though we had never heard of the game. It only
[page break]
8
lasted about 5 minutes before we were all ordered off the court. It seems you are not allowed to bump your opponent off the floor.
Here we saw the first example of instant lawns. They had erected a new flag pole and levelled out the ground around it as a parade square. Next they brought in great rolls of turf and rolled it out, side by side, rolled it down and watered it. Much quicker than sowing seeds, anyway they probably wouldn’t have grown it was just before the snow.
Their living conditions and food were much like the Yanks, so far ahead of ours, what with grapefruit and tomato juice etc. Just help yourself. The huts too were central heated, we didn’t realise at the time that this was essential to survival later when weather really got cold. Perhaps it was an early hint when Bing’s new film was put on in the camp theatre. “White Christmas”. It was the first white Christmas I had ever seen. I didn’t think Tassie was cold anymore.
Our first aircraft is a Yale. This is an early development of the NA16, ordered for the French air force training, but at the fall of France they were taken over by the EATS (Empire air training scheme).
A small advance on the tigers, being a monoplane, with fixed undercart, fixed prop-boost, radio & intercom, closed cockpit, rudder
Yale
Early model of NA 16
Engine S3 HL Wasp 350hp
Fixed undercart
Flaps and Brakes
Harvard
Engine 600 hp Prat [sic] & Whitney
Span 42’
Length 29’
Height 11’ 8”
Take Off Weight 5300lbs
Max. Speed 208mph at 5000’
OP ceiling 24000’
Range 730mls
Operated brakes, hydraulic flaps, a bigger motor, radial instead of inline, but still gills to control engine temperature a bit more work to do, it did fly faster, but not as stable, which meant you had to fly it all the time.
Next on to the Harvard which is a further advance on the Yale. Bigger motor DH hydromatic prop, retractable undercart etc. At this time, the drome was covered with snow rolled hard by large corrugated rollers, no runways visible. Strange to spin on landing, to be able to do nothing but sit and let it spin while it slid along until it stopped.
Here I won the award of the week for taxiing with flaps down. Just forgot to put them up after landing. It seems lumps of ice can be lifted by the slipstream and put holes in them.
[page break]
9
A lot of experiences I had here were very valuable later but rather frightening at the time, surprises like, to fly on a “clear” day and drop from a big height on landing. On complaining to the instructor because the aircraft stalled at higher speed, I was taken back to the aircraft where he said “watch this” and bashed the wing with his hand, from the point of impact, cracks spread across the wing. It was covered in clear ice therefore the aircraft was much heavier. When ice is present (if you know) landing speed is increased.
Next was to get caught in snow, nothing visible outside except white parallel lines, not easy the first time, not easy any time.
Next was to be lost while flying No.2 in formation practice in fog. Broke formation in a thick patch and lost No.1.
I called base and was told to use emergency map, but there was no map, someone needed it more that I did I guess. Finally found a small town, and described this to base i.e. Direction of main street railway crossing etc. given a course to fly from their recognition, called again in 10 minutes, very relieved to note that his voice was louder.
Leader landed in snow field safely but the kite stayed there until after the snow.
Here too, I flew into cloud deliberately for the first time, I was quite sure I was right and the instruments were wrong, but I came out the bottom in a very fast spiral dive, luckily there was enough room to correct before the ground.
This was the beginning of another duty that had a steady increase. Pall bearers for some of our mates who were not so lucky. Often there was little left to bury, so mostly just a bag of sand to make up the weight but the smell was always the same.
One of the airforces [sic] faults I thought. Always for these “Honours” they pick the duty detail from the top of the list i.e. Names starting with A.
A good number dropped out from here, some sent home, some to other aircrew musterings, w/op, bomb aimer etc. There were many strange landings, even upside down on the golf course. Luckily I always got home.
The last part of the training here was an advanced unit, bombing, dive bombing etc., all on the bombing range. There was also a machine gun range, so, while trying to do low flying, we could shoot at sea gulls, never hit any of course but it was fun to try. Tried to fly formation on the migrating wild geese too but they were a bit too slow.
The weather here was extreme to us, to see hard frozen snow blowing like sand to be confined to heated living quarters because 10 minutes of bare skin exposure could mean frost bite. Tales of people loosing [sic] fingers etc., but the worst we saw was similar to sunburnt skin going brown and peeling, only on fingers and ears. Chaps flying with cockpit open because of bad visibility.
A great deal of pressure was applied towards the end of the course when it came to tests.
The first was a non-stop aerobatic act with [deleted] no [/deleted] [inserted] AN [/inserted] instructor to tell you what to do next and ensure you didn’t stop or make them too gentle.
After 3 / 4 of an hour of rolls, barrel rolls, loop rolls off the top, rolls off the bottom, even a couple of high speed stalls (unintentional) just bad flying, I was happy to get my feet on the ground. Next came unannounced again starting at “A”. A new instructor said “instrument test” I said “I haven’t done any” He said “I haven’t time to wait for that you can do some now”.
These aircraft were the same as the others except for a cover that fitted over the pilots cockpit so the only thing you could see were the instruments.
The instructor of course was not enclosed he had to watch for other aircraft as well as your flying.
I found this rather hard at this time even though the routine must have been fairly simple, compass courses, changes of course e.g. 180’ to 68’ to 240 to 60’ etc. with rate one turns, but I managed to turn the wrong
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[underlined] 10 [/underlined]
way sometimes. Perhaps I would never make a pilot even after all the link training.
Another of my better efforts was to try to land with the wheels up. The Harvard, like most planes, has two indicator lights that show red with the wheels up and green with the wheels down, it also has a loud horn right behind your ear, this only works (automatic) when you close the throttle with the wheels up as on landing.
Guess I had (a) forgotten to put the wheels down (b) check the lights (c) ignored the red lights from the control tower (d) ignored the hooter in my ear (rather bright boy) but I Couldn’t ignore many red very lights they fired off from everywhere, so I had to go around again.
Didn’t get the award for that, I guess it must have been beaten by someone else that day.
The miracle was, I eventually passed and had my wings but I was nowhere near the bright boy of the course.
Up to that time, there were two incidents of over confidence. The first at about 100hrs in “Tigers”, the second at about 300hrs total. So I was much luckier than some of my course. On looking at the registration numbers of aircraft I had flown (log book) it would seen you hardly even flew the same aircraft twice. I suppose each aircraft is slightly different so it is better practice to fly different aircraft each time rather than get used to the same one.
Our next step, we hoped, was England and Spitfires. After a short leave in America we assembled at Halifax NS. To await a ship. This must be one of the worlds coldest ports I think, everything covered in clear ice, it was hard to stand up without sliding down the hill.
In time we were joined by other courses, some who had flown Ansons, Cessna twins etc.
The ship was rather large 45000 tons. “Andies” built for the south American run (pre-war) therefore it was fairly flat bottomed for shallow water. This of course meant it rolled continuously and sometimes rather too much. We had to put two ropes over our bunks to keep us in but that was no real problem. Again we were unescorted, it being a fast ship, but this time we were somewhere up near the north pole, its [sic] just as cold as the south. As the spray went over it built up as ice on every rope on the rigging even the deck was covered in ice, caused many broken arms when people slid as the ship rolled, then they crashed into the superstructure to stop, arrived iat Glasgow after a very rough and very cold trip but we did avoid the subs. Then down to Bournemouth to await posting. At this time there was no need for fighters. The change was now to bombers so very few made it to “Spitfires” but some did manage “Beaufighters” as night fighters.
The next step for me was to Oxfords. These little twin engine aircraft were very easy to fly after the violence of single engine flying, but you could not do aerobatics, not even a spin, in fact we were told, it was impossible to recover from a spin because the fuselage blanked the airflow over the rudder, therefore the plane wouldn’t straighten out. Didn’t try to prove it.
After conversion a good deal of this flying was navigation, trying not to get lost, but you could always get a fix (your position) if you had to by radio, you just called up and asked for a fix and kept your transmitter button pressed until they took a bearing on you from two different points and sent the point where these crossed back to you add the time and direction you have flown since the fix and that is where you are.
After this came night flying, from one pundit to the next on a cross country circuit.
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Airspeed Oxford
Engine Two 375hp AS Cheetah x radials
Span 53’ 4”
Length 34’ 6”
Height 11’ 1”
Take Off Weight 7500lbs
Max. Speed 185mph at 7500ft
OP Ceiling 19500ft
Normal Range 960mls
The distance between the pundit called for 20 minutes or so straight flying until you could read the next one. A pundit was a red light fixed on the ground, usually near a drome, the light flashed the letter of the drome in Morse code so all you had to do was pick the right one, do your turn on it and fly the correct course to the next one.
It was carefully chosen weather for beginners so there were no real problems, but it is strange to be alone in a plane at night for the first time looking down on nothing except an odd beacon flashing somewhere in the distance (there was a total blackout).
Differences in planes were not hard to overcome. To apply the brakes on a “Harvard” you pushed your toes down, as in a car, one wheel only (for steering) you pushed that side rudder forward and toe down. So aircraft was steered while taxiing simply by slowing the side you wished to turn towards. In a twin engined [sic] aircraft you can turn by using more power on the outside motor.
The brake system was a little different on English aircraft. There were two leavers [sic] on the wheel either, or both would put the brakes on, the rudder was then used to distribute pressure to both or either wheel as before.
Unlike single engine planes you don’t have to wobble from side to side to see where you are going when taxiing, only other difference was on take off where you could increase power on one motor to help correct swing. This was good in the first part of take off, before the slip stream had enough power over the rudder.
For some forgotten disciplinary punishment I was told to shift 14 planes from one side of the drome to the other without help even from the ground crew. To start a Oxford, you must climb onto the wing and insert crank handle into inertia starter (i.e. wind up the spring some 40 or so turns) repeat on the other side motor, prime both motors, put the push bike in the kite, climb in and start, if you miss the start, out and wind again, you then taxi to the other side of the drome, park the aircraft and return on bike, about 1k for next aircraft. A very slow job, but you do learn how to start engines. My first experience of .05before it was heard of as such. At the party the night before I must have been “reasonably” full, but of the next morning. The job was to fly 7 w/ops on a training flight. I only had to fly all the courses they could work out from their fixes (loop) and
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eventually return to base. I didn’t realise, alcohol removes oxygen form [sic] the blood, so does altitude. On return I had so much trouble trying to see the drome let alone the runway it wasn’t funny.
In fact the chewing gum turned to sand in my mouth. I offered to let anyone of the w/ops try, but they were not impressed, none of them had seen one of these kites before.
Managed to arrive after about the fourth try. Later I learned the answer (just breath [sic] plenty of oxygen from the oxy. Bottle).
Another part, of this course was the SBA (Standard beam approach and landing). This is approach and landing on Lorenze beam. All done on instruments with no outside vision. A hood is fitted over learner with instructor in the right hand seat keeping full external vision. You are then flown to some point away from the drome and given a course to fly, so you fly back until you cross the beam.
A beam consists of a 2˚ wide control beam (steady buzz) with identification superimposed in Morse, outside that, on one side dashes, on the other side dots.
As you cross the beam you carefully time the width of the beam, then a rate 1 turn 90˚, fly for 1 minute, and another 1 90˚ back toward the beam, time the width of beam again as you fly through. If it is more, you are going away, if less, you are going towards the drome. You then turn back onto beam, heading toward the drome. You must cross the drome to find which marker comes first. Reduce height to 1000 ft (having landing permission from drome and Barometric pressure set on your altimeter, checked with control tower).
Fly along the beam, if you swing to the left you get –s, if you go to right you get .s so you try to stay in the middle. When you cross the outer marker you must start to let down at 300ft per minute, holding steady decent [sic] rate and keeping in centre of beam (beam is getting narrower as you approach the end of runway).
When you cross the inner marker (lights on main beam) you should be at 100 ft cut throttles and prepare to land (wheels and flaps are down before outer marker of course). This is not easy because at this point, the beam is very narrow and with even a light cross wind it is hard to stay in the middle, but even in bad weather, there would be some lights to see, so the last part would be a visual landing (you hope).
At this point when practising, instructor sometimes releases cover, which gives you full visibility, surprise, there is a control tower right in front of you. Not good for the nerves, but it proves you must stick to the beam.
Back to Bournemouth again to wait for the next posting. In between there is nothing to do, so we are often selected in small groups and sent off somewhere to do a short course in something or other just to fill in the time, until we can be posted to further flying training.
As Bournemouth is on the south coast, the whole beach front is guarded by barbed wire with gun emplacements at intervals. There were a number of a/c a/c guns (light) Bofors, I think, in front of our pub. Just to keep them in practice, they sometimes flew a fairy battle along parallel with the beach and towing a drogue, much to our horror, it only took two or three shots to knock the drogue down.
So we were beginning to wonder what our chances were going to be if it was as easy as all that. However there came a day when 2 FW190’s sneaked in low across the water, sure, the gunners saw them soon enough but they flew around quite safely, just going up and down.
Just for good measure they flew straight down the beach, machine gunning everything, as they went, then turned out to sea and disappeared untouched.
Well at least there must be some chance for survival, watching the trace from the guns, it was always too high – too low or just too far behind, but they were not amateurs flying those kites and they were pretty fast.
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Our next training exercise, just a few of us, who’s names started with ‘A’ were packed off to Whitly [sic] Bay new [sic] Newcastle. This is our third commando style camp, on arrival, in the late afternoon, we were shown to our huts, which we thought were a bit strange, because they appeared to be almost new houses, unused, but there was no glass in the windows, OK well maybe it would be a bit cold, but we were used to changes by now so we soon got off to sleep alright, but not for long.
It seems the KG5 was being fitted out just down the road. Its [sic] hard to sleep when the sirens go, but its [sic] much harder once the guns start. It was soon obvious why there was no glass in the windows. There was one big gun just outside our “hut” each time it went off, it caused quite a compression in the room as well as the noise. We had no idea where the nearest shelter was, so we just stayed put. This course was mostly unarmed combat, with the usual assault course to run over, but also a ‘demo’ of how to throw hand grenades. I don’t know why. Interesting when one didn’t go off, after a given waiting time an officer and an NCO crawled out with the necessary equipment and placed a small charge, which exploded the grenade, and everyone was happy.
The usual was 6 of us in the trench at a time and the instructor and each of us had to throw one grenade in turn out of the trench and down the range toward a target, observed by someone with files [sic] glasses out side to check the results.
This went OK until one idiot hit the edge of the trench and the grenade fell back in. In the half second panic that followed, we all went vertically upwards, then sideways, without touching the sides, then flat on our faces. It must have been a very long fuse, because it seemed age before it went off harmlessly in the trench. Can’t say the instructor was at all happy. His Scots. Accent was hard to understand normally. None of us ever knew the words, but I’m sure we got his meaning. It did prove we were all fit enough though.
The air raids here were fairly frequent although there was usually only about a dozen planes at a time. There were plenty of guns on the ground, and someone said about 3 acres of rocket site, so plenty of noise and plenty of searchlights just to brighten it all up. An interesting variation to some of these rockets was that they fired a kind of net into the air, which was then held up by parachute but also trailed small explosive charges in the hope that an aircraft would fly into them, never heard of any being effective, but how would you know.
We had been to sneak a look at these rockets, when we got caught in the next air raid. The rocket launches seemed very simple, just an angle iron frame that could be rotated and vary its angle for height. The rocket appeared to be dropped on, similar to a mortar, but ‘wooshed’ off instead of a bang.
Anyhow when the raid started again we didn’t know the area, so we didn’t know which way to run for a shelter. Someone spotted a shop verandah in the dark, across the street, so we raced across and stood close to the wall laughing at the tons of shrapnel falling and bouncing on the road. All OK until we looked up and noticed there was only a frame left above us, so we would have been just as safe anywhere, but it didn’t last long, and this was another lucky day. It seemed to be a big risk to put expensively trained aircrew in the middle of air raids, but you did see the other side. I never knew later why they claimed the Germans didn’t have rockets. Perhaps they thought we would believe them or the rockets would go away or may be they just didn’t know how to counter them.
Our next posting is to Litchfield on Wellingtons. Lichfield was officially an Australian operational conversion and training unit, but shortage of some categories of aircrew meant that RAF bods had to fill the vacancies, so, six pilots from here, six navs from somewhere else, six w/op, six bomb aimer’s and six gunners all arrive and sort themselves into crews. Usual method seemed to be to go down to the local and tell each other how bad you were at your particular branch of
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flying. My crew all believed me, but claimed they were even worse. So out of this batch of “no hoper’s” we had to mould a unit.
The idea being that each man knew his job to perfection, but more than that, there must be complete confidence, understanding and instant unquestioned action from everyone. Perhaps we were lucky here too, because it was the best English weather (no ice or fog).
The course was designed to give each of the crew a chance to learn his part in conjunction with the rest of the crew.
Navigation trips to test navigator, w/op and bomb aimer, accuracy of pilots flying too. I suppose, and often a friendly fighter attack to test the gunners ability with camera instead of guns. In the evasive action, directed by rear gunner, we sometimes had some very sick crew members.
As this course advanced, the trips became longer and more complicated often across country north ward up the Irish sea to Scotland, often in or above cloud most of the way. On one of these trips we were in 10/10 cloud off Scotland at 13000ft. when there was a very big ‘explosion’ I thought we had been hit by a navy shell, as everything smelled of burnt sulphur, but at the same time we had been propelled downward. Out of the bottom of the cloud height now 2000ft. no sign of any navy craft on the sea, but we were flying level.
On accessing the damage we found a burnt out wireless set, trailing aerial burnt off, some fabric burnt off fuselage and the port wing. Decided better to land at nearest drome to check the damage properly. So, we headed for Prestwick, but arrived at the same time as about 50 Boston’s that had just crossed from USA as their fuel was almost out we had a longish wait before landing.
On inspection, they patched out fabric replaced a tyre (flat) and sent us home with only R.T. Decided we had flown into a cu-nimb (thunder storm) inside the stratus, been hit by lightning and dropped the 11000ft. in a vertical down draught. I don’t know but I didn’t do it even if, I did get the blame.
Next effort was a night cross country trip. The idea of these, was practice for us and practice for the home defences i.e. a/c a/c searchlights and also night fighters.
The searchlights would pick you up and the a/c a/c would fire real shells, but always much lower than your altitude even the searchlights were small and let you off pretty easy. We never saw a night fighter (maybe they were painted black).
The first time we saw a searchlight it was right on our starboard wing. I dived all over the place trying to get away but it didn’t even move. Well the top end didn’t move, didn’t go past our wing either but the bottom end shifted. Se we stopped our evasive action and turned our landing light off. The w/op had to disconnect the wires at the switch, something had shorted out.
The landing light, on a wimpy is set in the under side of the wing, pointing straight downwards, if used for landing, there is a lever operated by the pilot which swings the beam anywhere between straight down and straight forward. I don’t remember anyone ever using a landing light in practice but I’m sure we would have been shot down a dozen times with that light showing (must have lost another 10 out of 10 for that little effort).
On our next night cross country trip two crews, ourselves and Fred Mathews were given new aircraft. These were fitted with a new automatic mixture control, one lever less to pull. There is no flight engineer in a wimpy so the pilot had to do all these things himself as well as all the checks on gauges, oil pressure, brake pressure, oil temp., head temp. fuel gauges etc.
To check fuel gauges you had to lean across and press a button on the far side of aircraft, this lit up the gauges to show amount of fuel left in tanks. You must do this at regular intervals to ensure fuel is used evenly, to keep balance of aircraft, you can, by changing taps, use fuel from any one tank. Usually emptying outside tanks first.
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At some point, less than half way, I decided to check total fuel left. Had to call on navigator to workout quantity used for distance travelled compared to distance left to go. We went straight home without any corners and lost a few more points, I guess for not doing the trip. The other new kite had the same trouble but ran out of fuel and crash landed on the railway line near Manchester, probably mistaking the signal lights for a runway, but who knows, he could have called “mayday”.
Our next job was a trip to Manchester by train to bury the bods. Flying lost a few more points in my book. No survivors Fred’s rear gunner had been grounded and a substitute had made that trip (some people are not lucky). There were always extra gunners on this course, because when some crews finished, they were posted to four engine conversion units and needed another gunner (mid upper) other went to wimpy squadrons with standard crews. Not all front line aircraft were four engine at this time, as this was almost the end of our course, we were told we would need another gunner so I asked Vic (our rear gunner) if he knew one he could get along with. His immediate choice was ‘Titch’ Fred’s gunner who had stayed at home. This completed our crew, except for f/t engineer who joined us at con unit.
So we now had self 25 f/sgt. As pilot, not very efficient nearly always in trouble, mostly because I liked to try my own ideas and RAF does not approve of anything outside its standards (just like the army).
Rod Ramsay Aust. f/o navigator about 32 ex Commonwealth Bank, married, very serious, very cautious, very thorough and often very worried (perhaps he was right).
Alan Withers Aust. P/o Bomb-aimer about 28 married also worried at times (they both had more sense than I did) Alan had been on same course as me as, a pilot. Had passed in Tas. On tigers and then posted to cesnas [sic] in Canada where he was scrubbed as pilot and remustered as bomb aimer.
He would have been one of the few at Litchfield [sic] that I had known before. These two, I think were good friends with similar problems both starting to loose [sic] a bit of hair, down the middle, so one was baldy and the other was egghead. The argument over who was the worst was not enough to stop them joining the same team and trying to drown their troubles down at the local, but that didn’t really work, not beyond those few hours anyway.
Blue Kellaher Aust. Sgt w/op about 23, redhead Irish ancestors, rather carefree, happy sort of bod. “She’s apples mate” being the favourite saying but still very efficient underneath. Only trouble was he was almost always airsick in the earlier part, sometimes to the point of being helpless, lying on the floor, don’t think he ever quite got over it, but he never complained either.
Vic Blackwell rear gunner RAF Sgt. At 34 the eldest of the crew, married with two kids ex Watford footballer and still very keen on his soccer. Insurance salesman before the war, but a very keen gunner now as his target practice could prove.
Titch Crowley mid upper RAF Sgt. About 21 about 5ft. high with a very small face to match, in fact we often wondered how he could see once the oxy mask was on his face. His favourite saying in the Air, when asked about some kite in the area was always “I can’t see nothing mate” in perfect cockney.
This was not exactly Rod’s idea of English. He would say “Of course you can’t see nothing, you idiot, no one can” but we were stuck with it, you don’t change years of perfect English dialect just like that.
At this time there was very little time left to improve (we thought) but we still tried anyway.
As the captain of this bunch of ‘airmen’ I suddenly found myself responsible for all their mistakes (as if I didn’t make enough myself). Just the little things, like my immaculately dressed rear gunner, who marched carefully up to receive his pay. Signed the pay book, stepped back, stood
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to attention and saluted, turned and marched away. He was almost to the door, before there was a screech from the WOD who had just noticed he was wearing his cap in his shoulder strap instead of on his head.
Vickers Wellington
Engine I590hp Bristol Hercules
(x1)1590hp(v1)1650hp(xv1)1870h
p
Span 86' 2"
length 64' 7"
Height 17 6"
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Max. Takeoff WT 29000lbs
Weight
Max. Speed 12000ft
OP Ceiling 19000ft
Range with I500lbs 2200mls
Or "Blue", who could walk past the CO with one hand in his pocket and say "Gooday mate" instead of saluting.
So we were a pretty scruffy bunch over all, not exactly RAF standard I'm afraid.
At the end of this course I had to front up to the flight commander to give my assessment of each of the crew. I thought they were much better than he did. He then suggested I put in for a commission, but I said "No thanks I'd rather be a w/o better pay and no bills. He said "In that case I will have to give you a different report won't I", so he tore that one up (its sometimes hard to win).
Just before we left Litchfield we were lucky enough to have a try in their new flight simulator which they had just installed at a cost of about [symbol] 1,000,000.
This looked like a wheat silo from the outside. Only the pilot and nav did this exercise as a combined trial. We climbed to the top of a great flight of steps, there was a small platform mounted out into space with a couple of seats, a set of flying instruments in front of the pilot and a complete nav set up for the nav who sat sideways and just behind the pilot. This could be used for day or night training but it was only night for us. So all the lights were turned out, then very little showed on the ground, the sky showed only stars and occasionally cloud cover.
The ground was a very big map, you took off and flew like the link trainer but there was no pen on the map, instead the map moved across exactly as you flew over it. The stars moved too, in relation to your speed and direction. To map read from this height at night is always impossible except for the odd bend in river or a scrap of coast line, but the
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nav could nearly always take astro shots, so it was a help. No one told you anything about the trip you were doing before we started. We were just, given a target area and told to plot our track and times over the target etc. So off we went, climbed to height, and set our course for target.
Imagine the surprise as we crossed the enemy coast, the searchlights came on right on target (us) and, slung between the floor and sky were wires with lights at intervals up their length. These flashed in order from the ground upwards just like real Flak, when any of them came near enough to our little cockpit area, it rattled all over the place and almost fell to bits. Not a very good feeling in the dark, especially when you know how high you are above the floor, but you can't really get hurt or shot down.
We also spent a few hours doing dingy drill, in case we ever had to ditch. For this they had a wrecked wimpy just sitting on the ground, so the whole crew took up their usual positions for flight, and in theory we did a ditching. We then had to release all escape hatches, dingy etc., clamber out and into the inflated dingy. For this we were given just over 1 minute, lost a bit of skin off the shins and elbows etc. Escape hatches are not padded. The other half of this was done in the pool. Dingy to be inflated and everyone to get in. Apart from the cold and the wet, this wasn't too bad.
Two crews. Bruce Simpson and ourselves are next posted to Conversion unit at Swinderby 5 group, so it would seem we will go to one of the Aust. Squadrons in this group either 463 or 467. On arrival, there was little time to look around, we were allotted a flight engineer, Johnnie Lancaster from Lancaster, RAF Sgt. Johnnie was just 19 and had been an apprentice to a pro golfer (Cotton I think). Perhaps because of his age, and the short time since leaving school, he rather tended to stay strictly to the book. I couldn't say that for the rest of the crew. So there were times when he was lonely, but he knew his job well enough. There were some `Lanc's' here, but only enough to do the final conversion. The first part
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had to be done on `Manchester's'. These were the original, almost as big as the `Lanc' (looked the same) but only two engines instead of four. Engines were bigger and heavier but not very reliable. We almost got through without a serious problem until we had to do gunnery practice over the Wash. While Alan (bomb aimer) was firing the front guns, a hydraulic pipe burst. This completely covered my windscreen with dark coloured oil. No trouble to fly home as I still had instruments, could also see out the sides OK, but nothing out the front so it would be hard to land.
Manchester
Engine Two Rol's Vulture. Each motor was made by joining
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two rols Kestrels one inverted, to form an x section
giving 176hp.
Span 90' 1"
Length 69'
Height 18'
Takeoff Weight 50000lbs
Max. Speed 273mph
OP Ceiling 19200ft
Range 1630mls
On the way back, I got the bright idea that if I opened the side window, and by keeping my left arm pressed against the side. I might be able to slide my hand around to the front and wipe a little spot, enough to see through. I then reduced speed, lowered wheels and flaps to get the maximum drag, but the slowest speed you can fly these at is 120mph. I only had part of my arm out when the wind took it backwards. There must be a better way of breaking an arm. So I gave that idea away very quickly, but that didn't solve the landing problem. Had to raise the wheels and flaps and return to base. By now the crew were only half as worried as I was. At least that was a change, but time was running out and the oil was worse than ever.
It was taboo to have anyone in the nose on landings in case of a crash but I decided if I put Alan down there to look through the nose cone, he could guide me onto the runway, as on a bombing run (right left, left steady as required) I would have to hope he was right, and I could judge the height out of my side window. The landing worked OK but it was lucky Alan had done some time as a pilot, because the hardest part is often keeping straight on runway after landing and there is very .little time to check a swing (which would finish in a ground loop) with about 30 tons at 90 mph in a machine that is not really made for road work.
Anyhow we made it safely but had to keep Alan in the front to taxi back. Now I'm in trouble again for not notifying control of this little
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problem before I landed, so I asked just what could they have done to help/ [sic] The answer was simple, "The fire cart and ambulance could have followed us close down the runway. (Oh well).
Again I am called up to the flight commander to see if I have considered a commission, again I refuse, but within no time at all I have to front up to the CO. He didn't propose that I took a Commission this time, he told me I must because there was no way that I, as an NCO could give orders to the officers in my crew. So either I took a commission or lost my crew and start again. I did point out that we got along quite well, but he didn't agree (just not done, old boy, What?) Later I learned none of this had much to do with it. The real reason for having a commission was in case we were POW. We would get much better treatment as officers. I don't know why this didn't apply to w/ops; and gunners though. Soon after this we converted to Lanc's, a bit bigger, a bit heavier, two extra motors, but much more manoeuvrable and a much better rate of climb. A lot of the load is taken off the pilot now, as the engineers job is to check all gauges, temps, boost, revs, fuel etc., he even helps on takeoff by locking throttles once you have top power, raising undercart and flaps, when told (pity there are no dual controls I could have sat and watched). Also there are repeater dials on gyro compass and airspeed, one for the pilot, and one in nav compartment. This allows Nav to call airspeed on take off and landing so that pilots job is keeping it straight, and judging height and distance etc.
It is the engines of every aircraft that always seem the most important item. You can get by with some bits missing from other places, but those fans up the front end have to keep going all the time (you hope) so, even at the beginning you must learn to look after the motors, and when times of pressure do arrive, you try not to exceed their limits. Its not always easy to slow them down when you want to go faster, but when the gauges say that's the limit its a good idea to take notice. The basic principle is the same as any internal combustion engine, but a bit more
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sophisticated with extras like super charger (sometimes 3 stage) fuel injection dual ignition (magnetos). Always variable shutters of some kind to control air flow over (oil coolers) radiators, an [sic] inline engines (water glycol cooled). The theory being that the engine gives its best performance at the correct temperature, therefore the shutters must be used to keep the temperatures constant, head temp, water temp, oil temp, etc. In the cold winter mornings it could takeover half an hour just waiting for the motors to warm up. It may seem a waste of time, but on take off, a small loss of power can leave you with some very anxious moments. The standard drill was simple, warm up motors, run up to test maximum revs. In fine pitch (3000) reduce to 2650, switch off one mag switch, note rev. drop, turn on again, switch off other mag switch, note drop if any, turn on again. If rev. drop is greater than 100 rpm. mag must to checked, could be just a bad plug, but often it was moisture in the mag.
If mags are OK revs. Up to 2850 test pitch control, return to fine pitch, check all pressure gauges etc. if all OK you should be ready to taxi.
Take off for small aircraft was simple. Stop before runway check [inserted] TR [/deleted] [deleted] l [/deleted] imes, mixture, pitch, fuel, flaps, sperries (instruments) gills gyros etc. get OK clear from control, turn onto runway, open throttle push the stick forward to get the tail up, hard rudder to stop the swing caused by slipstream, hold it until flying speed is reached, checking swing as speed builds up, ease back on the stick and climb away. The heavier twins were usually held on brakes until the motors were reved up to get more power, this took less distance to get flying speed. In the loaded Lanc. we used all the runway, brakes locked on until the two inner motors were flat out and locked. As the outer motors were then reved up and the tail started to bump off the ground, the brakes were released to let it roll forward, as speed was gained, some swing could be conected by pushing one outer throttle more than the other, but as speed increased the rudders became effective. There is a lot of strong wind from four motors going flat out, but it does tend to go in a spiral rather than straight and therefore pushes
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the tail to one side. Trims must be set before take off to help counter this swing (part of standard pre takeoff check). Continual checks on all instruments must be taken while in flight, especially oil pressure and temperatures. Temperatures can be controlled by changing radiator openings but loss of oil pressure would mean the engine would seize and often go on fire. So it was better to close down the motor than take the chance, but if it were only the gauge at fault you would have to be a `dill' to close the motor down and loose all that power, as well as overloading the remainder, loosing fuel economy and making the kite much harder to fly.
So a faulty gauge was always a worry. Even after you had decided it was definitely the gauge at fault, you could never be really certain until you had landed and had it checked, and by that time, it didn't matter anyway but the ground always felt a bit more solid somehow once you had made it back to base.
After some practice in all aspects of bombing, fighter attacks, searchlight, a/c a/c, High level bombing etc., we were posted to a squadron. Not an Aust. Squadron as expected but 106 at Syerston. This was a permanent pre war base and now has 2 squadron 106 61 both RAF both operating from here. This causes a bit of crowding when everyone returns at the same time. We get a few days to settle in before I go on my first `op' just as a passenger with an experienced crew, but it does give some idea of conditions to be encountered in the future. The crews pilot was Flt A Poore 617 sqd. Unfortunately the weather is getting much worse by now, also the nights are getting longer, this means longer trips and much more time spent over enemy territory.
I think this combination plus bigger concentrations of aircraft on both sides took a lot of fun out of flying for the next few months.
As a crew we decided we had to change some of the standard RAF patter between the gunners and pilot, as it was too vague and too slow. Our new idea worked alright in practice but it was a bit hard on
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w/op and navigator who got very little (if any) warning and therefore no time to prepare for the violent evasive action. Often the Navigator would loose all his equipment including charts which were thrown all over the place.
We missed one trip from Syerston just because we couldn't find the kite in the fog. Another night we had to be guided to the end of the runway by following a truck. Take off was on compass but not too bad. Our worst trip here, was to return in a very heavy storm. Our radio was u/s so we missed the diversion order to another drome. Couldn't contact control for permission to land, finally came very low over tower and used the aldis lamp. When we finally landed and turned off the runway all the four motors cut out (no petrol) I reckon we spent too much time trying to do the right thing. Should have landed first and asked afterward, but it takes time to learn. Someone said "If you live you learn if you learn you live" (chicken & egg situation). About this time, it was decided someone else needed this drone, so we all had to do the big shift, 61 squadron going to Skellingthorp [sic] and 106 to Metheringham. Apart from the problems in shifting to a partly finished drome in the middle of winter (mud everywhere, no showers, huts were still pretty basic and the training had to continue as often as possible. Must have been rather rough on the ground crews. One of the reasons for so much continuous training was the addition of new electronic equipment. We now had 25 different sets fitted into our kite, including H2S monica mandril, fishpond G. etc. H2S (radar) and G were navigation aids, some of the others were supposed to detect fighters, confuse fighters, you name it we had it. Unfortunately the fighters often used these beams we were transmitting to detect us, even radar could only be used for short intervals without having an angry JU88 on your tail (makes life interesting don't it).
By this time we have a reasonably efficient crew, who work together very well. It seems to fall on the pilot (as captain) to help sort out each crew members personal problems because somehow they seem to
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show when flying. He must therefore be able to judge how much work load can be applied without help from someone else. I don't know who checks the pilot or how they can help, but maybe they did at times. These air crew generally are a pretty quiet lot. The only time they play up is on leave. The bar in the mess is open most of the time, but usually empty. Nothing like those airmen of 1918 most of them seem to be just too tired I would think. By reports from other dromes, our losses are very low, but always there are new crews coming in as replacements, new aircraft tom. Still "Cockies" airforce (Cochrane being the AOC 5 group) were often accused of getting the best aircraft and maintenance facilities but they didn't [inserted] g [/inserted] [deleted] b [/deleted] et the best of targets. They sometimes operated as a special force on specially selected targets (not always easy) 617 squadron had been formed for this purpose by taking a couple of senior crews from each squadron in the group and combining them to form a new squadron. Gibson was from 106. Their aircraft were all specials, depending on the job they were used for.
Interesting to watch the reactions of the old crews to the new replacements. They could tell you how many trips they would manage before they went missing. Trouble was, even the old crews, who were doing the judging didn't often get past 20 before their luck ran out. The terrible weather must have been a big factor in so many ways in our losses it was always bad or worse, We once had to spend the afternoon digging snow off the runway just so we could take off. If you think digging snow off a 3000yd runway is easy, (try it). On one of our earliest trips Kassel we went into cloud at about 200ft from take off, came out in a small hole over target, back in again to return, but had to land away from home because cloud had come down to ground level. (Good test for sprog crews).
Takeoff's and landings were always dicey. Take off because it was always a heavily loaded kite, and therefore had trouble getting flying speed. We had very little time to take off. All aircraft having to taxi
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along tarmac facing down wind, which meant motors overheating very quickly. If there was ever a slight hold up we had to try to turn partly into wind to get some air through the radiators, but there was no room for error, one wheel in the mud at the edge of the tarmac would stop half the squadron getting off (other half came from other side).
Our take off rate was about 1 every 3/4 minute and land one every minute. In take off you were very close behind the next aircraft so there was much buffeting from his slipstream.
Given the heavy load and the low flying speed it was often hard to hold it in the air. Each alternate aircraft turned slightly port or starboard, which meant by the time you get to 200ft you were OK.
Landing problems were even worse. Just too many aircraft trying to land at the same time and all nearly out of petrol.
Often aircraft from other squadrons diverted because their home drome was closed or we would go to their drome for the same reason. (very thick fogs were common).
One of the jobs allotted to the bomb aimers on each op was to throw out "window". Window was the code name for the aluminium foil strips. These were cut to the exact length to match the German radar frequency. Each one gave the same reflection as an aircraft on the radar screen, so each time another hand full was thrown out it showed up as another 30 or so aircraft.
Being very light in weight, it slowly drifted downwards. With hundreds of aircraft doing this it formed one big box of reflections and it was almost impossible to pick one as a single aircraft. Excepting of course for those who got outside or too high above the box, or the leaders, who were always the little blip on their own with the fan shape of aircraft trailing out behind. There are safer places than being leaders, especially when you are in front of P.F.F. (Path Finding Force).
One other problem for all aircrew was loss of night vision when you were hit by searchlights before you had time to turn away, it meant
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you could not be sure of seeing another aircraft even if he were close for the next five minutes or so.
There is no way you can use a light to see any of the instrument, as this would show outside, so to overcome this, the instruments were all done with luminous paint, barely visible, but set high up behind the pilot on both sides, were two ultra violet lights directed onto the instrument panel (invisible) but the power could be increased to make the instruments show up much brighter if required, even then these had to be kept as low as possible because it could spoil your vision too.
On one return we were diverted to a drome up north and stacked to 13000ft. They said later there were only 3 dromes open in the whole of England. Some control points even told their crews to head their kites out to sea and bale out, but I didn't know of any that did that, but trying to imagine 6 to 8 hundred aircraft trying to land on three dromes in the dark with very little fuel, so very little time left for anyone. It also meant those 3 dromes didn't have the best of weather either. This could explain why so many trips were cancelled at the last minute I guess. Well that's for main force anyway, because there were always shot up kites who had priority (lost more on return than by enemy action some nights but these were never counted in the losses) only the ones the enemy could positively prove, that is the ones that crashed inside their territory. There were times too, when the enemy fighters came in with the bombers returning and shot up the dromes and unsuspecting kites. Each of our kites was fitted with I.F.F (Identification Friend or Foe) but obviously you could not shoot down every kite that didn't have it working, there were lots of reasons why it might not be, shot up or burnt out etc., but the result was the same. So out went all the lights, this included our own navigation lights, which we had just switched on. Had to wake everyone up to watch for other aircraft because they were not all flying in the same direction now, and the chances of collision were very high.
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"George" (auto pilot) was fitted to all aircraft but I don't think it was used very often even on the longest trips. I sometimes tried to use ours on the early part, climbing to height over England, but it always did the same trick, a steady turn to starboard, so it was pretty well useless. Never the less it was always set in "spin" ready to be put in an emergency. One of our crews with a full bomb load and hotly pursued by fighters had completely lost control in a dive, even the trims had no effect, in desperation the pilot engaged "George" and out they came. Even the fighters had given up by then. Its quite a sensation to build up a speed like that in the dark. You do think about the kites flying lower than you. Also wonder if the wings will stay on when you are trying to pull out of the dive. The pressures on your body are so high its impossible to lift an arm. Your head is on your chest and your eyes seem to be halfway down your face, but you recover instantly the pressure comes off.
Ice is one of the big worries in this weather. The moisture builds up on the cold aircraft as condensation all over then freezes to ice as you slowly gain height because of the fall in temperature with altitude, therefore the all up weight increases and slows the rate of climb even more. Leading edges of wings are covered with a deicing strip and thick grease. This causes ice to crack and flake off which helps, makes some terrible noises when the slipstream throws it against the fuselage though.
Carburettors have icing problems also even though they have heaters. Also the pilothead (airspeed and static pressure for instruments). It is fitted with electric heater, but doesn't always manage to cope with these temperatures.
Another effect was a build up of static electricity in the fuselage. This caused pale blue flames like metho burning. They danced along the wing edges etc. but the worst was the flickering on the windscreen, each section of perspex had its little row of flame top and bottom which continually joined in the centre then flicked apart again. Disturbing for two reasons, one because you could not see out (we were used to that
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anyway) by wondering what would happen, if we ran into the other side of the charge (+ or ).
I was later told, this is a very old phenomenon known to the earliest sailors. They called it St. Elmo's lights (not harmful well, not at ship speed).
To be able to read the clouds, was often important too, as it could indicate changes of wind etc. which would help the navigator but there was no way we could change course drastically to avoid the rough ones, so we had to press on, bumps and all.
Often on return from Berlin we would climb a little higher (to about 25 or 26000ft) here you would be clear of cloud (nearly always) :because it was too cold to hold moisture but there would be continuous `con' trails as each kite left its own track behind it, no need to navigate, just follow the road and keep a very careful watch for fighters.
This almost proved our undoing on one occasion as I had forgotten about the predicted flak. Thinking the box of aircraft below should cover us, but their radar was better than that. We were too high at
27000ft. Caused a bit of a panic when a couple of big shells exploded right under our starboard wing.
The shrapnel sounded like hands full of gravel hitting a tin fence. Somehow we had been rolled over by the blast. No one was injured but my straps had been too loose and we were obviously in some trouble because I was jammed hard up against the instrument panel with my head trying to push the roof out. I called up each bod in turn to check how they were, gunners didn't appear to be too bad (guess they were used to it) but everyone else complained they were lying very heavily on the roof by now, with the force built up so high, the only thing I could do was to jam the stick forward against the panel and hold it there. Seemed to be an hour before we came out, then the rubbish returned to the floor and we were almost on course again just a couple of thousand ft. lower. Bomb aimer was unlucky, seems he got to the floor first in his compartment,
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followed by the pressed steel tins (which had held the window foil) one of these landed on his head and cut through his helmet. His explanation was quite colourful, but there were far more complaints from the navigator as all his charts and equipment had been sucked out a hole in the side. We were almost to the Dutch coast anyway so we knew our way home and the G was working for the last bit. I did put the nose down to help us along.
Our usual kite in the earlier part was O orange which we shared with another crew when we have a night off they fly in it.
I guess we were late getting back from leave one night, just in time to see the kites returning (early takeoff) as we stood and watched them join the circuit one above the other circling while waiting to descend and land, we were more than surprised to see one idiot going the opposite wa [deleted] s [/deleted] y around, that is against the traffic on a one way street. So we waited to we him land. It was a good landing so we didn't know why. We didn't know who either until next morning. Our beautiful O was shot to pieces, great holes in the fuselage, hardly any tail section left, but it had flown home, even if it could only turn one way. Replacement kites came in almost daily, but not this time. We had therefore to fly N as a second crew to a senior crew, but it wasn't long before they went missing and took the kite with them.
We then became the senior crew on a new N, (very doubtful privilege) but did get stuck with one ground crew, which was good because they tried very hard to keep that kite perfect. The second it had stopped rolling on return, they were there to see how much damage I had done to their master piece. There never backward in telling a rival crew, theirs was the best aircraft on the station and theirs was the best aircrew flying it. I suppose it helped their morale's because it must have been a terrible job in the freezing cold (anyway they didn't have to believe it did they).
There were times when an aircraft had problems soon after take off. It was very obvious you could not land again with a full load of
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petrol plus bombs. OA weight being too great. You then carried on out over the wash or north sea to a safe spot and dropped the 4000lb. `cookie' before returning to land. We were always told where any ships might be just in case, but one night someone must have been in trouble very early and the cloud cover was pretty thick so the bomb went down a bit early, no one had said the navy was underneath but they soon let us know, don't know if they hit anyone but they fired off a lot of a/c a/c and we weren't very high at that time.
Overall the Berlin trips were as rough as any 7 to 8 hours duration, but even though the track and direction would be changed, the defences were always very heavy. You would see every kind of German aircraft; in the air using all kinds of rockets and things (unheard of). They often flew aircraft above and parallel to the bomber stream, dropping flares down each side. This would light up a long corridor with bright reflection off the cloud (if any). There were faults in our system here, because you could watch our kites being, shot down but there was no way you could even warn them. Our own evasive idea seemed to work very well. We rolled a lot to let the gunners see below as well as other points. A lot of the attacks came from below as this was a blind spot unless you did roll. Its hard work with a heavy kite at this height, but it always gave us time to break first. Its a nice feeling to see the trace or rockets going the wrong way and no damage to the old kite. We always lost the fighter too, which was a comfort.
Bombing runs were always dicey, as you had to hold straight and level for so long.
First on the run in onto aiming point then it took about 2 minutes for bombs to fall from this height. The camera was timed to take its pictures where the [deleted] flak [/deleted] flash went off. This gave a row of overlap photos of where you had actually aimed at, also showed every little wobble in your flying. Almost held too long on one occasion, rear gunner warned me of dornier sitting out of range directly astern. Gave an unheard of
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order "weave mate". I did [inserted] , [/inserted] just as a rocket whizzed past on the starboard side leaving a great trail of flame. We had sometimes seen kited [sic] shot down by this method, but it was usually from much closer and almost directly below. There was very little chance of escape as there was usually just one big explosion when the bomb went off.
We always reported these sightings but were always told, such things couldn't happen because no one had equipment like that. Much later they called it slanting music which sounds a bit like the proper name in German.
We did loose [sic] a lot of kites at turning point especially the first ones on the way out. A lot of kites, no lights of course, converging onto one theoretical point at the same time and height from different directions, often in very thick cloud. As each two collided, there would be a visual explosion, followed by a bump, if close, then many different coloured lights as everything that was left fell burning to the ground. Each different metal used in the plane burns with a different colour.
No wonder there were so many bods missing unaccounted for.
Another strange sight at this height on return from Berlin, was a sheet of thin vertical cloud at right angles to out [sic] track. As each aircraft went through it left a clear hole. The result when we arrived looked similar to a sheet of pegboard bigger and softer of course.
Its at this time, for the frst time that you realise, there are so many often very important decisions to be made instantly as well as some you have little time to think about, but it is so obvious they are all your decisions and you must be sure they work out. Its no use afterwards, if there is an afterwards, to say well it was your idea and it didn't work, because you, as the captain went along with that, but you had to remember too that each one of the crew was a specialist at his task, so when there was time you accepted his judgement before the final decision. The instant ones were instant and mostly the well proven theory. Its better to do something than to do nothing because even if you were wrong there
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may be a chance to change but if you have done nothing the opposition has done it all, there are no prizes for second and you don't exist anymore.
The old saying from WWI still applied the quick and the dead.
We had done very few trips when we found ourselves up front with the leaders. I mentioned this to Rod (Nav). He said "Yes I know, I complained to the nav officer and said we needed more experience before we got a job like that", but he was taken over to the results board, (showed times, tracks, aiming points etc.) and our results were up near the top, besides a few more of the old crews had failed to return and someone had to take their place (great, its hard to stay young and innocent) one other drastic effort of a weather change was notable, as we crossed the north sea on return, the rear gunner (looking towards the better light in the east) complained about the size of the waves, as my altimeter was reading 1000ft I told him he was mad, nobody could see waves from that height in the dark. Next the bomb aimer enquired about a fixed light approaching from high up front. Turned out to be a lighthouse on the cliff above. We had to climb rather smartly to get over it. Didn't know why a lighthouse should be operating during war time, but it was lucky that it was, we could have made quite an impression on return. It was normal practice to get a new altimeter setting (barometric pressure) on return just in case there had been a change in pressure (front) I usually left it a bit later than this, didn't usually get that low, that early either, but I was trying to beat one of the other crews back to base so I had pushed the nose down to gain some extra speed. I still came second in that race.
On one relatively good day without ops, we have a practice run for high level bombing. Take off climb to 18000ft or so, do a run across the bombing range, drop a few little practice bombs and return to base and check the results which are phoned through and plotted on target map.
Unfortunately we are 3/4 down the runway on take off, but no airspeed call from the Nav. This is not too unusual, as the IAS does not start to show a reading until about 60mph. He suddenly realises it is not
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working a quick glance at mine just proved he was right, but by this time there is no room left to stop before the fence anyway, so off we went. Of course you can't do a bombing run without an indicated air speed. It has to be set on the bomb sight, so we must return to have it fixed. After calling up for permission to land, we had to evade their enquiry as to the reason for return because the correct procedure for a landing like this is rather long and complicated, involves another aircraft flying beside you but slightly in front, the idea being if his speed is right, you should have some idea of you [sic] speed.
I decided we were better on our own despite a few groans, and reminders from the crew. Later someone said we were better off without an airspeed indicator, as that was the only decent landing we had done up till now. Later the ground crew Flt. Sgt. Went [sic] to a great deal of trouble to line up his crew to thank us. It seems the penalty for this fault in maintenance was a bit rough on all who had signed to say it was OK. The fault must have been pretty obvious because we still managed to do our practice trip and I don't think anyone else even heard about it. One other fault that developed before take off was a complete loss of brake pressure, right at the end of the runway. As this [sic] . In [sic] my opinion was going to be an easy trip (French special target with 617) I decided to take off and worry over brake pressure on return. Should have known better, but I called up base just after crossing south coast on return to tell them of the problem. I did know there were crash dromes with extra long runways so I thought we would get diverted, but we still had to return to base, where they put the engineering officer on the air. He couldn't help us so we were sent back to Wittering. Here they had a 61/2 mile long runway and I think we used most of it, trouble is without brakes to check the swing, you must use inside motor (inside the swing) but this doesn't slow you down. There were watch towers at intervals along this runway, all lit up and after we had passed the third still going very fast I was beginning to get a little worried. I had no idea, at that time, how long this runway was, but having
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lost our main speed the last bit slowed down fairly quickly. Had to leave the kite to be towed back to maintenance by a tractor, returned to base the next day. Never did find out the cause of the trouble, probably a burst pipe. I did think to myself "next time we stay home" its [sic] just as bad as being shot at.
Another thing I tried, to overcome this loss of control on take off with heavy load of bombs I picked a night with take off just before dark (bad judgement) as I was too easily recognised I held it down on the runway to about 140 then lifted the wheels without climbing away this built up speed very quickly. Also put the bods riding their bikes along the road at the end of the runway into the ditch. Vibrated a few things off the mantle piece in farms and caused many complaints all around. CO (Group captain) had a well selected set of words to say next day. Completely ignored my protest that the higher the speed the safer the flight. His final words were something like this, "Look Andy I know you can do that with your eyes shut and your hands behind your back, but think what will happen when some of the new crews try the same thing, you are supposed to set a good example (well I did try).
Next time I had to front up for a similar variation of the rules his final words were "you don't have to be the best pilot in the airforce but you could to be the oldest." It was a good thought, but there was no chance of me being either of those.
At one point our flight commander went missing, his replacement was a bit keen, and said a few nasty things about the appearance and discipline of our crew result I'm up before the CO again.
This time he was on my side, reminded the new bod that we were a very experienced crew and going by the results shown on the board, also very competent, but as he was only the CO G/cp. and not the OC flying on our next trip we had to leave our Nav. Behind [sic] and take the squadron Nav. Officer who volunteered to check us out. His confidence was quite a
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compliment as this made his 143rd trip. He had no complaints on return so it just faded out.
I managed to get into a couple more disagreements with the OC flying w/cm mostly over our revised method of evasion and the instructions that went with it.
He thought it was quite wrong, we should stick to the standard RAF procedure which, he said, was proven, l didn't say for 1914, but a voice from down the back end said "Why don't thee tell the silly mate" and that didn't raise our share value either, even worse, no one could identify the voice (strange language English as she is spoken).
Shortly after this we won the fight against a couple of jerry night fighters without any damage to ourselves, which was rather lucky as our guns didn't work for a while.
One went down in flames and the other climbed slightly above us before it exploded but we were only allowed one as no one else had recorded the other one going down.
I was then called in to tell the OC how we did it, my reply was "Exactly as you said Sir". Didn't go down at all well, in fact he kicked me out of his office instantly.
Soon after this he went missing and I had second thoughts as I said to Rod "he was on our side." Rods [sic] reply surprised me, he said "No mate, anyone who tried to teach his crews that rubbish had to be one of Adolphs [sic] best men". (Great, but there were 6 others in that crew who had no choice). Then again war is like that. The one thing that is for certain by now is that you make no friends, it isn't good for the morale, they just don't last long enough and that sometimes makes you think maybe its my turn next.
We had always managed to cope with fighters. Its obvious you never see the fighter first, otherwise he would not be attacking you, but if you can see him soon enough to be able to turn away as he is closing in and just before he opens fire then the nose of his aircraft hides you and as
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he has to fire in front of you, on your line of flight to hit you his trace always went high and behind. He then has to pass and attack from the other side but mostly he would loose sic] you in the dark.
We also managed to escape the searchlights very quickly, before they had time to cone up. This meant we kept away from usual a/c a/c or fighters that were near enough to catch you but when it came to beating all the a/c a/c it was only luck.
The intelligence figures were something like 22000 heavy guns many of them mobile units on the track in, often about the same on the way out again. It didn't pay to fly over towns. They soon told you where they were.
Most heavy guns worked in conjunction with the searchlights. The system was very effective. If you became isolated enough to be picked out by radar, the first you knew, was a flick of pale blue, then a steady beam fixed on you. This was the master beam light, directly controlled by radar. It doesn't operate until you are located. Instantly this light comes on, all other standard lights in the area close in on it, giving a very wide cone of lights from all sides, if you had not escaped by then, you were in for a very bad time, because as you flew out of range of those ; behind, another batch in front picked you up progressively. Every gun within range tried it's luck, so the air got a bit thick, even the fighters would sometimes have a go if the guns didn't seem to be winning. It's not good to watch this show and not be able to help, but you can't afford to watch either. The only method of searchlight evasion we got to work was an instant height loss of a minimum of 2000ft almost straight down. Someone calculated that this would get you out of the narrow radar beam quickly enough so that they didn't know which way to follow. Maybe it did, maybe it was only luck, but if you could beat the lights forming a cone with you in the middle, it seems to be hard for them to pick you up again. A lot of flak was fired directly upwards into the general formation area. Many of these shells came very close and no doubt hit a lot of kites,
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but even if you got bumped about and sometimes rattled with shrapnel, you never worried unless this was followed closely by a repeat, then it was time to make a hurried exit to somewhere else.
To see a main force target on a clearish night must have been rather frightening for a new crew for the first time, large, coloured target indicators (these were different colours, like the colour of the day, they changed fairly often to try to stop the enemy imitating them with similar flares over empty fields) e.g. 2 red 1 green, I [sic] similar combination. Usually these were parachute flares, backed up at intervals with new ones. Searchlights everywhere, when they could get through the cloud, when they couldn't, they shine on the clouds turning them into a bright white base, silhouetting all aircraft for everyone above to see.
The better German fighters used this to great advantage, their method was simple. They stayed high above the bomber stream until they picked out one kite flying reasonably straight and level, then closed in the distance until they were almost level, but still high above. The next step was to dive almost vertically down passing just behind the bomber, they by lifting the nose almost vertically upwards they lost speed quickly, but they were also directly, and pointing at the bombers bomb bay, usually unseen by that crew. There is no vision downwards, no one to look either.
A long burst of cannon fire set the bombs off or at the worst, for them, hit the motors, tanks, pilot or crew. The need for them at this time was a very quick retreat to miss the bits remaining so they would flip over onto their back at the top of the loop and dive away below. To do this in the dark is not an easy thing, the only aircraft that I saw that could do it, was the JU88. The ME210 was supposed to be their best aircraft for night fighting, but I never say [sic] one do this.
It was not true to say the rear gunner was often the target of the fighters, he was a very small target compared to the centre section but he was often the first in line from attacks from the rear. His job also needed
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a lot of cool nerve too, because he had to watch all the tracer coming straight at him while trying to shoot back, some of it goes very very close.
The main force on major targets was usually (not always) divided into 3 phases one behind the other, in theory anyway, to spread some of the congestion over the target area, but this still left about 200 aircraft crossing the same point at the same time, at about the same height for each phase. The point of fire for all a/c a/c guns was obvious, so there was one big black ball, (smoke) from the exploding shells, which was filled with red to orange flashes from the new ones going off. I'm sure everyone held their breath for the bombing run, as you had to stay straight and level for so long, until you were right through to the other side.
To look at this from the approach, you would say it was impossible to get through without being blown apart. You did get bumped by the flak and often much too close to other aircraft. Once on a Leipzig raid, a fighter going in the opposite direction over our head, was so close, I could seethe [sic] rivets in his wings. Just a few inches lower and our luck would have run out with a big thud. The closing speed would have been somewhere about 700 mph, at that speed, in the dark, there is no way you can see him quickly enough to do any evasion. The type of marker used on these targets (above cloud) is always dropped before the target, and, therefore must be bombed on a fixed, pre arranged heading and speed so that the bombs carry on past the markers (aiming point) to the target below, on clear nights the markers are on the ground.
This bombing run must have been the cause of many losses too, especially for beginners. As I remember out first trip as a crew, the bomb aimer called bomb doors open as we approached the target, we held the straight and level for what seemed to be a quarter of an hour, despite the nav's protests that we were nowhere near the target. In the end we closed the doors and flew on until we came to the target. That was the first time our bamb aimer had seen a target and his judgement of distance was not very good.
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Under these conditions you are a sitting duck if a fighter turns up, but you couldn't blame him, as a target is visible for a long way from that height, some times up to 300mls from that height, especially to the last phase of the attack (beginners).
Here I should add, an experienced crew have the bomb doors open for the minimum time. The bomb aimer steers you onto the target before the doors open and he knows exactly when to call to close them again.
The nervous tension is still pretty high for those few minutes, probably just because you know the concentration of flak and aircraft in such a small area.
On our first trip I remember being soaked with perspiration, even my gloves were wet through, but you improve on that with practice. We wore three set of gloves, first silk, to stop them sticking, then wool to absorb the moisture, then long leather gloves over the outside to stop contact with any metal we had to touch. To touch any bare metal at these temperatures means your skin just sticks to the metal if you try to pull away you leave your skin stuck there.
A lot of kites were hit by falling bombs from higher flying aircraft, the usual bomb load for this type of main force target, being one 4000lb cookie and the rest of the load made up of hundreds of small incendiaries (4lb). These were square in section and packed tightly into crates, held in place by a bar across the bottom. When dropped, the bar felt away and the incendiaries just fell out to spread in all directions.
The method of dropping was usually progressive, one crate after another, called stick bombing, so this spread the bombs over a longer area. Idea was that the 'Cookie' blew things apart and then the incendiaries lit it alt up, with all these bombs dropping in such a limited time and area, it's no wonder the rescue services had problems. The numbers of people killed was often in the thousands in one raid, they didn't count the injured. It was said that any airman unlucky enough to come down near the target
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area was treated as a war criminal and hanged on the spot by the civilians, so you hoped the army found you first.
We did quite a few courses in unarmed combat in training, partly to keep fit and partly to help if there was a chance of escape. We were also given a 3 cal revolver, as was our right, but told it was a good idea to leave it home. If you had a gun in your possession at the time of capture, you could be shot on the spot (Geneva Convention).
In view of the reported mood of the German people that seemed to be a very good idea.
It seemed to me there would be very little chance of escape from Germany, unless you could speak German anyway. Perhaps in France or Belgium where you might get local help it may have been different.
Most of our clothing was made to rip to pieces so that we could pass as civilians, even the fur lined tops could tear off the flying boots, some of the buttons on our battle suit were really compasses, but you had to have two, one to act as pivot for the other.
We carried small maps and a small compact high energy food pack. Mostly dehydrated, which needed water to increase it's volume and make it edible, also a bundle of money relative to the country flown over, but we always had to give it back on return (maybe it was real). Standard
drink of orange juice and a small bar of chocolate.
Standard equipment for each aircraft to be checked before takeoff included, portable oxygen bottles, fire fighting equipment, first aid kits, including plenty of little tubes (toothpaste type), but smaller, when the cap was removed, there was a built in needle for injections, each tube held a measured shot of morphine for anyone who had been shot up or injured, with strict instructions as to the number of shots that could be given within the time limits. A major problem on these trips would have been fatigue. After an hour or so on the return trip, you would tend to relax, not because you wanted to, just because you were going home and it was
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so much easier to fly a kite without the bomb load and over half the fuel load used up.
I always called every member of the crew in turn about every 10 minutes, just to check in case of oxygen loss or freezing. We were issued with "wakey wakey" pills to be taken if you got too tired. I took one on return from Berlin one night, but it had the opposite effect I kept dozing off and people were calling me (quite a change). The effect didn't last long, and needless to say it was never repeated. I should have tried one out first when we were not flying, but I took their word for it when they said it would work, not my usual practice, but it may have worked under different circumstances. Made you wonder about the pep pills in the escape kit though.
There was no question about being tired. Everyone would have been the same, the daily routine didn't allow for much time off: One problem was the broken times of operations. As there is so much dark time at this time of the year, take off time was sometimes 4pm and sometimes 00.30am but regardless, aircraft still had to be tested daily, weather permitting, there was also the training required for new equipment which took all our spare time, and we were often briefed for ops day after day, but often it would be cancelled sometimes as late as when we were getting into the aircraft and all ready to go.
At one period, we were briefed to go to the same target 10 nights in a row, and in view of the threat to security everyone was more than pleased to see a change of target.
A short period of worry one night on a Berlin raid was caused by a simple fault, the Packard Merlin's we had were fitted with solenoid cut outs on the carburettors, this just meant, to start the engines you had to turn on the switches, this energised the solenoids, which turned on the fuel.
Unfortunately we must have run into another load of static on the way, this somehow turned off the solenoids with the switches still on. No
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one was very happy, when the old kite went into a noiseless steep glide, heading for the deck with a full bomb load, but fortunately the noise started up again just before we had decided to bail out (guess we were always lucky).
This has just been another Berlin raid, we have had our usual share of troubles, but this may have shown one weakness in our system of communications. Basically, it was, complete silence from everyone unless they needed something. The idea being the time for gunners to call, must not only be as short as possible but also be as clear as possible. This can't happen if someone else is talking, so no talking.
The one exception was the pilot who had to call each member of the crew from time to time. This was kept to a minimum like Vic OK?, Titch OK?, you could not call the w/op because he was off the intercom, operating anti fighter electronics or the wireless, but the Nav could check him. Pilot could see the engineer, so the only other one was the bomb aimer, it was just a quick check, but always had been effective. This night was different, on the last check, the rear gunner had complained of the cold, (not surprising, as the temp. gets down to 60°C below at this height) his electric suite wasn't working but he said he was OK. This time there was no answer when I called. This could mean a loss of intercom' contact or worse, so I called the Nav to put the w/op (Blue) onto the intercom.
I must explain the situation to him, because being off the intercom, he didn't know anything was out of normal routine.
Something like, “Blue can you take a couple of portable oxygen bottles and check on Vic". There was a lengthy period of silence to follow, but also the tension builds up because we now have a blind spot. I can't fly far from straight and level to help the mid upper gunner to see, as I would like to. I must just fly straight to help the w/op as much as possible.
When he arrived at the rear turret, it was sideways on, so he bashed on it, but got no reply, so he had to rotate it by hand to get the
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doors to line up with the back of the aircraft. When he got the doors open our gunner was almost unconscious, so he then pulled his intercom plug out and put his own in. We decided the first thing to do was to put him onto a portable oxygen bottle and take him out of the turret, then replace him with the mid upper gunner, but he was very firmly frozen to the floor and he just couldn't shift him. However he soon started to regain consciousness with the oxy supply flat out. Next the w/op looked at the rubber tube on his helmet. There had been a slight downward bend in the rubber tube and because of the extreme cold all the moisture from his breath had condensed and formed ice in the tube untt had completely sealed off the supply, and no one lasts very long at this height without oxygen. Having achieved all this "Blue" was then able to quickly check his flying suite circuit.
The heating elements are built into the suite, but all the press stud type buttons are the contacts from the power supply.
Somehow he had undone a couple, which cut off the power supply. Normally he would have checked these himself, but no one is very efficient when their oxygen supply is gradually cut off.
Once the heat in his boots came on again, and he had his oxygen supply back, he decided he was OK to stay there.
After that I called a little more often.
We all thought "Blue" had done a terrific job, back at base they said it was just routine, just the same effort required as putting out the fires in their crazy electronic junk, which was pretty often anyway.
To me it was quite an achievement to find your way down the length of a bouncing aircraft, over all the built in obstacles, in extreme cold, on emergency oxygen, and all in complete darkness, then find your way back again. He must have looked something like a modern day frog man without the flippers, but he would have had to carry the bottles as they didn't come in packs. Just routine when you know your job (they say). You Wonder [sic] how many crews were lost this way too because, had
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we been attacked at that time, we would have had no warning, and, assuming we were not shot down in the first attack, we would have had no chance to revive our gunner. Maybe the mid upper would have managed OK after the initial attack, but he is completely blind to anything below, and we would have had only two guns instead of six.
Care had to be taken to check every order or direction given. As everything in the aircraft is in complete darkness except for the small sealed compartment of the w/op and nav. With all the outside noises, it was very easy to have the course given by the nav. at turning points misunderstood.
It had to be a spoken heading, no use writing it down because you can't read in the dark. The nav. then had to check the new course on his repeater compass. On one trip I misread the given course and flew off on an eastward course at a tangent, out of the protective block of "mirrorcover", but by this time we had a fair idea of where we were by the permanent concentration of flak, so we soon corrected and set a new course direct for the next turning point, which put us back into the stream
again.
Luckily, (we thought) although we were a single, isolated little spot (on radar) all ready for the radar to find, and all that would follow, we didn't even get challenged by a light, a gun or a fighter.
On some of the Berlin targets we saw strange little football shaped objects flying at our height, always with a vertical pale blue bean going straight down from their centre point. We reported these at debriefing, but they didn't exist, we were told, and although they often changed direction, I never saw one do any damage to anyone. Still they were treated with respect because we though they had to belong to the enemy, we never got close enough to fire at them so I don't know what the result would have been. (30 years later, they were still unclaimed by either side), some called them phoo fighters, and claimed they came from outer space.
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A great deal of effort was spent by the enemy placing false markers in the wrong place, building dummy towns in their attempts to divert the bombing, and it did work to a fair degree, especially with the inexperienced crews, but a careful look would show slight differences in the colours used and a radar scan would prove it wrong, but then not many aircraft had radar at this time.
Through all this our old kite staggered on, often tested to the maximum and sometimes seriously over strained, but I though, as long as it was prevented from skidding, that is, provided always there was no structural damage done to the spars or controls.
On one of our shortest raids (Essen) which was fairly heavily defended, being a very important industrial centre in happy valley. We were unlucky enough to have about a foot shot off one blade of the port inner prop. This changed the balance so much that the whole aircraft jumped up and down at a great rate. The nav. had trouble keeping his junk on the table. So we decided to feather a motor and go hone on three, but we didn't know which one it was, or what the cause of the vibration was at this time either.
The only thing was to try one at a time, started at the port outer, it was ok, next the port inner and there was no doubt that was the one causing the problem, but (so sorry old chap) no port inner meant no generator and therefore the power for the G set and a heap of other goodies we needed, so I turned it on again, and to over come some of the vibration, increased the revs on that motor. The effect of this was to put the motors out of syncro, also increased the vibrations, but the bumps were smaller and much faster. Everyone managed to cope much better. I though[inserted] t [/inserted] the closer we could get to base before that motor packed up, the easier it would be.
We had to keep a very careful watch on all the gauges. Especially the heating side, but it lasted all the way. It should have been turned off and feathered before landing (anti fire etc.). I did think about it and
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decided it was still giving plenty of power, therefore I decided to use it as normal.
In the next days maintenance, the whole front shaft and gears had to be changed, not important compared to the job it had done. It's no wonder so many praised the Merlin.
As our average fuel consumption was always 1.1 mpg and the loss of power from one motor would have forced us to use more revs on the remaining motors this could have caused a possible shortage before we got to base. We may have had to land away from home, and we only did that when we really had to.
Of course there was a good chance too, that by driving this motor at these revs, and so far out of balance, it should have pulled itself to pieces (The good luck was still on our side).
Main force bomber command operated at this time as a unit. The total number of aircraft for each raid varied according to the number each separate squadron could manage to get back to airworthy state for the night. The other factor being that often the main force would be split into two or more raids to try to divide the enemy defences.
The usual briefing held by each squadron, would give you, the target and the tracks to follow and the times to bomb, also all the forecast winds, cloud conditions, possible ice etc., as well as the known defence strong points. Unfortunately they didn't know them all, just because so many guns were mobile, and if they could get early warning from their radar they sometimes managed to get within range.
The target would be marked by PFF, but many aircraft still had trouble getting there on time. One big problem was always the winds given by met. when there was 10/10 cloud there could never be any reference points visible to compute drift from, and when you had to fly in cloud, sometimes 3hrs or so without seeing anything, this would call for very accurate flying so that the nav. could do all his courses and times
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from dead reckoning. This means if you have flown all your courses accurately then you should arrive exactly on target exactly on time.
As we were fitted with radar, it became our job, with other senior crews, to lead, checking our dead reckoning points against radar points. Rod then had to complete a corrected wind and "Blue" signalled it to group. From these results, corrected courses given by the leaders, a mean course was taken, then relayed from group HQ back to the following aircraft. A tribute must be paid to this aircraft that it could fly so accurately under such conditions, with such a heavy load. In contrast to today's aircraft, they were loaded to their maximum for their power, but flying at this height they were hard to keep straight and level, in fact they seemed to wallow all over, obviously they didn't.
It took along time to climb through the often very bad weather, and there was no way you could get above it eve [inserted] n [/inserted] with a light build up of ice. I [inserted] t [/inserted] was just a lucky guess by the met. people as to what was out in front, sometimes an unlucky one. Add to all that the total commitment of a very advanced enemy defence system (e.g.) to ask for a fix (your position) over England was relatively quick and safe but to break radio silence over Germany meant a stack of fighters on your tail if you managed to avoid the Flak. (It was better not to be a leader).
An example of a bad forecast was on a trip to Leipzig, everyone at the higher altitude was caught in an unsuspected jet stream, ourselves included. This meant we had to circle over Berlin area for 3/4 of an hour to wait for bombing time. For some strange reason there was almost no a/c a/c so it was not as dangerous as it sounds, but it should have been.
It seems, or so the theory said, the a/c a/c. didn't want to fire because it would give their position away. (I don't believe it).
If we had dropped our markers, chances were that all the kites flying at lower levels would not have got to the area before the markers had burnt out.
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Interesting to watch the Flak coming up. The lighter calibre, quicker firing guns sent up streams of trace. They called it hosepipe Flak. It seems they wobble the guns similar to holding a hose pointing upwards, and the trace took the same shape as the water would.
To look down on it starting from the ground level it appeared so slow, it was hardly moving but in no time at all the speed increased until it flashed past almost invisible and often much closer than you expected. The big ones you never saw at all, only the flash when they went off and cloud of smoke left behind. There is nothing you can do about these, no way to avoid what you don't know or can't see, either you are lucky or you are not.
A case of good luck by one of our crews was to be hit by a shell as it went upwards, but it didn't explode, however it did go right through the main wing area and cracked the main spar. They flew it gently home without much trouble. Luckily they were not attacked by fighters on the way or the wing would have fallen in half, but they, and the rest of us too, were amazed that it had held together for so far.
Another of our kites, on his bombing run, was hit by an incendiary falling from a higher flying kite. It got stuck just near the port inner motor, just above the main fuel tank on that side and burned away like any good incendiary should burn. There was no way they could put it out, so the pilot put into a steep dive and built up enough speed to blow it out. He came home to tell us all about it too, we couldn't say it didn't happen, you could see where it had been.
We didn't see many of the crashes that happened near our drome, we were mostly flying too. There was never a panic as in civvy dromes, when the whole town is waiting, often there is no warning at all, but the fire cart and ambulance are always ready and waiting.
One of the crashes happened on take off: As the kite crashed off the end of the runway, the "cookie" broke loose, it didn't explode as it should have, but rolled along and split the casing and then started to burn.
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Explosives usually burn safely enough unless there is some compression. As this casing had split, they decided it would be reasonably safe enough to go out and extinguish it just in case, but they never made it. The compression built up in one half enough to explode all that hadn't burnt.
The blast from this always has one strange feature, although there is always an overall shock wave fairly evenly all around, there are also narrow strips of very intense pressure that are quite unexplained, so it is possible, as in this case that one chap lost an arm, the other just disappear.
There were many, like one of ours, badly shot up but still holding together. He was on the down wind leg nearly ready to turn in for landing, but as he put his wheels or flaps down, they must have been holding things together, the aircraft suddenly fell apart and dived straight into the ground. It's height would have been about 1000ft, but when they dug the motors out they were 12ft down. We were diverted to a Canadian drome one night because of bad weather at our base, had the usual trouble getting down from a crowded sky, but had made it safely and parked off to one side of the drome as directed. Climbed out of the kite to stretch our legs and wait for transport. It soon became obvious there was something wrong as a couple of incoming aircraft got red lights and had to go around again.
We soon spotted the trouble, coming in very low and making funny noises, he too must have been shot up badly and was going to do a belly landing because he was off to the other side of the runway. The general procedure for a belly landing is to land on the grass, as this causes less friction than the concrete runway, and also because the kite digs into the ground and slows down much quicker. It also keeps the runway clear for further use by other aircraft, which was very important.
We watched this chap do a beautiful landing, but as he slid along the ground a great stream of sparks went flying out the back just as though
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you were grinding steel on an emery wheel but much bigger, as the plane skidded on, the sparks followed, but at the back end there was a little flame which soon followed the plane, so we concluded he had broken some petrol lines somewhere.
By now the ambulance and fire cart were chasing madly across the runway with all lights on but there was along way to go to catch up. The plane was slowly losing speed by now, but the little flame was going faster as though it was trying to beat the fire cart. As the plane lost speed, the starboard wing tilted downwards and something on that side dug into the ground. The tail of the plane lifted and. turned so that it came to rest at right angles to it's original direction , but that little flame had got bigger and soon caught up the remaining space.
The ambulance was leading the race, but just at this point the driver turned sharply away, he was none too soon either. The explosion that followed was more like a woof than a bang and the surrounding air seemed to be sucked in towards the flame rather than pushed away. A great cloud of smoke and flame rose above the plane lighting up the whole drome. The top escape hatch had been sprung, but no one left the aircraft.
l was awakened from my staring by a ground staff corporal who was saying "your transport is waiting sir," your equipment will be ok in the plane, come on sir, bring your crew there is nothing you can do now and it's better not to watch."
The fire cart arrived and charged straight in, but time had already run out.
As we went around the other side of the drome in the transport there were a few small explosions, maybe tanks or oxy bottles or even the ammunition, but l don't think it made any difference now. After debriefing, we were invited to the mess and open bar. These boys were already celebrating, they had only lost 5 kites, but they had drunk enough grog to float the navy. We soon left their party and found ourselves some beds.
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There was very little left of the aircraft when we took off next morning, just an outline surrounded by a few trucks and crews trying to clear up the metal remains.
About this time our group decided to install a "Fido" system on our drome. Fido was set up with a pipe down each side of the runway with burners at intervals and just off the side of the drome, a large storage tank of petrol. The petrol was pumped through these pipes and all the burners were lit. This used about 58000 gals an hour. Apart from the light it gave, the heat generated dispersed the fog for the full length of the runway giving a long tunnel to land in. This was not finished before we left, so we never landed on it. I think this would have been a very crowded drome in the future, but they did install a few others at other dromes too.
Bomber dromes are always large areas. The requirements are always the same. A central control watch tower to control air traffic and direct all taxiing on the ground. Long runways, a perimeter taxi strip all around and off this, dispersal points for parking all aircraft at intervals so that they were never in bunches or a straight line. This gives some chance or saving a few kites when the place is shot up or bombed. Just outside the tarmac area, the flight offices and crew rooms and at an other point, opposite side of drome, are the living quarters; all using the same system of dispersal, but the big disadvantage is transport between points. Because there is a shortage of fuel in war time everyone is issued with a push bike to go between all necessary places.
Aircrew, going from flight huts to and from aircraft being excepted because of the load of flying equipment they always had to carry. This always has to be returned and put into [inserted] D [/inserted] [deleted] f [/deleted] rying rooms between flights. This helps to avoid the risk of frost bite caused by moisture freezing at the lower temperatures of the higher altitudes, and so, about twice a day every day, everyone rides the distances between the mess huts and the flight rooms on the bike. We sometimes cheated, rather than ride
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around the road, we climbed over the fence and rode around the perimeter, which was probably 20 yards shorter. It was the morning after one of our crews night off that we were doing this trick, partly to have a look at one of the kites that had been shot up the night before. There was no doubt it had had a bad time going by the holes in the side of the fuselage, been caught in searchlight cone and hammered with heavy flak, but it did get back to base.
We didn't take much notice of the crows fighting over the scraps as we passed until one came out of the kite with a lump of meat, then the fight for possession was on again. No doubt the medics had done a good job of cleaning up the night before but it was dark, and the wounded would have had first priority. The final cleanup would be fnished later. Someone said, it doesn't really matter how the recycle job is done anyway, but there wasn't a lot of laughter for the rest of the day.
Perhaps these are the reasons you don't make many friends.
The set out of [inserted] c [/incerted] [deleted] d [/deleted] rew rooms was always about the same. Flight commanders office on the end, next the pilots room, then the navigators, W/ops and gunners, in that order. May seem strange to separate categories, it did have its advantages, mostly it gave the newer crews, divided as they were to learn a lot from the older crews, that is from the same categories in the experienced crews. I know I learned a lot from the older pilots in my earlier stages. Just the fact that they argued about different ways of doing the same thing. You still had to make up your own mind which way was right, but there were so many things you had never heard of.
There were other moments too, when some were sitting around the very hot pot bellied stove trying to keep warm, someone would get out his cigarette lighter and flick the flint over the hot top. The little flashes that continually rose in the thermal were so like flak in the distance. I'm sure it didn't do much for some of those shattered nerves.
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By this time I think my flying had calmed down a bit too, it may have been the result of experience, or fatigue, or perhaps even the influence of the little WRAF I had met at Syerston before we parted from 61 squadron.
That was only a few weeks really but it seemed like years.
Some of the group leaders had always been opposed to the main force bombing idea led by PFF, believing they could do better by bombing in smaller groups on selected targets. So about this time 5 group (Cochran AOC) started to do tests on a new idea of special bombing, but as their aircraft were stripped of almost everything excepting guns, so that they could carry the big bombs, 6 crews, 3 from 106 squadron sometimes 3 from squadron were picked to lead the way and mark the target area.
Allowing for wind drift, 3 aircraft flying parallel dropped 3 parachute flares at an even spacing as we crossed the area, followed by the next 3 planes, then return and drop 3 more.
Cheshire (first flying a Lanc., but later a mosquito or mustang) would fly around at low level until he could definitely identify the target. He then dropped a spot fire (ground marker) as close as possible to the target. We usually had to go around again a few times and back up the flares as the first ones burnt out. When he was satisfied his marker was close, he would call in his kites to bomb in order. His call was often, e.g. on heading of 185 bomb 30yds to port. The original idea didn't work because he marked the target but the first bombs blew the markers away, so he had to change and mark away from the target. It worked very well, as we hit one target 30ft. x 30ft. about 600 miles from base, but of course these were only French factories taken over by the Germans and never very heavily fortified.
On one of these, out [sic] kite, the last to bomb was the only one to hit the target. (Allen's head got bigger) but someone did hit something one other night. The explosion at ground level must have been fantastic, there
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were rocks about the size of houses coming down from above us and we were at 8000 ft.
One of our main worries on these trips were the magnesium flares. They were carried almost loose in the fuselage, extremely unstable, burnt with a brilliant light, but very dangerous to carry around especially with the bumps. The poor W/op had the job of dropping them down a special shute exactly when the nav. told him to.
We nearly always had some delayed action bombs on these targets too (1000lbs.) each. The delay time varying from one hour to a day or more. This idea is to stop a quick clean up, as you would have to wait until all the bombs had exploded before it was safe to start to repair the damage, or defuse all the bombs first.
On return one night, we were diverted to a drome down south, and left our kite to a local ground crew for servicing, unfortunately it was not a bomber drome and the ground crew were not used to bombers. I awoke to a terrific panic, it seems we had a temporary hang up, one bomb we didn't know about, after we had closed the bomb doors, the bomb had just dropped from it's cradle and lay on the bomb doors all the way home.
When they pumped the doors open for inspection it dropped onto the tarmac with a thud. No one managed to start to run away, the shock much have been too great.
Then they realised it was a delay. The action of a delayed action bomb was simply a glass tube with filler in it. At the other end is a little container of acid which brakes [sic] when bumped, the acid then eats through the filler until it ignites the cap. The delay time can be changed by changing the length of filler in the tube.
No one knew if the action had started from the first bump to the bomb doors or the second bump to the tarmac, or what the time delay was anyway, so we were most unpopular. Finally they took the only chance they could, there was no one there to defuse it, no time anyway. The tied it on a long rope to a truck and dragged it across the drome into some trees
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on the far side, but no one was allowed to take off for 2 days, in case it went off at that time. Don't know if it ever went off but it just proves how gentle the old kite was, or maybe it was a dud, but we had sat on it all the way home. (Some people are still lucky).
It was only a I000lb.'er. We weren't very popular when we got back to base either, was one way of getting a night off.
We did have some troubles on the Nuremburg raid (main force) because it was a very clear night bright moonlight, without any cloud, and the defences picked up the bomber stream very early. It was normal practice to log every kite that was seen to blow up or get shot down (time and place). This would be checked up by command after return to give total later. Knowing your own losses, you can tell time and place of enemy planed [sic] shot down, provided they have been logged. There were too many on this night, most crews stopped logging them, mostly because it took too much time on the intercom. We needed it far more than ever in case of sudden attack. We were supposed to be sending back wind corrections but we were continually attacked by an ME210. We could usually loose a fighter fairly quickly, but it is not so easy on a clear night like this, almost daylight at this height, he keeps coming back, so the only hope you have is to beat him on the turns.
In theory he has to point in front of you if he is going to hit you, but you [inserted] r [/inserted] gunners can shoot all the time he is within range.
Unfortunately our guns didn't work for a while (frozen oil lines). The guns, like the turrets were operated hydraulically, but because the turret was continually moving, the oil remained free, just the little bit up to the guns that was isolated that remained static unless the guns were fired. There should have been some way to circulate the oil without firing the guns, because of this delay the fighter was getting in a bit too close, that is dropping his speed and trying to follow behind us, we would then be a sitter every time we turned. It was just as well it was a Lanc. We
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were in, there weren't many fully loaded bombers good enough to stay inside a determined fighter.
There was no time or chance to jettison the bombs so I was beginning to wear down a bit before Vic got his guns going properly. The 210 soon paid the price of getting in too close after that. There was great relief and satisfaction in Vic's voice when he said "got the b - " understandable, l felt the same way. He had put up with a lot of trace going very close for some time, to see that explosion must have been pretty good.
We didn't get much of a break before Vic reported another, ME 109 this time, approaching by weaving across as he closed in from behind.
We let him came in as close as possible without us loosing [sic] the advantage. When the time came to fire Vic said starboard, as we turned, one burst was enough, he climbed to starboard and burst into flame before falling to the ground.
We were able to resume course, perhaps we were lucky once again, he must have just turned to follow us on the turn, instead he climbed to starboard and burst into flames before falling away, but after 3/4's of an hour of continuous evasion, we didn't have much idea where we were or what the wind might be either. Had to use the radar to locate out position again, thus inviting more fighters, luckily none came.
Although this was very hard work on the physical side, it was a clear night, there was always a clear horizon to be seen and therefore no excuse for bad flying, quite unlike a dark night with heavy cloud, that means you do violent aerobatics in the dark.. [sic]
Always, after the first turns the instruments spin violently and are no use to fly by, they need a little time flying relatively straight and level again before they settle back into proper functional use.
Easy enough to fly with out instruments when you have a clear horizon, but not so easy when you have neither. Could be why it was
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easier to loose the fighter too because they had to turn sharper to get inside your turn. Combine this with a very restricted range of vision and you had to win, provided you saw him before his attack, (but you had to win anyway.
By this time we had long since qualified as senior crew having [rest of page blanked out]
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be at sea level to avoid radar detection from land or German navy ships in the area.
For this trip we all had new aircraft, must have been one off specials at that time, I never saw anything like them again, even to the end of the war. They were “Hush hish” too. They arrived on the drome and [rest of page blanked out]
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We were now approaching the canal at right angles we had to climb to 150ft. (bombing height), and turn to starboard for the bombing run. About this time, it seemed every searchlight and every gun (well three or four anyway) east of Berlin went into action, none of them were ours either but we were the only target. Mines had to be dropped all from the same height, and at intervals down the length of the canal.
By now the trace was coming from both sides and we were forced downwards, so I called for more revs from the engineer. He said "yes I think so too." The terrific surge of power that followed put us all back in our seats. Our speed jumped to about 300mph. All that was left to do was go up and down to dodge the trace, and hope it worked, as we couldn't swerve away from the narrow canal. Sometimes we were down below the banks and the trace was firing down crossing from each side just above our heads, but we still had to come up to 150ft. each time to drop a mine. By now our gunners were using up a lot of ammunition putting out searchlights and gun posts, but you can't shoot the ones in front, only the ones behind, we could have used another man in the front turret, the bomb aimer was far too busy at the time. One searchlight came on from out across the bay in front pointing straight down the canal. Although it was almost blinding, it did save our lives as it showed up the masts of a ship in the canal, I pulled hard back on the stick to gain some height and we were able to clear the tops, then quickly down again. At the end of the canal, hard back again, this time straight up. The only thing I have seen (before the jets) that could climb like that was a contra prop spitty and that was much later.
By now I had my first chance to look at the instruments. Johnny had pushed both boost and revs to the maximum, no wonder it leaped forward. When I said that was a bit much, his reply was positively rude. The kite was hardly damaged and we still had one mine we hadn't time to drop before we came to the end of the canal. Maybe we were going too fast, maybe I didn't get up to height often enough, but we did have an
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alternate dropping spot off the coast, so down again and dropped it and turned for home. Back across Sweden, on across Denmark. Still low level but not like the target area. Our worry now was being so isolated, even if they all got through (which they didn't) there were only 6 kites and almost 900 miles to go, but I think this monster was almost as fast as most fighters at this height, but it would be so easy to get plotted as we crossed Denmark. Our luck was still on the good side. Perhaps all the fighters had followed the main stream south, perhaps they hadn't had time to refuel, or perhaps they mistook us for "mosies" [sic] which did a regular run to Sweden. Given a little start they knew they couldn't catch them.
Our aircraft was isolated again (under guard) on our return, so it wasn't only the mines that were "hush, hush" but it had been flown away early next morning and we never really got a look at it.
If old N was a good kite (and it was) this monster was magnificent.. [sic] I don't know how it would have been at high level though.
Still 8000hp is a lot of power to pack into one kite. We did use it all for that short time. It's only after, that you notice the effects.
The next day I found the pressure had lifted a thick layer of skin off the palms of both hands, they soon healed back again.
That was about all the damage, didn't even see how many holes there were in the kite, couldn't have been many or they wold have had to patch it up before it went.
Only a few more trips to do at this point but none of the older crews left, and no one has managed to finish a tour from our flight either.
Have even lost a crew on their last op. As this was about the worst period for losses during the war, due to an all out effort by bomber command prior to invasion, and a corresponding all out effort by the enemy's opposition, and added in some of the longest raids in some of the worst weather, especially on take off and return. The fogs would have been enough, but added to this and very well mixed in, must have been thousands of tons of coal smoke caused by every little factory chimney
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working night and day flat out and producing something for the war effort, even some private houses were used.
It was normally very easy to find your home base, you simply got reasonably close by navigation and then joined in on the circuit lights of the drome. Our drome always had a Sandra light (little searchlight) pointing straight up from the control tower. The circuit itself was a ring of lights mounted on poles at regular intervals, and pointing straight upwards.
The only break in the circle of lights being at the entrance to the runway in use.
As you enter this space for approach, there were two straight rows, one either side set on converging angles to guide you onto the runway as the sides of a funnel. At the beginning of the runway on the ground level, on both sides of the runway there was a GPI (glide path indicator). This can only be seen from the approach end of the runway. It is divided into 3 colours giving angles of approach (height) ie. red too low, green ok, amber too high. This gives points of touchdown on runway, amber - too long, green ok, red -too short. No other lights are visible from the air, but at very low heights, or at touchdown, there are lights down each side of the runway and along the taxi strips, all are hooded so that they can°t be seen from above about 100ft.
On one nights return, a rude awakening came, as we approached our drome with trace going in all directions from intruding fighters, who had come in undetected with the bombers. This caused no end of confusion, as all aircraft lights went out. All the drome lights were out excepting for the hooded ground lights and the GPIs. Thanks to the easy handling of the Lanc., a few of us managed to land. We simply set the direction of the runway on the gyro compass, flew straight down the runway, took our time form [sic] the time we crossed the GPIs flew for 1 minute, 90° rate one turn to port, flew for 1 minute 90° turn to port, flew 2 minutes, another 90° rate one turn port and flew for I minute, and there on
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the port side were the GPIs another 90° turn into compass heading letting on normal approach on GPIs. Almost at ground level the runway lights became visible, so the rest was a normal landing. We did have to use the radio RT with control to keep spacing and notify of being clear etc. There were no nav. lights to look for even for taxiing on the.ground.
It's doubtful if this was a useful exercise, as the drome had been shot up already, I gather before the lights went out. The risk of flying at 1000ft. with wheels and flaps down must have been pretty high, (you could not do evasion) and the fighters could not stay long anyway. I suppose it could have left more time for someone who could have been running short of fuel.
Some of the intruders were chased by our night fighters about this time, and it seems the further they went the further our fighters got left behind. It's possible they were some of the first of the jets (German) to operate over England. I didn't see any of them.
Up until now we have had three "Boomerangs", early returns because of faults in the aircraft. The responsibility is with the pilot, he is always supposed to press on provided there is some chance of getting to the target. For my part, I couldn't see why, when your kite wont go any higher than 8000ft. because it is covered in ice or the guns or instruments wont work. All of these, or even some of them would just mean you would almost certainly by shot down. That is a loss of one Lane., plus a fully trained crew. If you turn back, you have to drop the cookie in the sea, but provided you land it safely, that's the only loss. If you were shot down, the cookie didn't hit anything anyway.
To me it seemed better to run away and come back another day than dig your own grave. Not what heroes are made of though is it?
Probably the worst torture for the old Lanc. would have been the standard evasion, 5 group corkscrew. As the gunner called the position of the attacking fighter, i.e. port or starboard, the stick was pushed hard forward, at the same time, full aileron and full rudder on the same side
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(say port) so full roll to left full rudder to left with full downward dive. As the speed builds up very quickly you must then roll to the right, with full roll and full rudder, still going down. As the speed builds up, the controls become much harder to operate, so before it gets too high you must start to pull out, hard back on the stick again while still turning to the right. This is the point of greatest strain, if the speed has been allowed to build up too high, it becomes impossible to shift the controls without using the trims. As the speed starts to fall off on the way upwards, you then roll back to the left i.e. full left roll, full left rudder. This has regained some of your height and should be somewhere near your original course, (depends on how good your flying is). Speed drops off very quickly near the top of this climb, so care must be taken not to let it get too low or you are again a sitting target with no flying speed left to manoeuvre with if the fighter is still there. Mostly he will overshoot you on the first dive. Either way he is just about ready to attack again, so you must repeat again, usually from the opposite side and hope again to lose him on the break again in the dark. There is no way you could have time to jettison your bombs, so in view of the total weight involved, and the accurate way you have to fly, if you want to keep the wings on, this gets to be hard work. With reasonable flying the old kite could take it much longer than l could.
Later, while instructing at Litchfield, I tried this manoeuvre in a hurricane [sic]. It's easy to see why a fighter found it hard to follow, especially at night. The only way seemed to be to drop the speed, let down 20° of flap and try to stay behind, but if you have to fire in front of the bomber, you can't see him, so you go straight on while he goes the other way, and just as we found on ops, you are a sitting target for the bombers gunners.
Our last trip with 617 was to carefully bomb the railway yards at Paris. By this time 2 squadrons of PFF (path finding force) have been reformed in 5 group to take over the marking job we had been doing. It seems the deport [sic] for all our escapees trying to return along the
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underground escape line was right there beside the tracks. Bombing had to be spot on, or not only would we kill our mob, we would also break the escape line. However, there was not a lot of a/c a/c to worry over, so we were down to the usual 8000ft. at that height the old Lane. was so stable to fly you could land the bombs within feet of the aiming point. So we were happy to wreck the railway and I don't think anyone was hurt (quite a change). The flak increased on the outer edges of the city, but compared to the German targets it was like the kids with pea shooters, Our substitute navigator spent his time, not only counting the gun flashes on the ground, but timing from the flash on the ground to the explosion of the shell. This somehow gave him the position and calibre of each gun. Not that that helps much as most of them are mobile, but I guess it kept him busy and helped to calm his nerves.
He was the only aircrew member left on the squadron from when we had started. Even the CO who should not have been flying was missing.
Flak happy was the term used to describe crews at our stage, and at times it was true. No one would have known the dangers better than we did, but often we would ignore the flak that was too close for too long and just say ha ha you missed again, but the flak didn't hear you, it didn't go away either, it just kept trying. I'm sure this was never over confidence, just plain fatigue, sometimes I would alter course to clear a heavy concentration of flak, and Johnny would say "go straight through, it won't hurt you", well it doesn't either unless it hits you.
About this time we had a visit from the ABC who's object appeared to be a recording for transmission on stations in Australia. They needed a crew to glamorise I guess. They tried very hard to get us to say how good we were, and how easy it was to beat the opposition, but this wasn't a glamour crew. The conversation was all one sided. Someone said something like, "no mate we are not a good crew really, its just that we are lucky, lucky that we haven't met anyone on the other side that's
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better, so far, but that doesn't mean we wont [sic]." So they gave up. I'm sure they would have broken the record before they got out the gate. There was never any place for a crew on a squadron once they had finished their tour, in fact the postings were through before the last trip. I did have to front up to the new CO to give a final assessment on each of the crew members ability, relative to where each would be posted as an instructor, but that was all.
The Australians were going beck [sic] to Litchfield but the rest were split up to various RAF depots. Met Vic, rear gunner, once on leave in London but never heard from the others.
Back at Litchfield, things have changed, it's almost a complete RAAF station now excepting for the ground staff. Instructors are all ex ops, (there are some who finished a tour).
Some who are very much afraid of flying now, many with an controllable, unconscious twitch in hands and face muscles and some who claim they fly much better when they are drunk, but a lot have managed to remain reasonable [sic] normal (I think).
Most pilots go into the flights teaching conversion to wimps (Wellingtons). I managed to get into the gunnery section. We take a crew with their pilot flying and their gunners in the turrets. These are all dual control "wimpies", so the instructing pilot has the right hand seat and gunnery instructor is able to instruct from outside the rear turret (inside the kite of course). We can direct the fighter to do all the different styles of attack from different directions by RT. As it was often hard to get the fighter to do the attacks we needed, we often had to change over and fly the fighter ourselves on the next trip.
The turrets were fitted with cameras instead of guns (IR for night) practice [sic]. Our Hurricanes had a light (IR invisible, except to the film) set in both wing tips, so the film showed not only the direction of the gunners [sic] fire, but by measuring the width of the lights on the film you could tell the range when he started to fire and when he stopped. That's if he managed
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to get you in the picture of course. If you found, in theory, you could shoot him down too easily, you had to go back and try to teach the pilot to improve his evasion. Twice I managed to overdo this bit. The first time was a nasty surprise, I didn't realise you could make anyone so afraid. I had expected them to be used to violent aerobatics but most of these new pilots were trained on twins and their aerobatics had been limited to steep turns.
Anyhow I had done my best to show them how to beat the fighters, (it's not easy in the daylight) and handed back to him to fly back and land. He went ok until the final approach, but at about 300ft. I realised we were going straight in. The poor bloke had pointed it at the end of the runway and frozen hard, just like the one in Tassie had done.
It isn't easy to take the controls off a bloke in that state (but you can). So I had to take him back the next day and do it all again. This time it didn't even worry him. I think there should be a bit of crazy aerobatics in everyone's training.
The next time this happened I was watching for it, but I was more surprised, as the pilot had done one tour of ops. in the middle east on "Wimpies" should have been able to fly them better than I could, but as he said, he had never seen a fighter let alone having to evade one.
By this time it made little difference which aircraft we flew in. We had Miles Master, Martinets, and Hurricanes as fighters and half a dozen fighter pilots to help out, so there was plenty of practice, you even got attacked when you were flying the Hurricanes.
The Master was really designed as an advanced trainer, but it was nearly as fast as a Hurricane and very manoeuvrable, just a little bit stiff, which was a bit more tiring. The Hurricane must have been one of the best aircraft of it's time, it flew like a bird, always exactly right.
In fact in fog you could fly it straight down the runway, because you can see down through a fog but not across.
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Wheels and flaps down, just at the far end of the runway, you cut the throttle, lift the nose and with full rudder it falls over sideways, points it's nose straight at the ground, then with just a little throttle, it lands it's self back along the runway. It has to be a thick fog to do this or the noises form [sic] control can be very disturbing.
In one of our brighter moments here, when the first Martinet arrived, two of us decided we would fly it. The Martinet is a two seater, advanced from the Master, bigger motor etc. We found the hand book with all the instructions and positions of all the controls etc., my mate in the back seat with the book. We were half way down the runway when I realised I couldn't get the tail to lift off, so I'm shouting out where's the trim (hadn't done my checks?) but he couldn't find the page, so we took off at about 90° from the runway and had to fly around finding things before we could land again not really dangerous, but not very professional either.
We did a very short course in instructing from here. It was a joke I think, the instructor RAF was still 1918 and never more than rate one turns (it would be too dangerous at night) so after our little disagreement as to how to evade a fighter, I found myself grounded as incompetent again, which didn't go down too well with the rest of the flight They did all the work, I just sat and watched. After a while they got sick of that, but they found they had to import an outside qualified instructor from somewhere else to do a test before I could fly.
When he did arrive he picked everything I did around the taxi strip. Taxied too fast etc. Even had the gunner swing his turret on take of, which acts like a rudder and makes the kite turn unless you counter it. After cutting the odd motor and trying just about everything else that could upset normal flight. He said "you can take me back, I hate perfectionists", but his report not only put me back to work it upset the CO who said I had tried to get grounded in the first place. Which must prove --- (it ain't what you say, so much as who you say it to).
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Most of our training trips took us across the west side of England as this was well clear of all ops dromes and testing areas, although it did cross much of the area used for training glider pilots (pre invasion). Also the storage area for all invasion equipment. The roads were filled with tanks, trucks, etc. parked end to end, ready to move in a continuous line south to the ports to cross the channel when ready. Many of the fields were stacked with fighter aircraft. It appeared to be impossible to fly them off, until you looked close enough to see the hedges were only painted on the grass.
The aircraft we flew here had no effects from enemy action but we still had minor troubles with the odd panels falling off.
They.were old and well worn planes (not by today's standards) but they had had a very rough life. Sometimes a motor would give up. One motor on one Wimp continually gave trouble while flying, but on the ground tests it was always 100%. After l had continually written it off as u/s they stripped it down to find it had no top left on one piston, just burnt out.
It seems that was fairly common on Herculies [sic] motors.
One incident here while night flying, was to hear a trainee pilot call control from dispersal area and ask for an ambulance to be sent out. To the girls insistent query "why?" he said "my rear gunner has crashed through the prop, he's not very pretty."
No one ever knew why he turned his turret sideways and got out over the side, as he would do if he were abandoning aircraft in the air. Normally on the ground, he would centralise the turret and come out through the aircraft. No one knew why he walked straight through the prop. either.
One of our gunnery instructors RAF who often flew with me in the Wimp, was an Englishman with strange pre war interests, one was the ancient castles which he often flew over and he could recognise from a quick glimpse through a little hole in the cloud, he would then tell you it's
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history, all very interesting too. There are a lot of castles along the Welsh border line. His other hobby had been mountain climbing, which had taken him to the same area.
As these were all dual control aircraft, but we only took gunners for practice over the Irish sea he often used to fly us back from the right hand seat. This way he could follow his own selected track back and pick out as many interesting spots as possible to tell us about. On one trip we were flying along a deep valley, just above the hill top level on either side, when we were hit by a very strong down draught. I managed to take over with full power and full climb before we landed in the river, but it shook his faith in his flying ability a little. Proved I should not have been asleep too.
On one of these trips I noticed a Wimpy flying along below me with both props feathered and streams of black smoke pouring out the back of both motors. I called up to report this, as I expected he would have to crash land somewhere pretty soon, but the answer from control was slow incoming back. When it did, they just said "shut up and forget it, it's under control" couldn't see how, but I had done my part.
This turned out to be fuel tests on jet engines which were mounted directly behind the normal engines testing various types of fuel mixtures in flight, so it was all quite safe, just looked dicey to someone as ignorant as I was. Jets were stilt unheard of at this time excepting to the few who were working on their development.
Certainly the German had then [sic] in operation, but I doubt if you would be able to pick a jet at night, especially if you had never heard of one before.
As the war in Europe was coming to an end, the demand for transport aircraft was increasing, so I applied for a transfer to a transport squadron flying Halifaxes [sic] to the middle east and back which I thought would be a change.
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In due course I was told to pack my bags as I had the job, but right then the war in Europe finished and I lost the job, because all Australians were grounded. It seems our government had been trying to get us back for the Jap war for a long time, but they didn't want anyone killed after the war in Europe ended. So this left us with nothing to do. It was a points system really, how long you had been away from home, how many ops. Hours you had done, married or single etc., most of our points were much too high, so no more flying.
We had a visit from some bod RAF who was trying to give away some AFCs and MIDs but no one wanted those. When he asked "why?" someone said "it's a joke mate, you have to get killed in the navy to get an MID." He was not anti navy, but he did point out some facts, like, if you are in the navy in one battle, it may last 2 hours, there may to so many tons of shells fired, there may be a few "bods" damaged etc., but everyone gets a gong to commemorate that battle as well as the few, (sometimes many) who are decorated, whereas on one Berlin raid, 6 to 8 hours, thousands of tons of explosives used, minimum about 300 "bods" missing but it's just another raid, you don't get a gong for that, you don't get a gong for 6 raids, not even for 10, and that's about 70 hours over enemy territory and 3000 lives, and you still have 20 more to go, but he didn't sell his gongs.
However he was right about his gongs, the usual for bomber command seemed to be one for the pilot as leader, sometimes one for the navigator, but there were pilots here who had done their 30 trips for nothing.
Our crew of 7 must be hard to explain too, as 5 got gongs and 2 didn't. They were in the same kite on the same raids. Also I got an immediate award for one raid, that means nothing for 29 others.
Cheshire was given a VC because he was the leader of the 617 group who pioneered the new marking system. Just watching him I think Cheshire earned 6 VCs on his own. As gongs are no use to the ones who
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get them, maybe they boost the morale of the newer recruits, maybe it's just something for the papers to write about. Afterall [sic] the civvy population needs a boost too.
Back in civvy street a gong can be a definite disadvantage.
It's hard to compare the airforce officers to the army officers, for many different reasons, first the army were completely inexperienced, being straight from school and depending on the odd corporal and Sgt from the permanent malitia [sic] to help them out. Whereas many of the airforce were also straight from school (civvies) but were specialists in their fields i.e. pre war pilots, navigators, Morse code operators from PMG etc. They were not required to know the admin. Side, that was left to about 2 or 3 who had been regular airforce who we rarely sa[deleted] y [/deleted] w anyway.
It was not until we were getting towards our final training that we had much to do with the pre war types. Most of them were good blokes, but they seemed to have trained as a cross between a commercial pilot and a politician, very good pilots, but their combat tactics were still 1914. They refused to change as the Germans had. Most of them were out of ops. by now but still in the front line squadrons as admin. We did try to tell them of some changes, but it isn't the thing "old chap", no junior has the right to suggest a change to his senior. The whole thing has to wait until the top brass issues an order and it creeps back down the line. In these times you had to change almost every day because of all the new junk on both sides.
Every effort was made to advance the electronic side, but no effort seemed to be made to counter the Germans counter actions except by the crews themselves, perhaps this was considered the best way, because no one would be better informed than the ones who had done the trip last night, and it was up to each crew to listen to all the reports.
As for comparison to the army officers, this was a different end of the war and secondly a different war anyway.
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I have no doubt the army officers improved if they managed to live. There were a few of the original airforce officers left, but very few.
A percentage managed to survive the war because they were shot down and taken prisoner. The percentage of pilots in this lot was relatively low because they had to stay with the aircraft to try to keep it under control until the rest had managed to bail out. Some managed to crash land, I don't know how. George kept it straight enough for a few who were quick enough, that's if George still worked. Some ditched in the Zider [sic] Zee, but they did survive, some of us were even luckier, we just went home.
It' [sic] easy to see this has many faults.
The first is the limited, and therefore monotonous use of language, like jumping up and down in the one spot. The other criticism is to say it put down our efforts, to hide them behind a camouflage of good luck, but, this was a good crew, in my opinion anyway, one of the best in bomber command. This may seem strange because it was not a specially selected crew, rather it was one that just happened.
As these crew members met at OUT for the first time in most cases, it was their own choice whether they stayed together, or walked away and joined someone else. There never appeared to be any conscious assessment of anyone's ability or character, they just came together and stuck, for better or worse, may have been quite different if someone didn't fit though, I'll never know.
The one exception being the engineer, who was allotted later. All of these had one thing in common, they were inclined to rebel against the approved system.
Caused me no end of trouble at times, but to me it was good, as it proved they could think beyond the standard RAF text book. Not that they said it was wrong, just that it was sometimes out of date, and there could be something better.
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It is true that underneath, this was a very confident crew, but they never overestimated their own ability, nor under estimated the enemy either. I think it is also true to say others had a higher opinion of us than we did, but I think this could have been, because, after the first couple of months we had lived long enough to be a senior crew and it is natural for the new crews to look up to experience.
At least three others in this crew had the ability to be the leader and make all the decisions, but I had to be the undisputed leader just because all the quick decisions, there are many, have to be carried out by the pilot, therefore time, or mostly lack of it, dictates that he alone is the leader.
We all tended to give more credit to the other members of the crew than to ourselves. Never when they could hear you of course, e.g. on return from Nuremberg, after debriefing, I was leaving the hut when the CO stopped me. Thinking I could get in first, I said "my gunners did a very good job Sir", He just shook his head and grinned as he said "yes but you weren't too bad yourself'. Here I should explain that debriefing is all done in the one room, but only the first part is done as a crew, you then divided into sections, pilots, navigators, wireless ops, gunners, each in their section, so you never know what they say about you.
As far luck.
It was the end of a briefing for a Berlin raid. The CO finished off with, "and good luck to all of you, any further questions?".
Someone's navigator, more to break the tension (there is always tension at briefing) than to be serious I think, said "Yes Sir, can you define luck for us?". Without a moments hesitation the CO said "certainly, in any high risk to personnel business, I define luck as complete dedication in attention to detail and eternal vigilance". Maybe that could account for a lot of things, perhaps even 99% but not all. Just think of one 4.7 AC shell.
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They predict you [sic] height, speed and direction etc. They assume you fly a straight line, which you don't. The minimum range is about 5 miles, assume the shell goes straight, which it might, assume you zig when you should have zagged.
It's true a predicted shell will always be fairly close, but you can't dive into a trench, you can only hope. Then there are the hundreds fired straight up into your bombing run when you can't do anything except fly straight. If one shell misses you that's lucky, but they fire a hundred or more at you in one night. If they all miss, to me that's a lot of luck.
I don't think that 1% is as small as it looks.
When counting the nightly losses, it was the policy of bomber command to show only the aircraft missing which they knew the enemy could positively be certain came down in enemy territory.
Therefore the figures shown are highly misleading e.g. Nuremberg raid --- next morning the loss posted on the ops. room board in our crew room was 145. The German news in their broadcast claimed 130, so our figures immediately dropped to 120. From there it slowly came down to 96.
In the period in which we were on ops., the average loss per raid was 7%. According to Rod that was 7% per raid x 30 raids = 210% chance of being shot down. The final figure of 106 sqdn, adjusted for overall duration was about .15%.
Hard to work that out, until you realise that they take the total number of trips done by all Lanc's. and then divide by the total losses of 106 sqdn. In praise of our ground crew, I should mention one small episode that stood out.
The usual procedure for us, prior to ops, was to air test our aircraft in the morning, return it to dispersal, note any faults found, if any, ready for take off on ops.
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About 3/4 hour before take off time, they would run all motors to warm up before we arrived. This meant everyone's aircraft was ready for take off at about the same time, so there were few hold ups.
We arrived at our aircraft one night in time to get ourselves organised, do the final run up and checks ready for take off, only to find the motors closed down and the complete ground crew starting to work like crazy on one motor. In a few minutes one ground crew member was peddling his bike frantically back to the hanger while the rest were erecting their mobile decking around the port inner motor and stripping off the cowlings and prop. Thinking we had no hope of going anywhere, much to our delight, I called out to the chief (staff Sgt) to see if we were scrubbed for this one.
He said "may be but wait a while first." In a couple of minutes, a truck with a frame mounted on the back, left the hanger and raced out to our site, returning the bod on his bike.
It then backed to the motor in question, removed the prop, backed further under the motor until it was bolted to the frame. At the other end of the motor, all the control cables, fuel lines, oil pipes, electric cables etc. were removed. Next another truck arrived with a new motor. The old one drove off to the hanger, the new ones backed in, and the controls were being replaced as the first of our kites were starting to taxi out for the take off.
In next to no time the last cowling was screwed back into place, the motors primed, and the chief was holding up his hand to start.
It had taken less than an hour to completely change the motor and remove all stands etc.
We got off about 1/2 hour late. I wouldn't have believed it, considering the freezing conditions. These poor bods had to work out in the middle of the paddock, in all the wet without any protection even from the wind, but their idea was different, if we wanted to go, the least they
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could do was everything they could possibly do to help, and we depended on them all the way.
To Quote Harris
"in bomber command we had to lay on, and more than often than not, carry through al [sic] least one and occasionally more than one major battle every 24 hours. That was a situation no naval or military command has ever had to compete with. Navy's fight 2 or 3 battles per war. Army's maybe a dozen, we had to lay on during my 31/2 years well over 1000."
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[underlined] FINIS [/underlined]
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Huricane (11 C)
Engine Rols [sic] Merlin xx 1200 hp
Span 40 ft.
Length 31 ft. 5z [sic]
Max. Speed 340 mph
Camouflage on most day fighters was standard green and brown on upper side but usually light blue underneath.
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Miles Master (11 )
Engine Wasp Jun 825 hp
Span 39 ft.
Length 31 ft.
Height 11ft. 5”
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Miles Martinet
Engine 870 hp Bristol Mercury xx or xxx
Span 39ft.
Length 30ft. 11"
Height 11ft. 7"
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Wing Area 238sq ft.
Weights Empty 4640lbs
Loaded 6750lbs.
Max. Speed 240 mph
Range 694mls.
The airforce like the other services used many words and phrases developed within their own system and this became standard language, hard for any outsider to understand. None of this language had been used in these notes, but some of the following may help with some explanation.
One of the bigger differences between the services seemed to be. Troops in the army stayed in their units for longer periods and became close friends, the navy likewise many staying on the same ship for the duration, but even as a crew, in the airforce you were divided, first by rank, and also by living quarters, seldom sharing even part of the same hut, but you were forced into very close cooperation when it came to flying.
Looking at the time of arrival at OUT. That is the first meeting of most of the crew. It was only 2 months before we were a complete crew and one more month before we were engaged on ops.
At the end of ops we once again became separated individual people again.
Some we never met again.
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There is no attempt to detail any raid, as many are a repetition of the previous ones. The attacks by fighters, flak, searchlights, etc. could and did happen at any time on any target. It also seems pointless to detail all the casualties and crashes, so a description of only one of any type has been included.
True, some raids were relatively free from challenge by enemy defences, owing to factors such as weather condition etc. It [sic] we could climb above the thick layer of heavy cloud with ice, into clear conditions, and the fighters had to climb up through worse conditions, even with their greater rate of climb, they sometimes didn't get through, but if they acid it would reduce their endurance time. No doubt they had problems on landings with fogs too, but it is easier to do a tight circuit in a fghter than in a bigger kite.
The weather did not effect the a/c a/c in any way except to make visible coning by searchlights impossible, l would say there were very few trips without some fighters, and none without some fighters, and none without searchlights and a/c a/c and always the big risk of collision. A constant search of the sky from wing tip to wing tip and above, on return your vision passed over, and checked, all instruments and back to starting point. An aircraft flying in the same direction and apparently parallel could appear small in the distance, but before your vision returned to it, it could slide across your track and just too close.
Most a/c a/c guns on low level raids were quite different, being small calibre, i.e. machine guns and 25[inserted] .[/inserted] 5mm cannon, much greater in
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numbers in the local target area and much faster firing rate, bit like flying through a woven screen, so the evasion tactics had to change, but there was still the target to hit. Some low level targets had many "blimps" on cables. Our aircraft were fitted with cable cutters on all sections of the wings i.e. when the cable hit the wing it slid along until it hit the cutter which automatically fired a chisel against an anvil, hopefully cutting the cable, didn't happen to us.
The Lanc. was progressively overloaded, even carried 22000lb bomb, compared to the fortress's 3000lb bomb load, that's a big difference but it didn't have many guns. The little 303's range was only about 400 yards, the 20mm cannon on the German fighters was much, much greater. The theory was, you can only see so far in the dark, but they must have forgotten about the hundreds of searchlights and the reflection from the clouds. Later they installed 2/50 cal guns in some rear turrets also put a few night fighters mixed in with the bomber stream, never saw one. They said there were 5 one night on Berlin but about 800 bombers spread over ? miles. Our fighters, like the Germans were fitted with a radar device to detect the German fighters never heard any of the results.
About this time (the battle of Berlin) the Germans changed from offensive to defensive, i.e. switched their bombers to fighters. They claimed their bomber pilots were very successful as night fighters. In the battle of Briton the English bomber pilots were not successful as fighter pilots but of course the Germans would have been very experienced pilots by then, and there were quite a lot of them. The twin engined types JU88 ME210 & ME410's were directed mostly from ground radar the single engined types ME 109 & FW 190's fitted with radar as our night fighters were. They were directed into the bomber stream by radio R/T from ground station, then let to find their own targets.
Some comments say there should be much more detail on the technical side of flying, but there seems little you could say about this, the
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basics were trying to avoid the heavy icing on fuselage and wings which increases your overall weight and drag, and trying to get the best economy for fuel. In time of attack by flak or fighters the economy becomes a secondary thought. Constant checks on all gauges with adjustments could always help. We tried to maintain the most height possible on longer trips, but this was often dependent on the winds.
You did get better ground speed at higher altitudes therefore better economy but the best was at near ground level without using second stage supercharge. Would be very unsafe for mass bombing and you can't drop big bombs from there unless there are time delays, you can't time delay "cookies" they just go off on contact.
As much depended on good navigation as any other factor, no point in wandering around over enemy territory with a bomb load unless you find the target, and the best height for navigation would have been about 8 10000ft, but I think they would have been very short one way trips at that height, unless you were very lucky.
Max. cruise speed for a Lanc was given at about 270mph perhaps 300mph may have been a little under rated for a "special" flat out at ground level.
Details of landing procedures were standard, but very necessary when so many aircraft were trying to land at the same time.
Our squadron call sign "optrex" our station call sign "[deleted] O [/deleted] Affray". So as we approached the drome we called (optrex nan to affray over) rely [sic] (affray to optrex nan, followed by the position you were allotted to land, i.e. first aircraft "funnel" that is approaching to land, second aircraft, down wind, i.e. wheels and flaps down parallel with runway and heading away from touch down point. Third, cross wind, i.e. right angles to runway and flying across the far end of runway before the down wind leg, all at 1000ft from there all aircraft step up 500ft, continue on a left hand circuit and listen to call as each aircraft clears the end of runway after landing, then you drop down to next lower position in order. All aircraft
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have nav lights on (normally) so most are visible from the ground up in a big spiral circuit around the perimeter lights (DREM).
There are emergency calls on fixed frequencies for anyone who was in trouble or got lost in fog. Mayday which is still used internationally and Darky which was mostly used by anyone lost in fog. You had to call darky three times followed by your call sign three times. Your position was then plotted and you were then given a course and distance to fly to the nearest drome that would accept you landing, but if you didn't get the procedure right you got no reply.
We sometimes laughed at the Yanks, lost in fog on return from a daylight raid, we should not have done that, because we did know what the feeling of wondering how to get down when the fuel was quickly running out, and it can be harder to find a drome in daylight than in the dark, the lights do help.
The Yank system was different to ours, where each of our aircraft had it's own navigator, and flew independent of all others, the Yanks, because they flew in formation, followed their leader and dropped their bombs when he did, so the problem came when the formation broke up on return and had to find their own bases.
You would hear things like "Hello Darky honey, MIs brown's little boy Johnny sure is lost up here" but Darky didn't answer, even after so many calls however they did vector a fighter across to identify him and lead him to a drome. This was not always the safest thing to do because they never minded who they shot at, so the escort had to be pretty careful. It was often said "the Yanks didn't need an enemy."
Darky's worry was any enemy raider could use the system to pin point any drome, which would be a big help to him if he were trying to bomb it.
There was never any white around the roundels on any camouflaged aircraft on ops. The thin yellow line was a gas detector, just in case the enemy dropped some gas bombs on the drome.
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This would give some warning in case personnel were isolated in a raid and lost all communications. Everyone carried gas masks at all times, some thought they were too heavy and replaced them with spare socks etc. Luckily there were never any gas bombs. The socks just kept the appearance in the shape of the bag.
Medals were rarely granted before the end of a tour therefore none were worn around the station or on ops by any aircrew. Some of the administration staff who had them from WW1 or a previous tour of ops were the exception. There appeared to be some form of grading here, in that only higher ranks could get higher standard medals. VC's always excepted. There were only two VC's while we were there. Cheshire of course (not our squad), the other was Jackson, Miff’s crew, but as he was taken POW I don't think this was granted until after the war. Miff’s was a Canadian, very solid build, always a happy type, tended to be common. His kite was U for Uncle so it carried the insignia of Stalin and called Uncle Joe. The story of this episode is in one of the Lanc books (I think). Miff’s was killed in the crash.
Another of the kites E easy had it's insignia painted on for some time before they decided they would paint the words on. We take anything. The next trip (Berlin) they took just about every thing the enemy could throw at them, but they brought it all back.
Much time was spent cleaning perspex especially by the gunners, always a damp cloth and plenty of cigarette ash, but as the smallest speck shows up at night, even if you know its there, it still distracts your vision, so finally the whole back panel was removed from the turrets.
Don't know how they managed when the turret was turned past the 90° as you would be in very strong wind, but they must have done it on the canal raid. The normal loading for machine gun belts for normal targets (aircraft) was one standard, one armour piercing, one incendiary, one trace, but when you have four guns each firing about 1200 rounds a
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minute this gave too much trace, which ruined all your night vision, so much of the trace was replaced with standard or incendiary.
Each squadron or group had it's own crest, but like the group photos few people ever bothered about them, it's only long afterwards you remember them, but I have forgotten the faces now anyway.
Bill Akers, one of the original intake went to a lot of trouble to try to find out the fate of all those in this intake. Some refused to say.
o. 1. I.T.S. Somers
I J.G. Alston W/ag P.F.F.
2 no sure think A.S. Simpson
3 R.A. Kingston Pilot K.I.A. R.A.F.
4 D.O. Donaldson discharged qualif. to run farm
5 R.F.C. Badman Pilot K.I.A. RA.F
6 D.C. Carter Pilot K.I.A. R.A.F
7 K. Travina Gunner K.I.A. Germany 1944
8 J. Bellock D.F.C. Pilot
9 D.V. Harvey W/op K.I.A. R.A.F
10 No idea
I1 P. Walters Pilot died POW Far East
12 C.J. Thoday Catalina Pilot
13 G.R. Balcombe Pilot K.I.A. R.A.F
14 A.V. Withers D.F.C bomb aimer our crew
15 Do not know
16 Do not know
17 C.W. Milburn Pilot discharged to run farm died
20/5/80
18 Do not know
19 J.W. Bassier Catalina Pilot
20 J. Humphrey D.F.C. nav P.F.F
21 W.R. Lardner not sure
22 D. Fisher W/ag returned died since
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23 G. Blanch K.I.A 5sqdn
24 R.F. Anderson Pilot D.F.C
25 S.G. Lee Pilot K.I.A R.A.F
26 K.C. Bell left to run farm
27 R.J. Adams W/ag 10sqdn K.I.A
28 R.C. Martin Pilot buried Germany
29 M.J. McCann not known
30 F.N. Birch Pilot Ormond Trnsprt Cmmnd
31 B. Woods D.F.C gunner P.F.F died after return
32 W. Bates unknown
33 S. Williamson D.F.C P.F.F W/ap transport to Japan,
drown Port Phillip Bay 1980's
34 C.T. Akers D.F.C gunner
33 A. Lord Pilot K.I.A R.A.F
36 L.G. Rigg Returned
Of the pilots in this course (23) it shows only 2 out of every 10 in the European theatre (R.A.F) survived, of the other categories 8 survived to every 2 K.I.A but as many are not accounted for this is not a true summary. Only one pilot in the Pacific area died as a POW, but only 4 of this original course went to Tas, others must have been at different EFTs.
We never had any connection with P.F.F. P.F.F was started because in the earlier times Bomber Command couldn't even hit Germany. So Bennet [sic], an Aust, a pre war commercial pilot with a great deal of experience with air lines flying international routes and regarded as one of the best air navigators in the world, was given the job of forming a squadron to mark the target area. He had already done a tour of ops, been sho [deleted] w [/deleted] t down over Norway and escaped back to UK. Also set out the air route for convoys of aircraft flying from USA.
His idea was to take the best crews from odd ops squadrons and further train then to be pathfinders, but many of the squadrons sent their worst, wanting to keep their best, he tried them and sent them back. Harris was against having any group as more elite than any other, saying it was only one air force (didn't mention 617). 5 group wanted their own markers, of which we were part. As the feelings on both sides became
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stronger Harris decided to take two Lanc squadrons off P.F.F and return them to 5 group, but P.F.F still had to train the replacements. The first of these operated on Paris (20/04/44) just before we finished. I have been told that all crews joining 106 later were asked to volunteer for P.F.F after they had done 6 trips. (perhaps Cochrane didn't give up). The difference in target marking was simply that 5 group, that is, Cheshires mob, picked one select factory which specialised in a product considered important to the war effort, and that was our only target. The theory in main force, P.F.F, was more to select one area of a city containing several important factories. The R.. [sic] A.F said, there are two ways to stop production, one knock out the factories or two, knock out the workers. The workers can't produce without the factory the factory can't produce without the workers, but even a combination of both must be effective.
The main difference in 5 group marking was the use of a master bomber (Cheshire or Martin). Their job was to mark the specific factory and direct the bombing of each aircraft, but our trips with them had very few aircraft, not the hundreds as in main force. As there seemed to be no count kept on casualties of conscripted labour, and many of them were forced to work on war production, the loss of life to them will never be known. I did meet one Balt out here long after the war. He asked if we had bombed Leipzig on that date. When I said we had, he said how very good we were, the bombs had all around them in their camp, but no one had been hurt. It was a night of solid cloud, the winds were all wrong, we all bombed on sky markers, we didn't even know they were there. (I'm sure he was very lucky).
When returning from each trip we called control and were given a QFE & a QFM i.e. barometric pressures for one, your own base. When this is set on your altimeter, you altimeter would read zero feet at ground level on your drome. The other was the barometric pressure at sea level, so if you were diverted to any other drome, you had to adjust for the height of that drome above sea level. The heights of dromes are marked
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on your maps. It is critical that all aircraft landing at one drome have the same altimeter setting, otherwise the variation in heights in the circuit would be very dangerous.
Date Target A/c no. No a/c on op Time Op loss
(hrs.)
1943
Sept. 27 Hanover P ja973 678 6 5.6
Oct. 18 Hanover O dv297 360 6 25 5
28 Leipzig N ed801 258 2.50 4.5
22 Kassel U in301 569 6.25 7.6
Nov. 3 Dusseldorf O dv297 589 4.40 3.1
22 Berlin T jb593 764 7.50 3.2
26 Berlin O jb534 443 8.05 6.2
Dec. 2 Berlin O bj534 458 6.45 8.7
3 Leipzig O jb534 527 7.50 4.7
16 Berlin O jb534 483 7.35 5.2
Jan. 1 Berlin Z ni339 421 7.30 6.7
27 Berlin N jb664 515 3.10
28 Berlin N jb664 677 7.45 6.8
30 Berlin N jb664 534 6.35 6.2
Feb. 15 Berlin N jb664 891 7 4.8
19 Leipzig N jb664 823 7.15 9.5
20 Stuttgart N jb664 598 3.15 1.5
25 Augsburg N jb664 594 7.55 3.6
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24 Scheinfurt N jb664 734 8.20 4.5
Mar. 1 Stuttgart N jb664 557 8.15 7
15 Stuttgart N jb664 863 7.25 7.3
18 Frankfurt Njb664 846 5.30 2.6
20 Angouleme N jb664 20 7.05
14 a/c of 617
22 Frankfurt N jb664 816 5.50 4
25 Lyons N jb664 20 7.10
14 617
24 Lyons N jb664 20 8
26 Essen N jb664 705 5.10 1.3
30 Nuremburg N jb664 795 7.20 11.9
Apr. 5 Toulouse N jb664 144 7.20 617sq
9 Konigsberg B 6 9.15 106&9
18 Swinernunde N jb664 168 7.15 2
20 Paris rlw stn N jb664 247 4.15 617 2
22 Brunswick N jb664 238 5.55 1.5
1943
Struck fighter flares before we reached the Dutch coast, saw a P.F.F kite going down in flames. Rear turret u/s from Hanover. "Blue" had to go down and pump oil every 15mins. 0/0 cloud, flak moderate. Came back north over Baltic and Denmark. Had to let down over sea, were damn near on the deck. Almost cleaned up a light house, had to climb to clear it. Nearly had our time. Lost one crew, P/O storer [sic] , they were only kids and had put off their leave to be home for Christmas.
December 21st
P/O Starkey and crew took our kite to Frankfurt last night and got it all shot to hell. Half the port rudder and elevator shot off by cannon, about half the port aeleron [sic] too, broken main spar and plenty of holes in the wing, they were lucky to get back, they could only do right hand turns.
December 23rd
Briefed for the big city, take off put off from 1650 to 2340, taxied out, then a kite bogged on end of runway, prevented us from taking off, in bed by 0230.
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1944
January 2nd
Berlin 9th trip 94821lbs of bombs 1425mls 7hrs 30. Took off at 0028, near miss by Scarecrow over north sea. JU88 passed 20ft above going the other way like a bat out of hell, a bit too close for my liking, nearly pranged by a Lanc on the way home, stupid bastard was weaving like the clappers.
Two crews lost P/O Holbourne & P/O Garnet, Holbourne was in our hut, he was married.
January 22nd
Briefed for Magdeburg but a kite bogged in front of us and prevented 6 of us from taking off.
January 27th
Started off for Berlin but boomeranged. Pressure line in mid upper turret broke, then API went u/s. First G box blew up, later H2s box blew up and caught fire, managed to put fire out and decided to press on regardless, but just before we reached the Dutch coast, rear turret went u/s, so decided to come back. Loud cheers.
January 27th
Berlin 10 trip 9037lbs 1425mls 7.45hrs.
Went in over Denmark and Baltic, saw a Lanc shot down over Sylt, and saw it explode on the ground. Near Rostock engaged by heavy flak bursting just under the tail, close enough for us to hear it. Shrapnel rattled against the kite we bounced around all over the place.
Fighter had [deleted]tb [/deleted] go at us with a rocket, successfully evaded it and it just passed over the top of us. Then another fighter came in and tracer whizzed over the top of the starboard wing. Took off after midnight landed 0800 in bed by 1015.
January 29th Monday
Berlin 11th trip 10702lbs 1287mls 6.35hrs.
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Took off 1720, in over Denmark out over Holland, moonlight, saw 10 kites shot down. Just before target, a JU88 went down in flames, spun, lost a blazing wing, then exploded, a wizard sight, that will teach the bastards to interfere.
Saw a combat going on and both kites went down in flames. F/O Forsyth was hit by a rocket from DO217 fired from a free gun mounted on top when enemy a/c was flying 800ft below. Rocket burst in bomb bay bomb load saved the pilot. Bags of fighter flares, Kirkland missing.
February 15th Berlin
12th trip 10036lbs 1328mis 6.35hrs.
Vic's oxygen gear froze solid and he passed out just before reaching target. "Blue" went back and changed his helmet, was pretty shaky too, as there were evidently plenty of Jerry fighters up by the amount of tracer flying around. Vic must have been out for 10 minutes. A bit more flak than usual but no fighters sighted by us. Had another fire in some nav equipment, but soon put it out.
Heaviest raid yet on Berlin.
2500 tons, 900 odd 4eng kites.
One of our kites flown by P/O Dickenson pranged in circuit area, only survivor a cove named Ramsay mid upper a/g. This kite was our old O Oboe. Alan and Rod have worked it out that out of the 20 crews at OUT four months ago, there are only 8 left.
February 19th
Leipzig 13th trip 9710lbs 1304mls 7.15hrs.
Took a 2nd Dickie P/O Bartlett
Weather was bloody awful, bags of ice, had to do 12 dog legs and an orbit to fill in time. Fighters were waiting for us over the north sea and followed us all the way around. Saw about 6 kites collide over target. Fighters whizzing all over the place 79 kites lost, biggest loss yet, one crew from ours missing, Dickie Legget.
February 20th
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Stuttgart. Boomeranged as generators were u/s.
February 24th
Scheinfurt, 14th trip 9238lbs 1491 mls.
We were in the second attack, 2 hours after the first and saw the first attack start while 300 400 miles away, visibility marvellous, saw Switzerland plainly, it was a wonderful sight, moonlight on the snow and all the houses with their lights on. Quite [sic] trip. On the way back over England saw an air raid on London saw 6 Jerry kites sho [deleted] w [/deleted] t down.
February 25th
Augsburg. 15th trip 9060lbs 1521mls.
After 6hrs sleep out of bed again, quiet trip, my compass u/s. Bob steered wrong course and we went over Switzerland but were only one minute late on target by cutting comers. Snowing when we arrived back.
March 2nd
Stuttgart. 16th trip 9584lbs 1430mls.
Nothing much happened, our nav lights were u/s so we arrived back late purposely and our ground crew had given us up for lost.
March 16th
Stuttgart. 17th trip 9762lbs 1483mis.
We had to go in 5 minutes ahead of P.F.F.
Attacked by a DO217 with a belly gun, combats all around.
March 19th
Frankfurt. 18th trip 12326lbs 1006mls.
Took a second Dickie, Ken Warren, too many searchlights for my liking. 22 kites missing.
March 21st
Angouleme. 19th trip 5998lbs incendiaries only 1116mls.
Went on special do with 617 squadron (Gibson & Cheshires, Dambusters). We acted as P.F.F for them 617 went in with 12000bders [sic], they go off with quite a thump, each one bombed in turn, we spent an hour over target. Brake pressure u/s on return had to land at Wittering.
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March 22nd
Frankfurt. 20th trip 12536lbs 1106mls.
Heaviest and most concentrated raid of all time. 3000 tons in 15 minutes. Bounced around by Flak over target. Picked up by searchlights but thanks to Bob we got away from them. Slipped s/lights with kites on either side coned, saw only one fighter.
March 23rd
Lyons. 21st trip 10082lbs 1245mis.
With 617 again, spent one and a half hours over target, marking and bombing.
March 26th
Lyons. 22nd trip 5998lbs incendiaries 1362mls.
We acted a [sic] P.F.F. Target was a factory 100yds by 50yds. Going on navigation only, I told Alan when to drop the flares, and our first flare hit the factory roof and set it on fire.
March 29th
Essen. 23rd trip 13436lbs 860mls.
First trip to happy valley since November, ran into a bit of Flak over target, lost a foot off one of the prop blades, made the kite vibrate like hell.
March 30th
Nuremburg. 24th trip 10032lbs 1405mls. Bright moon light all the way. Just south of happy valley the fun started, an ME210 attacked us, both Vic and Titch scored hits on it. He came in several times and each time Vic poured lead into him and sent him pitching and tossing all over the sky. Some of his stuff came uncomfortably close. Later Vic picked up an ME109, got him with a long burst, he went down in flames and exploded on the deck. Combats were going on all around us, saw 8 Lancs go down in flames in 20 minutes. Heaviest loss yet 96 kites out of 600.
For March we did 9 trips, 7 in 10 nights, briefed 14 nights in a row.
[page break]
April 5th
Toulouse. 25th trip 9396lbs 1386mls.
With 617 sqd Alan's bombing was the best for the night
April 9th
Konigsberg canal. 26th trip 78501bs 1739mls.
Longest trip we have ever done, 9.5 hours.
Briefed to go in at 150ft and if we thought defences were too hot we were told not to go in, first time this has happened. Only 6 aircraft on this, 3 of ours & went with main force as far as Danzig then went on another 100 miles loosing height to cross coast at 1000ft, then lost height to ground level, had to climb to go over a factory. As soon as we started our run we were picked up by 4 searchlights and about a dozen 20mm from a distance of 50yds to about 600yds. Their fire forced us down to 10ft from the water. Bob did a wizard job lifting and dropping the kite to dodge their fire, four of the five mines dropped dead in the centre of the canal, one hung up. Vic. Titch, and Alan opened up with their guns between them accounted for 5 S/ls and a couple of gun positions. Canal was only 156ft wide and our wing span was 104ft, so had only 8yds clearance on each wing tip. We were so low that we were below the level of the canal banks. As we came up the canal ship shone it's S/l right in Bobs eyes and blinded him, how he kept the kite in the air I don't know, it was a super human effort. Had the ship not put it's light on we would probably have crashed into it.
We whizzed along at 3000 revs and +18 boost, must have been doing 300mph. Only our three kites dropped their mines. Old "Butch" was tickled to bits, saying, "it was the best effort since the dam busting." Even the Admiralty condescended to give us a pat on the back. We became famous over night, but they can stick this honour and glory, it's too dangerous. Bob was recommended for a DSO and myself a DFC. These were back to a DFC for Bob and SFA for me. Next day we heard a
[page break]
sub was sunk in the canal after hitting one of our mines. The canal was closed for 16 days, bottling up a cruiser (Koln) and 43 subs in the harbour.
These mines could not be neutralised, only way to remove them was to explode them, this would play hell with the canal banks and those who try.
April 18th
Swinemunde. 27th trip 7850lbs 1428mls.
Mining again came back over Sweden.
April 20th
Paris. 28th trip 7850lbs 710mls.
Central rail yards. Quiet trip, light Flak.
April 22nd
Brunswick. 29th trip 12234lbs 1050mls.
These records of target are originally from Alan's diary, but as I got them from Rod, it is obvious they have been rewritten to apply to a navigators view, as the nav rarely sees anything outside. As Alan's original notes were rather colourful, Rod must have censored them. Also the first 9 trips are missing, the total, including 3 boomerangs should have been 33 but ended at 29. Less the first 8 or so. To try to fill in the first few trips ---
September 27th 1943
Hanover. 12830lbs 950mls
My first trip, went as 2nd dickie with F/L A Poore and his crew. They left 106 and went to 617 sqdn. A very good skipper, a very good crew. For me an interesting and useful trip, although there were no problems, maybe he knew how to keep out of trouble and still do the job.
October 18th
[page break]
Hanover. 12827lbs 949mls.
Our first trip as a crew. This was the trip when Alan ordered bomb doors open so long before the target, but luckily we had no problems.
October 20th
All instruments u/s, G u/s caused by heavy ice, cloud base on return 400ft, only 4 a/c landed back at base.
October 22nd
Kassel. 11962lbs 915mls.
Went into low cloud at takeoff, cloud all the way small hole over target, back into cloud, on return. Diverted on return, cloud base 800ft heavy static in cloud, all instrument flying.
November 3rd
Dusseldorf. 13128lbs 782mls.
Clear night with lots of searchlights.
November 22nd
Berlin. 11994lbs 1230mls.
This would be our first Berlin raid. Everything possible happened on most of these.
November 26th
Berlin. 11279lbs 1455mls.
10/10 clear with heavy con trails and fighters everywhere.
December 2nd
Berlin. 10856lbs 1234mls.
Bad forecast for winds, heavy losses.
December 3rd
Leipzig. 998lbs 1351mls.
December 16th
Berlin. 9740lbs 1328mls.
[page break]
Defences always very heavy, all types of a/c, many med. sized with rockets mounted as free guns on top of fuselage, often used captured a/c, even Lancs flying above and to each side of the stream dropping flares to assist the fighters.
"The bomber command war diaries" cover a general history of all the bomber raids. Well, almost all.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Robert Anderson's memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Anderson describes his training in Tasmania and Canada, and his tour of operations to targets in France and Germany with 106 Squadron.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robert Anderson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Trevor Hardcastle
David Bloomfield
Steve Christian
Peter Bradbury
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
58 photocopied sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BAndersonRJAndersonRJv1
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
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Great Britain
France
Germany
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Staffordshire
France--Angoulême
France--Lyon
France--Paris
France--Toulouse
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Königsberg in Bayern
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Schweinfurt
Tasmania
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
106 Squadron
5 Group
617 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
fear
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Manchester
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Lichfield
RAF Metheringham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
searchlight
service vehicle
Tiger force
tractor
training
Wellington
Yale